Descending the shadowed steps, I find myself face to face with six
little statues about three feet high, standing in a row upon one long
pedestal. The first holds a Buddhist incense-box; the second, a lotus;
the third, a pilgrim's staff (tsue); the fourth is telling the beads
of a Buddhist rosary; the fifth stands in the attitude of prayer, with
hands joined; the sixth bears in one hand the shakujo or mendicant
priest's staff, having six rings attached to the top of it and in the
other hand the mystic jewel, Nio-i ho-jiu, by virtue whereof all desires
may be accomplished. But the faces of the Six are the same: each figure
differs from the other by the attitude only and emblematic attribute;
and all are smiling the like faint smile. About the neck of each figure
a white cotton bag is suspended; and all the bags are filled with
pebbles; and pebbles have been piled high also about the feet of the
statues, and upon their knees, and upon their shoulders; and even
upon their aureoles of stone, little pebbles are balanced. Archaic,
mysterious, but inexplicably touching, all these soft childish faces
are.
Roku Jizo--'The Six Jizo'--these images are called in the speech of the
people; and such groups may be seen in many a Japanese cemetery. They
are representations of the most beautiful and tender figure in Japanese
popular faith, that charming divinity who cares for the souls of little
children, and consoles them in the place of unrest, and saves them from
the demons. 'But why are those little stones piled about the statues?' I
ask.
Well, it is because some say the child-ghosts must build little towers
of stones for penance in the Sai-no-Kawara, which is the place to which
all children after death must go. And the Oni, who are demons, come to
throw down the little stone-piles as fast as the children build; and
these demons frighten the children, and torment them. But the little
souls run to Jizo, who hides them in his great sleeves, and comforts
them, and makes the demons go away. And every stone one lays upon the
knees or at the feet of Jizo, with a prayer from the heart, helps some
child-soul in the Sai-no-Kawara to perform its long penance. [2]
'All little children,' says the young Buddhist student who tells
all this, with a smile as gentle as Jizo's own, 'must go to the
Sai-no-Kawara when they die. And there they play with Jizo. The
Sai-no-Kawara is beneath us, below the ground. [3]
'And Jizo has long sleeves to his robe; and they pull him by the sleeves
in their play; and they pile up little stones before him to amuse
themselves. And those stones you see heaped about the statues are put
there by people for the sake of the little ones, most often by mothers
of dead children who pray to Jizo. But grown people do not go to the
Sai-no-Kawara when they die.' [4]
And the young student, leaving the Roku-Jizo, leads the way to other
strange surprises, guiding me among the tombs, showing me the sculptured
divinities.
Some of them are quaintly touching; all are interesting; a few are
positively beautiful.
The greater number have nimbi. Many are represented kneeling, with hands
joined exactly like the figures of saints in old Christian art. Others,
holding lotus-flowers, appear to dream the dreams that are meditations.
One figure reposes on the coils of a great serpent. Another, coiffed
with something resembling a tiara, has six hands, one pair joined in
prayer, the rest, extended, holding out various objects; and this figure
stands upon a prostrate demon, crouching face downwards. Yet another
image, cut in low relief, has arms innumerable. The first pair of hands
are joined, with the palms together; while from behind the line of the
shoulders, as if shadowily emanating therefrom, multitudinous arms reach
out in all directions, vapoury, spiritual, holding forth all kinds of
objects as in answer to supplication, and symbolising, perhaps, the
omnipotence of love. This is but one of the many forms of Kwannon, the
goddess of mercy, the gentle divinity who refused the rest of Nirvana
to save the souls of men, and who is most frequently pictured as
a beautiful Japanese girl. But here she appears as Senjiu-Kwannon
(Kwannon-of-the-Thousand-Hands). Close by stands a great slab bearing
upon the upper portion of its chiselled surface an image in relief of
Buddha, meditating upon a lotus; and below are carven three weird little
figures, one with hands upon its eyes, one with hands upon its ears,
one with hands upon its mouth; these are Apes. 'What do they signify?' I
inquire. My friend answers vaguely, mimicking each gesture of the three
sculptured shapes: 'I see no bad thing; I hear no bad thing; I speak no
bad thing.'
Gradually, by dint of reiterated explanations, I myself learn to
recognise some of the gods at sight. The figure seated upon a lotus,
holding a sword in its hand, and surrounded by bickering fire, is
Fudo-Sama--Buddha as the Unmoved, the Immutable: the Sword signifies
Intellect; the Fire, Power. Here is a meditating divinity, holding in
one hand a coil of ropes: the divinity is Buddha; those are the ropes
which bind the passions and desires. Here also is Buddha slumbering,
with the gentlest, softest Japanese face--a child face--and eyes
closed, and hand pillowing the cheek, in Nirvana. Here is a beautiful
virgin-figure, standing upon a lily: Kwannon-Sama, the Japanese Madonna.
Here is a solemn seated figure, holding in one hand a vase, and lifting
the other with the gesture of a teacher: Yakushi-Sama, Buddha the
All-Healer, Physician of Souls.
Also, I see figures of animals. The Deer of Buddhist birth-stories
stands, all grace, in snowy stone, upon the summit of toro, or votive
lamps. On one tomb I see, superbly chiselled, the image of a fish, or
rather the Idea of a fish, made beautifully grotesque for sculptural
purposes, like the dolphin of Greek art. It crowns the top of a memorial
column; the broad open jaws, showing serrated teeth, rest on the summit
of the block bearing the dead man's name; the dorsal fin and elevated
tail are elaborated into decorative impossibilities. 'Mokugyo,' says
Akira. It is the same Buddhist emblem as that hollow wooden object,
lacquered scarlet-and-gold, on which the priests beat with a padded
mallet while chanting the Sutra. And, finally, in one place I perceive a
pair of sitting animals, of some mythological species, supple of figure
as greyhounds. 'Kitsune,' says Akira--'foxes.' So they are, now that I
look upon them with knowledge of their purpose; idealised foxes, foxes
spiritualised, impossibly graceful foxes. They are chiselled in some
grey stone. They have long, narrow, sinister, glittering eyes; they
seem to snarl; they are weird, very weird creatures, the servants of the
Rice-God, retainers of Inari-Sama, and properly belong, not to Buddhist
iconography, but the imagery of Shinto.
No inscriptions upon these tombs corresponding to our epitaphs. Only
family names--the names of the dead and their relatives and a sculptured
crest, usually a flower. On the sotoba, only Sanscrit words.
Farther on, I find other figures of Jizo, single reliefs, sculptured
upon tombs. But one of these is a work of art so charming that I feel
a pain at being obliged to pass it by. More sweet, assuredly, than
any imaged Christ, this dream in white stone of the playfellow of dead
children, like a beautiful young boy, with gracious eyelids half closed,
and face made heavenly by such a smile as only Buddhist art could have
imagined, the smile of infinite lovingness and supremest gentleness.
Indeed, so charming the ideal of Jizo is that in the speech of the
people a beautiful face is always likened to his--'Jizo-kao,' as the
face of Jizo.