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:—