444 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



Each of these temples has its adjoining grave-yard, filled with tombs and monuments charao- 

 teristic of the Japanese people and their religious belief. Near each grave, as at Simoda, there 

 are square posts and boards, with the names of the dead, quotations from the canonical 

 Buddhist books, lines of poetry, and moral and religious apothegms, generally referring to the 

 vanity of this world and the felicity of Buddha's heaven in the next. There was a curious 

 contrivance found in one of the burial i^laces, consisting of a tall post, in which an iron wheel 

 was attached. The post was placed upright, and being square presented four surfaces, on each 

 of which was one or two of the following inscriptions or prayers : 



" The great roimd mirror of knowledge says, ' wise men and fools are embarked in the same 

 boat ;' whether prospered or affiicted, both are rowing over the deep lake ; the gay sails lightly 

 hang to catch the autumnal breeze ; then away they straight enter the lustrous clouds, and 

 become partakers of heaven's knowledge." 



" The believing man Hanyo Shenkaman, who no longer grows old." 

 " The believing woman, once called Yuenning : Hapjjy was the day she left." 

 "Multitudes fill the graves." 



' ' To enable to enter the abodes of the perfect, and to sympathize fully with the men of the 

 world, belongs to Buddha. It is only by this one vehicle, the cofiin, we can enter Hades. 

 There is nought like Buddha ; nothing at all." 



" We of the human race with hearts, minds, and understandings, when we read the volumes 

 of Buddha, enjoy great advantages." 



" He whose prescience detects knowledge, says : as the floating grass is blown by the gentle 

 breeze, or the glancing ripples of autumn disappear, when the sun goes down, or as the ship 

 returns home to her old shore, so is life : it is a smoke, a morning tide." 



" Buddha himself earnestly desires to hear the name of this person, (who is buried,) and 

 wishes he may go to life." 



" He who has left humanity is now perfected by Buddha's name, aa the withered moss is by 

 the dew." 



" The canon of Buddha says, all who reach the blissful land will become so that they cannot 

 be made to transmigrate, (or change for the worse.)" 



The square post upon which these inscriptions were cut was nearly eight feet in length, and 

 near the centre, at a convenient height to be reached by the hand, was affixed, vertically, a 

 wheel, which moved readily on an axle that passed through the post. Two small iron rings 

 were strung upon each of the three spokes of the large wheel. Every person who twisted this 

 instrument in passing was supposed to obtain credit in heaven for one or more prayers on the 

 post, the number being graduated according to the rigor of the performer's devotion, and the 

 number of revolutions eifected. The jingle of the small iron rings was believed to secure the 

 attention of the deity to the invocation of the devotional, and the greater the noise, the more 

 certain of its being listened to. This praying by wheel and axle would seem to be the very 

 perfection of a ceremonious religion, as it reduces it to a system of mechanical laws, which, 

 provided the apparatus is kept in order, a result easily obtained by a little oil, moderate use, 

 and occasional repairs, can bo readily executed with the least possible expenditure of human 

 labor, and with all that economy of time and thought which seems the great purpose of our 

 material and mechanical age. Hue, in his interesting account gf his travels in Thibet, speaks 

 of an improvement on the machine we have described, where the apparatus was turned by 



