Now Sei, the mother of Katsugoro, had nightly to suckle her little daughter Tsuna, who was four years old;[1]--and Katsugoro therefore slept with his grandmother, Tsuya. Sometimes he used to talk to her in bed; and one night when he was in a very confiding mood, she persuaded him to tell her what happened at the time when he had died. Then he said:--"Until I was four years old I used to remember everything; but since then I have become more and more forgetful; and now I forget many, many things. But I still remember that I died of smallpox; I remember that I was put into a jar;[2] I remember that

[1. Children in Japan, among the poorer classes, are not weaned until an age much later than what is considered the proper age for weaning children in Western countries. But "four years old" in this text may mean considerably less, than three by Western reckoning.

2. From very ancient time in Japan it has been the custom to bury the dead in large jars,--usually of red earthenware, --called Kame. Such jars are still used, although a large proportion of the dead are buried in wooden coffins of a form unknown in the Occident.]

I was buried on a hill. There was a hole made in the ground; and the people let the jar drop into that hole. It fell pon!--I remember that sound well. Then somehow I returned to the house, and I stopped on my own pillow there.[1] In a short time some old man,--looking like a grandfather--came and took me away. I do not know who or what he was. As I walked I went through empty air as if flying. I remember it was neither night nor day as we went: it was always like sunset-time. I did not feel either warm or cold or hungry. We went very far, I think; but still I could hear always, faintly, the voices of people talking at home; and the sound of the Nembutsu[2] being said for me.

[1. The idea expressed is not that of lying down with the pillow under the head, but of hovering about the pillow, or resting upon it as an insect might do. The bodiless spirit is usually said to rest upon the roof of the home. The apparition of the aged man referred to in the next sentence seems a thought of Shinto rather than of Buddhism.

2. The repetition of the Buddhist invocation Namu Amida Butsu! is thus named. The nembutsu is repeated by many Buddhist sects besides the sect of Amida proper,--the Shinshu.]