Kakemono

Neglected by the river side the Buddhas sit, in one long silent row. The rain is beating on their unprotected heads, and down their granite faces little rills of water trickle. The river at their feet runs swift and strong, grey among the boulders, as it rushes down to Nikkō. And they sit forsaken.

The moss is thick upon their shoulders, the granite faces are all scarred and battered, blotched with pallid growths, spotted with dusty accumulations. But the Buddhas smile. Beneath their heavy-lidded eyes they smile, a slow, still, changeless smile.

On the green bank above the tumultuous river there is no shrine, no priest; the forgotten gods sit still, in one long silent row, and the rain beats down relentless. Over their battered heads it runs, and down their moss-grown shoulders; the soiled stone laps are full of it, and it stands in ever widening pools about the lotus-leaves of each pedestal. For in Nikkō the rain, tropical in vehemence, is persistent, as in the Outer Hebrides. It lies to-day in slanting lines, thick as willow-switches, across the dull grey sky.

I could not well be wetter, so I stop to look, and the whole long silent row of Gods Forgotten smiles gently back at me.

Remindful of the legend which calls them numberless, I try to count. Once, twice, several times; but the legend is right. Each time my total varies. Perhaps the rain confuses me; the willow-switches lie so thick across the sky. So I give it up and look at the long desolate row of the numberless Buddhas. I wonder if they envy the Buddha who fell from his pedestal into the stream and was carried down to Imaichi, where the villagers, finding him uninjured, reverently set him up with his face towards Nikkō. Now the country-side adores him, and he wears a large pink bib.

Across the madly rushing river, churned grey between the boulders, the Buddhas smile.... It is a smile of understanding. Yes, the slow, still smile of One Who Understands, who understands All Things, and understanding, is content.

And who should understand, and understanding rest content, if not the Eternal Buddha? Is not the Godhead wise? Does it not see the meaning and the path of All Things? And seeing, were it not then content the Devil triumphs?

If God be in His Heaven, and God be God, then must the Godhead understanding smile.

Through the thick-falling rain the long still row of granite Buddhas smile back at me. I have thought so long upon that smile, which strikes on western senses oddly, almost irreverently. Do we ever conceive of a smiling God? In all the long picture galleries of Europe I have never seen a Christ who smiled. With sword-pierced side and thorn-crowned head He hangs before us—suffering, always sad. The Man of Sorrows; yet He redeemed the world; He saved mankind. For pure joy a soul could smile at such a thought. Yet with us the Redeemer suffers; He never smiles.

The peasant Sōgorō, from his cross where he had watched the killing of his children, laughed gaily as he bade his dying wife farewell; for he had saved three hundred villages from unjust taxation. In his intensest suffering a Japanese is taught to smile. He comes to tell you that his child is dying, and he smiles. Perhaps his eyes are red, but he smiles, that the sight of his suffering may not pain another. It is the sublimest unselfishness and self-control. Sōgorō dying on the cross bade his crucified wife farewell, laughing gaily, and no Japanese would praise or wonder at the fact. Sōgorō died as a martyr. Yes, I have seen a smile on the faces of our martyrs, rarely, it is true. Sodoma’s St. Sebastian smiles; it is a smile of the eyes. He sees a vision—the Lamb of God and all the choirs of the angels. But Christ never smiles. I cannot think of one picture, one conception of a smiling God. Sad, weighed down with the sins of mankind; pitiful, pleading; or stern, implacable, the Just Judge, the Ruler of the Universe, immovable Omnipotence, scales in hand. Can either Godhead smile?

Buddha suffered much and endured much, but still he smiles. He too is merciful and full of pity. He too suffers with each sin man sins. Here too the Just Judge judgeth the World. And the patient Buddha suffers till the wicked are redeemed. There is no end to his suffering till all are saved. Only when the wicked cease from troubling, cease because they are the good, is mortal life completed, till then the complex worlds spin on and on. Yet Buddha smiles. For man’s birthright is not sin, not sorrow, but Joy. The Godhead smiles.

This long silent row of granite gods, fashioned by the hands and the hearts of this nation, smile. And all the bronze and granite statues, all the gilded images, all the Buddhas of this island smile too, for the people who made them and conceived them believe in Joy, in the innate as in the ultimate goodness of man; in the innate as in the ultimate Joy of the Godhead. Verily these are forgotten Gods in western lands.

Across the raging mountain river, through the fast-falling rain, on the desolate green bank the numberless Buddhas battered and forsaken smile, that slow still smile of One Who Understands, who understands All Things, and understanding is content.

Great Buddha, Dai Nippon, teach us.