The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of MéijiGriffis, William Elliot
Religion
The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji
Griffis, William Elliot
Japan -- Religion
[Footnote 35: M.E., pp. 287-290, 513-514; Perry's Narrative, pp. 471,
472; Our Neighborhood, pp. 119-124. The following epitaphs are gathered
from various sources:
"This stone marks the remains of the believer who never grows old."
"The believing woman Yu-ning, Happy was the day of her departure."
"Multitudes fill the graves."
"Only by this vehicle--the coffin--can we enter Hades."
"As the floating grass is blown by the gentle breeze, or the glancing
ripples of autumn disappear when the sun goes down, or as a ship returns
to her old shore--so is life. It is a vapor, a morning-tide."
"Buddha himself wishes to hear the name of the deceased that he may
enter life."
"He who has left humanity is now perfected by Buddha's name, as the
withered moss by the dew."
"Life is like a candle in the wind."
"The wise make our halls illustrious, and their monuments endure for
ages."
"What permanency is there to the glory of the world? It goes from the
sight like hoar-frost in the sun."
"If men wish to enter the joys of heavenly light,
Let them smell the fragrance of the law of Buddha."
"Whoever wishes to have his merit reach even to the abode of demons, let
him, with us, and all living, become perfect in the doctrine."]
[Footnote 36: Rev. C.B. Hawarth in the _New York Independent_, January
18, 1894.]
[Footnote 37: In 781 the Buddhist monk Kéi-shun dedicated a chapel to
Jizo, on whom he conferred the epithet of Sho-gun or general, to suit
the warlike tastes of the Japanese people.--S. and H., p. 384. So also
Hachiman became the god of war because adopted as the patron deity of
the Genji warriors.--S. and H., p. 70.]
[Footnote 38: Corea, the Hermit Nation, p. 90.]
[Footnote 39: Dixon's Japan, p. 41; S. and H., Japan, _passim_; Rein's
Japan; Story of the Nations, Japan, by David Murray, p. 201, note;
Dening's life of Toyotomi Hidéyoshi; M.E., Chapters XV., XVI., XX.,
XXIII., XXIV.; Gazetteer of Echizen; Shiga's History of Nations,
Tōkiō, 1888, pp. 115, 118; T.A.S.J., Vol. VIII., pp. 94, 134,
143.]
[Footnote 40: T.A.S.J., Vol. VIII., Hidéyoshi and the Satsuma Clan in
the Sixteenth Century, by J.H. Gubbins; The Times of Taikō, by R.
Brinkley, in _The Japan Times_.]
[Footnote 41: The Copy of the Buddhist Tripitaka, or Northern
Collection, made by order of the Emperor, Wan-Li, in the sixteenth
century, when the Chinese capital (King) was changed from the South
(Nan) to the North (Pe), was reproduced in Japan in 1679 and again in
1681-83, and in over two thousand volumes, making a pile a hundred feet
high, was presented by the Japanese Government, through the Junior Prime
Minister, Mr. Tomomi Iwakura, to the Library of the India Office. See
Samuel Beal's The Buddhist Tripitaka, as it is known in China and Japan,
A Catalogue and Compendious Report, London, 1876. The library has been
rearranged by Mr. Bunyin Nanjio, who has published the result of his
labors, with Sanskrit equivalents of the titles and with notes of the
highest value.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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