After having studied the sotoba-texts previously cited, the reader
should be able to divine the meaning of most of the kaimyō above given.
At all events he will understand such frequently-repeated terms as
“Moon,” “Lotos,” “Law.” But he may be puzzled by other expressions; and
some further explanation will, perhaps, not be unwelcome.
Besides expressing a pious hope for the higher happiness of the
departed, or uttering some assurance of special conditions in the
spiritual world, a great number of kaimyō also refer, directly or
indirectly, to the character of the vanished personality. Thus a man of
widely-recognized integrity and strong moral purpose, may--like my dead
friend--be not unfitly named: “Bright-Sun-on-the-Way-of-the-Wise.” The
child-daughter or the young wife, especially remembered for sweetness
of character, may be commemorated by some such posthumous name as
“Plumflower-Light,” or “Luminous-Shadow-of-the-Plumflower-Chamber;”--the
word “plumflower” in either case at once suggesting the quality
of the virtue of the dead, because this blossom in Japan is the
emblem of feminine moral charm,--more particularly faithfulness
to duty and faultless modesty. Again, the memory of any person
noted for deeds of charity may be honoured by such a kaimyō as,
“Effective-Benevolence-Listening-with-Pure-Heart-to-the-Supplications-
of-the-Poor.” Finally I may observe that the kaimyō-terms expressing
altitude, luminosity, and fragrance, have most often a moral-exemplary
signification. But in all countries epitaphic literature has its
conventional hypocrisies or extravagances. Buddhist kaimyō frequently
contain a great deal of religious flattery; and beautiful posthumous
names are often given to those whose lives were the reverse of
beautiful.
When we find among feminine kaimyō such appellations as
“Wondrous-Lotos,” or “Beautiful-as-the-Lotos-of-the-Dawn,” we may be
sure in the generality of cases that the charm, to which reference
is so made, was ethical only. Yet there are exceptions; and the more
remarkable of these are furnished by the kaimyō of children. Names like
“Dream-of-Spring,” “Radiant-Phantasm,” “Snowy-Bubble,” do actually refer
to the lost form,--or at least to the supposed parental idea of vanished
beauty and grace. But such names also exemplify a peculiar consolatory
application of the Buddhist doctrine of Impermanency. We might say that
through the medium of these kaimyō the bereaved are thus soothed in the
loftiest language of faith:--“Beautiful and brief was the being of your
child,--a dream of spring, a radiant passing vision,--a snowy bubble.
But in the order of eternal law all forms must pass; material permanency
there is none: only the divine Absolute dwelling in every being,--only
the Buddha in the heart of each of us,--forever endures. Be this great
truth at once your comfort and your hope!”
* * * * *
Extraordinary examples of the retrospective significance sometimes
given to posthumous names, are furnished by the kaimyō of the
Forty-Seven Rōnin buried at Sengakuji in Tōkyō. (Their story is
now well-known to all the English-reading world through Mitford’s
eloquent and sympathetic version of it in the “Tales of Old
Japan.”) The noteworthy peculiarity of these kaimyō is that each
contains the two words, “dagger” and “sword,”--used in a symbolic
sense, but having also an appropriate military suggestiveness.
Ōïshi Kuranosuké Yoshiwo, the leader, is alone styled _Koji_;--the
kaimyō of his followers have the humbler suffix _Shinshi_. Ōïshi’s
kaimyō reads:--“_Dagger-of-Emptiness-and-stainless-Sword, in the
Mansion of Earnest Loyalty_.” I need scarcely call attention to
the historic meaning of the mansion-name. Three of the kaimyō
of his followers will serve as examples of the rest. That of
Masé Kyudayu Masaake is:--“_Dagger-of-Fame-and-Sword-of-the-Way
[or Doctrine.]_” The kaimyō of Ōïshi Sezayémon Nobukiyo
is:--“_Dagger-of-Magnanimity-and-Sword-of-Virtue._” And the kaimyō of
Horibei Yasubei is:--“_Dagger-of-Cloud-and-Sword-of-Brightness._”
The first and the last of these four kaimyō will be found obscure; and
several more of the forty-seven inscriptions are equally enigmatic
at first sight. Usually in a kaimyō the word “Emptiness,” or “Void,”
signifies the Buddhist state of absolute spiritual purity,--the state of
Unconditioned Being. But in the kaimyō of Ōïshi Kuranosuké the meaning
of it, though purely Buddhist, is very different. By “emptiness” here,
we must understand “illusion,” “unreality,”--and the full meaning of
the phrase “dagger-emptiness” is:--“_Wisdom that, seeing the emptiness
of material forms, pierces through illusion as a dagger._” In Horibei
Yasubei’s kaimyō we must similarly render the word “cloud” by illusion;
and “Dagger-of-Cloud” should be interpreted, “_Illusion-penetrating
Dagger of Wisdom._” The wisdom that perceives the emptiness of
phenomena, is the sharply-dividing, or distinguishing wisdom,--is
_Myō-kwan-zatsu-chi_ (Pratyavekshana-gñâna).
V
Possibly I have presumed too much upon the patience of my readers; yet
I feel that these studies can yield scarcely more than the glimpse of
a subject wide and deep as a sea. If they should arouse any Western
interest in the philosophy and the poetry of Buddhist epitaphic
literature, then they will certainly have accomplished all that I could
reasonably hope.
Not improbably I shall be accused, as I have been on other occasions,
of trying to make Buddhist texts “more beautiful than they are.” This
charge usually comes from persons totally ignorant of the originals,
and betrays a spirit of disingenuousness with which I have no sympathy.
Whoever confesses religion to have been a developing influence in the
social and moral history of races,--whoever grants that respect is due
to convictions which have shaped the nobler courses of human conduct
for thousands of years,--whoever acknowledges that in any great religion
something of eternal truth must exist,--will hold it the highest
duty of a translator to interpret the concepts of an alien faith as
generously as he would wish his own thoughts or words interpreted by his
fellow-men. In the rendering of Chinese sentences this duty presents
itself under a peculiar aspect. Any attempt at literal translation would
result in the production either of nonsense, or of a succession of ideas
totally foreign to far-Eastern thought. The paramount necessity in
treating such texts is to discover and to expound the thought conveyed
to Oriental minds by the original ideographs,--which are very different
things indeed from “written words.” The translations given in this essay
were made by Japanese scholars, and, in their present form, have the
approval of competent critics.
* * * * *
As I write these lines a full moon looks into my study over the trees of
the temple-garden, and brings me the recollection of a little Buddhist
poem:--
“_From the foot of the mountain, many are the paths ascending in shadow;
but from the cloudless summit all who climb behold the self-same Moon._”
* * * * *
The reader who knows the truth shrined in this little verse will not
regret an hour passed with me among the tombs of Kobudera.