Part 3
Now the Nichiren priests delight in noise. Perhaps they think--like many a politician--that it takes the place of argument. And so their temples for ever re-echo with the banging of big drums, the clapping of wooden clappers, the booming of big bells, and the eternal chanting of the _Namu-myōho-rengekyō_, the formula of the faith of Nichiren.
In the little side temple to the left, wreathed with paper flowers and cheap ornaments--for Nichiren has even strength to blur the national sense of art--they are busy now.
A priest in the middle crouches on the ground; on either side, before a big drum like a yellow barrel lying horizontally on the ground, sit two believers. Behind are grouped three more, all provided with clappers or bells. The drumming is incessant, the clapping nearly so, while all, priests and people, keep up one never-ending drone of
“_Namu-myōho-rengekyō, Namu-myōho-rengekyō, Namu-myōho-rengekyō._”
I can only see the backs of the group, and the arms of the two drummers as they raise them up above their heads to beat the big barrels in front of them. Suddenly, from round the corner of the drum, an old face peers--priest by its costume and its cunning. An unshaven, unkempt face that blinks--dirty, ignorant, bigoted. It crouches there on the matting, the old cunning eyes opening and shutting with each repetition of the never-ending formula,
“_Namu-myōho-rengekyō, Namu-myōho-rengekyō, Namu-myōho-rengekyō_,” until sense and meaning are lost in a wave of wild, brute fanaticism.
The drums bang louder, the clappers clap shriller, the bells boom quicker and quicker, and I stand there convinced.
_Namu-myōho-rengekyō, Namu-myōho-rengekyō, Namu-myōho-rengekyō._
I too am of the faith of Nichiren, for I know that I am right. All these are wrong, unfaithful servants of the Lord--kill them.
XI
BETWEEN EARTH AND HEAVEN
Five hundred feet of wall, and the temple’s courtyard hangs a balcony above the world.
The thousand steps by which I climbed are hidden, and the _chaya_, in the width of the brown road that touches cliff and sea, is so beneath my feet that its roof seems resting on the ground. My _kurumaya_, in his white hat, is a growing mushroom on a dark blue stalk. The man is but a human atom crushed between two immensities.
From cliff to distant sky the wide sea spreads out, a vast still plain of shimmering blue. This ball of earth is rolled out flat before my eyes, and its mysterious ends are a far-off rim, dark blue and clear. Overhead the burnished sky shuts down a domed cover on the flattened earth. The very sea seems hot. My _kurumaya_, sitting on the slender shafts of his _jinriksha_, fans himself with his hat, and I am startled to see how perfectly the three-inch figure works.
The world lies all spread out below me, here is nothing but the temple and the sun.
Across the burning courtyard where the sun smites the rounded pebbles with hard shafts of light, and through the open doorway in the temple’s wall, I go, and then the silent shadows of the trees fall all around. The sky above their tops is bluer, the very sunlight brighter for the shade.
The temple’s shrine is built upon a polished raft of wood, moored three feet above the ground. Its walls are dark with matted blind. Only the square door-posts stand clear against the light, and through them I see the bareness of the shrine--a sweep of pale matting on the floor, and then dim space. Alone, the burnished mirror of the great Sun-Goddess hangs above the altar.
On the threshold of his temple stands the high priest, attended by two acolytes. He wears a head-dress of black lacquer like a perforated meat-cover, but the face beneath is old and very calm. He bows as I mount the shallow polished steps which lead up from the ground, takes from the black-robed acolyte a slender silver vase, and a shallow terra-cotta bowl. Standing shoeless on the threshold of the naked shrine he slowly pours the sacred _saké_ from the silver vase into the terra-cotta bowl, and gives me to drink. The bowl is black with age, the _saké_ thick, like distilled honey; and I notice, as I drink, the carved figures running round the rim, and the faint scent of plum-blossom.
Without a word the white-robed priest takes back the cup, and offers me a thin rice-wafer which I break and eat. I wonder what the rite may mean that I, a stranger, may partake, and look up to see the calm old eyes looking down at me, at my outlandish clothes and foreign face; but he does not speak. Then with a gesture which is almost a blessing, the white-robed priest is gone, and the acolytes follow after.
The temple’s shrine stands bare and bare, only the burnished mirror of the great Sun-Goddess glitters.
Was it a Passover that we have eaten together? Or a Eucharist? Or merely the symbol of our human brotherhood?
We are all children of the Sun; and Faith is One.
Yet it needed a Shintō priest in far Japan to show me a religion above nation, beyond race, above sect. But his shrine is bare. The Mirror of Truth hangs solitary above his altar, and his temple’s doors are open to the Sun.
XII
INARI, THE FOX-GOD
The green tongue of the rice-fields thrusts itself deep into the blue sea, and its tip is lacquered red.
Haneda-no-Inari is a temple whose gateways have swallowed up its shrine, and on the low, flat, headland its many thousand _torī_ in rows of scarlet dolmens walk inland from the sea. The green point lies a henna-stained finger in the lap of the ocean.
Beyond the red tip, a ridge of pearl-grey sky rests on the water, while overhead the clouds, like piled-up snowflakes, melt into the blue.
It is the end of September, and wide through the land the rustle of ripening rice-ears comes and goes. Haneda-no-Inari, the Rice-God, is calling the peasants to his shrine. And they come; broad-shouldered, bullet-headed men, in short, blue tunics and dark blue hose, with brown weather-beaten faces, seamed and lined; and always their hard hands, half shut, half open, as though still holding hoe or plough. Old most of them, and with that half-deaf look which years of fieldwork brings. Intelligences half shut too, shutting fast on the primary ideas of life, on the traditions of their fathers; for a thought, like the hoe or plough, is too precious a thing to be lightly laid aside; it is bequeathed from generation to generation as are the rice-fields beneath their feet.
Inari calls, and the peasants come. Not only for the sake of the Rice-God, though the rustle of the ripening rice-ears is a music in the land, but because the image of the fox has dwelt so long in the Rice-God’s temple that to the peasant Inari is both Fox-and Rice-God. And the fear of the _Kitsuné_ is a power in Japan. The _Kitsuné_, who can take a woman’s shape and bewitch you; the _Kitsuné_, who can beguile a man that he follow to the fox’s very hole and stay there living on snails and worms. The _Kitsuné_, who, entering a man’s body under his finger-nails, will possess it, so that he howls like a fox, slowly changes into one, and dies. And so they come to the temple, up from the rice-fields, up under the scarlet tunnels of the _torī_, for the passing through each tunnel means a wish fulfilled.
The gateways indeed have swallowed up this shrine. There is no temple, only a low matted booth; at the back two white china images of the Fox-God, his tail curled high above his head, and a priest on the matting, as a shopman at his stall, selling charms, multitudes of miniature china foxes, words on rice-paper, and mounds of earth, a whole shopful of charms and amulets.
Opposite is a row of rabbit burrows, each roofed with a shelving stone; just a hole in the ground, but full of meaning to the peasant, for it is the home of the _Kitsuné_, and he crouches on the ground in front of it, his head between his knees, or thrust far into the big burrow in the eagerness of his prayer. And his face works; the priest behind him watches. _Kitsuné_ is a reality to him, a force strong as Nature’s laws, but capricious; so he prays. Then half in fear, half in reverence, he thrusts one arm as far as it will go into the hole, and scraping softly brings back a handful of brown earth. His face lights up, and the priest behind leans forward.
Still on his knees the peasant wraps the magic earth in layers of clean rice-paper and puts it carefully away in the breast of his patched tunic. Then he gets up. He has his charm, a remedy against sickness and disaster, a charm for his rice-fields and himself. The priest behind reaches out his hand. He makes a keen shopkeeper, and his celestial wares are never stolen. The temple terms are “cash down, and prayers not taken in exchange.”
Through the long scarlet tunnels of the _torī_, back to the ripening rice-fields the peasants go. The green point lies a henna-stained finger in the lap of the ocean. Haneda-no-Inari, the temple of the superstitious, glows a living tip of red.
For its sins are as scarlet.
XIII
THE ALTAR OF FIRE
It all happened in a suburban temple in the town of Tokyo, at the time of the blossoming cherry-trees; and the prosaic din of a modern city full of trains and tramcars hemmed us round. We had been conscious of it dimly throughout the long ceremonial within the temple, where Shintō priests in brocaded robes chanted in twos and threes, in solo and in chorus; where the old High Priest had blessed with long strange rites the four elements, earth, which is the mother of all things, fire, water, air; had blessed the rice by which the people live, salt, and _saké_; but now that we were all assembled in the outer courtyard the noise of a busy city came distinctly to the ear. Tokyo was working hard this April afternoon, and the cries of the newspaper boys pierced up shrilly from the street below.
In the courtyard the ancient vestments of the priests showed strangely beside the modern frocks of American visitors, the tweed suits of a party of Cook’s tourists, even beside the _kimono_ of the Japanese crowd, so markedly Tokyo and _Meiji_ (age of enlightenment), in their felt hats, cloth caps, and “bowlers.”
The courtyard was big, the native crowd railed in at one end left a large space bare, and here in the centre of the stamped brown earth a great pile of burning charcoal was heaped. Twenty feet long, and nearly as many broad, it glowed a solid mass of quivering heat, while priests at each corner stood fanning the sullen red to an ever fiercer flame. It was not hot enough yet, and in the sunshine of that April afternoon we waited.
At the further end of the courtyard a broad band of salt lay on the brown earth like a white step to the altar. The great fans of the fanning priests sent puffs of heat across the court that made the distinguished guests shrink back. And yet the glowing charcoal pyre was not hot enough.
Behind us, in a corner of the courtyard, stood a bamboo ladder, whose every rung was made of the razor-blade of a Japanese sword, set edge upwards. As we all stood waiting, watching the solid altar of red flame grow redder, a young man came out of the temple and crossed the court. He was dressed in the short white tunic of religious festivals, and his legs and feet were bare. He bowed to the party of distinguished guests, to the priests, to the old High Priest, and from his manner I judged him not a priest, but a temple attendant.
Among the crowd there was a murmur, a sway of intense excitement, and then a dead stillness. In the stillness the young man put his bare foot upon the lowest rung of the ladder, and an involuntary shudder went through us all. A large-checked tourist, pushing every one aside, rushed up to the ladder, and felt a sword-rung with his hand. Then he came back, and across his open palm a ruled red line of blood rose up swiftly.
There was a whispering among the priests, a commotion in the crowd, but the polite expressions of regret from the old High Priest were courtly with honorifics. The large-checked tourist tied his hand up clumsily in his own pocket-handkerchief, and looked annoyed. The fanning priests, with rhythmic movements of their hands and bodies, chased the living heat across the court, and did not pause.
Again there was a murmur in the crowd, a stretching of necks to see, and a dead silence.
The white-tuniced attendant, who had stood quite still beside the ladder, placed his bare foot upon the lowest rung, and I saw the large-checked tourist wince as though his injured hand were there instead. Lightly as a sailor climbs, the young man ran up the ladder rung by rung, and neither hands nor feet grew red. On the top he stayed, looking down, and a shudder like a cry of pain went through the courtyard. Then he turned, hanging for one brief moment by his knees on the topmost rung--turned, and came down again.
In the April sunshine the sword-blades, from top to bottom of the ladder, glittered spotless.
Firmly on his bare, brown feet the young man walked across the court, bowed to the party of distinguished visitors, to the priests, to the old High Priest, and disappeared within the temple.
The crowd behind the railings exclaimed in admiration, but the distinguished visitors were above surprise. The party of Cook’s tourists who had just “done” India were full of explanations. It was “mere jugglery,” they said, though each man differed in his theory. One was eloquent on hypnotic suggestion, and though the damaged tourist, his hand still bound up, “couldn’t go so far as that, sir,” was not to be persuaded. The injured tourist had apparently only been hypnotised a little more effectually than the rest of us. The American guests favoured “acrobatic training from infancy,” which “made the bones just like jelly.” Somebody said he had heard it was “done with oil,” but was quite vague as to the how, and all the more insistent in consequence. And so we explained and argued while the level rays of sunshine fell on the spotless sword-rungs of the ladder, and on the vestments of the Shintō priests. They had watched and were impassive. The climbing of the ladder was not a sacred ceremony, not a rite, rather an amusement allowed the multitude, as the Catholic Church offered _jongleries_ in the Middle Ages.
But as the sun fell lower and lower in the April sky, a hush came among the little group of priests, and growing, travelled slowly over the courtyard. Even the damaged tourist stopped his explanations. The great red altar of heat that lay a fallen pillar of fire across the courtyard was glowing now white-hot with life. The fanning priests at each corner had moved further back to escape the scorch of the flames, but still they fanned. In waves and gusts the heat was borne across the court, to flicker, as it were, upon the air, steady itself and then drive solidly forward. The Cook’s tourists who had seized upon the front row of seats, twisted uneasily on their chairs, unwilling to give up their “best places,” unable to endure the burning. But the fierce scorch of the heat came steadily onwards, and before it the tourists ran, dragging their chairs after them.
Still the fanning priests fanned on, chasing the quivering flames on the red altar of heat, till it pulsed with a white-hot breath like a thing alive.
In the pale April sky the swift sun was dropping golden through the last arcs of heaven to a grey band of clouds upon the horizon. In half an hour it would be night.
There was a stir in the crowd beyond the barriers; the fanning priests beat out their rhythm slowly, and with the shadows the gathering sense of awe deepened. Only the altar of heat burned brighter, gathering to itself all the colour from the world.
Apart from the crowd the High Priest stood, the gold on his vestment gleaming, and he watched the sun. The peace upon his face was like an unsaid prayer. Did his soul go out to _Amaterasu_, the great Sun-Goddess?
Swiftly the sun dropped through the bank of clouds leaving them golden, showed a red circle on the horizon, and passed beneath. The faintest flicker of emotion stirred for a moment the grave reverence of the old man’s face. Then he turned. The rhythmic beating of the fanning priests died into silence. The red altar stood a burning fiery furnace in the courtyard, where already twilight was. He spoke no word, but the religious calm of a perfect trust was in all his being. It touched the straining multitude behind the barriers, even the tourists in their chairs. Breathless we stayed gripped by the powers of an awed suspense, of a great belief, as he came on. There was no hurry, no tremor in his movements, on through the hot scorched air he came, on, over the threshold of strewn salt, and on, over the altar of heat. With naked feet he trod from end to end the white-hot pathway, and the burning charcoal snapped beneath his tread. With naked feet he walked, unscathed, over that fiery furnace; and the breath of a passionate prayer passed like a sob through the courtyard.
Then one by one the priests in their embroidered vestments stepped from the threshold of salt on to the fire. From end to end of the altar they too trod that white-hot pathway slowly, unhurt, and the living charcoal glowed like a thousand suns in the twilight.
Slowly behind their distant barriers the crowd stirred irresolute. An old man whose face showed rapt in the circle of firelight approached the priests. Hesitating he was led up to the altar, over the white salt step, and faltering, he too trod the white-hot pathway. Then a coolie came through the shadows, he too stepped up to the altar, passed over the threshold of salt on to the living charcoal.
In twos and threes the crowd was coming now. Some of them hesitated on the white salt step, some hurried along the fiery pathway. A few, a very few, walked away as though their feet were singed. But all came, even the children. The big children who went resolutely alone, the little children whom the priests led.
And the twilight in the courtyard deepened into night. The broad altar of heat glowed ruddy, a deep sun-red as its life pulsed slower. The tourists were all quiet on their chairs, not one of them would venture, though the little children went before. The Faith was not in them, nor the power of that great Belief. But those behind the barriers, this Tokyo crowd in _kimono_ and “bowler,” they believed. With the sounds of a modern city humming in their ears, fresh from the western education of their Board Schools, they, as their forefathers for two thousand years, passed over the fire. This burning symbol of a spiritual purification had meaning for them. They _had faith and were not afraid_.
Unto such is the Dominion of the Earth; unto such is the Kingdom of Heaven.
XIV
FORGOTTEN GODS
Neglected by the river side the Buddhas sit, in one long silent row. The rain is beating on their unprotected heads, and down their granite faces little rills of water trickle. The river at their feet runs swift and strong, grey among the boulders, as it rushes down to Nikkō. And they sit forsaken.
The moss is thick upon their shoulders, the granite faces are all scarred and battered, blotched with pallid growths, spotted with dusty accumulations. But the Buddhas smile. Beneath their heavy-lidded eyes they smile, a slow, still, changeless smile.
On the green bank above the tumultuous river there is no shrine, no priest; the forgotten gods sit still, in one long silent row, and the rain beats down relentless. Over their battered heads it runs, and down their moss-grown shoulders; the soiled stone laps are full of it, and it stands in ever widening pools about the lotus-leaves of each pedestal. For in Nikkō the rain, tropical in vehemence, is persistent, as in the Outer Hebrides. It lies to-day in slanting lines, thick as willow-switches, across the dull grey sky.
I could not well be wetter, so I stop to look, and the whole long silent row of Gods Forgotten smiles gently back at me.
Remindful of the legend which calls them numberless, I try to count. Once, twice, several times; but the legend is right. Each time my total varies. Perhaps the rain confuses me; the willow-switches lie so thick across the sky. So I give it up and look at the long desolate row of the numberless Buddhas. I wonder if they envy the Buddha who fell from his pedestal into the stream and was carried down to Imaichi, where the villagers, finding him uninjured, reverently set him up with his face towards Nikkō. Now the country-side adores him, and he wears a large pink bib.
Across the madly rushing river, churned grey between the boulders, the Buddhas smile.... It is a smile of understanding. Yes, the slow, still smile of One Who Understands, who understands All Things, and understanding, is content.
And who should understand, and understanding rest content, if not the Eternal Buddha? Is not the Godhead wise? Does it not see the meaning and the path of All Things? And seeing, were it not then content the Devil triumphs?
“God’s in His Heaven, All’s right with the world.”
If God be in His Heaven, and God be God, then must the Godhead understanding smile.
* * * * *
Through the thick-falling rain the long still row of granite Buddhas smile back at me. I have thought so long upon that smile, which strikes on western senses oddly, almost irreverently. Do we ever conceive of a smiling God? In all the long picture galleries of Europe I have never seen a Christ who smiled. With sword-pierced side and thorn-crowned head He hangs before us--suffering, always sad. The Man of Sorrows; yet He redeemed the world; He saved mankind. For pure joy a soul could smile at such a thought. Yet with us the Redeemer suffers; He never smiles.