Folklore -- Japan; Japan -- Social life and customs
What pleasanter lounge in which to while away a hot day could a man
wish for than the shade of the trees borne by the hill on which stands
the Temple of Fudô Sama? Two jets of pure water springing from the
rock are voided by spouts carved in the shape of dragons into a stone
basin enclosed by rails, within which it is written that "no woman may
enter." If you are in luck, you may cool yourself by watching some
devotee, naked save his loin-cloth, performing the ceremony called
_Suigiyô_; that is to say, praying under the waterfall that his soul
may be purified through his body. In winter it requires no small pluck
to go through this penance, yet I have seen a penitent submit to it
for more than a quarter of an hour on a bitterly cold day in January.
In summer, on the other hand, the religious exercise called
_Hiyakudo_, or "the hundred times," which may also be seen here to
advantage, is no small trial of patience. It consists in walking
backwards and forwards a hundred times between two points within the
sacred precincts, repeating a prayer each time. The count is kept
either upon the fingers or by depositing a length of twisted straw
each time that the goal is reached; at this temple the place allotted
for the ceremony is between a grotesque bronze figure of Tengu Sama
("the Dog of Heaven"), the terror of children, a most hideous monster
with a gigantic nose, which it is beneficial to rub with a finger
afterwards to be applied to one's own nose, and a large brown box
inscribed with the characters _Hiyaku Do_ in high relief, which may
generally be seen full of straw tallies. It is no sinecure to be a
good Buddhist, for the gods are not lightly to be propitiated. Prayer
and fasting, mortification of the flesh, abstinence from wine, from
women, and from favourite dishes, are the only passports to rising in
office, prosperity in trade, recovery from sickness, or a happy
marriage with a beloved maiden. Nor will mere faith without works be
efficient. A votive tablet of proportionate value to the favour prayed
for, or a sum of money for the repairs of the shrine or temple, is
necessary to win the favour of the gods. Poorer persons will cut off
the queue of their hair and offer that up; and at Horinouchi, a temple
in great renown some eight or nine miles from Yedo, there is a rope
about two inches and a half in diameter and about six fathoms long,
entirely made of human hair so given to the gods; it lies coiled up,
dirty, moth-eaten, and uncared for, at one end of a long shed full of
tablets and pictures, by the side of a rude native fire-engine. The
taking of life being displeasing to Buddha, outside many of the
temples old women and children earn a livelihood by selling sparrows,
small eels, carp, and tortoises, which the worshipper sets free in
honour of the deity, within whose territory cocks and hens and doves,
tame and unharmed, perch on every jutty, frieze, buttress, and coigne
of vantage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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