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212 HONDA THE SAMURAI.
the story of the golden lotus into which a man went
after paying a fat fee to the priests ? He came out
a common corpse to the ordinary eye, but a hotoke
(saint in paradise) according to the certificate of the
bonzes."
" Why, what a good story ! Pray, tell it to your
rustic
friend."
"Well," said Ban, "I used to go to school here
in Yedo, and many a time I have heard the legend
from old men who lived near by. You see right
across the moat, west of the mansion of the Hitotsubashi
family, there was long ago a great meadow
called Go-ji, which the bonzes bought and on it
erected a gorgeous temple. In the main hall a cunning
workman built for them a golden lotus six feet
high. The petals were of great bent plates of gilded
copper, as heavy and powerful in their closing as
the scales of a dragon. The flower, which is the
symbol of deity and eternal peace of Nirvana, was
worked by ingenious machinery so as to open and
shut. The bonzes wished to get money enough to
buy a vast estate, and by enriching themselves and
the temple make it the most famous in Yedo. They
hit upon the plan of persuading pious old people who
were wealthy that this lotus was the gateway to
Nirvana. By sitting in a praying position inside
the lotus and calling continually on holy Buddha,
the lotus-flower would by* divine power
close its
petals upon them, and, instead of pain and death,
sleep and translation into paradise would be theirs.
Amid the chantings of the holy writings by the