Though not representing, nor even suggesting, the whole range of
sotoba-literature, the foregoing texts will sufficiently indicate the
quality of its philosophical interest. The inscriptions of the _haka_,
or tombs, have another kind of interest; but before treating of these,
a few words should be said about the tombs themselves. I cannot attempt
detail, because any description of the various styles of such monuments
would require a large and profusely illustrated volume; while the
study of their sculptures belongs to the enormous subject of Buddhist
iconography,--foreign to the purpose of this essay.
There are hundreds,--probably thousands,--of different forms of
Buddhist funeral monuments,--ranging from the unhewn boulder, with a
few ideographs scratched on it, of the poorest village-graveyard, to
the complicated turret (_kagé-kio_) enclosing a shrine with images, and
surmounted with a spire of umbrella-shaped disks or parasols (Sanscrit:
_tchâtras_),--possibly representing the old Chinese stûpa. The most
common class of _haka_ are plain. A large number of the better class
have lotos-designs chiselled upon some part of them:--either the
pedestal is sculptured so as to represent lotos-petals; or a single
blossom is cut in relief or intaglio on the face of the tablet; or--(but
this is rare)--a whole lotos-plant, leaves and flowers, is designed
in relief upon one or two sides of the monument. In the costly class
of tombs symbolizing the Five Buddhist Elements, the eight-petalled
lotos-symbol may be found repeated, with decorative variations, upon
three or four portions of their elaborate structure. Occasionally
we find beautiful reliefs upon tombstones,--images of Buddhas or
Bodhisattvas; and not unfrequently a statue of Jizō may be seen erected
beside a grave. But the sculptures of this class are mostly old;--the
finest pieces in the Kobudera cemetery, for example, were executed
between two and three hundred years ago. Finally I may observe that the
family crest or _mon_ of the dead is cut upon the front of the tomb, and
sometimes also upon the little stone tank set before it.
* * * * *
The inscriptions very seldom include any texts from the holy books. On
the front of the monument, below the chiselled crest, the kaimyō is
graven, together, perhaps, with a single mystical character--Sanscrit
or Chinese; on the left side is usually placed the record of the date
of death; and on the right, the name of the person or family erecting
the tomb. Such is now, at least, the ordinary arrangement; but there
are numerous exceptions; and as the characters are most often disposed
in vertical columns, it is quite easy to put all the inscriptions upon
the face of a very narrow monument. Occasionally the real name is also
cut upon some part of the stone,--together, perhaps, with some brief
record of the memorable actions of the dead. Excepting the kaimyō, and
the sect-invocation often accompanying it, the inscriptions upon the
ordinary class of tombs are secular in character; and the real interest
of such epigraphy is limited to the kaimyō. By _kai_-myō (_sîla_-name)
is meant the Buddhist name given to the spirit of the dead, according
to the custom of all sects except the Ikkō or Shinshū. In a special
sense the term _kai_, or sîla, refers to precepts of conduct[63]; in a
general sense it might be rendered as “salvation by works.” But the
Shinshū allows no _kai_ to any mortal; it does not admit the doctrine
of immediate salvation by works, but only by faith in Amida; and the
posthumous appellations which it bestows are therefore called not
_kai_-myō, but _hō-myō_, or “Law-names.”
Before Meiji the social rank occupied by any one during life
was suggested by the kaimyō. The use, with a kaimyō, of the two
characters reading _in den_, and signifying “temple-dweller,”
or “mansion-dweller,”--or of the more common single character
_in_, signifying “temple” or “mansion,” was a privilege reserved
to the nobility and gentry. Class-distinctions were further
indicated by suffixes. _Koji_,--a term partly corresponding to our
“lay-brother,”--and _Daishi_, “great elder-sister,” were honorifically
attached to the kaimyō of the samurai and the aristocracy; while the
simpler appellations of _Shinshi_ and _Shinnyo_, respectively signifying
“faithful [believing] man,” “faithful woman,” followed the kaimyō of
the humble. These forms are still used; but the distinctions they once
maintained have mostly passed away, and the privilege of the knightly
“_in den_,” and its accompaniments, is free to any one willing to pay
for it. At all times the words _Dōji_ and _Dōnyo_ seem to have been
attached to the kaimyō of children. _Dō_, alone, means a lad, but
when combined with _ji_ or _nyo_ it means “child” in the adjectival
sense;--so that we may render _Dōji_ as “Child-son,” and _Dōnyo_ as
“Child-daughter.” Children are thus called who die before reaching
their fifteenth year,--the majority-year by the old samurai code; a lad
of fifteen being deemed fit for war-service. In the case of children
who die within a year after birth, the terms _Gaini_ and _Gainyo_
occasionally replace _Dōji_ and _Dōnyo_. The syllable _Gai_ here
represents a Chinese character meaning “suckling.”
Different Buddhists sects have different formulas for the composition
of the kaimyō and its addenda;--but this subject would require a whole
special treatise; and I shall mention only a few sectarian customs.
The Shingon sect sometimes put a Sanscrit character--the symbol
of a Buddha--before their kaimyō;--the Shin head theirs with an
abbreviation of the holy name Sakyamuni;--the Nichiren often preface
their inscriptions with the famous invocation, _Namu myō hō rengé kyō_
(“Hail to the Sutra of the Lotos of the Good Law!”),--sometimes followed
by the words _Senzo daidai_ (“forefathers of the generations”);--the
Jōdo, like the Ikkō, use an abbreviation of the name Sakyamuni, or,
occasionally, the invocation _Namu Amida Butsu!_--and they compose their
four-character kaimyō with the aid of two ideographs signifying “honour”
or “fame;”--the Zen sect contrive that the first and the last character
of the kaimyō, when read together, shall form a particular Buddhist
term, or mystical phrase,--except when the kaimyō consists of only two
characters.
Probably the word “mansion” in kaimyō-inscriptions would suggest to
most Western readers the idea of heavenly mansions. But the fancy would
be at fault. The word has no celestial signification; yet the history
of its epitaphic use is curious enough. Anciently, at the death of any
illustrious man, a temple was erected for the special services due to
his spirit, and also for the conservation of relics or memorials of him.
Confucianism introduced into Japan the _ihai_, or mortuary tablet,
called by the Chinese _shin-shu_;[64] and a portion of the temple was
set apart to serve as a chapel for the _ihai_, and the ancestral cult.
Any such memorial temple was called _in_, or “mansion,”--doubtless
because the august spirit was believed to occupy it at certain
periods;--and the term yet survives in the names of many celebrated
Buddhist temples,--such as the Chion-In, of Kyōtō. With the passing
of time, this custom was necessarily modified; for as privileges were
extended and aristocracies multiplied, the erection of a separate temple
to each notable presently became impossible. Buddhism met the difficulty
by conferring upon every individual of distinction the posthumous title
of _in-den_,--and affixing to this title the name of an imaginary
temple or “mansion.” So to-day, in the vast majority of kaimyō, the
character _in_ refers only to the temple that would have been built had
circumstance permitted, but now exists only in the pious desire of those
who love and reverence the departed.
[Illustration: TOMB IN KOBUDERA CEMETERY
(The relief represents Seishi Bosatsu--Bodhisattva Mahâsthâma--in
meditation. It is 187 years old. The white patches on the surface are
lichen growths)]
Nevertheless the poetry of these _in_-names does possess some
real meaning. They are nearly all of them names such as would be
given to real Buddhist temples,--names of virtues and sanctities and
meditations,--names of ecstasies and powers and splendors and luminous
immeasurable unfoldings,--names of all ways and means of escape from the
Six States of Existence and the sorrow of “peopling the cemeteries again
and again.”
* * * * *
The general character and arrangement of kaimyō can best be understood
by the aid of a few typical specimens. The first example is from a
beautiful tomb in the cemetery of Kobudera, which is sculptured with
a relief representing the Bodhisattva Mahâsthâma (Seishi Bosatsu)
meditating. All the text in this instance has been cut upon the face of
the monument, to left and right of the icon. Transliterated into Romaji
it reads thus:--
(Kaimyō.)
_Tei-Shō-In_, HŌ-SŌ MYŌ-SHIN, _Daishi_.
(Record.)
--Shōtoku Ni, Jin shin Shimotsuki, jiu-ku nichi.
[Translation:--
--_Great Elder-Sister_,
WONDERFUL-REALITY-APPEARING-AT-THE-WINDOW-OF-LAW, _dwelling in the
Mansion of the Pine of Chastity_.
--The nineteenth day of the Month of Frost,[65] second year of
Shōtoku,[66]--the year being under the Dragon of Elder Water.]
For the sake of clearness, I have printed the posthumous name proper
(_Hō-sō Myō-shin_) in small capitals, and the rest in italics. The
first three characters of the inscription,--_Tei-Shō-In_,--form the
name of the temple, or “mansion.” The pine, both in religious and
secular poetry, is a symbol of changeless conditions of good, because
it remains freshly-green in all seasons. The use of the term “Reality”
in the kaimyō indicates the state of unity with the Absolute;--by
“Window-of-Law” (Law here signifying the Buddha-state) must be
understood that exercise of virtue through which even in this existence
some perception of Infinite Truth may be obtained. I have already
explained the final word, _Daishi_ (“great elder-sister”).
Less mystical, but not less beautiful, is this Nichiren kaimyō
sculptured upon the grave of a young samurai:
_Ko-shin In, Ken-dō Nichi-ki, Koji._
[_Koji,--
Bright-Sun-on-the-Way-of-the-Wise, in the Mansion of Luminous
Mind._][67]