Done with chapter 5 and was my least favorite so far. The cat was horrible at the end and Mixi jokes seem horrible out of date.
At least I learned a bit more about buddhism by looking into the whole (hole) 乳がゆ thing. The jab at isekai godism also is pretty funny in todays isekai flood.
Can’t get a grasp on 手に職糸の仕事ですから when they talk about why their type of work is a stable work. Can someone translate this sentence for me?
Thoughts on chapter 6 later today.
Edit for 6: 6 is a little better but still not really good. Maybe I was not in the right mood today for the manga. Only one week left so I will keep on reading the last 2 chapters either way. Jesus is hardcore into comedy though and buddah into saving money. Not sure how the author arrived at these character traits for the two.
You have a typo there. It should be 手に職系の仕事ですから. I think he’s saying that they’re in a line of work that is a skilled trade. This website defines 手に職 as:
「弁護士」「司法書士」「税理士」など専門の資格がないと出来ない仕事
「デザイナー」「プログラマー」など専門の技術がないと出来ない仕事
So basically a job that requires either a specialized certification/license or a job that requires specialized skills. He’s trying to argue that they’re not bums.
I did a quick search in German (I figured you had explored everything in English already) and Google came up with this:
“An anderer Stelle wird Buddha in Gestalt eines weißen Elefanten zum Retter. Er opfert sich. Und so kann er einigen Menschen, die sonst in der Wildnis verhungern würden, das Leben retten.”
Translation: In another location [of some texts] Buddha, in the shape of a white elephant, turned into a savior. He sacrificed himself to rescue the lives of some people who were bound to starve in the wilderness.
BTW this is a quote from the Australian religion scholar Professor John Powers. The full text is at:
(this is a state-owned radio channel, much like NHK I guess)
Well, the fact that “white elephant” has several colloquial uses in English doesn’t help matters much.
When I visited Chuson-ji in Hiraizumi, they inexplicably had a statue of a white elephant in the main temple hall (made from papier-mache or something). Sadly, noone talked about the elephant in the room.
OK, it’s been at least two weeks since I wanted to comment on this (and severe anxiety kept me from it), but today I’m gonna do it anyway. Just to be clear: I’m not reading this manga, haven’t seen the series, just happen to know a bit about Buddhism.
The reason for the T-shirt text, Chusonji statue, and other displays of white elephants at temples all across Asia, has to do with the Buddha’s “origin story”. It goes like this: one night, the mother of Shakyamuni Gautama (the historical Buddha) who hadn’t been able to conceive for over 20 years, was visited by a White Elephant in her dreams. It ‘pierced her side’ and lo and behold; she was pregnant soon after! (thus proving that my future time machine works… )
As for the savior-in-the-wilderness story, I’m not sure if it’s the same, but there’s a parable about a different Indian queen who dreamt of a white elephant with 6 tusks and put a massive bounty on its head. Long story short: a hunter found it, shot it with a poison arrow, was then nearly murdered by other angry elephants, but was protected by the White Elephant who in its final moments gifted his tusks to the poor hunter and attained Buddhahood. [if you look closely, you’ll see that the little statue shown in the German article also has 6 tusks]
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Wasn’t aware of that tbh… (my dictionary helped me along, though)
Seems like the English language has something going on with those beasts…
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