LOTUS AT KYOMIDZU
watches them, the stem bends near the top, and the great curling leaf will give one last shiver in the breeze, topple, and turn over and hang with head bent as if in penitence.
Though the beauty of each individual flower may be short-lived, each morning will bring fresh buds, which in a few hours open into fresh flowers, bringing new beauty to the lotus bed; so its glory lasts for six long weeks.
For the true lover of the lotus there can be scarcely any night, for soon after midnight he must rise and start for the lotus pond to see their real beauty and hear the opening of the buds with the sudden touch of dawn; so in old days the Japanese used to visit the famous Shinobazu pond in Uyeno Park, where the little temple dedicated to the goddess Benten stands on a small peninsula, as though to protect the lake from desecration, though if that were her mission she has surely failed. Four years before, I too, in the early morning, had visited the Shinobazu pond, and filled with awe and admiration had spent many hours watching the rosy petals open, and the great glaucous leaves toss hither and thither with every breath of wind, and the iridescent dragon-flies darting through the air; until driven away at last by the overwhelming heat, I had to seek shelter from the sun. Again last August I felt I must see the lotus at Uyeno in all their glory; but I feel ashamed, for the traditions of Japan, to say what greeted me. Great staring Exhibition buildings in the worst possible taste have been built all along the shores of this historical lake. But the worst part is still to come: overshadowing the little shrine and into the very heart of one of the great stretches of lotus leaves dashed a water-chute. It took my breath away. I stood spell-bound, and then turned away with horror and asked myself, as many other people, alas! are asking: “Are the Japanese losing all their artistic feelings?”
Happily there are still many quiet spots where lotus grow, away from the desecrating hand of the “new Japan,” and there we can sit and enjoy this “emblem of purity,” its clean fresh flowers and leaves rising unsullied from the stagnant mud; and this is one reason for associating it with a religious life, or comparing it to the virtuous soul of a woman who lives in suspicious surroundings.
A favourite Buddhist precept says: “If thou be born in the poor man’s hovel, but hast wisdom, then art thou like the lotus flower growing out of the mud!”
Wherever undisturbed pools and channels of muddy water exist, the lotus is to be found: the old moats surrounding the remains of a grand old Daimyo’s castle, the muddy temple or monastery ponds, and even the ditches beside the railway, will all be rendered gay in the summer, when the great pink and white lotus are in bloom. Their history is a very old one, for their beauty is sung in the old Buddhist sutra, and one passage describing the golden glory of Paradise tells of “a pond where the lotus flowers large as a carriage-wheel grow; the green flowers shine in green light, the yellow flowers in yellow light, red flowers in red light, and the white flowers are supreme in beauty and odour.”
It may be true that the leaves are as large and round as a carriage-wheel—of a Japanese carriage, a kuruma; and certainly I should be afraid to state rashly how large and high the foliage of the white variety may grow. The white Nelumbium speciosum, for all the so-called lotus of Japan are really this species of water-lily, has a powerful and sweet perfume; but the pink ones, which are far more beautiful, have but little scent. I think the leaves and their stems, as well as the flower, must have their own peculiar odour; for often I noticed near lotus beds, where no blossoms were to be seen, a strong and rather sickly perfume came floating in the air in whiffs which will always be associated in my mind with lotus, as I cannot compare their scent to that of any other flower.