Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 3.djvu/283

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

APPENDIX

Note 21.—This term, originally used in the sense of a gathering, an assembly, had now become, and remains to this day, a synonym for the place where the assembly took place.

Note 22.—This rule has one exception. When a wrestler finds his girdle grasped on either side, he is at liberty to pass his hands under his adversary's arms and give an upward heave, thus applying a breaking strain at a point midway between the adversary's elbows and shoulders. The most celebrated wrestler that ever lived in Japan, Raiden Tamayemon (1625), is said to have snapped the bones of more than one opponent by this method, and he was ultimately forbidden to employ it. The strength required for such a feat is scarcely conceivable. It is recorded of this same Raiden that, strenuous as were his methods in the ring, he once shed tears of regret on throwing a man to whom defeat meant ruin.

Note 23.—This theory is thus expressed in Japan: Taikyoku riyo-gi wo shōzu; riyo-gi shizō wo shōzu; shizō hakkwa wo shōzu (From chaos the two principles are born; from the two principles, the four forms; from the four forms, the eight diagrams).

Note 24.—This lady, Kasuga, deservedly enjoyed high favour. When Iyemitsu was in danger of being set aside for the sake of his younger brother, Kasuga saved the situation by carrying the intelligence to Iyeyasu, who was then living in retirement at Shizuoka. She eluded the vigilance of the intrigues in Yedo by pretexting a pilgrimage to the shrines of Ise.

Note 25.—His consort was the daughter of an eminent advocate of Shintō and through her this influence made itself felt in the Yedo Court circle.

Note 26.—Oshio Heihachiro. He and his followers set fire to Osaka, and after a brave struggle were defeated, Oshio committing suicide.

Note 27.—For an admirable résumé of these writers' views see an essay on "The Revival of Pure Shintō" by the greatest authority on Japan and the Japanese, Sir E. Satow, in Volume III. of "The Asiatic Society's Proceedings."

Note 28.—Historians have expressed various opinions about this remarkable statesman's foreign policy. A letter written by him four years before he became Tairō places the

253