IV
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.
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.”