“A very great danger now threatens you, because of an error committed in one of your former states of existence. The karma that binds you to the dead is very strong; but if I tried to explain its character, you would not be able to understand. I shall therefore tell you only this,—that the dead person has no desire to injure you out of hate, feels no enmity towards you: she is influenced, on the contrary, by the most passionate affection for you. Probably the girl has been in love with you from a time long preceding your present life,—from a time of not less than three or four past existences; and it would seem that, although necessarily changing her form and condition at each succeeding birth, she has not been able to cease from following after you. Therefore it will not be an easy thing to escape from her influence…. But now I am going to lend you this powerful _mamori_.[10] It is a pure gold image of that Buddha called the Sea-Sounding Tathâgata—_Kai-On-Nyōrai_,—because his preaching of the Law sounds through the world like the sound of the sea. And this little image is especially a _shiryō-yoké_,[11]—which protects the living from the dead. This you must wear, in its covering, next to your body,—under the girdle…. Besides, I shall presently perform in the temple, a _segaki_-service[12] for the repose of the troubled spirit…. And here is a holy sutra, called _Ubō-Darani-Kyō_, or “Treasure-Raining Sûtra”[13] you must be careful to recite it every night in your house—without fail…. Furthermore I shall give you this package of _o-fuda_;[14]—you must paste one of them over every opening of your house,—no matter how small. If you do this, the power of the holy texts will prevent the dead from entering. But—whatever may happen—do not fail to recite the sutra.” [10] The Japanese word _mamori_ has significations at least as numerous as those attaching to our own term “amulet.” It would be impossible, in a mere footnote, even to suggest the variety of Japanese religious objects to which the name is given. In this instance, the _mamori_ is a very small image, probably enclosed in a miniature shrine of lacquer-work or metal, over which a silk cover is drawn. Such little images were often worn by _samurai_ on the person. I was recently shown a miniature figure of Kwannon, in an iron case, which had been carried by an officer through the Satsuma war. He observed, with good reason, that it had probably saved his life; for it had stopped a bullet of which the dent was plainly visible. [11] From _shiryō_, a ghost, and _yokeru_, to exclude. The Japanese have, two kinds of ghosts proper in their folk-lore: the spirits of the dead, _shiryō_; and the spirits of the living, _ikiryō_. A house or a person may be haunted by an _ikiryō_ as well as by a _shiryō_.