There is a sound of happy voices from the temple, and the steps are
crowded with smiling mothers and laughing children. Entering, I find
women and babies pressing about a lacquered table in front of the
doorway. Upon it is a little tub-shaped vessel of sweet tea--amacha; and
standing in the tea is a tiny figure of Buddha, one hand pointing upward
and one downward. The women, having made the customary offering, take up
some of the tea with a wooden ladle of curious shape, and pour it over
the statue, and then, filling the ladle a second time, drink a little,
and give a sip to their babies. This is the ceremony of washing the
statue of Buddha.
Near the lacquered stand on which the vessel of sweet tea rests is
another and lower stand supporting a temple bell shaped like a great
bowl. A priest approaches with a padded mallet in his hand and strikes
the bell. But the bell does not sound properly: he starts, looks into
it, and stoops to lift out of it a smiling Japanese baby. The mother,
laughing, runs to relieve him of his burden; and priest, mother, and
baby all look at us with a frankness of mirth in which we join.
Akira leaves me a moment to speak with one of the temple attendants, and
presently returns with a curious lacquered box, about a foot in length,
and four inches wide on each of its four sides. There is only a small
hole in one end of it; no appearance of a lid of any sort.
'Now,' says Akira, 'if you wish to pay two sen, we shall learn our
future lot according to the will of the gods.'
I pay the two sen, and Akira shakes the box. Out comes a narrow slip of
bamboo, with Chinese characters written thereon.
'Kitsu!' cries Akira. 'Good-fortune. The number is fifty-and-one.'
Again he shakes the box; a second bamboo slip issues from the slit.
'Dai kitsu! great good-fortune. The number is ninety-and-nine.
Once more the box is shaken; once more the oracular bamboo protrudes.
'Kyo!' laughs Akira. 'Evil will befall us. The number is
sixty-and-four.'
He returns the box to a priest, and receives three mysterious papers,
numbered with numbers corresponding to the numbers of the bamboo slips.
These little bamboo slips, or divining-sticks, are called mikuji.
This, as translated by Akira, is the substance of the text of the paper
numbered fifty-and-one:
'He who draweth forth this mikuji, let him live according to the
heavenly law and worship Kwannon. If his trouble be a sickness, it shall
pass from him. If he have lost aught, it shall be found. If he have a
suit at law, he shall gain. If he love a woman, he shall surely win her,
though he should have to wait. And many happinesses will come to him.'
The dai-kitsu paper reads almost similarly, with the sole differences
that, instead of Kwannon, the deities of wealth and prosperity--Daikoku,
Bishamon, and Benten--are to be worshipped, and that the fortunate man
will not have to wait at all for the woman loved. But the kyo paper
reads thus:
'He who draweth forth this mikuji, it will be well for him to obey
the heavenly law and to worship Kwannon the Merciful. If he have any
sickness, even much more sick he shall become. If he have lost aught, it
shall never be found. If he have a suit at law, he shall never gain it.
If he love a woman, let him have no more expectation of winning her.
Only by the most diligent piety can he hope to escape the most frightful
calamities. And there shall be no felicity in his portion.'
'All the same, we are fortunate,' declares Akira. 'Twice out of three
times we have found luck. Now we will go to see another statue of
Buddha.' And he guides me, through many curious streets, to the southern
verge of the city.