Okori is said to be caused by the Gaki-botoke, or hungry ghosts. Strictly speaking, the Gaki-botoke are the Pretas of Indian Buddhism, spirits condemned to sojourn in the Gakido, the sphere of the penance of perpetual hunger and thirst. But in Japanese Buddhism, the name Gaki is given also to those souls who have none among the living to remember them, and to prepare for them the customary offerings of food and tea.
These suffer, and seek to obtain warmth and nutriment by entering into the bodies of the living. The person into whom a gaki enters at first feels intensely cold and shivers, because the gaki is cold. But the chill is followed by a feeling of intense heat, as the gaki becomes warm. Having warmed itself and absorbed some nourishment at the expense of its unwilling host, the gaki goes away, and the fever ceases for a time. But at exactly the same hour upon another day the gaki will return, and the victim must shiver and burn until the haunter has become warm and has satisfied its hunger. Some gaki visit their patients every day; others every alternate day, or even less often. In brief: the paroxysms of any form of intermittent fever are explained by the presence of the gaki, and the intervals between the paroxysms by its absence.
Sec. 25
Of the word hotoke (which becomes botoke in such com-pounds as nure- botoke, [12] gaki-botoke) there is something curious to say.
Hotoke signifies a Buddha.
Hotoke signifies also the Souls of the Dead—since faith holds that these, after worthy life, either enter upon the way to Buddhahood, or become Buddhas.
Hotoke, by euphemism, has likewise come to mean a corpse: hence the verb hotoke-zukuri, 'to look ghastly,' to have the semblance of one long dead.
And Hotoke-San is the name of the Image of a Face seen in the pupil of the eye—Hotoke-San, 'the Lord Buddha.' Not the Supreme of the Hokkekyo, but that lesser Buddha who dwelleth in each one of us,—the Spirit. [13]
Sang Rossetti: 'I looked and saw your heart in the shadow of your eyes.' Exactly converse is the Oriental thought. A Japanese lover would have said: 'I looked and saw my own Buddha in the shadow of your eyes.
What is the psychical theory connected with so singular a belief? [14] I think it might be this: The Soul, within its own body, always remains viewless, yet may reflect itself in the eyes of another, as in the mirror of a necromancer. Vainly you gaze into the eyes of the beloved to discern her soul: you see there only your own soul's shadow, diaphanous; and beyond is mystery alone—reaching to the Infinite.