of cause and effect resembles the turning of a wheel. So the believer turns the praying-wheel, which thus becomes a symbol of human fate, with an entreaty to the compassionate god Jizō[1] to let the misfortune roll by, the pious desire be accomplished, the evil disposition amended as swiftly as possible. Only the Tendai and Shingon sects of Buddhists use the praying-wheel—goshō-guruma as they call it—whence its comparative rarity in Japan. Visitors to Tōkyō will find three outside a small shrine dedicated to the god Fudō close to the large temple of Asakusa. They are mounted on low posts not unlike pillar post-boxes.
The wheel which figures so frequently in Buddhist architectural design is not the praying-wheel, but the so-called hōrin (Sanskrit dharmachakra), or "Wheel of the Law," a symbol of the doctrine of transmigration. Neither must the praying-wheel be confounded with the "revolving libraries" (tenrinzō or rinzō), sometimes met with in the grounds of Buddhist temples. These "revolving libraries" mostly contain complete or nearly complete sets of the Buddhist scriptures; and he who causes the library to revolve, lays up for himself as much merit as if he had read through the entire canon.
Book recommended. The Buddhist Praying-wheel, by Wm. Simpson.
Printing reached Japan from China in the wake of Buddhism; but it came somewhat later than the other arts. The earliest example of block-printing in Japan dates from A.D. 770, when the Empress Shōtoku caused a million Buddhist charms to be printed on small slips of paper, for distribution among all the temples in the land. Some of these ancient slips are still in existence. The first notice of printed books occurs in the tenth century, and the oldest specimen extant belongs to a date falling somewhere between 1198 and 1211.
For about six hundred years after the introduction of printing, Buddhist works—and those but few in number—seem to have
- ↑ See Introduction to Murray's Handbook for Japan (Article "Gods and Goddesses") or an account of this popular deity.
