Note (return) — Chapter VII · - RIYŌBU, OR MIXED BUDDHISM

The Philo and Euhemerus of Japan was the priest Kukai, who was born in the province of Sanuki, in the year 774. He is better known by his posthumous title Kōbō Daishi, or the Great Teacher who promulgates the Law. By this name we shall call him. About his birth, life and death, have multiplied the usual swaddling bands of Japanese legend and tradition,10 and to his tomb at the temple on Mount Kō-ya, the Campo Santo of Japanese Buddhism, still gather innumerable pilgrims. The "hall of ten thousand lamps," each flame emblematic of the Wisdom that saves, is not, indeed, in these days lighted annually as of old; but the vulgar yet believe that the great master still lives in his mausoleum, in a state of profoundly silent meditation. Into the hall of bones near by, covering a deep pit, the teeth and "Adam's apple" of the cremated bodies of believers are thrown by their relatives, though the pit is cleared out every three years. The devotees believe that by thus disposing of the teeth and "Adam's apple," they obtain the same spiritual privileges as if they were actually entombed there, that is, of being born again into the heaven of the Bodhisattva or the Pure Land of Absolute Bliss, by virtue of the mystic formulas repeated by the great master in his lifetime.