Part 10

“To Western thinking,” I made answer, “Shinzaburō is a despicable creature. I have been mentally comparing him with the true lovers of our old ballad-literature. They were only too glad to follow a dead sweetheart into the grave; and nevertheless, being Christians, they believed that they had only one human life to enjoy in this world. But Shinzaburō was a Buddhist,—with a million lives behind him and a million lives before him; and he was too selfish to give up even one miserable existence for the sake of the girl that came back to him from the dead. Then he was even more cowardly than selfish. Although a samurai by birth and training, he had to beg a priest to save him from ghosts. In every way he proved himself contemptible; and O-Tsuyu did quite right in choking him to death.”

“From the Japanese point of view, likewise,” my friend responded, “Shinzaburō is rather contemptible. But the use of this weak character helped the author to develop incidents that could not otherwise, perhaps, have been so effectively managed. To my thinking, the only attractive character in the story is that of O-Yoné: type of the old-time loyal and loving servant,—intelligent, shrewd, full of resource,—faithful not only unto death, but beyond death…. Well, let us go to Shin-Banzui-In.”

We found the temple uninteresting, and the cemetery an abomination of desolation. Spaces once occupied by graves had been turned into potato-patches. Between were tombs leaning at all angles out of the perpendicular, tablets made illegible by scurf, empty pedestals, shattered water-tanks, and statues of Buddhas without heads or hands. Recent rains had soaked the black soil,—leaving here and there small pools of slime about which swarms of tiny frogs were hopping. Everything—excepting the potato-patches—seemed to have been neglected for years. In a shed just within the gate, we observed a woman cooking; and my companion presumed to ask her if she knew anything about the tombs described in the Romance of the Peony-Lantern.

“Ah! the tombs of O-Tsuyu and O-Yoné?” she responded, smiling;—“you will find them near the end of the first row at the back of the temple—next to the statue of Jizo.”

Surprises of this kind I had met with elsewhere in Japan.

We picked our way between the rain-pools and between the green ridges of young potatoes,—whose roots were doubtless feeding on the sub-stance of many another O-Tsuyu and O-Yoné;—and we reached at last two lichen-eaten tombs of which the inscriptions seemed almost obliterated. Beside the larger tomb was a statue of Jizo, with a broken nose.

“The characters are not easy to make out,” said my friend—“but wait!”…. He drew from his sleeve a sheet of soft white paper, laid it over the inscription, and began to rub the paper with a lump of clay. As he did so, the characters appeared in white on the blackened surface.

“Eleventh day, third month—Rat, Elder Brother, Fire—Sixth year of Horéki [A. D. 1756].’… This would seem to be the grave of some innkeeper of Nedzu, named Kichibei. Let us see what is on the other monument.”

With a fresh sheet of paper he presently brought out the text of a kaimyō, and read,—

“En-myō-In, Hō-yō-I-tei-ken-shi, Hō-ni’:—‘Nun-of-the-Law, Illustrious, Pure-of-heart-and-will, Famed-in-the-Law,—inhabiting the Mansion-of-the-Preaching-of-Wonder.’…. The grave of some Buddhist nun.”

“What utter humbug!” I exclaimed. “That woman was only making fun of us.”

“Now,” my friend protested, “you are unjust to the, woman! You came here because you wanted a sensation; and she tried her very best to please you. You did not suppose that ghost-story was true, did you?”

Footprints of the Buddha

I was recently surprised to find, in Anderson’s catalogue of Japanese and Chinese paintings in the British Museum, this remarkable statement:—“It is to be noted that in Japan the figure of the Buddha is never represented by the feet, or pedestal alone, as in the Amravati remains, and many other Indian art-relics.” As a matter of fact the representation is not even rare in Japan. It is to be found not only upon stone monuments, but also in religious paintings,—especially certain kakemono suspended in temples. These kakemono usually display the footprints upon a very large scale, with a multitude of mystical symbols and characters. The sculptures may be less common; but in Tōkyō alone there are a number of Butsu-soku-séki, or “Buddha-foot stones,” which I have seen,—and probably several which I have not seen. There is one at the temple of Ekō-In, near Ryōgoku-bashi; one at the temple of Denbō-In, in Koishikawa; one at the temple of Denbō-In, in Asakusa; and a beautiful example at Zōjōji in Shiba. These are not cut out of a single block, but are composed of fragments cemented into the irregular traditional shape, and capped with a heavy slab of Nebukawa granite, on the polished surface of which the design is engraved in lines about one-tenth of an inch in depth. I should judge the average height of these pedestals to be about two feet four inches, and their greatest diameter about three feet. Around the footprints there are carved (in most of the examples) twelve little bunches of leaves and buds of the Bodai-jū (“Bodhidruma”), or Bodhi-tree of Buddhist legend. In all cases the footprint design is about the same; but the monuments are different in quality and finish. That of Zōjōji,—with figures of divinities cut in low relief on its sides,—is the most ornate and costly of the four. The specimen at Ekō-In is very poor and plain.

The first Butsu-soku-séki made in Japan was that erected at Tōdaiji, in Nara. It was designed after a similar monument in China, said to be the faithful copy of an Indian original. Concerning this Indian original, the following tradition is given in an old Buddhist book:—“In a temple of the province of Makada [Maghada] there is a great stone. The Buddha once trod upon this stone; and the prints of the soles of his feet remain upon its surface. The length of the impressions is one foot and eight inches, and the width of them a little more than six inches. On the sole-part of each footprint there is the impression of a wheel; and upon each of the prints of the ten toes there is a flower-like design, which sometimes radiates light. When the Buddha felt that the time of his Nirvâna was approaching, he went to Kushina [Kusinârâ], and there stood upon that stone. He stood with his face to the south. Then he said to his disciple Anan [Ânanda]: ‘In this place I leave the impression of my feet, to remain for a last token. Although a king of this country will try to destroy the impression, it can never be entirely destroyed.’ And indeed it has not been destroyed unto this day. Once a king who hated Buddhism caused the top of the stone to be pared off, so as to remove the impression; but after the surface had been removed, the footprints reappeared upon the stone.”

The Chinese title is pronounced by Japanese as Sei-iki-ki. “Sei-iki”(the Country of the West) was the old Japanese name for India; and thus the title might be rendered, “The Book about India.” I suppose this is the work known to Western scholars as Si-yu-ki.

“One shaku and eight sun.” But the Japanese foot and inch are considerably longer than the English.

Concerning the virtue of the representation of the footprints of the Buddha, there is sometimes quoted a text from the Kwan-butsu-sanmai-kyō [“Buddha-dhyâna-samâdhi-sâgara-sûtra”], thus translated for me:—“In that time Shaka [“Sâkyamuni”] lifted up his foot…. When the Buddha lifted up his foot all could perceive upon the sole of it the appearance of a wheel of a thousand spokes…. And Shaka said: ‘Whosoever beholds the sign upon the sole of my foot shall be purified from all his faults. Even he who beholds the sign after my death shall be delivered from all the evil results of all his errors.” Various other texts of Japanese Buddhism affirm that whoever looks upon the footprints of the Buddha “shall be freed from the bonds of error, and conducted upon the Way of Enlightenment.”

An outline of the footprints as engraved on one of the Japanese pedestals should have some interest even for persons familiar with Indian sculptures of the S’rîpâda. The double-page drawing, accompanying this paper, and showing both footprints, has been made after the tracing at Dentsu-In, where the footprints have the full legendary dimension, It will be observed that there are only seven emblems: these are called in Japan the Shichi-Sō, or “Seven Appearances.” I got some information about them from the Shō-Ekō-Hō-Kwan,—a book used by the Jodo sect. This book also contains rough woodcuts of the footprints; and one of them I reproduce here for the purpose of calling attention to the curious form of the emblems upon the toes. They are said to be modifications of the manji, or svastikâ, but I doubt it. In the Butsu-soku-séki-tracings, the corresponding figures suggest the “flower-like design” mentioned in the tradition of the Maghada stone; while the symbols in the book-print suggest fire. Indeed their outline so much resembles the conventional flamelet-design of Buddhist decoration, that I cannot help thinking them originally intended to indicate the traditional luminosity of the footprints. Moreover, there is a text in the book called Hō-Kai-Shidai that lends support to this supposition:—“The sole of the foot of the Buddha is flat,—like the base of a toilet-stand…. Upon it are lines forming the appearance of a wheel of a thousand spokes…. The toes are slender, round, long, straight, graceful, and somewhat luminous.”

A monument at Nara exhibits the S’rîpâda in a form differing considerably from the design upon the Tōkyō pedestals.

The explanation of the Seven Appearances which is given by the Shō-Ekō-Hō-Kwan cannot be called satisfactory; but it is not without interest in relation to Japanese popular Buddhism. The emblems are considered in the following order:—

I.—The Svastikâ. The figure upon each toe is said to be a modification of the manji; and although I doubt whether this is always the case, I have observed that on some of the large kakémono representing the footprints, the emblem really is the svastikâ,—not a flamelet nor a flower-shape. The Japanese commentator explains the svastikâ as a symbol of “everlasting bliss.”

Lit.: “The thousand-character” sign.

On some monuments and drawings there is a sort of disk made by a single line in spiral, on each toe,—together with the image of a small wheel.

II.—The Fish (Gyo). The fish signifies freedom from all restraints. As in the water a fish moves easily in any direction, so in the Buddha-state the fully-emancipated knows no restraints or obstructions.

III.—The Diamond-Mace (Jap. Kongō-sho;—Sansc. “Vadjra”). Explained as signifying the divine force that “strikes and breaks all the lusts (bonnō) of the world.”

IV.—The Conch-Shell (Jap. “Hora”) or Trumpet. Emblem of the preaching of the Law. The book Shin-zoku-butsu-ji-hen calls it the symbol of the voice of the Buddha. The Dai-hi-kyō calls it the token of the preaching and of the power of the Mahayana doctrine. The Dai-Nichi-Kyō says:—” At the sound of the blowing of the shell, all the heavenly deities are filled with delight, and come to hear the Law.”

V.—The Flower-Vase (Jap. “Hanagamé”). Emblem of murō,—a mystical word which might be literally rendered as “not-leaking,”—signifying that condition of supreme intelligence triumphant over birth and death.