Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/202

 stone found on the wayside and calculating its weight; finding signs in water, in the sounds of music, in the bubbles of the rice-caldron,—these and a dozen other trivial accidents helped men and women to shirk the exercise of robust judgment. The Buddhist doctrine of metempsychosis added largely to the mystery of things. People now learned that the spirits of the dead, which had always been accredited with divine influence, might be present in their midst in some unrecognisable form. The ancestor before whose cenotaph a man burned incense might be watching him from the eyes of the ox that had drawn him to the temple, and the baying of a dog at the fall of the moon might be a voice from the grave of an honoured relative. Miraculous manifestations began to be generally credited. A disentombed skull found voice to express gratitude for favours bestowed on it in life. The mouth of a man who insulted a reader of the sutras was suddenly twisted by paralysis. A local headman, levying heavy taxes from the people, was transformed into a beast of burden. A fisherman who threw his nets with merciless frequency, fell into a supernaturally kindled flame. A man who overloaded his horse was beaten to death by hailstones. A crab became the means of bringing riches to its liberator. Multitudes of such tales circulated throughout the country. Even an Emperor (Kōken) was stricken with sickness for desecrating the foundations of a