File:Japan and her people (1902) (14589649658).jpg

Identifier: japanherpeopl01hart (find matches)
Title: Japan and her people
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Hartshorne, Anna C
Subjects:
Publisher: Philadelphia, Coates
Contributing Library: University of British Columbia Library
Digitizing Sponsor: University of British Columbia Library

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myo and of subjectstates, of which last Japan considered Holland to beone. The most beautiful is the bronze Korean lantern,called also the revolving lantern, because it turns on apivot; it probably did not come from Korea, but fromEurope by the hands of the Dutch. A great bell,gift of the King of Lu Chu, hangs in a fine belltower, which is balanced by the drum tower on theother side. At the edge of this second platform is the temple ofleyasus patron saint Yakushi, one of the Five Bud-dhas of Wisdom—the Buddha at whose monasteryShodo Shonin studied; it still retains the Buddhistfurnishings, removed from most temples since theRestoration reinstated Shinto; and the interior is richwith color and gold, in a soft half light that filtersthrough dangling bamboo curtains, subduing strangefjrms of dragons and Buddhas, half revealing theshrines and lanterns and tall vases and embroideredaltar cloths; over all there is a delicate smell of in-cense, not heavy with centuries of dirt, but mingled
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NIKKO—THE SHEINES OF THE SHOGUNS. 285 with the sweet pine-scented air blowing gently throughthe transparent hangings and carved screens. Pres-ently a priest strikes one of the melodious gongs,stroke by stroke, with long pauses between; a band ofpilgrims kneel on the pavement without, while anotherpriest recites the noon-day office in a droning sing-song, rising and falling in a mournful chant. Strangelylike the Romish ritual, yet strangely different, too;most of all different, perhaps, in the sense of out-of-doors, of belonging to the forest. For, after all, the greatest marvel of Xikko is theway in which all this wealth of detail, this profusionof ornament, is kept in place and subordinated to acentral thought; no part is an end in itself, not theindividual temples even ; they are cellce, shrines of thesacred grove, one with it as by a sort of instinct. Thewant of height, of mass, is supplied completely by thetrees; even the color-scheme has a strange unity, asif it were the forest

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