ON A BKONZE BUDDHA. 733 



of the greatest of all Buddhas at various moments of his ecstacy or ab- 

 sorption into Nirvana, or it distinguishes the Buddha from foreign or 

 local saints who have presumably reached the Buddhahood by merito- 

 rious pondering. He has the famous knob on his forehead, about 

 which many legends revolve; also the short round curls over his head, 

 supposed to be the snails which guarded him from sunstroke, and he 

 carries the mark on the top of his head. He has the large ears with 

 their lobes pierced and distended, but no earrings. The figure repre- 

 sents Buddha, after having taught his doctrine, merging himself into 

 Nirvana. To an adept, the position of his thumbs aud forefingers ex- 

 presses a world of hidden meanings. 



The figure is luckily provided with a copious inscription which is 

 couched in phrases anything but easy of translation, owing to the 

 curious phraseology of monkish scribes. A Japanese does not use 

 idioms like ours in ordinary matters, but when it comes to writing he 

 is further influenced by the enigmatical style of a literature profoundly 

 influenced by that of China. To this we must add the peculiarity of 

 expressions that were meant originally to translate Sanscrit or Hindoo 

 modes of religious speech which have been further filtered through an 

 obsolete form of Chinese by persons devoid of an exact knowledge of 

 tongues. The sense of the lettering, according to Mr. Greey, is that 

 this, "The Buddha of the Five Wisdoms," was cast by Saburo Biyoye 

 Katsutare in the province of Ise, and was dedicated to a temple in 

 Yamada, province of Ise, in the year 1648. Then follow the religious 

 names (for the Japanese laymen took religious names as freely as Catho- 

 lics who enter monasteries do to-day) of the person who paid for the 

 statue. Then come the religious names of friends and those of the dead 

 whose souls the giver wished to benefit thereby. Then the priest who 

 dedicated the pieces is mentioned and he slily slips in the names of his 

 own ancestors. Finally appears the name of the scribe whom the priest 

 employed to carve the words. The motto of " The Buddha of the Five 

 Wisdoms" is as follows: All the world can share the blessings of Budd- 

 hism. It may be noted that in Japan the number five has especial sanc- 

 tity. Thus there are five elements, five yearly festivals, five chief 

 colors, five great laws, five tones in music. The temple where this 

 Buddha was dedicated was that of Joshagan Soan in Yamada. One 

 would like to know if it has survived the wreck of time, the fall of puppet 

 emperors and guardian nobles, of the old worship and the iconoclasm 

 preached by Christians. Shall we suppose that the priest of the temple 

 at Yamada was like that Yekeo Hoshi who is said to have recited, seated 

 mournful in his neglected fane, these verses, paraphrased by Dickens: 



My mountain dwelling's roof of thatch 



Is with Yahemugura moss o'ergrown ; 

 Of passers-hy no glimpse I catch, 



I dwell uncheerdd and alone ; 

 'Tis antiinm time 

 And mankind dread the rie'roua clime. 



