Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/287

 most successful general ever possessed by Japan, his name could not have been handed down through all generations of his countrymen with greater veneration and affection.  —The Emperor Seiwa (859-876) was the first, and his example was followed by Uda (888-897). But there was a difference. Seiwa, after surrendering the sceptre, devoted himself sincerely to prayer and pilgrimages: Uda took the title of Hō (high pontiff) and, as the head of all the Buddhist prelates, led a life of splendour scarcely inferior to his previous state.  —The posthumous name given to the deceased by the Buddhist priests was inscribed with letters of gold on a black lacquered tablet, and was entrusted to the care of the temple where the body was buried.  —The "divine tree" was the emblem of Shintô. It will therefore be understood that these menacing demonstrations, though inaugurated by the Buddhist priests, were employed sometimes by Shintô ministers also. Instances of the latter nature were comparatively rare, however.  —This included the birth of a domesticated animal or bird, barn-door fowl excepted.  —These rules are quoted from a book of etiquette published at the beginning of the tenth century.  —A species of guitar with three strings; essentially a woman's instrument.  —This game was called iro-bumi-awase (composing love-letters), and the method of procedure corresponded to that of the uta-awase (composing poems). It found great favour during the reign of Horikawa (1087—1107). <section end="Note 48" /> <section begin="Note 49" />—Every Chinese ideograph has a basic element, which is called the radical; and a phonetic part which suggests the sound. Numbers of ideographs being mononymous, have the same phonetic part, with different radicals, and numbers have the same radical with different phonetic parts. Given a certain radical, to construct from memory as many as possible of the ideographs composed with it; or given a certain phonetic, to draw up an exhaustive list of the mononyms it belongs to,—such was the method of the old-time calligraphic competitions.

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