Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (9 page)

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.'
[18]

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.

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
[19]
named Soga
Sadayoshi. She lived by feeding silkworms and gathering the silk. She
used often to visit the temple of Kencho-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.'

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.

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.
[20]

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 I 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.

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
na´ve 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.

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.