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Mr.
Chamberlain and I went in a kuruma hurried along by three
liveried
coolies, through the three miles of crowded streets which
lie
between the Legation and Asakusa, once a village, but now
incorporated
with this monster city, to the broad street leading to
the
Adzuma Bridge over the Sumida river, one of the few stone
bridges
in Tokiyo, which connects east Tokiyo, an uninteresting
region,
containing many canals, storehouses, timber-yards, and
inferior
yashikis, with the rest of the city. This street,
marvellously
thronged with pedestrians and kurumas, is the terminus
of
a number of city "stage lines," and twenty wretched-looking
covered
waggons, with still more wretched ponies, were drawn up in
the
middle, waiting for passengers. Just there plenty of real
Tokiyo
life is to be seen, for near a shrine of popular pilgrimage
there
are always numerous places of amusement, innocent and
vicious,
and the vicinity of this temple is full of restaurants,
tea-houses,
minor theatres, and the resorts of dancing and singing
girls.
A
broad-paved avenue, only open to foot passengers, leads from this
street
to the grand entrance, a colossal two-storied double-roofed
mon,
or gate, painted a rich dull red. On either side of this
avenue
are lines of booths--which make a brilliant and lavish
display
of their contents--toy-shops, shops for smoking apparatus,
and
shops for the sale of ornamental hair-pins predominating.
Nearer
the gate are booths for the sale of rosaries for prayer,
sleeve
and bosom idols of brass and wood in small shrines, amulet
bags,
representations of the jolly-looking Daikoku, the god of
wealth,
the most popular of the household gods of Japan, shrines,
memorial
tablets, cheap ex votos, sacred bells, candlesticks, and
incense-burners,
and all the endless and various articles connected
with
Buddhist devotion, public and private. Every day is a
festival-day
at Asakusa; the temple is dedicated to the most
popular
of the great divinities; it is the most popular of
religious
resorts; and whether he be Buddhist, Shintoist, or
Christian,
no stranger comes to the capital without making a visit
to
its crowded courts or a purchase at its tempting booths. Not to
be
an exception, I invested in bouquets of firework flowers, fifty
flowers
for 2 sen, or 1d., each of which, as it slowly consumes,
throws
off fiery coruscations, shaped like the most beautiful of
snow
crystals. I was also tempted by small boxes at 2 sen each,
containing
what look like little slips of withered pith, but which,
on
being dropped into water, expand into trees and flowers.
Down
a paved passage on the right there is an artificial river, not
over
clean, with a bridge formed of one curved stone, from which a
flight
of steps leads up to a small temple with a magnificent
bronze
bell. At the entrance several women were praying. In the
same
direction are two fine bronze Buddhas, seated figures, one
with
clasped hands, the other holding a lotus, both with "The light
of
the world" upon their brows. The grand red gateway into the
actual
temple courts has an extremely imposing effect, and besides,
it
is the portal to the first great heathen temple that I have
seen,
and it made me think of another temple whose courts were
equally
crowded with buyers and sellers, and of a "whip of small
cords"
in the hand of One who claimed both the temple and its
courts
as His "Father's House." Not with less righteous wrath
would
the gentle founder of Buddhism purify the unsanctified courts
of
Asakusa. Hundreds of men, women, and children passed to and fro
through
the gateway in incessant streams, and so they are passing
through
every daylight hour of every day in the year, thousands
becoming
tens of thousands on the great matsuri days, when the
mikoshi,
or sacred car, containing certain symbols of the god, is
exhibited,
and after sacred mimes and dances have been performed,
is
carried in a magnificent, antique procession to the shore and
back
again. Under the gateway on either side are the Ni-o, or two
kings,
gigantic figures in flowing robes, one red and with an open
mouth,
representing the Yo, or male principle of Chinese
philosophy,
the other green and with the mouth firmly closed,
representing
the In, or female principle. They are hideous
creatures,
with protruding eyes, and faces and figures distorted
and
corrupted into a high degree of exaggerated and convulsive
action.
These figures guard the gates of most of the larger
temples,
and small prints of them are pasted over the doors of
houses
to protect them against burglars. Attached to the grating
in
front were a number of straw sandals, hung up by people who pray
that
their limbs may be as muscular as those of the Ni-o.
Passing
through this gate we were in the temple court proper, and
in
front of the temple itself, a building of imposing height and
size,
of a dull red colour, with a grand roof of heavy iron grey
tiles,
with a sweeping curve which gives grace as well as grandeur.
The
timbers and supports are solid and of great size, but, in
common
with all Japanese temples, whether Buddhist or Shinto, the
edifice
is entirely of wood. A broad flight of narrow, steep,
brass-bound
steps lead up to the porch, which is formed by a number
of
circular pillars supporting a very lofty roof, from which paper
lanterns
ten feet long are hanging. A gallery runs from this round
the
temple, under cover of the eaves. There is an outer temple,
unmatted,
and an inner one behind a grating, into which those who
choose
to pay for the privilege of praying in comparative privacy,
or
of having prayers said for them by the priests, can pass.
In
the outer temple the noise, confusion, and perpetual motion, are
bewildering.
Crowds on clattering clogs pass in and out; pigeons,
of
which hundreds live in the porch, fly over your head, and the
whirring
of their wings mingles with the tinkling of bells, the
beating
of drums and gongs, the high-pitched drone of the priests,
the
low murmur of prayers, the rippling laughter of girls, the
harsh
voices of men, and the general buzz of a multitude. There is
very
much that is highly grotesque at first sight. Men squat on
the
floor selling amulets, rosaries, printed prayers, incense
sticks,
and other wares. Ex votos of all kinds hang on the wall
and
on the great round pillars. Many of these are rude Japanese
pictures.
The subject of one is the blowing-up of a steamer in the
Sumidagawa
with the loss of 100 lives, when the donor was saved by
the
grace of Kwan-non. Numbers of memorials are from people who
offered
up prayers here, and have been restored to health or
wealth.
Others are from junk men whose lives have been in peril.
There
are scores of men's queues and a few dusty braids of women's
hair
offered on account of vows or prayers, usually for sick
relatives,
and among them all, on the left hand, are a large mirror
in
a gaudily gilt frame and a framed picture of the P. M. S. China!
Above
this incongruous collection are splendid wood carvings and
frescoes
of angels, among which the pigeons find a home free from
molestation.
Near
the entrance there is a superb incense-burner in the most
massive
style of the older bronzes, with a mythical beast rampant
upon
it, and in high relief round it the Japanese signs of the
zodiac--the
rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, serpent, horse, goat,
monkey,
cock, dog, and hog. Clouds of incense rise continually
from
the perforations round the edge, and a black-toothed woman who
keeps
it burning is perpetually receiving small coins from the
worshippers,
who then pass on to the front of the altar to pray.
The
high altar, and indeed all that I should regard as properly the
temple,
are protected by a screen of coarsely-netted iron wire.
This
holy of holies is full of shrines and gods, gigantic
candlesticks,
colossal lotuses of gilded silver, offerings, lamps,
lacquer,
litany books, gongs, drums, bells, and all the mysterious
symbols
of a faith which is a system of morals and metaphysics to
the
educated and initiated, and an idolatrous superstition to the
masses.
In this interior the light was dim, the lamps burned low,
the
atmosphere was heavy with incense, and amidst its fumes shaven
priests
in chasubles and stoles moved noiselessly over the soft
matting
round the high altar on which Kwan-non is enshrined,
lighting
candles, striking bells, and murmuring prayers. In front
of
the screen is the treasury, a wooden chest 14 feet by 10, with a
deep
slit, into which all the worshippers cast copper coins with a
ceaseless
clinking sound.
There,
too, they pray, if that can be called prayer which
frequently
consists only in the repetition of an uncomprehended
phrase
in a foreign tongue, bowing the head, raising the hands and
rubbing
them, murmuring a few words, telling beads, clapping the
hands,
bowing again, and then passing out or on to another shrine
to
repeat the same form. Merchants in silk clothing, soldiers in
shabby
French uniforms, farmers, coolies in "vile raiment,"
mothers,
maidens, swells in European clothes, even the samurai
policemen,
bow before the goddess of mercy. Most of the prayers
were
offered rapidly, a mere momentary interlude in the gurgle of
careless
talk, and without a pretence of reverence; but some of the
petitioners
obviously brought real woes in simple "faith."
In
one shrine there is a large idol, spotted all over with pellets
of
paper, and hundreds of these are sticking to the wire netting
which
protects him. A worshipper writes his petition on paper, or,
better
still, has it written for him by the priest, chews it to a
pulp,
and spits it at the divinity. If, having been well aimed, it
passes
through the wire and sticks, it is a good omen, if it lodges
in
the netting the prayer has probably been unheard. The Ni-o and
some
of the gods outside the temple are similarly disfigured. On
the
left there is a shrine with a screen, to the bars of which
innumerable
prayers have been tied. On the right, accessible to
all,
sits Binzuru, one of Buddha's original sixteen disciples. His
face
and appearance have been calm and amiable, with something of
the
quiet dignity of an elderly country gentleman of the reign of
George
III.; but he is now worn and defaced, and has not much more
of
eyes, nose, and mouth than the Sphinx; and the polished, red
lacquer
has disappeared from his hands and feet, for Binzuru is a
great
medicine god, and centuries of sick people have rubbed his
face
and limbs, and then have rubbed their own. A young woman went
up
to him, rubbed the back of his neck, and then rubbed her own.
Then
a modest-looking girl, leading an ancient woman with badly
inflamed
eyelids and paralysed arms, rubbed his eyelids, and then
gently
stroked the closed eyelids of the crone. Then a coolie,
with
a swelled knee, applied himself vigorously to Binzuru's knee,
and
more gently to his own. Remember, this is the great temple of
the
populace, and "not many rich, not many noble, not many mighty,"
enter
its dim, dirty, crowded halls. {5}
But
the great temple to Kwan-non is not the only sight of Asakusa.
Outside
it are countless shrines and temples, huge stone Amainu, or
heavenly
dogs, on rude blocks of stone, large cisterns of stone and
bronze
with and without canopies, containing water for the
ablutions
of the worshippers, cast iron Amainu on hewn stone
pedestals--a
recent gift--bronze and stone lanterns, a stone
prayer-wheel
in a stone post, figures of Buddha with the serene
countenance
of one who rests from his labours, stone idols, on
which
devotees have pasted slips of paper inscribed with prayers,
with
sticks of incense rising out of the ashes of hundreds of
former
sticks smouldering before them, blocks of hewn stone with
Chinese
and Sanskrit inscriptions, an eight-sided temple in which
are
figures of the "Five Hundred Disciples" of Buddha, a temple
with
the roof and upper part of the walls richly coloured, the
circular
Shinto mirror in an inner shrine, a bronze treasury
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