TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS TEMPLE OF LEARNING* [Posthumous title of the sixth Shogun Iyénobu] THIS STONE LANTERN, SET UP BEFORE THE TOMB AT THE TEMPLE OF Zōzōji, IS REVERENTLY OFFERED BY THE RULING DAIMIO, NOBLE OF THE FIFTH RANK, MASUYAMA FUJIWARA MASATO, LORD OF TSUSHIMA, IN THE SECOND YEAR OF THE PERIOD OF STRICT VIRTUE, IN THE CYCLE OF THE WATER DRAGON [1711]. Passing through a handsomely gilt and carved gate-way, we enter another court-yard, the sides of which are gorgeously adorned. Within the area are bronze lanterns, the gift of the Kokushiu daimiōs. The six very large gilded lanterns standing by themselves are from the Go San Ké, the three princely families, in which the succession to the office of shōgun was vested. To the left is a monolith lavatory; and to the right is a splendid building, used as a depository of sacred utensils, such as bells, gongs, lanterns, etc., used only on matsuri, or festival days. Passing through another handsome gate which eclipses the last in richness of design, we enter a roofed gallery somewhat like a series of cloisters. In front is the shrine, a magnificent specimen of native architecture. Sitting down upon the lacquered steps, we remove our shoes, while the shaven bonze swings open the gilt doors, and reveals a transept and nave, laid with finest white matting, and ceiled in squares wrought with elaborate art. The walls of the transept are arabesqued, and the panels carved with birds and flowers-the fauna of Japan, both real and mythical-and the various objects in Japanese sacred and legendary art. In each panel the subjects are different, and richly repay * The hōmiō, or posthumous titles of thirteen Tokugawa shōguns, are: 1, Great Light of the East; 2, Chief Virtue; 3, Illustrious Enterprise; 4, Strict Holding; 5, Constant System; 6, Literary Brightness; 7, Upholder of the Plan; 8, Upholder of Virtue; 9, Profound Faith; 10, Steady Brightness; 11, Learned Reverence; 12, Learned Carefulness; 13, Rigid Virtue. study. The glory of motion, the passionate life of the corolla, and the perfection of nature's colors have been here reproduced in inanimate wood by the artist. At the extremity of the nave is a short flight of steps. Two massive gilt doors swing asunder at the touch of priestly hands, and across the threshold we behold an apocalypse of splendor. Behind the sacred offertories, on carved and lacquered tables, are three reliquaries rising to the ceiling, and by their outer covering simulating masses of solid gold. Inside are treasured the tablets and posthumous titles of the august deceased. Descending from this sanctum into the transept again, we examine the canonical rolls, bell, book, and candles, drums and musical instruments, with which the Buddhist rites are celebrated and the liturgies read. Donning our shoes, we pass up a stone court fragrant with blossoming flowers, and shaded with rare and costly trees of every variety, form, and height, but overshadowed by the towering firs. We ascend a flight of steps, and are in another pebbled and stone-laid court, in which stands a smaller building, called a haiden, formerly used by the living shōgun as a place of meditation and prayer when making his annual visit to the tombs of his forefathers. Beyond it is still another flight of stone steps, and in the inclosure is a plain monumental urn, "This is the simple ending to so much magnificence "—the solemn application of the gorgeous sermon. The visitor, on entering the cemetery by the small gate to the right of the temple, and a few feet distant from the great belfry, will see three tombs side by side. The first to the left is that of Iyénobu, the sixth of the line, who ruled in 1709-1713. The urn and gates of the tomb are of bronze. The tomb in the centre is that of Iyéyoshi, the twelfth, who ruled 1838-1854. The third, to the right, is that of Iyémochi, the fourteenth shōgun, who ruled 1858-1866, and was the last of his line who died in power. From the tomb of Iyémochi, facing the east and looking to the left, we may see the tombs of Iyétsugu (1713-1716), the seventh, and of Iyéshigé (1745-1762), the ninth, shōgun. Descending the steps. and reaching the next stone platform, we may, by looking down to the left, see the tombs of a shōgun's wife and two of his children. The court-yards and shrines leading to the tombs of Iyétsugu and Iyéshigé are fully as handsome as the others. Hidétada (16061623), the second prince of the line, is buried a few hundred yards south of the other tombs. The place is easily found. Passing down the main avenue, and turning to the right, we have a walk of a fur long or two up a hill, on the top of which, surrounded by camelliatrees, and within a heavy stone palisade, is a handsome octagon edifice of the same material. A mausoleum of gold lacquer rests upright on a pedestal. The tomb, a very costly one, is in a state of perfect preservation. On one side of the path is a curiously carved stone, representing Buddha on his death-bed. The great temple of Zōzōji belonged to the Jōdō sect, within whose pale the Tokugawas lived and died.* *This splendid temple and belfry was reduced to ashes on the night of December 31st, 1874, by a fanatic incendiary. It had been sequestrated by the Imperial Government, and converted into a Shintō miya. On a perfectly calm midnight, during a heavy fall of snow, the sparks and the flakes mingled together with indescribable effect. The new year was ushered in by a perpendicular flood of dazzling green flame poured up to an immense height. The background of tall cryptomeria trees heightened the grandeur of the fiery picture. As the volatilized gases of the various metals in the impure copper sheathing of the roof and sides glowed and sparkled, and streaked the iridescent mass of flame, it afforded a spectacle only to be likened to a near observation of the sun, or a view through a colossal spectroscope. The great bell, whose casting had been superintended by Iyémitsŭ, and by him presented to the temple, had for two hundred years been the solemn monitor, inviting the people to their devotions. Its liquid notes could be heard, it is said, at Odawara. On the night of the fire the old bell-ringer leaped to his post, and, in place of the usual solemn monotone, gave the double stroke of alarm, until the heat had changed one side of the bell to white, the note deepening in tone, until, in red heat, the ponderous link softened and bent, dropping its burden to the earth. It is to be greatly regretted that the once sacred grounds of Shiba groves are now desecrated and common. transit gloria Tokugawarum." "Sic XXVIII. THE RECENT REVOLUTIONS IN JAPAN.* Ir is the popular impression in the United States and in Europe that the immediate cause of the fall of the shōgun's Government, the restoration of the mikado to supreme power, and the abolition of the dual and feudal systems was the presence of foreigners on the soil of Japan. No one who has lived in Dai Nippon, and made himself familiar with the currents of thought among the natives, or who has studied the history of the country, can share this opinion. The foreigners and their ideas were the occasion, not the cause, of the destruction of the dual system of government, which would certainly have resulted from the operation of causes already at work before the foreigners arrived. Their presence served merely to hasten what was already inevitable. I purpose in this chapter to expose the true causes of the recent marvelous changes in Japan. These comprise a three-fold political revolution within, a profound alteration in the national policy toward foreigners, and the inauguration of social reforms which lead us to hope that Japan has rejected the Asiatic, and adopted the European, ideal of civilization. I shall attempt to prove that these causes operated mainly from within, not from without; from impulse, not from impact; and that they were largely intellectual. The history of Japan, as manifested in the current of events since the advent of Commodore Perry, has its sources in a number of distinct movements, some logically connected, others totally distinct from the rest. These were intended to effect: 1. The overthrow of the shōgun, and his reduction to his proper level as a vassal; 2. The restoration of the true emperor to supreme power; 3. The abolition of the feudal system and a return to the ancient imperial régime; 4. The abolition of Buddhism, and the establishment of pure Shintō as * Reprinted and enlarged from the North American Review of April, 1875. the national faith and the engine of government. These four movements were historically and logically connected. The fifth was the expulsion of the foreign "barbarians," and the dictatorial isolation. of Japan from the rest of the world; the sixth, the abandonment of this design, the adoption of Western civilization, and the entrance of Japan into the comity of nations. The origin of the first and second movements must be referred to a time distant from the present by a century and a half; the third and fourth, to a period within the past century; the fifth and sixth, to an impulse developed mainly within the memory of young men now living. There existed, long before the advent of Perry, definite conceptions of the objects to be accomplished. These lay in the minds of earnest thinkers, to whom life under the dual system was a perpetual winter of discontent, like snow upon the hills. In due season the spring would have come that was to make the flood. The presence of Perry in the Bay of Yedo was like an untimely thaw, or a hot south-wind in February. The snow melted, the streams gathered. Like houses built upon the sand, the shōgunate and the feudal system were swept away. They were already too rotten and worm-eaten to have the great fall which the simile might suggest. The mikado and the ancient ark of state floated into power. Buddhism stood as upon a rock, damaged, but firm. The foreigner, moored to the pile-driven foundations of his treaties, held his own more firmly than before. The flood in full momentum was swollen by a new stream and deflected into a new channel. Abandoning the attempt to defy the gravitation of events, to run up the hill of a past forever sloping backward into the impossible, the flood found surcease with the rivers of nations that make the ocean of human solidarity. The chief motors of these movements were intellectual. Neither the impact of foreign cannon-balls at Kagoshima or Shimonoséki (see Appendix), nor the heavy and unjust indemnities demanded from the Japanese, wrought of themselves the events of the last ten years, as foreigners so complacently believe. An English writer resident in Japan concludes his translation of the "Legacy of Iyéyasŭ" by referring to it as the "constitution under which this country [Japan] was governed until the time within the recollection of all, when it gave way to the irresistible momentum of a higher civilization." translator evidently means that the fall of the dual form of government and the feudal system was the direct result of contact with the higher civilization of Europe and America. English writers on Japan The |