93. Eight Cho* Square
One day Oyasama was gazing out of the south window of Her room in the Nakaminami-Gatehouse and looking at the vast expanse of bamboo thickets and rice fields. Suddenly She said to the attendants:
“Someday this neighborhood will be filled with houses. Houses will line the street for seven ri** between Nara and Hase. One ri square will be filled with inns. The divine Residence will become eight cho square.”
* Eight cho equals 872 meters.
** One ri equals about four kilometers.
Note: It is taught in the Osashizu:
“It will not do to think of small things. You do not understand that when the years accumulate step by step, this place will become eight cho square.”
November 17, 1894
“I have said, ‘It is necessary to go through many years, many years.’ I said, ‘One ri square must become inns.’ I also said, ‘One ri square is still too narrow.'”
Timely Direction: February 6, 1893.
Anecdotes of Oyasama, pp. 78–79.