“Indeed, you saw not Fugen Bosatsu, but something deceiving and false; and when the morning comes I will prove to you that I speak the truth.”
So when the morning broke in golden streams across the mountain-top the hunter and the priest looked long and carefully, and they found a spot of blood where had stood the vision of the night. Another and another they found, forming a slender trail which led deep into the forest, and ever the crimson trail grew larger and larger until at last they found a pool of blood beside the body of a huge badger which lay dead, pierced by an arrow.
“See,” said the hunter. “You have been deceived though you are far holier than I. All your study can not teach you what I was taught by common sense.”
Footnotes
[12] Buddhism does not approve the taking of life.
THE PRINCESS MOONBEAM
A woodman once dwelt with his wife at the edge of the forest, under the shadow of the Honorable Mountain. The two were industrious and good, but though they loved each other they were not happy. No children had come to bless them and this the wife mourned deeply.
The husband pitied her and treated her very kindly, yet still she was sad. As she gazed upon the snows of Fujiyama her heart swelled within her and she prostrated herself and said, “Fuji no Yama, Honorable Mountain, my heart is heavy because no childish arms encircle my neck, no little head nestles in my bosom. From thy eternal purity send some little white soul to comfort me!”
The Honorable Mountain spoke not; yet as she prayed, lo, from its heights there sparkled and glowed a tiny light. Fitful and gleaming it seemed, yet it had a silver radiance as of the moon.
The woodman’s wife beheld it, and she called to her husband eagerly, “Come hither, I pray you. See the strange light which comes from Fuji San. I seem to see a face smiling at me. It is the face of a little child!”