KoYASAN, THE JAPANESE VaLHALLA 



663 



Shingon services. The precious old altar 

 pictures were saved from the flames and 

 hang again in exactly their same places, 

 and the spaces above the beams and in 

 between the massive keyaki columns are 

 filled with panels of open-work carving, 

 richly gilded and colored, all glowing in 

 the soft splendor of this golden gloom. 

 It is cold and damp, however, in this jew- 

 eled interior, where few sunbeams ever 

 strike beneath the low eaves or through 

 the high wall of koyamaki trees ; and on 

 chilly mornings there is a deathly, mar- 

 row-piercing chill from the cold, wet mat- 

 ting that explains the hacking coughs 

 and feeble steps of the wan and bleached 

 ascetics who spend hours of meditation 

 and services each day in such places. 



THE CEMETERY 



The feature of Koyasan in all the cen- 

 turies, however, has been the cemetery — 

 a great company of gravestones crowding 

 close along either side of the main avenue 

 for more than two miles. In stone- 

 fenced and torii-guarded enclosures are 

 clustered the granite monuments of em- 

 perors and shoguns, of saints and princes, 

 priests and laymen. The names of great 

 generals, great traitors, patriots, poets, 

 and actors, of the old daimios and the new 

 nobility and the captains of industry occur 

 side by side. 



No horse, nor wheel, nor kago may 

 desecrate this noble forest temple of the 

 dead, and one must walk the sacred 

 ground from the first entrance bridge to 

 Kobo Daishi's tomb. The Hall of i.ooo 

 Amidas breaks the journey — a low, dark 

 temple hall, where the gilded companv of 

 images disappear in the dim shadows and 

 gloomy perspective. Near it is enshrined 

 the most venerated image of Kobo Daishi, 

 carved by himself, and time-darkened 

 paintings of the Buddhist celestial worlds 

 from his inspired brush. A row of "wet 

 gods" are ranged near a temple of Dai 

 Kokuya, well modeled bronze images of 

 Jozo, Fudo, and Dainichi seated on stone 

 pedestals before a water trough. The 

 pilgrim clasps his hands in prayer and 

 tosses a dipper of water full in the face 



of the image ; another prayer and another 

 dash of cold water succeed, until the 

 bronzes are wet and glistening and the 

 believing one departs, assured that his 

 prayer for the good of the souls of his 

 ancestors will be heard. 



The supreme test for all is to pass over 

 the Bridge of Morals. Unless one is pos- 

 sessed of a pure and clean heart and can 

 meet Kobo Daishi's strict requirements, 

 he may not cross that bridge whose 

 thirty-seven planks are marked with the 

 names of that many Buddhas. It is re- 

 lated that when the Taiko,the great Hide- 

 yoshi, first came in worshipful pilgrimage 

 to Kobo Daishi's tomb he had such mis- 

 givings and heart-sinkings as to his moral 

 acceptability that he stole away with the 

 high priests at night and tested the ordeal 

 of the bridge secretly, that he might be 

 spared any disgrace in the presence of his 

 suite. 



THE HALL OF I,000 LAMPS 



The Hall of i ,000 Lamps fittingly leads 

 one nearer to the saint's tomb, for since 

 the Emperor Toba (1108) made a great 

 service with 10,000 lamps in honor of 

 Kobo Daishi in this chapel erected by the 

 great abbot's nephew, a lamp has been 

 considered most suitable and acceptable 

 ofirering to a Shingon temple. Here they 

 hang and stand by hundreds and tens of 

 hundreds, ranged on stone tables and 

 hanging overhead far back into the dim 

 distance of the darkened interior. Eight 

 thousand lamps are in there now, 150 

 burning each day, even through the de- 

 serted winter months, when snow lies 

 deep on all the forest paths and the priests 

 must melt the sacred oil that feeds the 

 flames. On special days in each month 

 1,500 lamps combine their glow-worm 

 flames and fill the hall of shining brasses 

 with a rich glow ; and on the death anni- 

 versary in April the whole 8,000 unite in 

 gleams of praise to the sleeping abbot. 

 If one light a lamp in honor of Kobo 

 Daishi he is saved from being driven to 

 the dark river of hell and is carried on to 

 the Pure Land with the saint himself. 

 Emperors and shoguns have lighted 



