The biwa is played with a kind of plectrum, called bachi, usually made of
horn.
(1) A response to show that one has heard and is listening attentively.
[4] A respectful term, signifying the opening of a gate. It was used by
samurai when calling to the guards on duty at a lord's gate for admission.
[5] Or the phrase might be rendered, "for the pity of that part is the
deepest." The Japanese word for pity in the original text is "aware."
[6] "Traveling incognito" is at least the meaning of the original
phrase,-- "making a disguised august-journey" (shinobi no go-ryoko).
[7] The Smaller Pragna-Paramita-Hridaya-Sutra is thus called in Japanese.
Both the smaller and larger sutras called Pragna-Paramita ("Transcendent
Wisdom") have been translated by the late Professor Max Muller, and can be
found in volume xlix. of the Sacred Books of the East ("Buddhist Mahayana
Sutras"). -- Apropos of the magical use of the text, as described in this
story, it is worth remarking that the subject of the sutra is the Doctrine
of the Emptiness of Forms,-- that is to say, of the unreal character of all
phenomena or noumena... "Form is emptiness; and emptiness is form.
Emptiness is not different from form; form is not different from emptiness.
What is form -- that is emptiness. What is emptiness -- that is form...
Perception, name, concept, and knowledge, are also emptiness... There is no
eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind... But when theenvelopment of
consciousness has been annihilated, then he [the seeker] becomes free from
all fear, and beyond the reach of change, enjoying final Nirvana."

OSHIDORI
[1] From ancient time, in the Far East, these birds have been regarded as
emblems of conjugal affection.
[2] There is a pathetic double meaning in the third verse; for the
syllables composing the proper name Akanuma ("Red Marsh") may also be read
as akanu-ma, signifying "the time of our inseparable (or delightful)