Japan and the Japanese illustrated . , OOn OF THE WINDS. Empress Ziugou. This animal, which is pnrt dog, part lion, may perhaps be arecollection of the cave-lion. Two fine specimens, in cut granite, stand on the esplanadeof the Temple of Kami-Hamayou at Simonosdki. The is the terror of allpeople. This immense dragon generally haunts the deep sea caverns, but sometimeshe comes up to the surface; and springing towards heaven, causes such a perturbationof the , that he produces the redoubtable phenomenon known as the is a turtle with a dogs head and a lon


Japan and the Japanese illustrated . , OOn OF THE WINDS. Empress Ziugou. This animal, which is pnrt dog, part lion, may perhaps be arecollection of the cave-lion. Two fine specimens, in cut granite, stand on the esplanadeof the Temple of Kami-Hamayou at Simonosdki. The is the terror of allpeople. This immense dragon generally haunts the deep sea caverns, but sometimeshe comes up to the surface; and springing towards heaven, causes such a perturbationof the , that he produces the redoubtable phenomenon known as the is a turtle with a dogs head and a long tail of trailing marine mosses. There 144 LIFE IN JAPAN. are Mookis so old, that the legends tell how trees, rocks, and peaks have grown upon their backs. In the most zealous days of Buddhism, the seventh and eighth centuries,the bonzes themselves lent a hand in the building of the temples and adorningthem with pictures and statues. But though the native arts, especially sculpture and architecture, may be indebted to. TlIK TATS-MAKI, OU DliAGON OF TIIF. TVlllillNS them for some portion of their progress, little good can be said of the bonzes ur \\v literaryproductions. Let us try to imagine what the monastic lucubrations must he! Theyconsist of tliousands of volumes upon the lotus of the Good Law, upon tlie twenty-eight subdivisions of contemplation, upon the glories of Buddha, nnd tlie niiinoulouslives of the innumerable ascetics, saints, and martyrs of his religion. The true meritof sucli a literature is that it is absolutely illegible outside that separate world KIBIKO. 145 composed by the inhabitants of the bonze-houses and the regular frequenters of thoseestablishments. At a period in which Chinese characters were still used in writing the Japaneselanguage, a learned man of the sect of Youto, named Kibiko, abridged the compli-cated forms of those immense large square characters, reducing them to forty-seven I 1 Kt^ T^^^w^S^^H 1 ^^H^^H^^*-;V^-jfl V ^^^^^^?11 ilK.^r I^^^H


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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidjapanjapanes, bookyear1874