Chapter 14
chapter eleven of kokoro hints and echoes of japanese inner life by lafcadio herne this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by expatriate in bangor maine chapter eleven in the twilight of the gods you know anything about jos's jos's yes idols japanese idols jos's something i answered but not very much well come and look at my collection won't you i've been collecting jos's for twenty years and i've got some worth seeing they're not for sale though except for the british museum i followed the curio dealer through the bric-a-brac of his shop and across a paved yard into an unusually large go-down like all go-downs it was dark i could barely discern a stairway sloping up through gloom he paused at the foot you'll be able to see better in a moment he said i had this place built expressly for them but now it is scarcely big enough they're all in the second story go right up only be careful the steps are bad i climbed and reached a sort of gloaming under a very high roof and found myself face to face with the gods in the dusk of the great godown the spectacle was more than weird it was apparitional
arhats and buddhas and bodhisattvas and the shapes of a mythology older than they filled all the shadowy space not ranked by hierarchies as in a temple but mingled without order as in a silent panic out of the wilderness of multiple heads and broken aureoles and hands uplifted in menace or in prayer a shimmering confusion of dusty gold half-lighted by cobwebbed air-holes in the heavy walls i could at first discern little then as the dimness cleared i began to distinguish personalities i saw kwannon of many forms jizo of many names shaka yakshi amida the buddhas and their disciples they were very old and their art was not all of japan nor of any one place or time there were shapes from korea china india treasures brought over sea in the rich days of the early buddhist missions some were seated upon lotus flowers the lotus flowers of the apparitional birth some rode leopards tigers lions or monsters mystical typifying lightning typifying death one triple-headed and many-handed sinister and splendid seemed moving through the gloom on a throne of gold uplifted by a phalanx of elephants
fudo i saw shrouded and shrined in fire and maya hujin riding her celestial peacock and strangely mingling with these buddhist visions as in the anachronism of a limbo armoured effigies of daimyo in images of the chinese sages there were huge forms of wrath grasping thunderbolts and rising to the roof the deva kings like impersonations of hurricane power the nio guardians of long-vanished temple gates also there were forms voluptuously feminine the light grace of the limbs folded within their lotus cups the suppleness of the fingers numbering the numbers of the good law were ideals possibly inspired in some forgotten tune by the charm of an indian dancing girl shelved against the naked brickwork above i could perceive multitudes of lesser shapes demon figures with eyes that burn through the dark like the eyes of a black cat and figures half man half bird winged and beaked like eagles the tengu of japanese fancy well queried the curio dealer with a chuckle of satisfaction at my evident surprise it is a very great collection i responded he clapped his hand on my shoulder and exclaimed triumphantly in my ear cost me fifty thousand dollars
but the images themselves told me how much more was there cost to forgotten piety notwithstanding the cheapness of artistic labor in the east also they told me of the dead millions whose pilgrim feet had worn hollow the steps leading to their shrines of the buried mothers who used to suspend little baby dresses before their altars of the generations of children taught to murmur prayers to them of the countless sorrows and hopes confided to them ghosts of the worship of centuries had followed them into exile a thin sweet odour of incense haunted the dusty place what would you call that asked the voice of the curio dealer i've been told it's the best of the lot he pointed to a figure resting upon a triple golden lotus avalo kitasvara she who looketh down upon the sound of prayer storms and hate give way to her name fire is quenched by her name demons vanish at the sound of her name by her name one may stand firm in the sky like a sun the delicacy of the limbs the tenderness of the smile were dreams of the indian paradise it is a kwannon i made reply and very beautiful
somebody will have to pay me a very beautiful price for it he said with a shrewd wink it costs me enough as a rule though i get these things pretty cheap there are few people who care to buy them and they have to be sold privately you know that gives me an advantage see that jizo in the corner the big black fellow what is it emei jizo i answered jizo the giver of long life it must be very old well he said again taking me by the shoulder the man from whom i got that piece was put in prison for selling it to me then he burst into a hearty laugh whether at the recollection of his own cleverness in the transaction or at the unfortunate simplicity of the person who had sold the statue contrary to law i could not decide afterwards he resumed they wanted to get it back again and offered me more than i had given for it but i held on i don't know everything about jos's but i do know what they are worth there isn't another idol like that in the whole country the british museum will be glad to get it when do you intend to offer the collection to the british museum i presumed to ask well i first want to get up a show he replied there's money to be made by a show of josses in london london people never saw anything like this in their lives
then the church folks help that sort of a show if you manage them properly it advertises the missions heathen idols from japan how do you like the baby i was looking at a small gold-coloured image of a naked child standing one tiny hand pointing upward and the other downward representing the buddha newly born sparkling with light he came from the womb as when the sun first rises in the east upright he took deliberately seven steps and the prints of his feet upon the ground remained burning as seven stars and he spake with clearest utterance saying this birth is a buddha birth rebirth is not for me only this last time am i born for the salvation of all on earth and in heaven that is what they call a tanjoshaka i said it looks like bronze bronze it is he responded tapping it with his knuckles to make the metal ring the bronze alone is worth more than the price i paid i looked at the four devas whose heads almost touched the roof and thought of the story of their apparition told in the mahvaga on a beautiful night the four great kings entered the holy grove filling all the place with light
and having respectfully saluted the blessed one they stood in the four directions like four great firebrands how did you ever manage to get those big figures upstairs i asked oh hauled them up we've got a hatchway the real trouble was getting them here by train it was the first railroad trip they ever made but look at these here they will make the sensation of the show i looked and saw two small wooden images about three feet high why do you think they will make a sensation i inquired innocently don't you see what they are they date from the time of the persecutions japanese devils trampling on the cross they were small temple guardians only but their feet rested upon x-shaped supports did any person tell you these were devils trampling on the cross i made bold to ask what else are they doing he answered evasively look at the crosses under their feet but they are not devils i insisted and those cross-pieces were put under their feet simply to give equilibrium he said nothing but looked disappointed and i felt a little sorry for him devils trampling on the cross as a display line in some london poster announcing the arrival of josses from japan might certainly have been relied on to catch the public eye
this is more wonderful i said pointing to a beautiful group maya with the infant buddha issuing from her side according to tradition painlessly the bodhisattva was born from her right side it was the eighth day of the fourth moon that's bronze too he remarked tapping it bronze josses are getting rare we used to buy them up and sell them for old metal wish i had kept some of them you ought to have seen the bronzes in those days coming in from the temples bells and vases and josses that was the time we tried to buy the daibutsu at kamakura for old bronze i queried yes we calculated the weight of the metal and formed a syndicate our first offer was thirty thousand we could have made a big profit for there's a good deal of gold and silver in that work the priests wanted to sell but the people wouldn't let them it's one of the world's wonders i said would you really have broken it up certainly why not what else could you do with it that one there looks just like a virgin mary doesn't it he pointed to the gilded image of a female clasping a child to her breast yes i replied but it is kishibodjin the goddess who loves little children
people talk about idolatry he went on musingly i've seen things like many of these in roman catholic chapels seems to me religion is pretty much the same the world over i think you are right i said why the story of buddha is like the story of christ isn't it to some degree i assented only he wasn't crucified i did not answer thinking of the text in all the world there is not one spot even so large as a mustard seed where he has not surrendered his body for the sake of creatures then it suddenly seemed to me that this was absolutely true for the buddha of the deeper buddhism is not gautama nor any one tathagata but simply the divine in man chrysalids of the infinite we all are each contains a ghostly buddha and the millions are but one all humanity is potentially the buddha to come dreaming through the ages an illusion and the teacher's smile will make beautiful the world again when selfishness shall die
every noble sacrifice brings nearer the hour of his awakening and who may justly doubt remembering the myriads of the centuries of man that even now there does not remain one place on earth where life has not been freely given for love or duty i felt the curio dealer's hand on my shoulder again at all events he cried in a cheery tone they'll be appreciated in the british museum eh i hope so they ought to be then i fancied them immured somewhere in that vast necropolis of dead gods under the gloom of a pea-soup fog chambered with forgotten divinities of egypt or babylon and trembling faintly at the roar of london all to what end perhaps to aid another alma tadema to paint the beauty of another vanished civilization perhaps to assist the illustration of an english dictionary of buddhism perhaps to inspire some future laureate with a metaphor startling as tennyson's figure of the oiled and curled assyrian bull assuredly they would not be preserved in vain the thinkers of a less conventional and selfish era would teach new reverence for them each eidolon shaped by human faith remains the shell of a truth eternally divine and even the shell itself may hold a ghostly power
the soft serenity the passionless tenderness of these buddha faces might yet give peace of soul to a west weary of creeds transformed into conventions eager for the coming of another teacher to proclaim i have the same feeling for the high as for the low for the moral as for the immoral for the depraved as for the virtuous for those holding sectarian views and false opinions as for those whose beliefs are good and true End of chapter 11. Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine.
