Buddhism; in fact, there is no play among those three hundred plays in existence which has no appearance of a priest whose divine power of meditation or prayer invariably leads the ghost of a warrior or a lady, or a flower, or a tree into the blessing of Nirvana. To call the No the ghost play has no real meaning, any more than to call it a priest play; the main point is to tell the human tragedy rather than comedy of the old stories and legends seen through the Buddhistic flash of understanding, as most of the plays were written by priests or by those people most influenced by Buddhism, as was quite natural in those days. The names of the authors, alas, are forgotten, or they hid their own names by choice. Even when some of their names, Seami and Otoami for instance, are given, it is said by an authority that they are, in fact, only responsible for the music, the dance, and the general stage management. It was the time when nobody asked who wrote them, if the plays themselves were worthy. What a difference from this day of advertisement and personal ambition! When I say that these plays were born like a mystery from the national impulse and love of literature, I mean that they are not the creation of one time or one age; it is not far wrong to say that they wrote themselves, as if flowers or trees rising from the rich soil of tradition and Buddhistic faith. As literature, they are
