An Artist's Letters from Japan

by John La Farge

And, then, all looks wild and natural, as if undisturbed by man; but no one can tell in a place where nature is so admirable, so admired, and so adored.

I like the old roads between yashiki walls, broken up with torrents and bridges; and the small shrines and sacred trees, which have no great point but that they are pretty, and so far away—in the infancy of the world. Stones and rocks that are sacred—why and wherefore no one exactly knowing; only that it is so, and has been so for a long, long time.

Three thousand years ago Europe was so, with paganism—the peasant or earth belief—gradually lost to our comprehension except through hearsay. So we are accustomed to write of the sacred grove; and here it is, all about me, as if history were made living. The lovely scenery reminds me continually of what has been associated with it; a civilization which has been born of it, has never separated from nature, has its religion, its art, and its historic associations entangled with all natural manifestations. The great Pan might still be living here, in a state of the world which has sanctified trees and groves, and associated the spirit-world with every form of the earthly dwelling-place. I feel as if I were nearer than I can be through books to the old world we try to rebuild by collation of facts and documents.

Could a Greek come back here he would find his "soul-informed rocks," and all that he thought divine or superstitious, even to the very "impressions of Aphrodite." The sacredness that lives here in mountains would seem all natural to him, as would the stories of mountain gods who ages ago met here the advance of the Buddhist priests. For Buddhism has joined with the earthly faith in attaching religious value to solitary places and mountain heights, and many are the stories which link these two beliefs from the early times. As, for instance, when Shodo Shonin in his wanderings came here and "opened up" the mountains of Nikko. For this saintly discoverer, dwelling in early youth among sacred caves, and a devout reverer of the native and Buddhist deities, had long dreamed of wondrous things on distant mountains, of celestial or spiritual beings, visible even to the eye, and pursued his search according to holy vows and under celestial guidance.

BED OF THE DAYAGAWA, NIKKO.

Where the red lacquer bridge now goes over the Dayagawa, Shodo Shonin first crossed upon the fairy snake bridge, which, like a rainbow spanning the hills, was thrown over for him by a mysterious colossal god of the mountain. Here, a few yards off, he built the shrine in honor of his helper, the "great King of the Deep Sand." This was in the year 767 of our era; and in 782, after much previous exploration, he reached the summit of Nan-tai-san, and met the tutelary gods of Nikko, who promised to watch over the welfare of Japan and the progress of the new religion. These three gods were long worshiped thereafter at the foot of the mountain, on the bank of the lake named Chiuzenji, by him, along with the Buddhist incarnations whose temple he established there. So that these primordial divinities were looked upon by certain Buddhist eyes as what they named "temporary manifestations" of the great essences known as Amida, Buddha, and Kuwan-on.

Last evening, near the back of the rock upon which is the tomb of Iyéyasŭ, I followed some zigzag stone steps that lead up to a little shrine, dark among the trees, in which is the figure of an old man with powerful legs—the master pilgrim Enno-Sho-kaku. Why his shrine was exactly there I have not clearly made out; but certainly, as a mountain spirit, his being here is appropriate. For, born a miraculous child, he loved from infancy the solitariness of woods far up the mountains. The rain never wet him; no living things of the forest were ever hurt by him, even through chance; he lived, as they might, on nuts and berries, clothed in the tree's own dress, of the tendrils of the wistaria. Thus he passed forty years among mountains and waterfalls, under directions received in dreams, to bring the wild places beneath the dominion of Buddha. Two hill spirits served him and provided him with fuel and water. The life of nature became his, and he moved through water or through air as easily as his mind dwelt in the present and in the future.

Naturally, too, when he touched the world of men he was maligned and persecuted; but even then, when exiled to an island in the sea, he could fly back at night to revisit his mother, or ascend his beloved mountains, while submitting obediently in the daylight to the presence of his guards. Naturally, too, his evil days came to an end, and he was freed, and finally flitted away toward China, and has never reappeared. With him in the little shrine are his faithful imps, painted red and green, and out of the darkness his wooden image, with a long white beard, looked absolutely real in the rainy twilight. Enormous iron sandals hung on every side, offerings of pilgrims anxious to obtain legs as sturdy as those of the pilgrim patron. Had I been able to leave my own I should have done so, for never have I felt as weakened and unenergetic as I have become in this idle climate. We could just see the white stone steps of the little road as we came down the steep hill through the wood to the gate of Iyémitsŭ's tomb.