MUSINGS OVER OLD PRESSA: EMMA-Õ

EXECERPT FROM THIS BOOK: A HANDBOOK FOR TRAVELLERS IN JAPAN (INCLUDING FORMOSA), BY BASIL CHAMBERLAIN,F.R.G.S. AND W.B. MASON, CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY AND LATE OF THE IMPERIAL JAPANESE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS. WITH THIRTY MAPS AND PLANS AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. NINTH EDITION, REVISED THROUGHOUT. LONDON. JOHN MURRAY, ALLEMARLE STREET. YOKOHAMA, SHANGHAI,- KELLY&WALSH, LIMITED-HONKONG, SINGAPORE.1913

EMMA-Õ

Sanskrit (Yama-raja) the regent of the Buddhist hells. He may be known by his cap resembling a judge's beret and by the huge mace in his right hand.

Before him often sit two myrmidons one of whom holds a pen to write down the sins of human beings, while the other reads out the list of their offences from a scroll.

The Bell

Now in that time there died in the village of Tamanawa a sick man whose name was Ono-no-Kimi, and Ono-no-Kimi descended to the region of the dead, and went before the Judgment-Seat of Emma-Õ .
And Emma, Judge of Souls, said to him, "You come too soon! The measure of life allotted you in the Shaba-world has not yet been exhausted. Go back at once."

But Ono-no-Kimi pleaded saying, "How may I go back, not knowing my way through the darkness?"/ And Emma answered him, "You can find your way back by listening to the sound of the bell of En-gaku -ji which is heard in the Nan-en-budi world, going south ."And Ono-no-Kimi went south and heard the bell, and found his way through the darknesses and revived in the Shaba world.

In the photo-

Great Bell of the Jodō Temple of Chion in at Kyōto.

In the twelfth year of Bummei this bell rang itself. And one who laughed on being told of the miracle met with misfortune. and another who believed thereafter ,prospered and obtained all his desires.

The bell is high and nine feet in diameter and its inferiority to the Kyōto bells is not in visible dimensions, so much as in weight and thickness. It weighs thirty seven tons. It was cast in 733 and is therefore eleven hundred and sixty years old. Visitors pay one cent to sound it once.

CITATION FROM:

GLIMPSES OF UNFAMILIAR JAPAN ,BY LAFCADIO HEARNM PUBLISHED BY BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1923