The far-famed Yugyo Shonin, of the temple of Fujisawa in Kagami, who traveled constantly in Japan to preach the law of Buddha in all the provinces, chanced to be passing over the moor Uwanogahara.
There he saw many crows and kites flitting about a grave. Drawing nearer, he wondered much to see a nameless thing, seemingly without arms or legs, moving between the pieces of a broken tombstone.
Then he remembered the old tradition, that those who are put to death before having completed the number of years allotted to them in this world reappear or revive in the form called gaki-ami.
And he thought that the shape before him must be one of those unhappy spirits; and the desire arose in his kindly heart to have the monster taken to the hot springs belonging to the temple of Kumano, and thereby enable it to return to its former human state.
So he had a cart made for the gaki-ami, and he placed the nameless shape in it, and fastened to its breast a wooden tablet, inscribed with large characters.
And the words of the inscription were these: "Take pity upon this unfortunate being, and help it upon its journey to the hot springs of the temple of Kumano.
"Those who draw the cart even a little way, by pulling the rope attached to it, will be rewarded with very great good fortune.
"To draw the cart even one step shall be equal in merit to feeding one thousand priests, and to draw it two steps shall be equal in merit to feeding ten thousand priests;
"And to draw it three steps shall be equal in merit to causing any dead relation—father, mother, or husband—to enter upon the way of Buddhahood."
Thus very soon travelers who traveled that way took pity on the formless one: some drew the cart several miles, and, others were kind enough to draw it for many days together.