Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/279

 The Rosary in Magic afid Religion. 269

or head of the rosary usually containing a swastika, the other dividing the rosary into two parts. Each of these beads is dedicated to a deity, and every bead on the string has its own special name. On laying aside the rosary the following sentences should be repeated :

" Oh ; the thousand myriad miles of emptiness, the place which is in the midst of the tens of hundred myriads of emptinesses, eternal desert where the true Buddha exists. There is eternal existence with Tranquil Peace."

There is also a small rosary which, if used every day in the four positions or states, viz. going forth and remaining at home, sitting or lying down, enables the votary to see the land of Bliss in his own heart. " Amita will be his Guardian and Protector, and in whatever country he goes he will find a home." ^

Japan. It is in Japan that the Buddhist rosary reaches its most complicated form, and each sect has its own special rosary. There is, however, one which is used by all sects in common, and is called the Sho-zuku-jiu-dzu. This rosary is also usually carried by monks and laity of all sects, on all occasions of religious state, on visits of ceremony, at funerals, etc. The dividing beads on the main string show where a special invocation should be uttered, the rosary being, at the same time, raised to the forehead with a reverence.

The Jodo sect uses a rosary which consists of two rings of beads, like two bracelets, one being passed through the other. The invention of this rosary is ascribed to Awano- suka, who was one of the personal attendants of the founder of this sect. The idea was that such a rosary could be manipulated with one hand (the left) only, thus leaving the right hand of the attendant free for serving his superior and carrying out his orders. By this means the faithful retainer could combine both his spiritual and secular duties.

The rosary plays an important part in certain ceremonies

1 See E. B. Landis, 71ie Korean Repository, vol. ii. No. i., Jan., 1895.