A Japanese miscellany - University of Oregon

The Case of 0-Dai
I
0-DAI pushed aside the lamplet and the
incense -cup and the water vessel on the
Buddha-shelf, and opened the little shrine
before which they had been placed. Within
were the ihai, the mortuary tablets of her people,
— five in all; and a gilded figure of the Bod-
hisattva Kwannon stood smiling behind them.
The ihai of the grandparents occupied the left
side ; those of the parents the right ; and between
them was a smaller tablet, bearing the kaimyo
of a child-brother with whom she used to play
and quarrel, to laugh and cry, in other and hap-
pier years. Also the shrine contained a mahe-
mono, or scroll, inscribed with the spirit-names
of many ancestors. Before that shrine, from
her infancy, O-Dai had been wont to pray.
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