the sea (or, "'tis surely a marvelous happening that,"
etc.!_[58])]

[Footnote 58: The puns are too much for me.... _Ayashii_ means
"suspicious," "marvelous," "supernatural," "weird," "doubtful."--In
the first two lines there is a reference to the Buddhist proverb:
_Funa-ita ichi-mai shita wa Jigoku_ ("under the thickness of a single
ship's-plank is Hell"). (See my _Gleanings in Buddha-Fields_, p. 206,
for another reference to this saying.)]


XIII. FUDA-HÉGASHI[59]

Homes are protected from evil spirits by holy texts and charms. In any
Japanese village, or any city by-street, you can see these texts when
the sliding-doors are closed at night: they are not visible by day,
when the sliding-doors have been pushed back into the _tobukuro_.
Such texts are called _o-fuda_ (august scripts): they are written in
Chinese characters upon strips of white paper, which are attached
to the door with rice-paste; and there are many kinds of them. Some
are texts selected from sutras--such as the Sûtra of Transcendent
Wisdom (Pragña-Pâramitâ-Hridaya-Sûtra), or the Sûtra of the Lotos of
the Good Law (Saddharma-Pundarikâ-Sûtra). Some are texts from the
dhâranîs,--which are magical. Some are invocations only, indicating
the Buddhist sect of the household.... Besides these you may see
various smaller texts, or little prints, pasted above or beside
windows or apertures,--some being names of Shinto gods; others,
symbolical pictures only, or pictures of Buddhas and Bodhi-sattvas.
All are holy charms,--_o-fuda_: they protect the houses; and no goblin
or ghost can enter by night into a dwelling so protected, unless the