Gleanings in Buddha-Fields

dency originated from the desire to appease the troubled spirit, although today the experience of great suffering seems to be thought of as qualifying the person who endures it for divine conditions of being—and there would be no foolishness at all in such a thought.) But there were even more remarkable deifications. Certain people, while still alive, were honored by having temples built for their spirits and were treated as gods; not, indeed, as national gods, but as lesser divinities—tutelary deities protective or guardian gods, perhaps, or village gods. There was, for instance, Hamaguchi Gohei, a farmer of the district of Arita in the province of Kishu, who was made a god before he died. And I think he deserved it.

II

Before telling the story of Hamaguchi Gohei, I must say a few words about certain laws—or, more accurately, customs having all the force of laws—by which many village communities were ruled in pre-Meiji times. These customs were based on the social experience of ages; and though they differed in minor details according to the province