Page:The Thunder-Weapon in Ancient Japan.djvu/6

138 which corresponds almost perfectly to “thunder club” (raitsui), the modern term for stone maces.

There is more important evidence in Ennin’s diary of his travels in China during the ninth century, where is to be found the statement, “Since the stone-god  shook and sounded, we raised anchor and returned (up the bay).” As this was recorded on the day after the mast of the ship on which he was traveling had been badly split by lightning, one can conclude that the “stone-god” is in some way a reference to thunder, presumably because of the identification of stones with thunderbolts.

This “stone-god” may have been just an abstract deity to Ennin and his companions, synonymous with thunder itself, but it is not at all improbable that it was an actual “thunderbolt” of some sort on board the ship. The evidence for this is that a few days later, when the men on Ennin’s ship were terrified by a black bird which thrice circled the boat and by the sound of thunder coming roaring towards them from the north, Ennin recorded, “Together we made vows, absolved ourselves, and prayed to the god of the thunderbolt on board the ship .”