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Their tombs have stood for two centuries, as mighty magnets drawing others to self-impalement on the sword as multipliers of suicides. Yet this alphabetic number, this i-ro-ha of self-murder, is but one of a thousand instances in the Land of Noble Suicides.
Evidently the idea of the i-ro-ha, or Japanese ABC, was derived from the Sanskrit alphabet, or, what some modern Anglo-Indian has called the Deva-Nagari or the god-alphabet. Hokusai, the artist, in a sketch which embodies the popular idea of this bonze's immense industry, represents him copying the shastras and sutras.
Though not as valuable as a true phonetic alphabet, such as the Koreans and the Cherokees possess, the i-ro-ha, or kana script, even though a syllabary and not an alphabet, was a wonderful aid to popular writing and instruction.
KOBODAISHI, most holy of Buddhist priests, and founder of the Shingon- sho which is the sect of Akira first taught the men of Japan to write the writing called Hiragana and the syllabary I-ro-ha; and Kobodaishi was himself the most wonderful of all writers, and the most skilful wizard among scribes.
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