Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan (11 page)

'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.'

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 Lange 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 Beaten,
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!

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.

'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?

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.