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The National Geographic Magazine 



book under his hand during the daily 

 services, he prayed for all the hero souls. 

 In the same way, each monastery has 

 tablets to the souls of the dead poor — 

 of those who die too poor to have their 

 names put on an ihai for home altar or 

 temple, or without descendants or rela- 

 tives to revere their memories. When 

 the head priest read the tale of heroism 

 and loyality of the men on the Kinshu 

 Maru, sunk off the Korean coast early 

 in the war, he made an ihai himself and 

 placed it near the altar. Many other 

 priests and laymen throughout Japan did 

 the same thing, as the honorable death 

 of the Nara soldiers who went down 

 with the little transport is one of the 

 finest instances of the samurai spirit, of 

 pure Bushido, a heritage to the people 

 for all time. 



We spent that rainy afternoon on the 

 steps of the treasury of the Golden Hall. 

 The treasurer, two priests, and a lay 

 brother brought from their boxes and 

 wrappings the most sacred objects and 

 relics which Koyasan possesses. We 

 touched the ponderous gold maces which 

 Kobo Daishi himself had used, the bells 

 which he brought from China, the golden 

 images, the sharidens, or reliquaries, 

 which he kept in his own little oratory, 

 and his original Chinese rosary of black 

 wooden beads in a crumbling box of old 

 Kambara lacquer. 



At the end of two rainy hours' session 

 with the treasures, the arrogant lord 

 treasurer had worn off his grand man- 

 ner, was frankly and charmingly sociable, 

 and in an excess of good feeling carried 

 us off to his own dwelling, an ancient 

 brown-eaved wing of a monastery, in a 

 region of weed-grown foundations where 

 great buildings had been. The rooms 

 were simple, the screens and fusuma 

 severely plain, but when the shoji were 

 slipped aside they disclosed one of the 

 most beautiful of the thousand and one 

 famous monastery gardens on Mount 

 Koya. 



On the 2 1 St day of each month, known 

 as Kobo Daishi's Day in all the temples 

 of his sect, there are special services in 

 the Golden Hall, when the ten high 



priests from the ten monasteries of 

 Koyasan, with their suites, assemble for 

 an early morning service. In the golden 

 gloaming the ranks of brocaded priests, 

 the splendid chanting, the silver strokes 

 of the altar gongs, and the curling in- 

 cense make a powerful and affecting ap- 

 peal to the religious emotions. 



The high priest of our monastery came 

 each evening for a ceremonial call, bring- 

 ing now one treasure from his store- 

 room and then another. Once it was 

 the Taiko's account book, detailing the 

 expenses connected with the erection of 

 the great Dai Butsu at Nara ; and at an- 

 other time the journal of the Lord 

 Abbot, describing the events during the 

 time when Nobunaga, having suppressed 

 and destroyed the Tendai monasteries on 

 jMount Hiyeizan, turned to Koyasan as 

 another priestly stronghold needing anni- 

 hilation. Finding the abbot and his 

 council to be foes of another mettle, 

 when once disturbed from contempla- 

 tion of the abstract, he called off the 

 forces of war and the Shingon priests 

 were left in peace. 



One sunny afternoon the priestly host 

 took us to neighboring monasteries on 

 a quest for gold screens and picturesque 

 fireplaces. The box fireplace in the mid- 

 dle of the room, with a square chimney 

 continuing like a massive column to the 

 roof, is the invention, it is claimed, of 

 Kobo Daishi himself, and the little 

 gabled roofs protecting these chimneys 

 project from nearly every roof on Koya- 

 san. Even in April and September, the 

 nights on the mountain top are sharp 

 and frosty, and the vast sunless caverns 

 of stone-floored kitchens open to the 

 rafters of the lofty roofs, are like ice 

 caves, save for the comforting atmos- 

 phere around the columnar fireplace, 

 where the kettle hangs simmering from 

 the crane and the embers glow. The 

 same fireplace is found in the Lord 

 Abbot's reception-room, and in the halls 

 where the young monks gather to read 

 their devotional books. 



Around the corner from the Taiko's 

 bell tower, where the bronze statue of 

 Kwannon looks serenely across the great 



