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No longer can popular fancy picture the Milky Way as the River of Heaven; the legend of the Weaving-Maiden, and her waiting lover, and the Bridge of Birds, is now told only to children; and the young fisherman, though steering, like his fathers, by the light of stars, no longer discerns in the northern sky the form of Mioken Bosatsu.
Hosts of other toys are here mysterious to the uninitiated European, but to the Japanese child full of delightful religious meaning. In these faiths of the Far East there is little of sternness or grimness the Kami are but the spirits of the fathers of the people; the Buddhas and the Bosatsu were men.
The common people speak of him as Gon-gen Sama, the latter word being an honorary form of address for all beings from a baby to a Bosatsu. In a large sense, this feat of priestly dexterity was but the repetition in history, of that of Asanga with the Brahmanism and Buddhism of India three centuries before. It was this Asanga who wrote the Yoga-chara Bhumi.
When the Buddhist priests came to Japan they changed his name to Hachiman Dai Bosatsu, or the "Great Buddha of the Eight Banners." On many a hill and in many a village of Japan may still be seen a shrine to his honor.
Beyond and above them rises a fairy magnificence of palatial structures, roof above roof, through an aureate haze like summer vapour: creations aerial, blue, light as dreams. And there are guests in these gardens, lovely beings, Japanese maidens. But they wear aureoles, star-shining: they are spirits! For this is Paradise, the Gokuraku; and all those divine shapes are Bosatsu.
Ojin, the god of war, became Hachiman Dai Bosatsu, or the great Bodhisattva of the Eight Banners. Adopted as their patron by the fighting Genji or Minamoto warriors of mediæval times, the Buddhists could not well afford to have this popular deity outside their pantheon. For each of the thirty days of the month, a Bodhisattva, or in Japanese pronunciation Bosatsu, was appointed.
Wherefore he hurried after the princess even into her innermost apartment, without so much as waiting to remove his sandals, and he cried out loudly: "Oh, my princess! I have been taught that written characters were invented in India by Monju Bosatsu, and in Japan by Kobodaishi. "And is it not like tearing the hands of Kobodaishi, thus to tear a letter written with characters?
Presently Manyemon began to ask questions; and when Manyemon asks questions, not to reply is possible for the wicked only. Sometimes behind that dear innocent old head I think I see the dawning of an aureole, the aureole of the Bosatsu. The pipe-stem seller answered by telling his story. Two months after the birth of their little boy, his wife had died.
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