Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/259

Rh age,—his worldly duties performed,—retired to the solitude of the forest, there to ponder on the vanity of all phenomena, and attain to the absorption of self in the world-soul through profound metaphysical meditation. Or take the complications treated of in our Article on Things Japanese/Names: the "true name," which is kept secret, is an Indian heritage. The fire-drill for producing the sacred fire at the great Shintō shrines of Ise and Izumo seems to be Indian; the elaboration of ancestor-worship seems to be Indian; all philological research in the Far-East is certainly of Indian origin, even to the arranging of the Japanese syllabaries in their familiar order. Not only can some of the current fairy-tales be traced to stories told in the Buddhist sutras, but so can some of the legends of the Shintō religion, notwithstanding the claim confidently put forward, and too easily accepted by European writers, to the effect that everything Shintō is purely aboriginal. The very language has been tinctured, many learned words being of Indian derivation, and even a few common ones, such as abata, "pock-marks;" aka, "water baled out of a boat;" baka, "fool;" dabi, "cremation;" danna, "master," originally "parishioner" (lit. "giver," that is, "contributor to a temple"); hachi "bowl;" kawara, "the;" sendan "sandal-wood" (we English having borrowed the same Indian word for this Indian thing); sora, "the sky;"—to say nothing of such words connected with religion as garan, "temple;" shamon, "priest" (English shaman is the same word); kesa, "vestment;" shari, "relic," and numerous others. Indian of course is all Buddhist religious architecture and sculpture; Indian is the use of tea now so characteristic of China and Japan; India has dictated the national diet, fostering rice-culture and discrediting the use of flesh, which seems to have been a staple article of Japanese food in pre-Buddhistic days.