by Lafcadio Hearn · 1894
Memoir · Classics · History
Lafcadio Hearn's first book on Japan, written soon after he arrived: portraits of villages, festivals, shrines, gardens and everyday people, seen with wonder.
Content note: Written in 1894 by a foreign visitor, it has some attitudes and language of its time that are outdated today.
Sec. 1
KOBODAISHI, most holy of Buddhist priests, and founder of the Shingon-sho—which is the sect of Akira—first taught the men of Japan to write the writing called Hiragana and the syllabary I-ro-ha; and Kobodaishi was himself the most wonderful of all writers, and the most skilful wizard among scribes.
And in the book, Kobodaishi-ichi-dai-ki, it is related that when he was in China, the name of a certain room in the palace of the Emperor having become effaced by time, the Emperor sent for him and bade him write the name anew. Thereupon Kobodaishi took a brush in his right hand, and a brush in his left, and one brush between the toes of his left foot, and another between the toes of his right, and one in his mouth also; and with those five brushes, so holding them, he limned the characters upon the wall. And the characters were beautiful beyond any that had ever been seen in China—smooth-flowing as the ripples in the current of a river. And Kobodaishi then took a brush, and with it from a distance spattered drops of ink upon the wall; and the drops as they fell became transformed and turned into beautiful characters. And the Emperor gave to Kobodaishi the name Gohitsu Osho, signifying The Priest who writes with Five Brushes.
