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.
Above the central altar Amida Buddha sits enthroned on his mystic golden
lotus in the attitude of the Teacher. On the altar to the right gleams
a shrine of five miniature golden steps, where little images stand in
rows, tier above tier, some seated, some erect, male and female, attired
like goddesses or like daimyo: the Sanjiubanjin, or Thirty Guardians.
Below, on the façade of the altar, is the figure of a hero slaying a
monster. On the altar to the left is the shrine of the Mother-of-Demons.
Her story is a legend of horror. For some sin committed in a previous
birth, she was born a demon, devouring her own children. But being saved
by the teaching of Buddha, she became a divine being, especially loving
and protecting infants; and Japanese mothers pray to her for their
little ones, and wives pray to her for beautiful boys.
The face of Kishibojin [7] is the face of a comely woman. But her eyes
are weird. In her right hand she bears a lotus-blossom; with her left
she supports in a fold of her robe, against her half-veiled breast, a
naked baby. At the foot of her shrine stands Jizo-Sama, leaning upon his
shakujo. But the altar and its images do not form the startling feature
of the temple-interior. What impresses the visitor in a totally novel
way are the votive offerings. High before the shrine, suspended from
strings stretched taut between tall poles of bamboo, are scores,
no, hundreds, of pretty, tiny dresses--Japanese baby-dresses of
many colours. Most are made of poor material, for these are the
thank-offerings of very poor simple women, poor country mothers, whose
prayers to Kishibojin for the blessing of children have been heard.
And the sight of all those little dresses, each telling so naively
its story of joy and pain--those tiny kimono shaped and sewn by docile
patient fingers of humble mothers--touches irresistibly, like some
unexpected revelation of the universal mother-love. And the tenderness
of all the simple hearts that have testified thus to faith and
thankfulness seems to thrill all about me softly, like a caress of
summer wind.
Outside the world appears to have suddenly grown beautiful; the light
is sweeter; it seems to me there is a new charm even in the azure of the
eternal day.