الفصل الفصل 5 · At the Market of the Dead

. At the Market of the Dead

Sec. 1

IT is just past five o'clock in the afternoon. Through the open door of

my little study the rising breeze of evening is beginning to disturb the

papers on my desk, and the white fire of the Japanese sun is taking that

pale amber tone which tells that the heat of the day is over. There

is not a cloud in the blue--not even one of those beautiful white

filamentary things, like ghosts of silken floss, which usually swim in

this most ethereal of earthly skies even in the driest weather.

A sudden shadow at the door. Akira, the young Buddhist student, stands

at the threshold slipping his white feet out of his sandal-thongs

preparatory to entering, and smiling like the god Jizo.

'Ah! komban, Akira.'

'To-night,' says Akira, seating himself upon the floor in the posture

of Buddha upon the Lotus, 'the Bon-ichi will be held. Perhaps you would

like to see it?'

'Oh, Akira, all things in this country I should like to see. But tell

me, I pray you; unto what may the Bon-ichi be likened?'

'The Bon-ichi,' answers Akira, 'is a market at which will be sold all

things required for the Festival of the Dead; and the Festival of the

Dead will begin to-morrow, when all the altars of the temples and all

the shrines in the homes of good Buddhists will be made beautiful.'

'Then I want to see the Bon-ichi, Akira, and I should also like to see a

Buddhist shrine--a household shrine.'

'Yes, will you come to my room?' asks Akira. 'It is not far--in the

Street of the Aged Men, beyond the Street of the Stony River, and near

to the Street Everlasting. There is a butsuma there--a household

shrine--and on the way I will tell you about the Bonku.'

So, for the first time, I learn those things--which I am now about to

write.

Sec. 2

From the 13th to the 15th day of July is held the Festival of the

Dead--the Bommatsuri or Bonku--by some Europeans called the Feast of

Lanterns. But in many places there are two such festivals annually; for

those who still follow the ancient reckoning of time by moons hold

that the Bommatsuri should fall on the 13th, 14th, and 15th days of

the seventh month of the antique calendar, which corresponds to a later

period of the year.

Early on the morning of the 13th, new mats of purest rice straw, woven

expressly for the festival, are spread upon all Buddhist altars and

within each butsuma or butsudan--the little shrine before which the

morning and evening prayers are offered up in every believing home.

Shrines and altars are likewise decorated with beautiful embellishments

of coloured paper, and with flowers and sprigs of certain hallowed

plants--always real lotus-flowers when obtainable, otherwise

lotus-flowers of paper, and fresh branches of shikimi (anise) and

of misohagi (lespedeza). Then a tiny lacquered table--a zen-such as

Japanese meals are usually served upon, is placed upon the altar,

and the food offerings are laid on it. But in the smaller shrines of

Japanese homes the offerings are more often simply laid upon the rice

matting, wrapped in fresh lotus-leaves.

These offerings consist of the foods called somen, resembling our

vermicelli, gozen, which is boiled rice, dango, a sort of tiny dumpling,

eggplant, and fruits according to season--frequently uri and saikwa,

slices of melon and watermelon, and plums and peaches. Often sweet cakes

and dainties are added. Sometimes the offering is only O-sho-jin-gu

(honourable uncooked food); more usually it is O-rio-gu (honourable

boiled food); but it never includes, of course, fish, meats, or wine.

Clear water is given to the shadowy guest, and is sprinkled from time to

time upon the altar or within the shrine with a branch of misohagi; tea

is poured out every hour for the viewless visitors, and everything is

daintily served up in little plates and cups and bowls, as for living

guests, with hashi (chopsticks) laid beside the offering. So for three

days the dead are feasted.

At sunset, pine torches, fixed in the ground before each home, are

kindled to guide the spirit-visitors. Sometimes, also, on the first

evening of the Bommatsuri, welcome-fires (mukaebi) are lighted along

the shore of the sea or lake or river by which the village or city is

situated--neither more nor less than one hundred and eight fires; this

number having some mystic signification in the philosophy of Buddhism.

And charming lanterns are suspended each night at the entrances of

homes--the Lanterns of the Festival of the Dead--lanterns of special

forms and colours, beautifully painted with suggestions of landscape and

shapes of flowers, and always decorated with a peculiar fringe of paper

streamers.

Also, on the same night, those who have dead friends go to the

cemeteries and make offerings there, and pray, and burn incense, and

pour out water for the ghosts. Flowers are placed there in the bamboo

vases set beside each haka, and lanterns are lighted and hung up before

the tombs, but these lanterns have no designs upon them.

At sunset on the evening of the 15th only the offerings called Segaki

are made in the temples. Then are fed the ghosts of the Circle of

Penance, called Gakido, the place of hungry spirits; and then also are

fed by the priests those ghosts having no other friends among the

living to care for them. Very, very small these offerings are--like the

offerings to the gods.

Sec. 3

Now this, Akira tells me, is the origin of the Segaki, as the same is

related in the holy book Busetsuuran-bongyo:

Dai-Mokenren, the great disciple of Buddha, obtained by merit the Six

Supernatural Powers. And by virtue of them it was given him to see the

soul of his mother in the Gakido--the world of spirits doomed to suffer

hunger in expiation of faults committed in a previous life. Mokenren

saw that his mother suffered much; he grieved exceedingly because of her

pain, and he filled a bowl with choicest food and sent it to her. He

saw her try to eat; but each time that she tried to lift the food to her

lips it would change into fire and burning embers, so that she could

not eat. Then Mokenren asked the Teacher what he could do to relieve his

mother from pain. And the Teacher made answer: 'On the fifteenth day

of the seventh month, feed the ghosts of the great priests of all

countries.' And Mokenren, having done so, saw that his mother was freed

from the state of gaki, and that she was dancing for joy. [1] This is

the origin also of the dances called Bono-dori, which are danced on the

third night of the Festival of the Dead throughout Japan.

Upon the third and last night there is a weirdly beautiful ceremony,

more touching than that of the Segaki, stranger than the