Bab Bab 4 · A Pilgrimage to Enoshima

. A Pilgrimage to Enoshima

Sec. 1

KAMAKURA.

A long, straggling country village, between low wooded hills, with a

canal passing through it. Old Japanese cottages, dingy, neutral-tinted,

with roofs of thatch, very steeply sloping, above their wooden walls and

paper shoji. Green patches on all the roof-slopes, some sort of grass;

and on the very summits, on the ridges, luxurious growths of yaneshobu,

[1] the roof-plant, bearing pretty purple flowers. In the lukewarm air

a mingling of Japanese odours, smells of sake, smells of seaweed soup,

smells of daikon, the strong native radish; and dominating all, a sweet,

thick, heavy scent of incense,--incense from the shrines of gods.

Akira has hired two jinricksha for our pilgrimage; a speckless azure sky

arches the world; and the land lies glorified in a joy of sunshine. And

yet a sense of melancholy, of desolation unspeakable, weighs upon me as

we roll along the bank of the tiny stream, between the mouldering lines

of wretched little homes with grass growing on their roofs. For this

mouldering hamlet represents all that remains of the million-peopled

streets of Yoritomo's capital, the mighty city of the Shogunate, the

ancient seat of feudal power, whither came the envoys of Kublai Khan

demanding tribute, to lose their heads for their temerity. And only some

of the unnumbered temples of the once magnificent city now remain,

saved from the conflagrations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,

doubtless because built in high places, or because isolated from the

maze of burning streets by vast courts and groves. Here still dwell the

ancient gods in the great silence of their decaying temples, without

worshippers, without revenues, surrounded by desolations of rice-fields,

where the chanting of frogs replaces the sea-like murmur of the city

that was and is not.

Sec. 2

The first great temple--En-gaku-ji--invites us to cross the canal by a

little bridge facing its outward gate--a roofed gate with fine Chinese

lines, but without carving. Passing it, we ascend a long, imposing

succession of broad steps, leading up through a magnificent grove to

a terrace, where we reach the second gate. This gate is a surprise; a

stupendous structure of two stories--with huge sweeping curves of roof

and enormous gables--antique, Chinese, magnificent. It is more than four

hundred years old, but seems scarcely affected by the wearing of the

centuries. The whole of the ponderous and complicated upper structure is

sustained upon an open-work of round, plain pillars and cross-beams; the

vast eaves are full of bird-nests; and the storm of twittering from the

roofs is like a rushing of water. Immense the work is, and imposing in

its aspect of settled power; but, in its way, it has great severity:

there are no carvings, no gargoyles, no dragons; and yet the maze

of projecting timbers below the eaves will both excite and delude

expectation, so strangely does it suggest the grotesqueries and

fantasticalities of another art. You look everywhere for the heads of

lions, elephants, dragons, and see only the four-angled ends of beams,

and feel rather astonished than disappointed. The majesty of the edifice

could not have been strengthened by any such carving.

After the gate another long series of wide steps, and more trees,

millennial, thick-shadowing, and then the terrace of the temple

itself, with two beautiful stone lanterns (toro) at its entrance. The

architecture of the temple resembles that of the gate, although on

a lesser scale. Over the doors is a tablet with Chinese characters,

signifying, 'Great, Pure, Clear, Shining Treasure.' But a heavy

framework of wooden bars closes the sanctuary, and there is no one to

let us in. Peering between the bars I see, in a sort of twilight, first

a pavement of squares of marble, then an aisle of massive wooden pillars

upholding the dim lofty roof, and at the farther end, between the

pillars, Shaka, colossal, black-visaged, gold-robed, enthroned upon a

giant lotus fully forty feet in circumference. At his right hand some

white mysterious figure stands, holding an incense-box; at his left,

another white figure is praying with clasped hands. Both are of

superhuman stature. But it is too dark within the edifice to discern who

they may be--whether disciples of the Buddha, or divinities, or figures

of saints.

Beyond this temple extends an immense grove of trees--ancient cedars

and pines--with splendid bamboos thickly planted between them, rising

perpendicularly as masts to mix their plumes with the foliage of the

giants: the effect is tropical, magnificent. Through this shadowing, a

flight of broad stone steps slant up gently to some yet older shrine.

And ascending them we reach another portal, smaller than the imposing

Chinese structure through which we already passed, but wonderful, weird,

full of dragons, dragons of a form which sculptors no longer carve,

which they have even forgotten how to make, winged dragons rising from a

storm-whirl of waters or thereinto descending. The dragon upon the panel

of the left gate has her mouth closed; the jaws of the dragon on the

panel of the right gate are open and menacing. Female and male they are,

like the lions of Buddha. And the whirls of the eddying water, and

the crests of the billowing, stand out from the panel in astonishing

boldness of relief, in loops and curlings of grey wood time-seasoned to

the hardness of stone.

The little temple beyond contains no celebrated image, but a shari only,

or relic of Buddha, brought from India. And I cannot see it, having no

time to wait until the absent keeper of the shari can be found.

Sec. 3

'Now we shall go to look at the big bell,' says Akira.

We turn to the left as we descend along a path cut between hills faced

for the height of seven or eight feet with protection-walls made green

by moss; and reach a flight of extraordinarily dilapidated steps, with

grass springing between their every joint and break--steps so worn down

and displaced by countless feet that they have become ruins, painful and

even dangerous to mount. We reach the summit, however, without mishap,

and find ourselves before a little temple, on the steps of which an old

priest awaits us, with smiling bow of welcome. We return his salutation;

but ere entering the temple turn to look at the tsurigane on the

right--the famous bell.

Under a lofty open shed, with a tilted Chinese roof, the great bell is

hung. I should judge it to be fully nine feet high, and about five feet

in diameter, with lips about eight inches thick. The shape of it is not

like that of our bells, which broaden toward the lips; this has the same

diameter through all its height, and it is covered with Buddhist texts

cut into the smooth metal of it. It is rung by means of a heavy swinging

beam, suspended from the roof by chains, and moved like a battering-ram.

There are loops of palm-fibre rope attached to this beam to pull it by;

and when you pull hard enough, so as to give it a good swing, it strikes

a moulding like a lotus-flower on the side of the bell. This it must

have done many hundred times; for the square, flat end of it, though

showing the grain of a very dense wood, has been battered into a convex

disk with ragged protruding edges, like the surface of a long-used

printer's mallet.

A priest makes a sign to me to ring the bell. I first touch the great

lips with my hand very lightly; and a musical murmur comes from them.

Then I set the beam swinging strongly; and a sound deep as thunder,

rich as the bass of a mighty organ--a sound enormous, extraordinary, yet

beautiful--rolls over the hills and away. Then swiftly follows another

and lesser and sweeter billowing of tone; then another; then an eddying

of waves of echoes. Only once was it struck, the astounding bell; yet it

continues to sob and moan for at least ten minutes!

And the age of this bell is six hundred and fifty years. [2]

In the little temple near by, the priest shows us a series of curious

paintings, representing the six hundredth anniversary of the casting

of the bell. (For this is a sacred bell, and the spirit of a god

is believed to dwell within it.) Otherwise the temple has little

of interest. There are some kakemono representing Iyeyasu and his

retainers; and on either side of the door, separating the inner from the

outward sanctuary, there are life-size images of Japanese warriors in

antique costume. On the altars of the inner shrine are small images,

grouped upon a miniature landscape-work of painted wood--the Jiugo-Doji,

or Fifteen Youths--the Sons of the Goddess Benten. There are gohei

before the shrine, and a mirror upon it; emblems of Shinto. The

sanctuary has changed hands in the great transfer of Buddhist temples to

the State religion.

In nearly every celebrated temple little Japanese prints are sold,

containing the history of the shrine, and its miraculous legends. I find

several such things on sale at the door of the temple, and in one of

them, ornamented with a curious engraving of the bell, I discover, with

Akira's aid, the following traditions:

Sec. 4

In the twelfth year of Bummei, this bell rang itself. And one who

laughed on being told of the miracle, met with misfortune; and another,

who believed, thereafter prospered, and obtained all his desires.

Now, in that time there died in the village of Tamanawa a sick man whose

name was Ono-no-Kimi; and Ono-no-Kimi descended to the region of the

dead, and went before the Judgment-Seat of Emma-O. And Emma, Judge of

Souls, said to him, 'You come too soon! The measure of life allotted

you in the Shaba-world has not yet been exhausted. Go back at once.'

But Ono-no-Kimi pleaded, saying, 'How may I go back, not knowing my way

through the darkness?' And Emma answered him, 'You can find your way

back by listening to the sound of the bell of En-gaku-ji, which is heard

in the Nan-en-budi world, going south.' And Ono-no-Kimi went south, and

heard the bell, and found his way through the darknesses, and revived in

the Shaba-world.

Also in those days there appeared in many provinces a Buddhist priest of

giant stature, whom none remembered to have seen before, and whose name

no man knew, travelling through the land, and everywhere exhorting

the people to pray before the bell of En-gaku-ji. And it was at last

discovered that the giant pilgrim was the holy bell itself, transformed

by supernatural power into the form of a priest. And after these things

had happened, many prayed before the bell, and obtained their wishes.

Sec. 5

'Oh! there is something still to see,' my guide exclaims as we reach

the great Chinese gate again; and he leads the way across the grounds by

another path to a little hill, previously hidden from view by trees. The

face of the hill, a mass of soft stone perhaps one hundred feet high,

is hollowed out into chambers, full of images. These look like

burial-caves; and the images seem funereal monuments. There are

two stories of chambers--three above, two below; and the former are

connected with the latter by a narrow interior stairway cut through

the living rock. And all around the dripping walls of these chambers

on pedestals are grey slabs, shaped exactly like the haka in Buddhist

cemeteries, and chiselled with figures of divinities in high relief. All

have glory-disks: some are naive and sincere like the work of our own

mediaeval image-makers. Several are not unfamiliar. I have seen before,

in the cemetery of Kuboyama, this kneeling woman with countless shadowy

hands; and this figure tiara-coiffed, slumbering with one knee raised,

and cheek pillowed upon the left hand--the placid and pathetic symbol of

the perpetual rest. Others, like Madonnas, hold lotus-flowers, and their

feet rest upon the coils of a serpent. I cannot see them all, for the

rock roof of one chamber has fallen in; and a sunbeam entering the ruin

reveals a host of inaccessible sculptures half buried in rubbish.

But no!--this grotto-work is not for the dead; and these are not haka,

as I imagined, but only images of the Goddess of Mercy. These chambers

are chapels; and these sculptures are the En-gaku-ji-no-hyaku-Kwannon,

'the Hundred Kwannons of En-gaku-ji.' And I see in the upper chamber

above the stairs a granite tablet in a rock-niche, chiselled with

an inscription in Sanscrit transliterated into Chinese characters,

'Adoration to the great merciful Kwan-ze-on, who looketh down above the

sound of prayer.' [3]

Sec. 6

Entering the grounds of the next temple, the Temple of Ken-cho-ji,

through the 'Gate of the Forest of Contemplative Words,' and the 'Gate

of the Great Mountain of Wealth,' one might almost fancy one's self

reentering, by some queer mistake, the grounds of En-gaku-ji. For the

third gate before us, and the imposing temple beyond it, constructed

upon the same models as those of the structures previously visited, were

also the work of the same architect. Passing this third gate--colossal,

severe, superb--we come to a fountain of bronze before the temple doors,

an immense and beautiful lotus-leaf of metal, forming a broad shallow

basin kept full to the brim by a jet in its midst.

This temple also is paved with black and white square slabs, and we

can enter it with our shoes. Outside it is plain and solemn as that of

En-gaku-ji; but the interior offers a more extraordinary spectacle of

faded splendour. In lieu of the black Shaka throned against a background

of flamelets, is a colossal Jizo-Sama, with a nimbus of fire--a single

gilded circle large as a wagon-wheel, breaking into fire-tongues

at three points. He is seated upon an enormous lotus of tarnished

gold--over the lofty edge of which the skirt of his robe trails down.

Behind him, standing on ascending tiers of golden steps, are glimmering

hosts of miniature figures of him, reflections, multiplications of him,

ranged there by ranks of hundreds--the Thousand Jizo. From the ceiling

above him droop the dingy splendours of a sort of dais-work, a streaming

circle of pendants like a fringe, shimmering faintly through the webbed

dust of centuries. And the ceiling itself must once have been a marvel;

all beamed in caissons, each caisson containing, upon a gold ground,

the painted figure of a flying bird. Formerly the eight great pillars

supporting the roof were also covered with gilding; but only a few

traces of it linger still upon their worm-pierced surfaces, and about

the bases of their capitals. And there are wonderful friezes above the

doors, from which all colour has long since faded away, marvellous grey

old carvings in relief; floating figures of tennin, or heavenly spirits

playing upon flutes and biwa.

There is a chamber separated by a heavy wooden screen from the aisle on

the right; and the priest in charge of the building slides the screen

aside, and bids us enter. In this chamber is a drum elevated upon

a brazen stand,--the hugest I ever saw, fully eighteen feet in

circumference. Beside it hangs a big bell, covered with Buddhist texts.

I am sorry to learn that it is prohibited to sound the great drum. There

is nothing else to see except some dingy paper lanterns figured with the

svastika--the sacred Buddhist symbol called by the Japanese manji.

Sec. 7

Akira tells me that in the book called Jizo-kyo-Kosui, this legend

is related of the great statue of Jizo in this same ancient temple of

Ken-cho-ji.

Formerly there lived at Kamakura the wife of a Ronin [4] named Soga

Sadayoshi. She lived by feeding silkworms and gathering the silk. She

used often to visit the temple of Ken-cho-ji; and one very cold day

that she went there, she thought that the image of Jizo looked like one

suffering from cold; and she resolved to make a cap to keep the god's

head warm--such a cap as the people of the country wear in cold weather.

And she went home and made the cap and covered the god's head with it,

saying, 'Would I were rich enough to give thee a warm covering for all

thine august body; but, alas! I am poor, and even this which I offer

thee is unworthy of thy divine acceptance.'

Now this woman very suddenly died in the fiftieth year of her age, in

the twelfth month of the fifth year of the period called Chisho. But

her body remained warm for three days, so that her relatives would not

suffer her to be taken to the burning-ground. And on the evening of the

third day she came to life again.

Then she related that on the day of her death she had gone before the

judgment-seat of Emma, king and judge of the dead. And Emma, seeing her,

became wroth, and said to her: 'You have been a wicked woman, and have

scorned the teaching of the Buddha. All your life you have passed in

destroying the lives of silkworms by putting them into heated water. Now

you shall go to the Kwakkto-Jigoku, and there burn until your sins shall

be expiated.' Forthwith she was seized and dragged by demons to a great

pot filled with molten metal, and thrown into the pot, and she cried out

horribly. And suddenly Jizo-Sama descended into the molten metal beside

her, and the metal became like a flowing of oil and ceased to burn; and

Jizo put his arms about her and lifted her out. And he went with her

before King Emma, and asked that she should be pardoned for his sake,

forasmuch as she had become related to him by one act of goodness. So

she found pardon, and returned to the Shaba-world.

'Akira,' I ask, 'it cannot then be lawful, according to Buddhism, for

any one to wear silk?'

'Assuredly not,' replies Akira; 'and by the law of Buddha priests are

expressly forbidden to wear silk. Nevertheless,' he adds with that quiet

smile of his, in which I am beginning to discern suggestions of sarcasm,

'nearly all the priests wear silk.'

Sec. 8

Akira also tells me this:

It is related in the seventh volume of the book Kamakurashi that there

was formerly at Kamakura a temple called Emmei-ji, in which there was

enshrined a famous statue of Jizo, called Hadaka-Jizo, or Naked Jizo.

The statue was indeed naked, but clothes were put upon it; and it stood

upright with its feet upon a chessboard. Now, when pilgrims came to the

temple and paid a certain fee, the priest of the temple would remove the

clothes of the statue; and then all could see that, though the face was

the face of Jizo, the body was the body of a woman.

Now this was the origin of the famous image of Hadaka-Jizo standing upon

the chessboard. On one occasion the great prince Taira-no-Tokyori was

playing chess with his wife in the presence of many guests. And he made

her agree, after they had played several games, that whosoever should

lose the next game would have to stand naked on the chessboard. And in

the next game they played his wife lost. And she prayed to Jizo to save

her from the shame of appearing naked. And Jizo came in answer to her

prayer and stood upon the chessboard, and disrobed himself, and changed

his body suddenly into the body of a woman.

Sec. 9

As we travel on, the road curves and narrows between higher elevations,

and becomes more sombre. 'Oi! mat!' my Buddhist guide calls softly

to the runners; and our two vehicles halt in a band of sunshine,

descending, through an opening in the foliage of immense trees, over a

flight of ancient mossy steps. 'Here,' says my friend, 'is the temple of

the King of Death; it is called Emma-Do; and it is a temple of the Zen

sect--Zen-Oji. And it is more than seven hundred years old, and there is

a famous statue in it.'

We ascend to a small, narrow court in which the edifice stands. At

the head of the steps, to the right, is a stone tablet, very old, with

characters cut at least an inch deep into the granite of it, Chinese

characters signifying, 'This is the Temple of Emma, King.'

The temple resembles outwardly and inwardly the others we have visited,

and, like those of Shaka and of the colossal Jizo of Kamakura, has a

paved floor, so that we are not obliged to remove our shoes on entering.

Everything is worn, dim, vaguely grey; there is a pungent scent of

mouldiness; the paint has long ago peeled away from the naked wood of

the pillars. Throned to right and left against the high walls tower

nine grim figures--five on one side, four on the other--wearing strange

crowns with trumpet-shapen ornaments; figures hoary with centuries, and

so like to the icon of Emma, which I saw at Kuboyama, that I ask, 'Are

all these Emma?' 'Oh, no!' my guide answers; 'these are his attendants

only--the Jiu-O, the Ten Kings.' 'But there are only nine?' I query.

'Nine, and Emma completes the number. You have not yet seen Emma.'

Where is he? I see at the farther end of the chamber an altar elevated

upon a platform approached by wooden steps; but there is no image, only

the usual altar furniture of gilded bronze and lacquer-ware. Behind the

altar I see only a curtain about six feet square--a curtain once dark

red, now almost without any definite hue--probably veiling some alcove.

A temple guardian approaches, and invites us to ascend the platform. I

remove my shoes before mounting upon the matted surface, and follow the

guardian behind the altar, in front of the curtain. He makes me a sign

to look, and lifts the veil with a long rod. And suddenly, out of the

blackness of some mysterious profundity masked by that sombre

curtain, there glowers upon me an apparition at the sight of which I

involuntarily start back--a monstrosity exceeding all anticipation--a

Face. [5]

A Face tremendous, menacing, frightful, dull red, as with the redness of

heated iron cooling into grey. The first shock of the vision is no

doubt partly due to the somewhat theatrical manner in which the work is

suddenly revealed out of darkness by the lifting of the curtain. But

as the surprise passes I begin to recognise the immense energy of the

conception--to look for the secret of the grim artist. The wonder of

the creation is not in the tiger frown, nor in the violence of the

terrific mouth, nor in the fury and ghastly colour of the head as a

whole: it is in the eyes--eyes of nightmare.

Sec. 10

Now this weird old temple has its legend.

Seven hundred years ago, 'tis said, there died the great image-maker,

the great busshi; Unke-Sosei. And Unke-Sosei signifies 'Unke who

returned from the dead.' For when he came before Emma, the Judge of

Souls, Emma said to him: 'Living, thou madest no image of me. Go back

unto earth and make one, now that thou hast looked upon me.' And Unke

found himself suddenly restored to the world of men; and they that

had known him before, astonished to see him alive again, called him

Unke-Sosei. And Unke-Sosei, bearing with him always the memory of the

countenance of Emma, wrought this image of him, which still inspires

fear in all who behold it; and he made also the images of the grim

Jiu-O, the Ten Kings obeying Emma, which sit throned about the temple.

I want to buy a picture of Emma, and make my wish known to the temple

guardian. Oh, yes, I may buy a picture of Emma, but I must first see the

Oni. I follow the guardian out of the temple, down the mossy steps, and

across the village highway into a little Japanese cottage, where I take

my seat upon the floor. The guardian disappears behind a screen, and

presently returns dragging with him the Oni--the image of a demon,

naked, blood-red, indescribably ugly. The Oni is about three feet high.

He stands in an attitude of menace, brandishing a club. He has a head

shaped something like the head of a bulldog, with brazen eyes; and his

feet are like the feet of a lion. Very gravely the guardian turns the

grotesquery round and round, that I may admire its every aspect; while

a naive crowd collects before the open door to look at the stranger and

the demon.

Then the guardian finds me a rude woodcut of Emma, with a sacred

inscription printed upon it; and as soon as I have paid for it, he

proceeds to stamp the paper, with the seal of the temple. The seal he

keeps in a wonderful lacquered box, covered with many wrappings of

soft leather. These having been removed, I inspect the seal--an oblong,

vermilion-red polished stone, with the design cut in intaglio upon it.

He moistens the surface with red ink, presses it upon the corner of

the paper bearing the grim picture, and the authenticity of my strange

purchase is established for ever.

Sec. 11

You do not see the Dai-Butsu as you enter the grounds of his

long-vanished temple, and proceed along a paved path across stretches of

lawn; great trees hide him. But very suddenly, at a turn, he comes into

full view and you start! No matter how many photographs of the colossus

you may have already seen, this first vision of the reality is an

astonishment. Then you imagine that you are already too near, though

the image is at least a hundred yards away. As for me, I retire at once

thirty or forty yards back, to get a better view. And the jinricksha man

runs after me, laughing and gesticulating, thinking that I imagine the

image alive and am afraid of it.

But, even were that shape alive, none could be afraid of it. The

gentleness, the dreamy passionlessness of those features,--the immense

repose of the whole figure--are full of beauty and charm. And, contrary

to all expectation, the nearer you approach the giant Buddha, the

greater this charm becomes. You look up into the solemnly beautiful

face--into the half-closed eyes that seem to watch you through their

eyelids of bronze as gently as those of a child; and you feel that the

image typifies all that is tender and calm in the Soul of the East. Yet

you feel also that only Japanese thought could have created it. Its

beauty, its dignity, its perfect repose, reflect the higher life of the

race that imagined it; and, though doubtless inspired by some Indian

model, as the treatment of the hair and various symbolic marks reveal,

the art is Japanese.

So mighty and beautiful the work is, that you will not for some time

notice the magnificent lotus-plants of bronze, fully fifteen feet high,

planted before the figure, on either side of the great tripod in which

incense-rods are burning.

Through an orifice in the right side of the enormous lotus-blossom on

which the Buddha is seated, you can enter into the statue. The interior

contains a little shrine of Kwannon, and a statue of the priest Yuten,

and a stone tablet bearing in Chinese characters the sacred formula,

Namu Amida Butsu.

A ladder enables the pilgrim to ascend into the interior of the colossus

as high as the shoulders, in which are two little windows commanding a

wide prospect of the grounds; while a priest, who acts as guide, states

the age of the statue to be six hundred and thirty years, and asks

for some small contribution to aid in the erection of a new temple to

shelter it from the weather.

For this Buddha once had a temple. A tidal wave following an earthquake

swept walls and roof away, but left the mighty Amida unmoved, still

meditating upon his lotus.

Sec. 12

And we arrive before the far-famed Kamakura temple of Kwannon--Kwannon,

who yielded up her right to the Eternal Peace that she might save the

souls of men, and renounced Nirvana to suffer with humanity for other

myriad million ages--Kwannon, the Goddess of Pity and of Mercy.

I climb three flights of steps leading to the temple, and a young girl,

seated at the threshold, rises to greet us. Then she disappears within

the temple to summon the guardian priest, a venerable man, white-robed,

who makes me a sign to enter.

The temple is large as any that I have yet seen, and, like the others,

grey with the wearing of six hundred years. From the roof there hang

down votive offerings, inscriptions, and lanterns in multitude, painted

with various pleasing colours. Almost opposite to the entrance is a

singular statue, a seated figure, of human dimensions and most human

aspect, looking upon us with small weird eyes set in a wondrously

wrinkled face. This face was originally painted flesh-tint, and the

robes of the image pale blue; but now the whole is uniformly grey

with age and dust, and its colourlessness harmonises so well with the

senility of the figure that one is almost ready to believe one's self

gazing at a living mendicant pilgrim. It is Benzuru, the same personage

whose famous image at Asakusa has been made featureless by the wearing

touch of countless pilgrim-fingers. To left and right of the entrance

are the Ni-O, enormously muscled, furious of aspect; their crimson

bodies are speckled with a white scum of paper pellets spat at them

by worshippers. Above the altar is a small but very pleasing image of

Kwannon, with her entire figure relieved against an oblong halo of gold,

imitating the flickering of flame.

But this is not the image for which the temple is famed; there is

another to be seen upon certain conditions. The old priest presents

me with a petition, written in excellent and eloquent English, praying

visitors to contribute something to the maintenance of the temple and

its pontiff, and appealing to those of another faith to remember that

'any belief which can make men kindly and good is worthy of respect.' I

contribute my mite, and I ask to see the great Kwannon.

Then the old priest lights a lantern, and leads the way, through a low

doorway on the left of the altar, into the interior of the temple, into

some very lofty darkness. I follow him cautiously awhile, discerning

nothing whatever but the flicker of the lantern; then we halt before

something which gleams. A moment, and my eyes, becoming more accustomed

to the darkness, begin to distinguish outlines; the gleaming object

defines itself gradually as a Foot, an immense golden Foot, and I

perceive the hem of a golden robe undulating over the instep. Now the

other foot appears; the figure is certainly standing. I can perceive

that we are in a narrow but also very lofty chamber, and that out of

some mysterious blackness overhead ropes are dangling down into the

circle of lantern-light illuminating the golden feet. The priest lights

two more lanterns, and suspends them upon hooks attached to a pair of

pendent ropes about a yard apart; then he pulls up both together slowly.

More of the golden robe is revealed as the lanterns ascend, swinging on

their way; then the outlines of two mighty knees; then the curving of

columnar thighs under chiselled drapery, and, as with the still waving

ascent of the lanterns the golden Vision towers ever higher through the

gloom, expectation intensifies. There is no sound but the sound of the

invisible pulleys overhead, which squeak like bats. Now above the golden

girdle, the suggestion of a bosom. Then the glowing of a golden hand

uplifted in benediction. Then another golden hand holding a lotus.

And at last a Face, golden, smiling with eternal youth and infinite

tenderness, the face of Kwannon.

So revealed out of the consecrated darkness, this ideal of divine

feminity--creation of a forgotten art and time--is more than impressive.

I can scarcely call the emotion which it produces admiration; it is

rather reverence. But the lanterns, which paused awhile at the level of

the beautiful face, now ascend still higher, with a fresh squeaking

of pulleys. And lo! the tiara of the divinity appears with strangest

symbolism. It is a pyramid of heads, of faces-charming faces of maidens,

miniature faces of Kwannon herself.

For this is the Kwannon of the Eleven Faces--Jiu-ichimen-Kwannon.

Sec. 13

Most sacred this statue is held; and this is its legend.

In the reign of Emperor Gensei, there lived in the province of Yamato

a Buddhist priest, Tokudo Shonin, who had been in a previous birth Hold

Bosatsu, but had been reborn among common men to save their souls. Now

at that time, in a valley in Yamato, Tokudo Shonin, walking by night,

saw a wonderful radiance; and going toward it found that it came

from the trunk of a great fallen tree, a kusunoki, or camphor-tree. A

delicious perfume came from the tree, and the shining of it was like the

shining of the moon. And by these signs Tokudo Shonin knew that the wood

was holy; and he bethought him that he should have the statue of Kwannon

carved from it. And he recited a sutra, and repeated the Nenbutsu,

praying for inspiration; and even while he prayed there came and stood

before him an aged man and an aged woman; and these said to him, 'We

know that your desire is to have the image of Kwannon-Sama carved from

this tree with the help of Heaven; continue therefore, to pray, and we

shall carve the statue.'

And Tokudo Shonin did as they bade him; and he saw them easily split the

vast trunk into two equal parts, and begin to carve each of the parts

into an image. And he saw them so labour for three days; and on the

third day the work was done--and he saw the two marvellous statues of

Kwannon made perfect before him. And he said to the strangers: 'Tell me,

I pray you, by what names you are known.' Then the old man answered:

'I am Kasuga Myojin.' And the woman answered: 'I am called

Ten-sho-ko-dai-jin; I am the Goddess of the Sun.' And as they spoke both

became transfigured and ascended to heaven and vanished from the sight

of Tokudo Shonin. [6]

And the Emperor, hearing of these happenings, sent his representative

to Yamato to make offerings, and to have a temple built. Also the great

priest, Gyogi-Bosatsu, came and consecrated the images, and dedicated

the temple which by order of the Emperor was built. And one of the

statues he placed in the temple, enshrining it, and commanding it: 'Stay

thou here always to save all living creatures!' But the other statue he

cast into the sea, saying to it: 'Go thou whithersoever it is best, to

save all the living.'

Now the statue floated to Kamakura. And there arriving by night it shed

a great radiance all about it as if there were sunshine upon the sea;

and the fishermen of Kamakura were awakened by the great light; and

they went out in boats, and found the statue floating and brought it to

shore. And the Emperor ordered that a temple should be built for it,

the temple called Shin-haseidera, on the mountain called Kaiko-San, at

Kamakura.

Sec. 14

As we leave the temple of Kwannon behind us, there are no more dwellings

visible along the road; the green slopes to left and right become

steeper, and the shadows of the great trees deepen over us. But still,

at intervals, some flight of venerable mossy steps, a carven Buddhist

gateway, or a lofty torii, signals the presence of sanctuaries we have

no time to visit: countless crumbling shrines are all around us, dumb

witnesses to the antique splendour and vastness of the dead capital; and

everywhere, mingled with perfume of blossoms, hovers the sweet, resinous

smell of Japanese incense. Be-times we pass a scattered multitude of

sculptured stones, like segments of four-sided pillars--old haka, the

forgotten tombs of a long-abandoned cemetery; or the solitary image of

some Buddhist deity--a dreaming Amida or faintly smiling Kwannon. All

are ancient, time-discoloured, mutilated; a few have been weather-worn

into unrecognisability. I halt a moment to contemplate something

pathetic, a group of six images of the charming divinity who cares

for the ghosts of little children--the Roku-Jizo. Oh, how chipped

and scurfed and mossed they are! Five stand buried almost up to their

shoulders in a heaping of little stones, testifying to the prayers of

generations; and votive yodarekake, infant bibs of divers colours, have

been put about the necks of these for the love of children lost. But

one of the gentle god's images lies shattered and overthrown in its own

scattered pebble-pile-broken perhaps by some passing wagon.

Sec. 15

The road slopes before us as we go, sinks down between cliffs steep as

the walls of a canyon, and curves. Suddenly we emerge from the cliffs,

and reach the sea. It is blue like the unclouded sky--a soft dreamy

blue.

And our path turns sharply to the right, and winds along cliff-summits

overlooking a broad beach of dun-coloured sand; and the sea wind

blows deliciously with a sweet saline scent, urging the lungs to fill

themselves to the very utmost; and far away before me, I perceive a

beautiful high green mass, an island foliage-covered, rising out of the

water about a quarter of a mile from the mainland--Enoshima, the holy

island, sacred to the goddess of the sea, the goddess of beauty. I

can already distinguish a tiny town, grey-sprinkling its steep slope.

Evidently it can be reached to-day on foot, for the tide is out, and has

left bare a long broad reach of sand, extending to it, from the opposite

village which we are approaching, like a causeway.

At Katase, the little settlement facing the island, we must leave our

jinricksha and walk; the dunes between the village and the beach are too

deep to pull the vehicle over. Scores of other jinricksha are waiting

here in the little narrow street for pilgrims who have preceded me.

But to-day, I am told, I am the only European who visits the shrine of

Benten.

Our two men lead the way over the dunes, and we soon descend upon damp

firm sand.

As we near the island the architectural details of the little town

define delightfully through the faint sea-haze--curved bluish sweeps of

fantastic roofs, angles of airy balconies, high-peaked curious gables,

all above a fluttering of queerly shaped banners covered with mysterious

lettering. We pass the sand-flats; and the ever-open Portal of the

Sea-city, the City of the Dragon-goddess, is before us, a beautiful

torii. All of bronze it is, with shimenawa of bronze above it, and a

brazen tablet inscribed with characters declaring: 'This is the Palace

of the Goddess of Enoshima.' About the bases of the ponderous pillars

are strange designs in relievo, eddyings of waves with tortoises

struggling in the flow. This is really the gate of the city, facing the

shrine of Benten by the land approach; but it is only the third torii

of the imposing series through Katase: we did not see the others, having

come by way of the coast.

And lo! we are in Enoshima. High before us slopes the single street, a

street of broad steps, a street shadowy, full of multi-coloured flags

and dank blue drapery dashed with white fantasticalities, which are

words, fluttered by the sea wind. It is lined with taverns and miniature

shops. At every one I must pause to look; and to dare to look at

anything in Japan is to want to buy it. So I buy, and buy, and buy!

For verily 'tis the City of Mother-of-Pearl, this Enoshima. In every

shop, behind the lettered draperies there are miracles of shell-work

for sale at absurdly small prices. The glazed cases laid flat upon the

matted platforms, the shelved cabinets set against the walls, are all

opalescent with nacreous things--extraordinary surprises, incredible

ingenuities; strings of mother-of-pearl fish, strings of mother-of-pearl

birds, all shimmering with rainbow colours. There are little kittens of

mother-of-pearl, and little foxes of mother-of-pearl, and little puppies

of mother-of-pearl, and girls' hair-combs, and cigarette-holders, and

pipes too beautiful to use. There are little tortoises, not larger than

a shilling, made of shells, that, when you touch them, however lightly,

begin to move head, legs, and tail, all at the same time, alternately

withdrawing or protruding their limbs so much like real tortoises as to

give one a shock of surprise. There are storks and birds, and beetles

and butterflies, and crabs and lobsters, made so cunningly of shells,

that only touch convinces you they are not alive. There are bees of

shell, poised on flowers of the same material--poised on wire in such

a way that they seem to buzz if moved only with the tip of a feather.

There is shell-work jewellery indescribable, things that Japanese girls

love, enchantments in mother-of-pearl, hair-pins carven in a hundred

forms, brooches, necklaces. And there are photographs of Enoshima.

Sec. 16

This curious street ends at another torii, a wooden torii, with a

steeper flight of stone steps ascending to it. At the foot of the steps

are votive stone lamps and a little well, and a stone tank at which all

pilgrims wash their hands and rinse their mouths before approaching the

temples of the gods. And hanging beside the tank are bright blue towels,

with large white Chinese characters upon them. I ask Akira what these

characters signify:

'Ho-Keng is the sound of the characters in the Chinese; but in Japanese

the same characters are pronounced Kenjitatetmatsuru, and signify that

those towels are mostly humbly offered to Benten. They are what you call

votive offerings. And there are many kinds of votive offerings made to

famous shrines. Some people give towels, some give pictures, some give

vases; some offer lanterns of paper, or bronze, or stone. It is common

to promise such offerings when making petitions to the gods; and it is

usual to promise a torii. The torii may be small or great according to

the wealth of him who gives it; the very rich pilgrim may offer to

the gods a torii of metal, such as that below, which is the Gate of

Enoshima.'

'Akira, do the Japanese always keep their vows to the gods?'

Akira smiles a sweet smile, and answers: 'There was a man who promised

to build a torii of good metal if his prayers were granted. And he

obtained all that he desired. And then he built a torii with three

exceedingly small needles.'

Sec. 17

Ascending the steps, we reach a terrace, overlooking all the city

roofs. There are Buddhist lions of stone and stone lanterns, mossed and

chipped, on either side the torii; and the background of the terrace is

the sacred hill, covered with foliage. To the left is a balustrade of

stone, old and green, surrounding a shallow pool covered with scum

of water-weed. And on the farther bank above it, out of the bushes,

protrudes a strangely shaped stone slab, poised on edge, and covered

with Chinese characters. It is a sacred stone, and is believed to have

the form of a great frog, gama; wherefore it is called Gama-ishi, the

Frog-stone. Here and there along the edge of the terrace are other

graven monuments, one of which is the offering of certain pilgrims who

visited the shrine of the sea-goddess one hundred times. On the right

other flights of steps lead to loftier terraces; and an old man, who

sits at the foot of them, making bird-cages of bamboo, offers himself as

guide.

We follow him to the next terrace, where there is a school for the

children of Enoshima, and another sacred stone, huge and shapeless:

Fuku-ishi, the Stone of Good Fortune. In old times pilgrims who rubbed

their hands upon it believed they would thereby gain riches; and the

stone is polished and worn by the touch of innumerable palms.

More steps and more green-mossed lions and lanterns, and another terrace

with a little temple in its midst, the first shrine of Benten. Before it

a few stunted palm-trees are growing. There is nothing in the shrine of

interest, only Shinto emblems. But there is another well beside it with

other votive towels, and there is another mysterious monument, a stone

shrine brought from China six hundred years ago. Perhaps it contained

some far-famed statue before this place of pilgrimage was given over

to the priests of Shinto. There is nothing in it now; the monolith slab

forming the back of it has been fractured by the falling of rocks from

the cliff above; and the inscription cut therein has been

almost effaced by some kind of scum. Akira reads

'Dai-Nippongoku-Enoshima-no-reiseki-ken . . .'; the rest is

undecipherable. He says there is a statue in the neighbouring temple,

but it is exhibited only once a year, on the fifteenth day of the

seventh month.

Leaving the court by a rising path to the left, we proceed along the

verge of a cliff overlooking the sea. Perched upon this verge are pretty

tea-houses, all widely open to the sea wind, so that, looking through

them, over their matted floors and lacquered balconies one sees the

ocean as in a picture-frame, and the pale clear horizon specked with

snowy sails, and a faint blue-peaked shape also, like a phantom island,

the far vapoury silhouette of Oshima. Then we find another torii, and

other steps leading to a terrace almost black with shade of enormous

evergreen trees, and surrounded on the sea side by another stone

balustrade, velveted with moss. On the right more steps, another torii,

another terrace; and more mossed green lions and stone lamps; and a

monument inscribed with the record of the change whereby Enoshima passed

away from Buddhism to become Shino. Beyond, in the centre of another

plateau, the second shrine of Benten.

But there is no Benten! Benten has been hidden away by Shinto hands. The

second shrine is void as the first. Nevertheless, in a building to the

left of the temple, strange relics are exhibited. Feudal armour; suits

of plate and chain-mail; helmets with visors which are demoniac masks of

iron; helmets crested with dragons of gold; two-handed swords worthy

of giants; and enormous arrows, more than five feet long, with shafts

nearly an inch in diameter. One has a crescent head about nine inches

from horn to horn, the interior edge of the crescent being sharp as a

knife. Such a missile would take off a man's head; and I can scarcely

believe Akira's assurance that such ponderous arrows were shot from a

bow by hand only. There is a specimen of the writing of Nichiren, the

great Buddhist priest--gold characters on a blue ground; and there is,

in a lacquered shrine, a gilded dragon said to have been made by that

still greater priest and writer and master-wizard, Kobodaishi.

A path shaded by overarching trees leads from this plateau to the third

shrine. We pass a torii and beyond it come to a stone monument covered

with figures of monkeys chiselled in relief. What the signification of

this monument is, even our guide cannot explain. Then another torii. It

is of wood; but I am told it replaces one of metal, stolen in the night

by thieves. Wonderful thieves! that torii must have weighed at least a

ton! More stone lanterns; then an immense count, on the very summit of

the mountain, and there, in its midst, the third and chief temple of

Benten. And before the temple is a large vacant space surrounded by

a fence in such manner as to render the shrine totally inaccessible.

Vanity and vexation of spirit!

There is, however, a little haiden, or place of prayer, with nothing in

it but a money-box and a bell, before the fence, and facing the temple

steps. Here the pilgrims make their offerings and pray. Only a small

raised platform covered with a Chinese roof supported upon four plain

posts, the back of the structure being closed by a lattice about breast

high. From this praying-station we can look into the temple of Benten,

and see that Benten is not there.

But I perceive that the ceiling is arranged in caissons; and in a

central caisson I discover a very curious painting--a foreshortened

Tortoise, gazing down at me. And while I am looking at it I hear Akira

and the guide laughing; and the latter exclaims, 'Benten-Sama!'

A beautiful little damask snake is undulating up the lattice-work,

poking its head through betimes to look at us. It does not seem in the

least afraid, nor has it much reason to be, seeing that its kind are

deemed the servants and confidants of Benten. Sometimes the great

goddess herself assumes the serpent form; perhaps she has come to see

us.

Near by is a singular stone, set on a pedestal in the court. It has

the form of the body of a tortoise, and markings like those of the

creature's shell; and it is held a sacred thing, and is called the

Tortoise-stone. But I fear exceedingly that in all this place we shall

find nothing save stones and serpents!

Sec. 18

Now we are going to visit the Dragon cavern, not so called, Akira says,

because the Dragon of Benten ever dwelt therein, but because the shape

of the cavern is the shape of a dragon. The path descends toward the

opposite side of the island, and suddenly breaks into a flight of

steps cut out of the pale hard rock--exceedingly steep, and worn, and

slippery, and perilous--overlooking the sea. A vision of low pale rocks,

and surf bursting among them, and a toro or votive stone lamp in the

centre of them--all seen as in a bird's-eye view, over the verge of an

awful precipice. I see also deep, round holes in one of the rocks. There

used to be a tea-house below; and the wooden pillars supporting it were

fitted into those holes. I descend with caution; the Japanese seldom

slip in their straw sandals, but I can only proceed with the aid of the

guide. At almost every step I slip. Surely these steps could never have

been thus worn away by the straw sandals of pilgrims who came to see

only stones and serpents!

At last we reach a plank gallery carried along the face of the cliff

above the rocks and pools, and following it round a projection of the

cliff enter the sacred cave. The light dims as we advance; and the

sea-waves, running after us into the gloom, make a stupefying roar,

multiplied by the extraordinary echo. Looking back, I see the mouth of

the cavern like a prodigious sharply angled rent in blackness, showing a

fragment of azure sky.

We reach a shrine with no deity in it, pay a fee; and lamps being

lighted and given to each of us, we proceed to explore a series of

underground passages. So black they are that even with the light of

three lamps, I can at first see nothing. In a while, however, I can

distinguish stone figures in relief--chiselled on slabs like those I saw

in the Buddhist graveyard. These are placed at regular intervals along

the rock walls. The guide approaches his light to the face of each

one, and utters a name, 'Daikoku-Sama,' 'Fudo-Sama,' 'Kwannon-Sama.'

Sometimes in lieu of a statue there is an empty shrine only, with a

money-box before it; and these void shrines have names of Shinto gods,

'Daijingu,' 'Hachiman,' 'Inari-Sama.' All the statues are black, or seem

black in the yellow lamplight, and sparkle as if frosted. I feel as if I

were in some mortuary pit, some subterranean burial-place of dead gods.

Interminable the corridor appears; yet there is at last an end--an end

with a shrine in it--where the rocky ceiling descends so low that to

reach the shrine one must go down on hands and knees. And there is

nothing in the shrine. This is the Tail of the Dragon.

We do not return to the light at once, but enter into other lateral

black corridors--the Wings of the Dragon. More sable effigies of

dispossessed gods; more empty shrines; more stone faces covered with

saltpetre; and more money-boxes, possible only to reach by stooping,

where more offerings should be made. And there is no Benten, either of

wood or stone.

I am glad to return to the light. Here our guide strips naked, and

suddenly leaps head foremost into a black deep swirling current between

rocks. Five minutes later he reappears, and clambering out lays at

my feet a living, squirming sea-snail and an enormous shrimp. Then he

resumes his robe, and we re-ascend the mountain.

Sec. 19

'And this,' the reader may say,--'this is all that you went forth to

see: a torii, some shells, a small damask snake, some stones?'

It is true. And nevertheless I know that I am bewitched. There is a

charm indefinable about the place--that sort of charm which comes with a

little ghostly thrill never to be forgotten.

Not of strange sights alone is this charm made, but of numberless subtle

sensations and ideas interwoven and inter-blended: the sweet sharp

scents of grove and sea; the blood-brightening, vivifying touch of

the free wind; the dumb appeal of ancient mystic mossy things; vague

reverence evoked by knowledge of treading soil called holy for a

thousand years; and a sense of sympathy, as a human duty, compelled by

the vision of steps of rock worn down into shapelessness by the pilgrim

feet of vanished generations.

And other memories ineffaceable: the first sight of the sea-girt City

of Pearl through a fairy veil of haze; the windy approach to the lovely

island over the velvety soundless brown stretch of sand; the weird

majesty of the giant gate of bronze; the queer, high-sloping, fantastic,

quaintly gabled street, flinging down sharp shadows of aerial balconies;

the flutter of coloured draperies in the sea wind, and of flags with

their riddles of lettering; the pearly glimmering of the astonishing

shops.

And impressions of the enormous day--the day of the Land of the Gods--a

loftier day than ever our summers know; and the glory of the view

from those green sacred silent heights between sea and sun; and the

remembrance of the sky, a sky spiritual as holiness, a sky with clouds

ghost-pure and white as the light itself--seeming, indeed, not clouds

but dreams, or souls of Bodhisattvas about to melt for ever into some

blue Nirvana.

And the romance of Benten, too,--the Deity of Beauty, the Divinity of

Love, the Goddess of Eloquence. Rightly is she likewise named Goddess of

the Sea. For is not the Sea most ancient and most excellent of

Speakers--the eternal Poet, chanter of that mystic hymn whose rhythm

shakes the world, whose mighty syllables no man may learn?

Sec. 20

We return by another route.

For a while the way winds through a long narrow winding valley between

wooded hills: the whole extent of bottom-land is occupied by rice-farms;

the air has a humid coolness, and one hears only the chanting of frogs,

like a clattering of countless castanets, as the jinricksha jolts over

the rugged elevated paths separating the flooded rice-fields.

As we skirt the foot of a wooded hill upon the right, my Japanese

comrade signals to our runners to halt, and himself dismounting, points

to the blue peaked roof of a little temple high-perched on the green

slope. 'Is it really worth while to climb up there in the sun?' I ask.

'Oh, yes!' he answers: 'it is the temple of Kishibojin--Kishibojin, the

Mother of Demons!'

We ascend a flight of broad stone steps, meet the Buddhist guardian

lions at the summit, and enter the little court in which the temple

stands. An elderly woman, with a child clinging to her robe, comes from

the adjoining building to open the screens for us; and taking off our

footgear we enter the temple. Without, the edifice looked old and dingy;

but within all is neat and pretty. The June sun, pouring through the

open shoji, illuminates an artistic confusion of brasses gracefully

shaped and multi-coloured things--images, lanterns, paintings, gilded

inscriptions, pendent scrolls. There are three altars.

Above the central altar Amida Buddha sits enthroned on his mystic golden

lotus in the attitude of the Teacher. On the altar to the right gleams

a shrine of five miniature golden steps, where little images stand in

rows, tier above tier, some seated, some erect, male and female, attired

like goddesses or like daimyo: the Sanjiubanjin, or Thirty Guardians.

Below, on the façade of the altar, is the figure of a hero slaying a

monster. On the altar to the left is the shrine of the Mother-of-Demons.

Her story is a legend of horror. For some sin committed in a previous

birth, she was born a demon, devouring her own children. But being saved

by the teaching of Buddha, she became a divine being, especially loving

and protecting infants; and Japanese mothers pray to her for their

little ones, and wives pray to her for beautiful boys.

The face of Kishibojin [7] is the face of a comely woman. But her eyes

are weird. In her right hand she bears a lotus-blossom; with her left

she supports in a fold of her robe, against her half-veiled breast, a

naked baby. At the foot of her shrine stands Jizo-Sama, leaning upon his

shakujo. But the altar and its images do not form the startling feature

of the temple-interior. What impresses the visitor in a totally novel

way are the votive offerings. High before the shrine, suspended from

strings stretched taut between tall poles of bamboo, are scores,

no, hundreds, of pretty, tiny dresses--Japanese baby-dresses of

many colours. Most are made of poor material, for these are the

thank-offerings of very poor simple women, poor country mothers, whose

prayers to Kishibojin for the blessing of children have been heard.

And the sight of all those little dresses, each telling so naively

its story of joy and pain--those tiny kimono shaped and sewn by docile

patient fingers of humble mothers--touches irresistibly, like some

unexpected revelation of the universal mother-love. And the tenderness

of all the simple hearts that have testified thus to faith and

thankfulness seems to thrill all about me softly, like a caress of

summer wind.

Outside the world appears to have suddenly grown beautiful; the light

is sweeter; it seems to me there is a new charm even in the azure of the

eternal day.

Sec. 21

Then, having traversed the valley, we reach a main road so level and so

magnificently shaded by huge old trees that I could believe myself in

an English lane--a lane in Kent or Surrey, perhaps--but for some exotic

detail breaking the illusion at intervals; a torii, towering before

temple-steps descending to the highway, or a signboard lettered with

Chinese characters, or the wayside shrine of some unknown god.

All at once I observe by the roadside some unfamiliar sculptures in

relief--a row of chiselled slabs protected by a little bamboo shed; and

I dismount to look at them, supposing them to be funereal monuments.

They are so old that the lines of their sculpturing are half

obliterated; their feet are covered with moss, and their visages are

half effaced. But I can discern that these are not haka, but six images

of one divinity; and my guide knows him--Koshin, the God of Roads. So

chipped and covered with scurf he is, that the upper portion of his form

has become indefinably vague; his attributes have been worn away. But

below his feet, on several slabs, chiselled cunningly, I can still

distinguish the figures of the Three Apes, his messengers. And some

pious soul has left before one image a humble votive offering--the

picture of a black cock and a white hen, painted upon a wooden shingle.

It must have been left here very long ago; the wood has become almost

black, and the painting has been damaged by weather and by the droppings

of birds. There are no stones piled at the feet of these images, as

before the images of Jizo; they seem like things forgotten, crusted

over by the neglect of generations--archaic gods who have lost their

worshippers.

But my guide tells me, 'The Temple of Koshin is near, in the village of

Fujisawa.' Assuredly I must visit it.

Sec. 22

The temple of Koshin is situated in the middle of the village, in a

court opening upon the main street. A very old wooden temple it is,

unpainted, dilapidated, grey with the greyness of all forgotten and

weather-beaten things. It is some time before the guardian of the temple

can be found, to open the doors. For this temple has doors in lieu of

shoji--old doors that moan sleepily at being turned upon their hinges.

And it is not necessary to remove one's shoes; the floor is matless,

covered with dust, and squeaks under the unaccustomed weight of entering

feet. All within is crumbling, mouldering, worn; the shrine has no

image, only Shinto emblems, some poor paper lanterns whose once bright

colours have vanished under a coating of dust, some vague inscriptions.

I see the circular frame of a metal mirror; but the mirror itself is

gone. Whither? The guardian says: 'No priest lives now in this temple;

and thieves might come in the night to steal the mirror; so we have

hidden it away.' I ask about the image of Koshin. He answers it is

exposed but once in every sixty-one years: so I cannot see it; but there

are other statues of the god in the temple court.

I go to look at them: a row of images, much like those upon the public

highway, but better preserved. One figure of Koshin, however, is

different from the others I have seen--apparently made after some Hindoo

model, judging by the Indian coiffure, mitre-shaped and lofty. The

god has three eyes; one in the centre of his forehead, opening

perpendicularly instead of horizontally. He has six arms. With one hand

he supports a monkey; with another he grasps a serpent; and the other

hands hold out symbolic things--a wheel, a sword, a rosary, a sceptre.

And serpents are coiled about his wrists and about his ankles; and under

his feet is a monstrous head, the head of a demon, Amanjako, sometimes

called Utatesa ('Sadness'). Upon the pedestal below the Three Apes are

carven; and the face of an ape appears also upon the front of the god's

tiara.

I see also tablets of stone, graven only with the god's name,--votive

offerings. And near by, in a tiny wooden shrine, is the figure of the

Earth-god, Ken-ro-ji-jin, grey, primeval, vaguely wrought, holding

in one hand a spear, in the other a vessel containing something

indistinguishable.

Sec. 23

Perhaps to uninitiated eyes these many-headed, many-handed gods at first

may seem--as they seem always in the sight of Christian bigotry--only

monstrous. But when the knowledge of their meaning comes to one who

feels the divine in all religions, then they will be found to make

appeal to the higher aestheticism, to the sense of moral beauty, with a

force never to be divined by minds knowing nothing of the Orient and its

thought. To me the image of Kwannon of the Thousand Hands is not less

admirable than any other representation of human loveliness idealised

bearing her name--the Peerless, the Majestic, the Peace-Giving, or even

White Sui-Getsu, who sails the moonlit waters in her rosy boat made of a

single lotus-petal; and in the triple-headed Shaka I discern and revere

the mighty power of that Truth, whereby, as by a conjunction of suns,

the Three Worlds have been illuminated.

But vain to seek to memorise the names and attributes of all the gods;

they seem, self-multiplying, to mock the seeker; Kwannon the Merciful is

revealed as the Hundred Kwannon; the Six Jizo become the Thousand. And

as they multiply before research, they vary and change: less multiform,

less complex, less elusive the moving of waters than the visions of

this Oriental faith. Into it, as into a fathomless sea, mythology after

mythology from India and China and the farther East has sunk and been

absorbed; and the stranger, peering into its deeps, finds himself, as in

the tale of Undine, contemplating a flood in whose every surge rises

and vanishes a Face--weird or beautiful or terrible--a most ancient

shoreless sea of forms incomprehensibly interchanging and intermingling,

but symbolising the protean magic of that infinite Unknown that shapes

and re-shapes for ever all cosmic being.

Sec. 24

I wonder if I can buy a picture of Koshin. In most Japanese temples

little pictures of the tutelar deity are sold to pilgrims, cheap prints

on thin paper. But the temple guardian here tells me, with a gesture of

despair, that there are no pictures of Koshin for sale; there is only an

old kakemono on which the god is represented. If I would like to see it

he will go home and get it for me. I beg him to do me the favour; and he

hurries into the street.

While awaiting his return, I continue to examine the queer old statues,

with a feeling of mingled melancholy and pleasure. To have studied and

loved an ancient faith only through the labours of palaeographers and

archaeologists, and as a something astronomically remote from one's own

existence, and then suddenly in after years to find the same faith a

part of one's human environment,--to feel that its mythology, though

senescent, is alive all around you--is almost to realise the dream

of the Romantics, to have the sensation of returning through twenty

centuries into the life of a happier world. For these quaint Gods of

Roads and Gods of Earth are really living still, though so worn and

mossed and feebly worshipped. In this brief moment, at least, I am

really in the Elder World--perhaps just at that epoch of it when the

primal faith is growing a little old-fashioned, crumbling slowly before

the corrosive influence of a new philosophy; and I know myself a pagan

still, loving these simple old gods, these gods of a people's childhood.

And they need some human love, these naive, innocent, ugly gods. The

beautiful divinities will live for ever by that sweetness of womanhood

idealised in the Buddhist art of them: eternal are Kwannon and Benten;

they need no help of man; they will compel reverence when the great

temples shall all have become voiceless and priestless as this shrine

of Koshin is. But these kind, queer, artless, mouldering gods, who have

given ease to so many troubled minds, who have gladdened so many simple

hearts, who have heard so many innocent prayers--how gladly would

I prolong their beneficent lives in spite of the so-called 'laws of

progress' and the irrefutable philosophy of evolution!

The guardian returns, bringing with him a kakemono, very small, very

dusty, and so yellow-stained by time that it might be a thousand years

old. But I am disappointed as I unroll it; there is only a very common

print of the god within--all outline. And while I am looking at it, I

become for the first time conscious that a crowd has gathered about

me,--tanned kindly-faced labourers from the fields, and mothers with

their babies on their backs, and school children, and jinricksha

men--all wondering that a stranger should be thus interested in their

gods. And although the pressure about me is very, very gentle, like a

pressure of tepid water for gentleness, I feel a little embarrassed. I

give back the old kakemono to the guardian, make my offering to the god,

and take my leave of Koshin and his good servant.

All the kind oblique eyes follow me as I go. And something like a

feeling of remorse seizes me at thus abruptly abandoning the void,

dusty, crumbling temple, with its mirrorless altar and its colourless

lanterns, and the decaying sculptures of its neglected court, and its

kindly guardian whom I see still watching my retreating steps, with the

yellow kakemono in his hand. The whistle of a locomotive warns me that

I shall just have time to catch the train. For Western civilisation has

invaded all this primitive peace, with its webs of steel, with its ways

of iron. This is not of thy roads, O Koshin!--the old gods are dying

along its ash-strewn verge!