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Originally posted by Hanna B
Aren't the sword and the mirror some kind of sacred objects to the Japanese?
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There is the myth of Ame-nigishi-kuni-nigishi-ama-tsu-hidaka-hiko-ho-no-ni-nigi-no-mikoto (whew!
), who, according to legend, founded the imperial dynasty of Jamato. His grandmother, Ama-terasu-o-mi-kami, the sun goddess gave him "The Three Treasures," the sword(Kusa-nagi-no-tachi), the mirror, and the curved jewel, which are imperial symbols still. "Stone" could just be a loose/mis translation of "jewel." Also, stones are sacred objects to Shinto. Who knows? As I understand it, it was hard enough to understand O'Sensei if you were a native speaker of Japanese. With only rough translations (as precise translations of unrelated languages are a lot of the time impossible) of what he said, I wonder if there is any hope for we non-Japanese speakers. Sigh.
Sarah
