NIKKO
Of all Japan’s sacred places, Nikko, or Sun’s Brightness, is dearest to
the Japanese heart. Art, architecture, and landscape-gardening add to
Nature’s opulence, history and legend people it with ancient splendors,
and all the land is full of memories. “He who has not seen Nikko cannot
say _Kekko!_” (beautiful, splendid, superb), runs the Japanese saying.
With its forest shades, its vast groves, and lofty avenues, its hush,
its calm religious air, Nikko is an ideal and dream-like place, where
rulers and prelates may well long to be buried, and where priests, poets,
scholars, artists, and pilgrims love to abide. Each day of a whole
summer has new charms, and Nikko’s strange fascination but deepens with
acquaintance.
The one long street of Hachi-ishi, or lower Nikko village, ends at the
banks of the Dayagawa, a roaring stream that courses down a narrow
valley, walled at its upper end by the bold, blue bar of Nantaisan,
the sacred mountain. Legend has peopled this valley of the Dayagawa
with impossible beings—giants, fairies, demons, and monsters. Most of
the national fairy stories begin with, “Once upon a time in the Nikko
mountains,” and one half expects to meet imp or fay in the green shadows.
Mound builder and prehistoric man had lived their squalid lives here;
the crudest and earliest forms of religion had been observed in these
forest sanctuaries long before Kobo Daishi induced the Shinto priests to
believe that their god of the mountain was but a manifestation of Buddha.
Everything proclaims a hoary past—trees, moss-grown stones, battered
images, crumbling tombs, overgrown and forgotten graveyards.
Each summer half the Tokio legations move bodily to Nikko, and temples,
monastery wings, priests’ houses, and the homes of the dwellers in the
upper village are rented to foreigners in ever-increasing numbers. Nikko
habitations do not yet bring the prices of Newport cottages, but the
extravagant rate of three and even five hundred yens for a season of
three months is a Japanese equivalent. Besides the foreigners, there are
many Japanese residents; and, while the Crown-Prince occupies his summer
palace, he is daily to be met in the streets, the forest paths, or temple
grounds. The white-clad pilgrims throng hither by thousands during July
and early August, march picturesquely to the jingle of their staffs
and bells round the great temples, and trudge on to the sanctuary on
Chiuzenji’s shores within the shadow of holy Nantaisan.
Two bridges cross the Daiyagawa, and lead to the groves and temples that
make Nikko’s fame. One bridge is an every-day affair of plain, unpainted
timbers, across which jinrikishas rumble noisily, and figures pass and
repass. The other is the sacred bridge, over which only the Emperor
may pass, in lieu of the Shoguns of old, for whom it was reserved. It
is built of wood, covered with red lacquer, with many brass plates and
tips, and rests on foundation piles of Titanic stone columns, joined
by cross-pieces of stone, carefully fitted and mortised in. Tradition
maintains that the gods sent down this rainbow bridge from the clouds in
answer to saintly prayer. Its sanctity is so carefully preserved, that
when the Emperor wished to pay the highest conceivable honor to General
Grant, he ordered the barrier to the bridge to be opened that his guest
might walk across. Greatly to his credit, that modest soldier refused
to accept this honor, lest it should seem a desecration to the humble
believers in the sanctity of the red bridge.
Shaded avenues, broad staircases, and climbing slopes lead to the
gate-ways of the two great sanctuaries—the mortuary temples and tombs
of the Shogun Iyeyasu and his worthy grandson, the Shogun Iyemitsu. The
hill-side is shaded by magnificent old cryptomerias; and these sacred
groves, with the soft cathedral light under the high canopy of leaves,
are as wonderful as the sacred buildings. Each splendid gate-way, as well
as the soaring pagoda, can be seen in fine perspective at the end of long
avenues of trees, and bronze or stone torii form lofty portals to the
holy places. The torii is a distinctively national structure, and these
grand skeleton gates of two columns and an upward curving cross-piece
are impressive and characteristic features of every Japanese landscape,
standing before even the tiniest shrines in the Liliputian gardens of
Japanese homes, as well as forming the approach to every temple. The
stone torii and the rows of stone lanterns are mossy and lichen-covered,
and every foot of terrace or embankment is spread with fine velvety
moss of the freshest green. Although two hundred years old, the temples
themselves are in as perfect condition and color as when built; and
nothing is finer, perhaps, than the five-storied pagoda with its red
lacquered walls, the brass trimmings of roofs and rails, the discolored
bells pendent from every angle, and a queer, corkscrew spiral atop, the
whole showing like a great piece of jeweller’s work in a deep, green
grove.
Iyeyasu, founder of Yeddo, successor of the Taiko, and military ruler
in the golden age of the arts in Japan, was the first Shogun buried on
Nikko’s sacred hill-side, and it was intended to make the mortuary temple
before his tomb as splendid as the crafts of the day permitted. His
grandson, Iyemitsu, was the next and only other Shogun interred at Nikko,
and his temple fairly rivals that of his ancestor.
At each shrine rise broad stone steps leading to the first and outer
court-yards, where stand the magnificent gates, exquisitely carved, set
with superb metal plates, and all ablaze with color and gilding. The
eye is confused in the infinite detail of structure and ornament, and
the intricacy of beams and brackets upholding the heavy roofs of these
gate-ways. Walls of red lacquer and gold, with carved and colored panels
topped with black tiles, surround each enclosure, and through inner
and outer courts and gate-ways, growing ever more and more splendid,
the visitor approaches the temples proper, their soaring roofs, curved
gables, and ridge-poles set with the Tokugawa crest in gold, sharp cut
against the forest background. At the lowest step his shoes are taken
off, and he is permitted to wander slowly through the magnificent
buildings on the soft, silk-bordered mats. Richly panelled ceilings,
lacquered pillars, carved walls, and curtains of the finest split bamboo
belong to both alike, and in the gloom of inner rooms are marvels of
carving and decoration, only half visible.
Both temples were once splendid with all the emblems and trappings of
Buddhism, redolent with incense, musical with bells and gongs, and
resounding all day with chanted services. But after the Restoration, when
the Shinto became the state religion and the Emperor made a pilgrimage
to Nikko, Iyeyasu’s temple was stripped of its splendid altar ornaments,
banners, and symbols, and the simple mirror and bits of paper of the
empty Shinto creed were substituted. In the dark chapel behind the first
room there remains a large gong, whose dark bowl rests on a silken pad,
and when softly struck fills the place with rising and falling, recurring
and wavering, tones of sweetness for five whole minutes, while Ito
stands with open watch and warning finger, and the priest bends low and
drinks in the music with ecstatic countenance. Iyemitsu’s temple was
spared, and there stand the rows of superb lacquered boxes containing the
sacred writings. There, too, are the gilded images, golden lotus-leaves,
massive candlesticks, drums, gongs, banners and pendent ornaments,
besides the giant koros, breathing forth pale clouds of incense, that
accompanied the rites of the grand old Buddhist faith.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE IYEMITSU TEMPLE]
Each temple has a fine water-tank in its outer court; an open pavilion,
with solid corner posts supporting the heavy and ornate roof above the
granite trough. Each basin is a single, huge block of stone, hollowed
out and cut with such exactness that the water, welling up from the
bottom, pours over the smooth edges so evenly as to give it the look of
a cube of polished glass. The fountain at the Iyemitsu temple was the
gift of the princes of Nabeshima, and its eaves flutter with the myriad
flags left there by pilgrims who come to pray at the great shrine. All
about the temple grounds is heard the noise of rushing water, and the
music and gurgle of these tiny streams, the rustle of the high branches,
and the cawing of huge solitary rooks are the only sounds that break
the stillness of the enchanted groves between the soft boomings of the
morning and evening bells. The noise of voices is lost in the great leafy
spaces, and the sacredness of the place subdues even the unbelieving
foreigner, while native tourists and pilgrims move silently, or speak
only in undertones, and make no sound, save as their clogs clatter on
stones and gravel.
It is impossible to carry away more than a general and bewildered
impression of the splendid walled and lanterned courts, the superb
gate-ways, and the temples themselves, but certain details, upon which
the guides insist, remain strangely clear in memory. Over the doors of
the stable where the sacred white pony is kept are colored carvings
representing groups of monkeys with eyes, or ears, or mouth covered with
their paws—the signification being that one should neither see, hear, nor
speak any evil. In one superbly-carved gate-way is a little medallion of
two tigers, so cunningly studied and worked out that the curving grain
and knots of the wood give all the softly-shaded stripes of their velvet
coats and an effect of thick fur. One section of a carved column in this
gate is purposely placed upsidedown, the builder fearing to complete so
perfect and marvellous a piece of workmanship. Above another gate-way
curls a comfortable sleeping cat, which is declared to wink when rain
is coming, and this white cat has as great a fame as anything along the
Daiyagawa.
The strangest hierophant in Nikko is the priestess who dances at the
temple of Iyeyasu. She looks her three-score years of age, and is allowed
a small temple to herself, where she sits, posed like an altar image,
with a big money-box on the sacred red steps before her, into which the
pious and the curious toss their offerings. Then the priestess rises
and solemnly walks a few steps this way, a few steps that way, poses
before each change, shakes an elaborate sort of baby’s rattle with the
right-hand, and gesticulates with an open fan in the left-hand. The
sedate walk to and fro, the movements of the rattle and fan constitute
the dance, after which this aged Miriam sits down, bows her head to the
mats, and resumes her statuesque pose. She wears a nun-like head-dress
of white muslin, and a loose white garment without obi, over a red
petticoat, the regular costume of the Shinto priestesses. She seems
always amiable and ready to respond to a conciliatory coin, but the
visitor wonders that the cool and shaded sanctuary in which she sits,
with nearly the whole front wall making an open door, does not stiffen
her aged joints with rheumatism and end her dancing days.
[Illustration: GATE-WAY OF THE IYEYASU TEMPLE]
A green and mossy staircase, a greener and mossier balustraded walk,
leads up and along the crest of the hill to the final knoll, atop of
which stands the simple bronze urn containing the great Shogun’s body.
A more still and solemn, a more peaceful and beautiful resting-place
could not be imagined, and the peculiar green twilight reigning under the
closely-set cryptomerias, with those long stretches of stone balustrades
and embankments, which the forest has claimed for its own and clothed
in a concealing mantle of the greenest moss, subdue the most frivolous
beholder to silence and seriousness.
On that velvety-green stair-way leading to Iyeyasu’s tomb I met, one day,
a scholar of fine taste and great culture, a man of distinction in his
native West. “I am overwhelmed with the beauty and magnificence of all
this,” he said. “I must concede the greatness of any religion that could
provide and preserve this, and teach its followers to appreciate it.”
Afterwards, almost on the same step, a dear missionary friend stopped me,
with eyes full of tears. “Oh!” she sighed, “this fills me with sadness
and sorrow. These emblems and monuments of heathenism! I see nothing
beautiful or admirable in those wicked temples. They show me how hard it
will be to uproot such heathen creeds. I wish I had not come.”
A woodland path leads around the foot of the great hill on which the
Shoguns’ tombs are built, a path laid with large fiat stones and set with
a rough curbing of loose rocks and bowlders, covered—by the drip and damp
and shade of centuries—with a thick green moss. This silent footway leads
past many small temples, stone-fenced enclosures, moss-covered tombs and
tablets, tiny shrines behind tiny torii, and battered, broken-nosed,
and headless Buddhas. Half-hidden tracks, in that gloomy and silent
cryptomeria forest, rough-set staircases, roads plunging into the deep
shadow of the woods entice the explorer to ever-new surprises. At
deserted and silent shrines heaps of pebbles, bits of paper, or strips
of wood painted with a sacred character attest the presence of prayerful
pilgrims, who have sought them out to register a vow or petition. Tiny
red shrines gleam jewel-like in the far shadows, and fallen cryptomerias
make mounds and ridges of entangled vines among the red-barked giants
still standing. Above a water-fall, all thin ribbons and jets of foam,
are more old temples, where pilgrims come to pray and tourists to admire,
but where no one ever despoils the unguarded sanctuaries. In one of these
buildings are life-size images of the gods of thunder and the winds.
Raiden, the thunder-god, is a bright-red divinity with a circle of drums
surrounding his head like a halo, a fierce countenance, and two goaty
horns on his forehead. Futen, the god of winds, has a grass-green skin,
two horny toes to each foot, and a big bag over his shoulders. A fine
heavy-roofed red gate-way and bell-tower distinguish another cluster
of temples in this still forest nook, their altars covered with gilded
images. One open shrine, which should be the resort of jinrikisha men,
is dedicated to a muscular red deity, to whom votaries offer up a pair
of sandals, beseeching him for vigorous legs. The whole place is hung
over with wooden, straw, and tin sandals, minute or colossal. Then down
through the wood, past a hoary graveyard, where abbots and monks of
Nikko monasteries were buried for centuries before the Shoguns came, one
returns to the Futa-ara temple and Iyemitsu’s first gate-way.
In our wanderings we once happened upon an old and crowded graveyard,
with splendid trees shading the mossy tombs and monuments. The stone
lanterns, Buddhas, and images were past counting, and one granite deity,
under a big sun-hat, had a kerchief of red cotton tied under his chin.
His benevolent face and flaming robes were stuck all over with tiny
bits of paper, on which the faithful had written their petitions, and
the lanterns beside him were heaped with prayer-stones. A Hindoo-looking
deity near by sat with uplifted knee, on which he rested one arm and
supported his bent and thoughtful head.
A hundred stone representatives of Buddha sit in mossy meditation under
the shadow of the river bank, long branches trailing over them and vines
clambering about their ancient brows. Time has rolled some from their
lotus pedestals, beheaded others, and covered them all with white lichens
and green moss, and Gamman, as this row of Buddhas is named, is the
strangest sight among the many strange sights of the river bank. Custom
ordains that one should count them, and no two persons are believed to
have ever recorded the same number of images between the bridge and Kobo
Daishi’s open shrine.
There is an eta village just below Nikko, peopled by these outcasts, who
follow their despised calling of handling the carcasses of animals and
dressing leather and furs. Their degradation seems to result not more
from that Buddhist law which forbids the taking of animal life, than from
the legendary belief that they are the descendants of Korean prisoners,
long kept as executioners and purveyors for the imperial falcons.
Colonies of etas lived for centuries without part or lot in the lives of
their high-caste neighbors. After the Restoration, the power of the great
nobles was curtailed, and with the gradual freeing of the lower classes
from the tyranny of caste the eta became a citizen, protected by law.
Prejudice still confines him to his own villages, but when he leaves them
salt is no longer sprinkled on the spot where he stands to purify it.
The most harrowing situation of the old romances was the falling in
love of a noble with a beautiful eta girl. Now the eta children
attend the Government schools on the same terms as their betters. But
this liberality was of slow growth, and in one province, where the
stiff-necked parents withdrew their children because of the presence of
these pariahs, the governor entered himself as a pupil, sitting side by
side with the little outcasts in the same classes, after which august
demonstration of theoretical equality caste distinctions were allowed to
fade.
Nikko becomes a great curio mart each summer, the curios having,
naturally, a religious cast; and bells, drums, gongs, incense-burners,
images, banners, brocade draperies, and priestly fans make a part of
every peddler’s pack, each thing, of course, being certified to have
come from the sacred treasuries near by. The souvenirs, which the most
hardened tourist cannot resist buying, are the Nikko specialties of
trays, cups, boxes, and teapots of carved and lacquered wood, and of
curious roots, decorated with chrysanthemums or incised sketches of
the Sacred Bridge. The Japanese eye sees possibilities in the most
unpromising knot, and the Japanese hand hollows it into a casket, or fits
it with the spout and handle that turn it into a teapot. All the village
street is lined with these wooden-ware shops, alternating with photograph
and curio marts.
Visitors to Nikko always buy its _yuoki_, a candy made of chestnuts
and barley-sugar, which comes in slabs an inch square and six inches
long, wrapped in a dried bamboo sheath, and put in the dainty little
wooden boxes which make Japanese purchases so attractive. It is like
a dark-brown fig-paste, and has a flavor of marrons glaces and of
maple-sugar. Flocks of children, with babies on their backs, hover about
the yuoki shop in upper Nikko, and if the tourist bestows a box on them,
their comical bobs and courtesies, their funny way of touching the
forehead with the gift during all the bowing, and the rapture with which
they attack the bar of sweets express most eloquent thanks.
When rain or fatigue prevented our making any out-door excursions,
the village street furnished us with an all-day occupation. A mossy
and abandoned rice-mill faced us across the road, with a tiny cascade
dripping down from the leafy hill behind it, feeding its overshot wheel,
and dropping by dwarf water-falls to the side of the road, whence it
ran down the slope to add its singing to the water chorus that makes
all Nikko musical. Pack-horses, farmers, pilgrims, and villagers went
picturesquely by, each pedestrian tucking his kimono in his belt to
shorten it, and holding a vast golden halo over his head in the shape of
a flat, oil-paper rain umbrella.
A small garden separated our summer home at Nikko from our landlord’s
house, and from early morning, when his amados thundered open, until
dark, when they rumbled shut, the whole conduct of Japanese household
life lay before us. Our neighbors came out of doors betimes. A bucket of
water from a tiny cascade filled the broad, shallow copper wash-basin,
in which one by one they washed their faces. Meanwhile the kettle boiled
over the charcoal fire, and some child ran down to a provision-shop for
a square slab of bean-curd, which, with many cups of tea, a little rice,
and shreds of pickled fish, composed their breakfast. Then the futons
were hung over poles or lines to sun; the andons, pillows, and big green
tents of musquito-nets put away; the tatami brushed off, and the little
shop put in order for the day.
The women washed and starched their gowns, pasting them down on flat
boards to smooth and dry; sewed and mended, scrubbed and scoured in the
narrow alcove of a kitchen all the morning; while the children trotted
back and forth with buckets of water to sprinkle the garden, wash the
stones, fill the bath-tubs, and supply the kitchen. The rice, after being
washed and rubbed in the cascade, was soaked for an hour and then poured
into the furiously boiling rice-pot. The brush fire under the stone frame
of the kettle was raked out, and when the steam came only in interrupted
puffs from under the cover, this was lifted to show a pot full to the
brim of snowy-white grains. A soup had meanwhile been stewing, a fish had
been broiled over charcoal, and, with tea, the noonday dinner was ready.
At some hour of the day offerings of rice and food were mysteriously
placed on the steps of the tiny shrine to the fox-god, chief ornament of
the farther garden. Towards sundown came supper, and then the lighting
of the lamps. Shadow pictures on the shoji repeated the actions and
groupings within, the splash of water betrayed the family bath, and when
all, from grandfather to baby, had been boiled and scrubbed, the amados
banged, and the performance was over until sunrise.