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 mouth 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 Tempo.--Minamisempa, Owner: Kurumacho, Shiba,

[1. In that time the name of the smallest of coins = 1/10 of 1 cent. It was about the same as that now called rin, a copper with a square hole in the middle and bearing Chinese characters.]

Yedo." Under this, again, is the following note:--"Bought from Yamatoya Sakujiro 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 any one, since it was only a dream.

XI