[28] In Japanese “Sanbodai.” The term “tower” refers of course to the sotoba, the symbol of a real tower, or at least of the desire to erect such a monument, were it possible.
[29] In Japanese, Anuka-tara-sanmaku-sanbodai,—the supreme form of Buddhist enlightenment.
[30] From a sotoba of the Jodo sect.
[31] From a sotoba of the Jōdo sect. The Amida-Kyō, or Sûtra of Amida, is the Japanese [Chinese] version of the smaller Sukhâvatî-Vyûha Sûtra.
[32] Gokuraku is the common word in Japan for the Buddhist heaven. The above inscription, translated for me from a sotoba of the Jōdo sect, is an abbreviated form of a verse in the Smaller Sukhâvatî-Vyûha (see Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts: “Sacred Books of the East”), which Max Müller has thus rendered in full:—“In that world Sukhâvatî, O Sâriputra, there is neither bodily nor mental pain for living beings. The sources of happiness are innumerable there. For that reason is that world called Sukhâvatî, the happy.”
[33] From a sotoba of the Jōdo sect.
[34] Sotoba of the Jōdo sect.
[35] Sotoba of the Jōdo sect.
[36] Sotoba of the Zen sect.
[37] Sotoba of the Zen sect.