The village people do not call him Katsugoro any more; they have nicknamed him "Hodokubo-Kozō" (the Acolyte of Hodokubo).[15] When any one visits the house to see him, he becomes shy at once, and runs to hide himself in the inner apartments. So it is not possible to have any direct conversation with him. I have written down this account exactly as his grandmother gave it to me.
I asked whether Genzō, his wife, or Tsuya, could any of them remember having done any virtuous deeds. Genzō and his wife said that they had never done anything especially virtuous; but that Tsuya, the grandmother, had always been in the habit of repeating the Nembutsu every morning and evening, and that she never failed to give two mon[16] to any priest or pilgrim who came to the door. But excepting these small matters, she never had done anything which could be called a particularly virtuous act.
(—This is the End of the Relation of the Rebirth of Katsugorō.)
7.—(Note by the Translator.) The foregoing is taken from a manuscript entitled Chin Setsu Shū Ki; or, "Manuscript-Collection of Uncommon Stories,"—made between the fourth month of the sixth year of Bunsei and the tenth month of the sixth year of Tempo [1823-1835]. At the end of the manuscript is written,—"From the years of Bunsei to the years of Tempo.—Minamisempa, Owner: Kurumachō, Shiba, Yedo" Under this, again, is the following note:—"Bought from Yamatoya Sakujirō Nishinohubo: twenty-first day [?], Second Year of Meiji [1869]." From which it would appear that the manuscript had been written by Minamisempa, who collected stories told to him, or copied them from manuscripts obtained by him, during the thirteen years from 1823 to 1835, inclusive.
III
Perhaps somebody will now be unreasonable enough to ask whether I believe this story,—as if my belief or disbelief had anything to do with the matter! The question of the possibility of remembering former births seems to me to depend upon the question what it is that remembers. If it is the Infinite All-Self in each one of us, then I can believe the whole of the Jatakas without any trouble. As to the False Self, the mere woof and warp of sensation and desire, then I can best express my idea by relating a dream which I once dreamed. Whether it was a dream of the night or a dream of the day need not concern any one, since it was only a dream.
[1] The Western reader is requested to bear in mind that the year in which a Japanese child is born is counted always as one year in the reckoning of age.
[2] Lit.: "A wave-man,"—a wandering samurai without a lord. The rōnin were generally a desperate and very dangerous class; but there were some fine characters among them.
[3] The Buddhist services for the dead are celebrated at regular intervals, increasing successively in length, until the time of one hundred years after death. The jiū-san kwaiki is the service for the thirteenth year after death. By "thirteenth" in the context the reader must understand that the year in which the death took place is counted for one year.