THE STORY OF MIMI-NASHI-HŌÏCHI

[1] See my _Kottō_, for a description of these curious crabs.

[2] Or, Shimonoséki. The town is also known by the name of Bakkan.

[3] The _biwa_, a kind of four-stringed lute, is chiefly used in

musical recitative. Formerly the professional minstrels who recited

the _Heiké-Monogatari_, and other tragical histories, were called

_biwa-hōshi_, or “lute-priests.” The origin of this appellation is not

clear; but it is possible that it may have been suggested by the fact

that “lute-priests” as well as blind shampooers, had their heads

shaven, like Buddhist priests. The _biwa_ is played with a kind of

plectrum, called _bachi_, usually made of horn.

(1) A response to show that one has heard and is listening attentively.

[4] A respectful term, signifying the opening of a gate. It was used

by samurai when calling to the guards on duty at a lord’s gate for

admission.

[5] Or the phrase might be rendered, “for the pity of that part is the

deepest.” The Japanese word for pity in the original text is

“_awaré_.”

[6] “Traveling incognito” is at least the meaning of the original

phrase,—“making a disguised august-journey” (_shinobi no go-ryokō_).

[7] The Smaller Pragña-Pâramitâ-Hridaya-Sûtra is thus called in

Japanese. Both the smaller and larger sûtras called Pragña-Pâramitâ

(“Transcendent Wisdom”) have been translated by the late Professor Max

Müller, and can be found in volume xlix. of the _Sacred Books of the

East_ (“Buddhist Mahayana Sûtras”).—Apropos of the magical use of the

text, as described in this story, it is worth remarking that the

subject of the sûtra is the Doctrine of the Emptiness of Forms,—that

is to say, of the unreal character of all phenomena or noumena...

“Form is emptiness; and emptiness is form. Emptiness is not different

from form; form is not different from emptiness. What is form—that is

emptiness. What is emptiness—that is form... Perception, name,

concept, and knowledge, are also emptiness... There is no eye, ear,

nose, tongue, body, and mind... But when the envelopment of

consciousness has been annihilated, then he [_the seeker_] becomes

free from all fear, and beyond the reach of change, enjoying final

Nirvana.”