KIOTO TEMPLES
Kioto is seen at its best in summer-time, in the fulness and color of
its out-door life. Though the great plain of the city bakes and quivers
in the sun, the heat is no greater than in other cities. The views from
Maruyama are always enchanting, and the sunset sky is not lovelier than
the dawn, when all the hill-side lies in cool, green shade, when the
opposite mountain-wall wears a veil of rose and lilac, and the air above
the plain of gray roofs is full of filmy mists and tiny smoke-wreaths.
All travellers are abroad at sunrise or in the early morning, for by
ten o’clock the sun blazes down with fury, and humane people keep their
jinrikisha coolies and themselves in-doors. With the cooling dusk
mosquitoes swarm from all these gardens and hill-side groves, and the
victim fans and slaps until he creeps for safety under his mosquito-net,
which, unhappily, does not exclude the nimble flea, whose ravages test
both his endurance and his temper. At sunrise all the temples in Kioto
open their gates for the first mass, and at dawn pilgrimages to these
sacred spots may begin, the odor and silence of that dewy hour adding to
their peace and sanctity.
All the way from Yaami’s to the Yasaka pagoda and the Kiomidzu temple the
hill-side is covered with temple and monastery grounds, the way leading
through broad, tree-shaded avenues and narrow paths by bamboo groves
or evergreen thickets. Wide, flagged walks and grand stair-ways follow
the terraces to temples and bell-towers, screened by open-work walls
and approached through monumental gate-ways made beautiful by carving,
gilding and painting, inlaid metals, and fine tiles. Crossing from one
temple enclosure to another, the walk extends for two miles along the
brow of the hill through beautiful grounds. The park-like demesne of
Higashi Otani, with its imperial tombs, adjoins Yaami’s, and next it is
the Kotaiji, with its noble avenues. At the end of one broad path-way,
traversing the upper part of the Kotaiji grounds, the Yasaka pagoda, with
its five stories of curving roofs and gables hung with old bronze bells,
stands like a picture in the arching frame of green. These venerable
pagodas, their walls covered with wondrous carvings and bracketings,
faded to dim red and tarnished gold, with the gray and white tiles
of their picturesque roofs half overgrown with mosses and vines, the
topmost ridge finished with a tapering, spiral piece of iron, delight
the lover of the picturesque. Yasaka’s cracked and tongueless bells have
long ceased to swing and ring with every breeze, but they give an airy
and fantastic touch to the fine old structure. The pagoda dates from the
sixth century, and for twelve hundred years its four altars have heard
the prayers of faithful Buddhists. The early light gilds its eastern
wall, and the rich sunset makes of it a palace of the imagination. To
me it seemed most beautiful one late afternoon, when, hurrying down the
steep steps of a narrow street behind it, I saw its outlines, delicate
and strong, against a glowing orange sky.
All about the pagoda and the neighboring slopes of Kiomidzu are potteries
and shops for the sale of the cheap porcelain and earthen-ware that
pilgrims and visitors are prone to buy on their way to and from the
temples. The eminence is known as Teapot Hill, and the long, steep
street leading from Gojo bridge to the Kiomidzu gates is lined on either
side of its hilly half-mile with china shops. There one may collect his
three hundred and sixty-five teapots in an hour, and few leave without
a souvenir of Kiomidzu porcelain, be it from Kanzan’s or Dohachi’s
godowns of exquisite wares, or from the long rows of charming little open
shops. Kiomidzu is the centre of the porcelain-makers’ district, as the
manufacturers of faience are grouped together in the Awata quarter, a
mile beyond, and behind the little shop-fronts and blank walls are busy
work-rooms and burning kilns.
The founding of the Kiomidzu temple is lost in fable, and its legends
are many and confusing. All the Japanese rulers, warriors, and Shoguns
have had something to do with the place, and every foot of its enclosure
is historic. It is the popular temple of the people, enshrining one of
the thirty-three famous Kwannons of the empire, to which pilgrims flock
by thousands, and where one sees the most active forms of the faith.
Climbing the breathless hill-slopes and stone stair-ways the visitor
reaches a giant gate-way, in whose shadow mendicant priests stand with
extended bowl, straw hats concealing them to the shoulders, and their
maize and purple garments hung with rosaries. There are two pagodas and
innumerable stone lanterns and shrines, upon which the faithful toss
pebbles as they pray. If the stone remains the prayer is answered, and
the pilgrim proceeds with a lightened heart. The Hondo, or main hall,
is a most ancient building, one half resting on the slope of the hill
and the rest extending in a broad platform propped up by heavy timbers
and scaffolding over the face of a precipice. From this platform jealous
husbands used to hurl their wives; those who survived the fall of one
hundred and fifty feet to the jagged rocks below being proved innocent of
wrong-doing, and those who perished guilty. There are no rows of ticketed
clogs at the steps of the Hondo, nor soft, clean mats within. The hall is
open and benches are set before the altar, where the weary, dusty pilgrim
may sit and, resting, pray. Votive tapers are brought to the shrine, and
the low beams overhead are covered with votive pictures.
One fortunate afternoon we chanced upon a matsuri at Kiomidzu. All Teapot
Hill was crowded with people, girls and children in their gayly-colored
crapes and gauzes vying in brightness with the decorated houses. Priests,
sitting on small, canopied platforms, hammered silver-toned gongs to call
the faithful to give offerings. Coins were tossed in generously on the
blankets where the priests sat, but they were not the thick modern copper
sens, nor yet silver. Money-changers had their little stands along the
via sacra, and in exchange for a sen the believers received a handful
of ancient rins and half-rins. Thus provided, the pilgrim could bestow
his pious alms on each group of priests, and if he followed the polite
custom of wrapping any money gift in a bit of soft paper, the priests
could not tell whether he had thrown silver or copper. Within the temple
grounds tateba were crowded with feasters and tea-drinkers, dozens of
fruit-stands were piled with slices of watermelon, and fans painted with
Kiomidzu scenes were sold on every side.
Inside the temple itself the scuffle of clogs and mutterings of
pilgrims drowned all sounds save the silvery notes of the gongs. On the
image-covered altar, one hundred and ninety feet in length, veiled by
clouds of incense, were dimly visible the gilded statue of the divine
Kwannon, the special patroness of Kiomidzu, and the figures of the
priests. It was not easy to pick one’s way among the kneeling multitudes
offering their fervent prayers oblivious to all surroundings. As one
pilgrim departed the rest crowded forward, continuing the beseeching
“_Namu Amida Butsu_” (Hear me, Great Lord Buddha) which they mutter so
rapidly that only a long-drawn “_Na-na-na-na-na-a-a_” is audible as they
press their palms together and wind their beads around their hands.
In the second temple, or Amida, were more candles, incense, and priests,
and more kneeling people. At the end of the hanging platform of this
temple is a small, latticed shrine dedicated to Kamnosube-no-Kami,
the goddess who watches over lovers. He who would make sure of the
affections of his beloved buys a printed prayer from the priest, rolls
it into a narrow strip, and then, with the thumb and little finger of
the right-hand, ties it to Kamnosube-no-Kami’s grating, and implores her
aid. If any other fingers are used to tie the knot, or if they even touch
the prayer-paper, the charm is broken and the goddess is deaf. While we
looked on one pretty creature in a red crape underdress and a dark-blue
gauze kimono, who blushed most beautifully, bent her anxious face to
the grating and deftly wound her fingers in and out. Following her a
middle-aged coolie tossed in his fractional coin, rang, clapped, and tied
his sentimental petition to the lattice.
[Illustration: THE TRUE-LOVER’S SHRINE AT KIOMIDZU]
Holiday crowds poured up and down the broad paved walks, wandered about
the paths, or gathered in the pavilions, while new throngs toiled up the
stone staircases to join in the festival. On the overhanging platforms
sacred dances had been performed all day, giving place towards nightfall
to the low tables covered with red blankets, around which companies
picturesquely grouped themselves, while pretty nesans pattered back and
forth to serve them. The whole scene was so spectacular and fascinating
that we sat there watching the moving crowds and looking out over the
city below us until the sun sank in clouds of splendid color, and
twinkling lights began to creep upward from the streets.
Near the top of Teapot Hill a narrow lane diverges into a dense bamboo
grove, where the feathery tips meet far overhead, and only a green
twilight filters down to the base of the myriad slender columns. This
bamboo grove is one of the finest in Kioto, and its cool shade is most
grateful on a summer day. Beyond it is the famous Spectacle Bridge,
a massive stone pile, whose two low arches are not unlike a bowed
spectacle-frame. The lotus-pond which it crosses is surrounded in the
early summer mornings with breakfasting parties, who sit there to see the
splendid flowers open their cups with the first rays of the sun. When
that show is over these flower-lovers wander through the farther confines
of Nishi Otani, with its superb bronze gates and dragon-guarded tanks,
and its imperial tombs hidden away in the quiet groves.
The chain of temples still lengthens southward, and among the most
ancient, surrounded with walls of Titanic bowlders, is the Dai Butsu
temple, with its huge image of gilded wood, and its fallen bell, whose
interior would make a temple in itself. A stone monument, the Mimizuka,
covers the heap of thousands of human ears, cut by Hideyoshi’s generals
from the heads of enemies slain in the Korean expedition, salted and
brought home as proof of prowess. Last is the Sanjiusangendo, or Hall
of the Thirty-three Thousand Buddhas, which, with its rows and rows of
tall gilded statues, is a curious place, but less like a sanctuary than a
wholesale warehouse of sacred images.
Northward from Yaami’s the chain of temples extends along the leafy
hill-side, first among them being the great Chioin sanctuary, one of
the largest, oldest, and richest in Kioto. Its colossal gate-way, its
long avenues, great stone embankments, terraces, staircases, and groves
of ancient trees proclaim its age and endless honors. Stretching over
surrounding acres run the yellow walls of its monastery grounds and
priests’ houses. The Chioin’s altar is a mass of carved and gilded
ornaments surrounding a massive golden shrine, while the ceiling
and walls of the vast interior are hardly less splendid. Occasional
worshippers kneel in the vast matted hall muttering their prayers, but
usually only a solitary old priest is seen industriously hammering at
a drum, shaped like a huge, round sleigh-bell. From five o’clock in
the morning until the temple closes at four in the afternoon the hard,
mechanical _thunk_, _thunk_ never stops. A nice old woman, who must be
a professional mender, judging by her incessant patching and darning of
blue-cotton garments, takes care of the shoes while visitors roam through
the temple stocking-footed; and proudly does she point out, among the
bracketed eaves, the sun-umbrella which the great builder of the temple
purposely left there. Back of the main temple are other shrines and
suites of reception-rooms, with screens and ceilings decorated by famous
artists, and quiet corners where abbot and priest may sit and look upon
the exquisite little gardens.
If I were a good Buddhist I should say a prayer or two to the Chioin’s
great bell, an inverted cup of bronze eighteen feet in height, breathing
music so sweet that it thrills the listener, and ringing so seldom that
no one willingly misses its voice. This bell hangs by itself in a shady
place at the top of a long stone staircase, and is struck from the
outside by a swinging wooden beam that brings out soft reverberations
without jar or clang. This huge hammer is unchained on rare days of the
month at the sunrise hour, and in the stillness of dawn one cannot tell
whence the sound comes. It is in the whole air; under one’s feet, or
tingling and beating within one’s body, while yet the ear seems to drink
in the very ecstasy of sound.
About Nanjenji’s lofty gate-way are clustering tea-bushes, and between
its ancient shrine, its tombs, and picturesque bell-tower modern
engineering has brought the aqueduct from Lake Biwa, the long tunnel
emerging from the hill-side back of the buildings. Further on are
Iyekando, with its lotus lake and verdant cemetery; Niyakuoji’s pretty
garden and cascade; and Shishigatami, Shinniodo, and Yoshida, each with
its distinctive charm and interest.
The way from these sacred places, passing through the potters’ district
of Awata, and coming suddenly out on a level of rice fields, with
Kurodani’s pagoda and grove rising like an island from their midst, has
been likened to the abrupt transportation from Rome to the Campagna.
Kurodani is a beautiful old sanctuary, and the steep hill on which
stands its great pagoda is an ideal Buddhist burial-ground. Tombs,
stone tablets, and lanterns, and hundreds of images of Buddha, in stone
and bronze, crowd against each other, and some priest or pilgrim, ever
picturesque, is always moving up or down the broad gray staircase.