NEW BOOKS

Evening Star, Issue 20137, 30 March 1929, Page 21

NEW BOOKS

OLD JAPANESE CLASSICS ' The Hojoki and Selections from the Heike Monogatari.'—We hope Messrs Angus and Robertson, who send us our copy of tins book, will be rewarded for their venture in the publication of it. The reading constituency for a book of this kind must be limited. Yet those who pass it by will miss a very human document. Tlu selections are from the thirteenth century Japanese classics, translated by Mr Sadlier, professor of Oriental studies in the University of Sydney. 'The Hogi, or Ten Foot Square Hut,' is the reflection of a recluse who, sick of the world, that had disappointed him by its violent contrasts, retired from it into a hut of the dimensions indicated, and there spent the remainder of his life. The reflections enable us to appreciate how the human heart is the same in all ages, and pathetically fingers the what and whence and why and whether of life. " The three phenomenal worlds —the World of Desire,, the World of Form, and the World of "No Form—are entirely of the mind. If the mind is not nt rest, horses and oxen and the Seven Precious Things and Palaces and Pavilions are of no use. . . . T commit my life to fate without special wish to live or desire to die. With this lonely cottage of mine, this hut of our room, I am quite content.'' Tu this hot and hurried age of ours, it would do it good to. let the cool, calm air from these reflections of this thirteenth century Japanese thinker blow upon it. 'The Tales of the Heike' supply the historic background of the author of the meditations. They resemble in some respects, as Professor Sadlier points out. the Song of Roland or the Sagas of Europe. 'They differ in being more historical, and also in being written in poetical prose and not in verse. Buddist theology forms the background of these, as does Christian theology the European ours. And it is interesting to study how human nature in East and West reacts to the quest of the human soul in its search for the summum boir.im of life. This book gives it in its Japanese form.