--- title: Names of Incense Used., part 6 — In Ghostly Japan · full text with trees · page 2 description: Names of Incense Used., part 6, «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: “_En-myō-In, Hō-yō-I-tei-ken-shi, Hō-ni’:—‘Nun-of-the-Law, Illustrious, Pure-of-heart-and-will, Famed-in-the-Law,—inhabiting the Mansion-of-the- --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/8/page/2/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [In Ghostly Japan](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/) / Names of Incense Used., part 6 # Names of Incense Used., part 6 · page 2 [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/8/) **2** IV.—\_The Conch-Shell\_ (Jap.[71](../../71/ "tree and pragmatics") “\_Hora\_”) or \_Trumpet\_.[72](../../72/ "tree and pragmatics") Emblem of the preaching of the Law.[73](../../73/ "tree and pragmatics") The book \_Shin-zoku-butsu-ji-hen\_ calls it the symbol of the voice of the Buddha.[74](../../74/ "tree and pragmatics") The \_Dai-hi-kyō\_ calls it the token of the preaching and of the power of the Mahayana doctrine.[75](../../75/ "tree and pragmatics") The \_Dai-Nichi-Kyō\_ says:—” At the sound of the blowing of the shell, all the heavenly deities are filled with delight, and come to hear the Law.”[76](../../76/ "tree and pragmatics") V.—\_The Flower-Vase\_ (Jap.[77](../../77/ "tree and pragmatics") “\_Hanagamé\_”).[78](../../78/ "tree and pragmatics") Emblem of \_murō\_,—a mystical word which might be literally rendered as “not-leaking,”—signifying that condition of supreme intelligence triumphant over birth and death.[79](../../79/ "tree and pragmatics") VI.—\_The Wheel-of-a-Thousand-Spokes\_ (Sansc.[80](../../80/ "tree and pragmatics") “Tchakra “).[81](../../81/ "tree and pragmatics") This emblem, called in Japanese \_Senfuku-rin-sō\_, is curiously explained by various quotations.[82](../../82/ "tree and pragmatics") The \_Hokké-Monku\_ says:—“The effect of a wheel is to crush something; and the effect of the Buddha’s preaching is to crush all delusions, errors, doubts, and superstitions.[83](../../83/ "tree and pragmatics") Therefore preaching the doctrine is called, ‘turning the Wheel.’”…[84](../../84/ "tree and pragmatics") The \_Sei-Ri-Ron\_ says: “Even as the common wheel has its spokes and its hub, so in Buddhism there are many branches of the \_Hasshi Shōdo\_ (‘Eight-fold Path,’ or eight rules of conduct).”[85](../../85/ "tree and pragmatics") VII.—\_The Crown of Brahmâ\_.[86](../../86/ "tree and pragmatics") Under the heel of the Buddha is the Treasure-Crown (\_Hō-Kwan\_) of Brahmâ (\_Bon-Ten-O\_),—in symbol of the Buddha’s supremacy above the gods.[87](../../87/ "tree and pragmatics") But I think that the inscriptions upon any of these \_Butsu-soku-séki\_ will be found of more significance than the above imperfect attempts at an explanation of the emblems.[88](../../88/ "tree and pragmatics") The inscriptions upon the monument at Dentsu-In are typical.[89](../../89/ "tree and pragmatics") On different sides of the structure,—near the top, and placed by rule so as to face certain points of the compass,—there are engraved five Sanscrit characters which are symbols of the Five Elemental Buddhas, together with scriptural and commemorative texts.[90](../../90/ "tree and pragmatics") These latter have been translated for me as follows:—[91](../../91/ "tree and pragmatics") The HO-KO-HON-NYO-KYO says:—“In that time, from beneath his feet, the Buddha radiated a light having the appearance of a wheel of a thousand spokes.[92](../../92/ "tree and pragmatics") And all who saw that radiance became strictly upright, and obtained the Supreme Enlightenment.”[93](../../93/ "tree and pragmatics") The KWAN-BUTSU-SANMAI-KYO says:—“Whosoever looks upon the footprints of the Buddha shall be freed from the results even of innumerable thousands of imperfections.”[94](../../94/ "tree and pragmatics") The BUTSU-SETSU-MU-RYO-JU-KYO says:—“In the land that the Buddha treads in journeying, there is not even one person in all the multitude of the villages who is not benefited.[95](../../95/ "tree and pragmatics") Then throughout the world there is peace and good will.[96](../../96/ "tree and pragmatics") The sun and the moon shine clear and bright.[97](../../97/ "tree and pragmatics") Wind and rain come only at a suitable time.[98](../../98/ "tree and pragmatics") Calamity and pestilence cease.[99](../../99/ "tree and pragmatics") The country prospers; the people are free from care.[100](../../100/ "tree and pragmatics") Weapons become useless.[101](../../101/ "tree and pragmatics") All men reverence religion, and regulate their conduct in all matters with earnestness and modesty.”[102](../../102/ "tree and pragmatics") \[Commemorative Text.\][103](../../103/ "tree and pragmatics") —The Fifth Month of the Eighteenth Year of Meiji, all the priests of this temple made and set up this pedestal-stone, bearing the likeness of the footprints of the Buddha, and placed the same within the main court of Dentsu-In, in order that the seed of holy enlightenment might be sown for future time, and for the sake of the advancement of Buddhism.[104](../../104/ "tree and pragmatics") TAIJO, priest,—being the sixty-sixth chief-priest by succession of this temple,—has respectfully composed.[105](../../105/ "tree and pragmatics") JUNYU, the minor priest, has reverentially inscribed.[106](../../106/ "tree and pragmatics") II[107](../../107/ "tree and pragmatics") Strange facts crowd into memory as one contemplates those graven footprints,—footprints giant-seeming, yet less so than the human personality of which they remain the symbol.[108](../../108/ "tree and pragmatics") Twenty-four hundred years ago, out of solitary meditation upon the pain and the mystery of being, the mind of an Indian pilgrim brought forth the highest truth ever taught to men, and in an era barren of science anticipated the uttermost knowledge of our present evolutional philosophy regarding the secret unity of life, the endless illusions of matter and of mind, and the birth and death of universes.[109](../../109/ "tree and pragmatics") He, by pure reason,—and he alone before our time,—found answers of worth to the questions of the Whence, the Whither, and the Why;—and he made with these answers another and a nobler faith than the creed of his fathers.[110](../../110/ "tree and pragmatics") He spoke, and returned to his dust; and the people worshipped the prints of his dead feet, because of the love that he had taught them.[111](../../111/ "tree and pragmatics") Thereafter waxed and waned the name of Alexander, and the power of Rome and the might of Islam;—nations arose and vanished;—cities grew and were not;—the children of another civilization, vaster than Romes, begirdled the earth with conquest, and founded far-off empires, and came at last to rule in the land of that pilgrim’s birth.[112](../../112/ "tree and pragmatics") And these, rich in the wisdom of four and twenty centuries, wondered at the beauty of his message, and caused all that he had said and done to be written down anew in languages unborn at the time when he lived and taught.[113](../../113/ "tree and pragmatics") Still burn his footprints in the East; and still the great West, marvelling, follows their gleam to seek the Supreme Enlightenment.[114](../../114/ "tree and pragmatics") Even thus, of old, Milinda the king followed the way to the house of Nagasena,—at first only to question, after the subtle method of the Greeks; yet, later, to accept with noble reverence the nobler method of the Master.[115](../../115/ "tree and pragmatics") Ululation[116](../../116/ "tree and pragmatics") She is lean as a wolf, and very old,—the white bitch that guards my gate at night.[117](../../117/ "tree and pragmatics") She played with most of the young men and women of the neighborhood when they were boys and girls.[118](../../118/ "tree and pragmatics") I found her in charge of my present dwelling on the day that I came to occupy it.[119](../../119/ "tree and pragmatics") She had guarded the place, I was told, for a long succession of prior tenants—apparently with no better reason than that she had been born in the woodshed at the back of the house.[120](../../120/ "tree and pragmatics") Whether well or ill treated she had served all occupants faultlessly as a watch.[121](../../121/ "tree and pragmatics") The question of food as wages had never seriously troubled her, because most of the families of the street daily contributed to her support.[122](../../122/ "tree and pragmatics") She is gentle and silent,—silent at least by day; and in spite of her gaunt ugliness, her pointed ears, and her somewhat unpleasant eyes, everybody is fond of her.[123](../../123/ "tree and pragmatics") Children ride on her back, and tease her at will; but although she has been known to make strange men feel uncomfortable, she never growls at a child.[124](../../124/ "tree and pragmatics") The reward of her patient good-nature is the friendship of the community.[125](../../125/ "tree and pragmatics") When the dog-killers come on their bi-annual round, the neighbors look after her interests.[126](../../126/ "tree and pragmatics") Once she was on the very point of being officially executed when the wife of the smith ran to the rescue, and pleaded successfully with the policeman superintending the massacres.[127](../../127/ "tree and pragmatics") “Put somebody’s name on the dog,” said the latter: “then it will be safe.[128](../../128/ "tree and pragmatics") Whose dog is it?”[129](../../129/ "tree and pragmatics") That question proved hard to answer.[130](../../130/ "tree and pragmatics") The dog was everybody’s and nobody’s—welcome everywhere but owned nowhere.[131](../../131/ "tree and pragmatics") “But where does it stay?” asked the puzzled constable.[132](../../132/ "tree and pragmatics") “It stays,” said the smith’s wife, “in the house of the foreigner.”[133](../../133/ "tree and pragmatics") “Then let the foreigner’s name be put upon the dog,” suggested the policeman.[134](../../134/ "tree and pragmatics") Accordingly I had my name painted on her back in big Japanese characters.[135](../../135/ "tree and pragmatics") But the neighbors did not think that she was sufficiently safeguarded by a single name.[136](../../136/ "tree and pragmatics") So the priest of Kobudera painted the name of the temple on her left side, in beautiful Chinese text; and the smith put the name of his shop on her right side; and the vegetable-seller put on her breast the ideographs for “eight-hundred,”—which represent the customary abbreviation of the word yaoya (vegetable-seller),—any yaoya being supposed to sell eight hundred or more different things.[137](../../137/ "tree and pragmatics") Consequently she is now a very curious-looking dog; but she is well protected by all that calligraphy.[138](../../138/ "tree and pragmatics") [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/8/) **2** - ← previous: [page 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/8/) - next →: [Names of Incense Used., part 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/9/) - ↑ back to [In Ghostly Japan](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/)