The village people do not call him Katsugorō any more; they have nicknamed him "Hodokubo-Kozo" (the Acolyte of Hodokubo).* When anyone visits the house to see him, he becomes shy at once, and runs to hide himself in the inner apartments. So it is not possible to have any direct conversation with him. I have written down this account exactly as his grandmother gave it

to me.

I asked whether Genzō, his wife, or Tsuya, could any of them remember having done any virtuous deeds. Genzō and his wife said that they have never done any

The sect still flourishes; and one of its chief temples is situated about a mile from my present residence in Tōkyō.

.

"Ontaké San" (or "Sama") is a popular name given to the deities adored by this sect. It really means the Deity dwelling on the peak Mitaké, or Ontaké. But the name is also sometimes applied to the high-priest of the sect, who is supposed to be oracularly inspired by the deity of Ontaké, and to make revelations of truth through the power of the divinity. In the mouth of the boy Katsugorō "Ontaké Sama" means the high-priest of that time (1823), almost certainly Osuké himself,—then chief of the Tomoyé. Kyō.

* Kozō is the name given to a Buddhist acolyte, or a youth studying for the priesthood. But it is also given to errand-boys and little boy-servants sometimes,-perhaps because in former days the heads of little boys were shaved. I think that the meaning in this text is "acolyte."

thing especially virtuous; but that Tsuya, the grandmother, had always been in the habit of repeating the Nembutsu every morning and evening, and that she never failed to give two mon* to any priest or pilgrim who came to the door. But excepting these small matters, she never had done anything which could be called a particularly virtuous act.

(This is the End of the Relation of the Rebirth of Katsugorō.)

7. (NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR.)

The foregoing is taken from a manuscript entitled Chin Setsu Shu Ki; or, "Manuscript-Collection of Uncommon Stories,”-made between the fourth month of the sixth year of Bunsei and the tenth month of the sixth year of Tempo (1823-1835). At the end of the manuscript is written,--"From the years of Bunsei to the years of Tempō.—Minamisempa, Owner: Kurumacho,

=

In that time the name of the smallest of coins to of I cent. It was about the same as that now called rin, a copper with a square hole in the middle and bearing Chinese characters.

Shiba, Yedo." Under this, again, is the following note:

Bought from Yamatoya Sakujirō Nishinokubo: twenty-^ first day (?), Second Year of Meiji (1869)." From which it would appear that the manuscript had been written by Minamisempa, who collected stories told to him, or copied them from manuscripts obtained by him, during the thirteen years from 1823 to 1835, inclusive.

III.

Perhaps somebody will now be unreasonable enough to ask whether I believe this story,-as if my belief or disbelief had anything to do with the matter! The question of the possibility of remembering former births seems to me to depend upon the question what it is that remembers. If it is the Infinite All-Self in each one of us, then I can believe the whole of the Jatakas without any trouble. As to the False Self, the mere woof and warp of sensation and desire, then I can best express my idea by relating a dream which I once

dreamed. Whether it was a dream of the night or a

dream of the day need not concern anyone,-since it was only a dream.

XI.

WITHIN THE CIRCLE.

NEITHER personal pain nor personal pleasure can be really expressed in words. It is never possible to communicate them in their original form. It is only possible, by vivid portrayal of the circumstances or conditions causing them, to awaken in sympathetic minds some kindred qualities of feeling. But if the circumstances causing the pain or the pleasure be totally foreign to common human experience, then no representation of them can make fully known the sensations which they evoked. Hopeless, therefore, any attempt to tell the real pain of seeing my former births. I can say only that no combination of suffering possible to individual being could be likened to such pain,-the pain of countless lives interwoven. It seemed as if every nerve of me had been prolonged into some monstrous web of sentiency