The day is warm, the sky clear, I walk in the light of December.
The dogs see me, bark, and run away; I reach and pass the villages with their black roofs; I cross the fields of cotton and beans; I cross the rivulets by the old worn bridges, and, leaving on my right the great empty buildings of a deserted powder-mill, I arrive at my goal. I hear a noise of bells and a drum.
Before me is a tower of seven stories. An Indian with a golden turban, and a Parsee wearing a plum-colored one twisted like a stovepipe, are entering it. Two other figures move about on the highest balcony.
I must speak first of the pagoda itself.
It is composed of three courts and three temples, flanked by accessory chapels and lesser buildings. Religion here does not, as in Europe, barricade and segregate in loneliness the mystery of a faith walled about by dogma. Its function is not to defend the absolute against exterior aspects. It establishes a certain atmosphere; and, as though suspended from heaven, the structure gathers all nature into the offering that it constitutes. Multifold, all upon one level, it expresses Space by the relations of height and distance between the three arches of triumph or the temples which are consecrated to them; and Buddha, Prince of Peace, inhabits it with all the gods.
Chinese architecture, as it were, suppresses the walls. It amplifies and multiplies the roofs; and their exaggerated corners, lifting themselves with an exquisite resilience, return toward the sky in flowing curves. They remain suspended in air! The wider and heavier the fabric of the roof, the more, by that very weight, does it give an impression of lightness through every deep shadow projected below. Hence the use of black tiles, that form deep grooves and strong copings with high openings between them, makes the highest ridges detached and distinct. Clear though intricate of outline, their frieze is lifted through the lucid air. The temple is seen as a portico, a canopy, or a tent, of which the uplifted corners are attached to the clouds; and in its shade are installed the idols of the earth.
A fat, gilded fellow lives under the first portico. His right foot, drawn beneath him, indicates the third attitude of meditation, where consciousness still exists. His eyes are closed, but under his golden skin can be seen the red lips of a distended mouth whose long rounded opening stretches at the corners into the shape of an eight. He laughs, and the laugh is that of a face asleep. At what does this obese ascetic laugh? What does he see with those closed eyes?
On each side of the hall, two at the right and two at the left, the four painted and varnished colossi, with short legs and enormous torsos, are the demons who guard the four shores of Heaven. Beardless as children, one brandishes serpents, one plays the viol, and one shakes a cylindrical engine like a closed parasol or a firecracker.
I penetrate into the second court. A great brass incense-burner covered with inscriptions is in the middle. I stand before the principal pavilion. On the ridges of the roof little painted groups of figures seem as though they were passing from one side to the other, or ascending while engaged in conversation. At the angles of the coping hang two pink fish, their long feelers curving tremulously, their tails in the air; in the center two dragons are fighting for the mystic jewel. I hear songs and the beating of bells, and through the open door I see the evolutions of the bonzes.
The hall is high and spacious. Four or five colossal gilded statues dominate the background. The largest is seated on a throne in the middle. His eyes and mouth are closed, his feet drawn under him, and one hand, held in the “gesture of witness,” points to the earth. Thus, under the sacred tree, the perfect Buddha conceived himself. Escaped from the wheel of life, he participates in his own Nirvana. Others perched above him, with downcast eyes, contemplate their navels. These are the Heavenly Buddhas seated on lotus flowers. They are Avalokhita, Amitabha, the Buddha of the Light without Measure and the Buddha of the Paradise of the West. At their feet the bonzes pursue their rites. They have gray robes; large, somewhat rust-colored mantles attached to the shoulder like togas; leggings of white linen; and, some of them, a sort of mortar-board on their heads. Others bare their scalps, where the white marks of moxas show the number of their vows. One by one, murmuring, they file past. The last who passes is a boy of twelve years. By a side hall I reach the third court and see a third temple.