'Ho--ke-kyo!'
My uguisu is awake at last, and utters his morning prayer. You do not
know what an uguisu is? An uguisu is a holy little bird that professes
Buddhism. All uguisu have professed Buddhism from time immemorial; all
uguisu preach alike to men the excellence of the divine Sutra.
'Ho--ke-kyo!'
In the Japanese tongue, Ho-ke-kyo; in Sanscrit, Saddharma Pundarika:
'The Sutra of the Lotus of the Good Law,' the divine book of the
Nichiren sect. Very brief, indeed, is my little feathered Buddhist's
confession of faith--only the sacred name reiterated over and over again
like a litany, with liquid bursts of twittering between.
'Ho--ke-kyo!'
Only this one phrase, but how deliciously he utters it! With what
slow amorous ecstasy he dwells upon its golden syllables! It hath been
written: 'He who shall keep, read, teach, or write this Sutra shall
obtain eight hundred good qualities of the Eye. He shall see the whole
Triple Universe down to the great hell Aviki, and up to the extremity of
existence. He shall obtain twelve hundred good qualities of the Ear. He
shall hear all sounds in the Triple Universe,--sounds of gods, goblins,
demons, and beings not human.'
'Ho--ke-kyo!'
A single word only. But it is also written: 'He who shall joyfully
accept but a single word from this Sutra, incalculably greater shall be
his merit than the merit of one who should supply all beings in the
four hundred thousand Asankhyeyas of worlds with all the necessaries for
happiness.'
'Ho--ke-kyo!'
Always he makes a reverent little pause after uttering it and before
shrilling out his ecstatic warble--his bird-hymn of praise. First the
warble; then a pause of about five seconds; then a slow, sweet, solemn
utterance of the holy name in a tone as of meditative wonder; then
another pause; then another wild, rich, passionate warble. Could you see
him, you would marvel how so powerful and penetrating a soprano could
ripple from so minute a throat; for he is one of the very tiniest of
all feathered singers, yet his chant can be heard far across the broad
river, and children going to school pause daily on the bridge, a whole
cho away, to listen to his song. And uncomely withal: a neutral-tinted
mite, almost lost in his immense box-cage of hinoki wood, darkened with
paper screens over its little wire-grated windows, for he loves the
gloom.
Delicate he is and exacting even to tyranny. All his diet must be
laboriously triturated and weighed in scales, and measured out to him
at precisely the same hour each day. It demands all possible care and
attention merely to keep him alive. He is precious, nevertheless. 'Far
and from the uttermost coasts is the price of him,' so rare he is.
Indeed, I could not have afforded to buy him. He was sent to me by one
of the sweetest ladies in Japan, daughter of the governor of Izumo, who,
thinking the foreign teacher might feel lonesome during a brief illness,
made him the exquisite gift of this dainty creature.