My voyage to Japan was one of the most important events in our Society’s history; and as we shall be coming to it presently, and the results of the tour were astonishing, it will be as well if the clear statement of Mr. Noguchi, the special Delegate sent to persuade me to accept the invitation of the Japanese Buddhists, and to be my escort, as to the then religious condition of Japan, and his fraternal appeal for the sympathies of the Indian public, which so deeply moved his hearers at the Anniversary celebration in Pachiappah’s Hall, Madras, should be included in this narrative.
Mr. Noguchi's speech
Mr. Noguchi spoke in his own language, but an English translation was read on the occasion. He said:
“Brother Theosophists and Hindu Friends—I am very happy and much honored to address you on the occasion of my first visit to India, a land sacred in the eyes and dear to the hearts of the Japanese and all other Buddhists, as the birthplace of the Founder of our religion, and the country where his eloquent voice uttered its precious teachings. I come from the ‘land of the Rising Sun,’ which lies twenty days’ sail from here by the ocean, in the fastest steamers. Yet it is not to be considered as further away than a single yojana, or even the width of this hall, when we realise the fact that the tie of a common brotherly love really binds us together in a golden chain. That tie is our common interest in a great movement for the revival of religion; the resuscitation of the morality taught and illustrated by our ancestors, and strictly illustrated in their own lives. This movement is that which was begun and has, during the past thirteen years, been directed by the Founders of the Theosophical Society. I am not here to prove that Buddhism is a better religion than yours, but to tell you something about the religious and moral state of my dear country.
“When you hear the facts you will, I am sure, give me and my co-religionists your loving sympathy and good wishes. For you will at once recognise the truth that Japan is at this moment in almost exactly the same condition as your sacred India was ten years ago, when Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky left America and came to your shores. For ten years they have been helping you to understand, and encouraging you to love, respect, and defend your religion from its unscrupulous enemies.
They found it lifeless and its followers in despair. They have put life into its enfeebled body and courage into your hearts.
You were then almost ashamed to confess yourselves Hindus, but now you are proud to be so called. The day of unchallenged slander and misrepresentation of the faith of your forefathers has gone for ever. You now, knowing how much truth it contains, and what is your duty to your children as regards making them understand it, are brave and confident to silence the liar who attacks it.
We, Japanese Buddhists, now ask you to lend us this worker of social miracles, this defender of religion, this teacher of tolerance, for a little time, so that he may do for the religion of my country what he and his colleagues have done for the religion of India.
We are praying Colonel Olcott to come and help us; to come and revive the hope of our old men, to put courage in the hearts of our young men, to prove to the graduates of our colleges and universities, and to those who have been sent to America and Europe for education, that Western science is not infallible, and not a substitute, but the natural sister of Religion.
He is a Buddhist of many years’ standing. He has helped the Buddhists of Ceylon to work a change for the better in their religion so wonderful that no one could believe it without going to that island and talking with the priests and the people. When he first came there, in the year 1880, things were worse for the Buddhists than they were for you in India in 1879.
Now Buddhism is reviving, the Buddhists are beginning to be full of hope and courage, schools for Buddhist children have sprung up everywhere, societies have been formed, books are freely published, a semi-weekly journal has been started and has acquired a great influence, and the Colonial Government has gazetted the Wesak Day of May as a Buddhist national holiday. This is the sort of help we need in Japan as badly as a starving man needs food.
Mr. Laurence Oliphant, the English enthusiast, a brilliant writer, of mystical and religious tendencies, formerly a member of the British Parliament, says: 'A moral pall shrouds this earth’s surface, and it is densest where our Occidental civilisation most prevails. Japan was a relatively pure country until she felt the demoralising touch of Western civilisation, and now how sadly has she deteriorated!'
I am sent here by a very influential national committee to beg Colonel Olcott, our American Brother, to come and give religious food to us. Will you not spare him to do this meritorious work?"
A succinct survey of the names and tenets of the various sects of Japan followed, and his hearers were informed as to the rather demoralised condition of the priesthood, after which Mr. Noguchi closed his address as follows:
“But there are honorable exceptions among the priests; some are really working for Buddhism, but they are few. Where is the higher doctrine? The doctrine is there, but its vital strength is very much reduced. Old Japan is no more; the old grandeur and prosperity of Buddhism, alas! is no more visible.
What shall we do? What steps must we take to reform the Buddhists and give life to Buddhism? How shall we wipe off the rust accumulated on the solid gold structure of Buddhism, so that it may outshine the new-made brass structure they are trying to erect?
The first important step we must make is the unification of all Buddhists, no matter of what sect they are, nor of what country. Of course, it will be a very difficult task. The second step is to begin to make every priest and layman educated; and this, too, is very difficult, and a work of time. The third step is to reconvert the Japanese to Buddhism: needless to speak of its difficulty, in view of what I have above stated. The fourth step is to encourage the Japanese to take all that is good from Europe, and to reject all the bad.
Two opposing forces are now working to influence and mould the intellect of the educated Japanese—one asserting that everything European is good, and the other the contrary. The balance of thought must change towards one scale or the other, and on that the destiny of Japan hangs. What shall we do?
This is the echo of the cry which is now reverberating throughout Japan. Our Buddhist brothers have been aroused from their long drowsiness, but there is no help within. To rescue our Buddhists from the thraldom of Western vices we have thought of only one way. I have hinted to you what that is. It is to obtain the unselfish help of Colonel Olcott, the Founder of the Theosophical Society, and Reformer of Religions.
We heard of the name of this esteemed and honorable man, and of the good work his Society is doing for Buddhism in Ceylon and elsewhere. All Japanese Buddhists are now waiting his visit, and they have named him (Jamashaka) ‘Bodhisat of the Nineteenth Century’.
My dear brother and colleague, Kinza Hirai, ex-President of Kin Society, sent letters asking him to give his services to Japan for the advancement of Buddhism. Mr. Hirai and the Reverend Sano, an influential priest, are forming and organising a Branch of the Theosophical Society at Kyoto, and they are working vigorously in its interest.
They have sent me to this twice-blessed country to attend the Annual Convention of the Theosophical Society at Madras, and after the close of its Session to escort Colonel Olcott to my country as a guest of this Society. In a few days I shall be leaving this for Japan.
My stay here and among my Buddhist brothers in Ceylon has been very agreeable, and I leave you with sorrow. I shall not forget the hospitality that I have received here, nor the brothers with whom I have made lasting friendships. Let us help each other and work mutually for the advancement of our ancient religions.
We, Buddhists, must form a strong brotherhood of co-religionists, of all parts of the world; and for the realisation of this grand object, work earnestly, constantly, and willingly. We must do good work for the sake of the world, as our Lord Buddha did, and as Colonel Olcott, in a lesser yet still most useful way, is doing. ‘Give me liberty or give me death,’ said Mr. Patrick Henry, the American revolutionary patriot. I will say, ‘Let me die or else do a good work while living.’”
The earnestness of Mr. Noguchi’s delivery seemed to strike a responsive chord in the Indian heart, and he carried with him from the hall the best wishes of all. This was the first time that Japan had made an appeal to a foreign nation for religious help since that historical event in 1584, when a company of Japanese ambassadors, themselves of princely birth, were conducted into the presence of the chief pontiff.
Escorted by the cavalry and Swiss guard, accompanied by the foreign embassies, all the Roman princes and nobility, with the officials of the cardinals and of the Vatican, they went in a glittering procession through the streets of Rome, the guns of the castle and those of the Vatican thundering their welcome.
Prostrating themselves at the Pope’s feet, they declared that they “had come from the extremities of the East to acknowledge in the presence of the Pope, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and to render obedience to him in the name of the princes of whom they were the envoys”.
The reading of the letters of credence was followed by a most fervid discourse by Father Gonzalez, and the whole of Christendom was thrown into agitation by the dramatic aspect of this unique occasion. (Cf. Feudal and Modern Japan, by Arthur May Knapp. Boston: L. G. Page & Co., 1897.)
The event was the sequel to the long and adroit labors of Jesuit missionaries, who had skilfully appealed to the Japanese sense of devoted loyalty to their sovereign, and by changing the external aspects of Christianity to conform to those of the ancestral Shinto cult, had made the Japanese believe that the Western religion was, of all others, the best fitted to exalt the grandeur of the emperor and the happiness and dignity of the nation.
But in a little more than three decades the steel hand under the velvet glove was felt to be clutching at the throne and life of the nation, and there followed one of the bloodiest, most remorseless persecutions of perverts to be read of in history; the new religion was extirpated from the land, and its last missionaries swept into the sea.
The ports of Japan were then closely sealed, and for two hundred and fifty years she continued to jealously guard herself by strict seclusion from the possibility of further contamination by foreigners. This is the secret of her isolation, known to comparatively few outside the class of sinologues.
When Japan was once again opened to foreign intercourse by the American Commodore Perry, and change became the passion of the day, an imperial Commission was ordered to report upon the advisability of adopting Christianity as the State religion, in order to improve the moral condition of the people. “The result,” says Hearn (quoted by Mr. Knapp), “confirmed the impartial verdict of Kämpfer in the seventeenth century upon the ethics of the Japanese. ‘They profess a great respect and veneration for the gods, and worship them in various ways. And I think I may affirm that in the practice of virtue, in purity of life and outward devotion, they far outdo the Christians.’ ”
(Op. cit., p.217)
The Commission reported against the adoption of the Western religion “on the ground that, judging, from the moral condition of the West, Christianity was not there so potent an influence for right living as were in Japan the religions which had so long held sway among the island people”. Neither Mr. Knapp, nor Lafcadio Hearn, nor any other unbiassed modern observer believes that Japan will ever come under the sway of Christianity so long as there survives any hope of independent national existence. During the mighty revolution in every other department of thought and life that the empire has been the scene of, none has occurred in that of religion. “From the benefits of this movement,” says Knapp, “which bore so many features of Western life across the Pacific, Christianity has been the one thing excluded; and it was deliberately excluded because, after full investigation, it was deemed prejudicial to the interests of morality”
(p. 218).
“It is an open secret that the American commission recently sent to Japan to consider the crisis in mission work there was confronted with problems which the national spirit has evoked, not only in matters of administration, but also in those affecting supposed essentials of Christian belief. It is at least wholly safe to predict that every hope of sectarian aggrandisement on Japanese soil which has been cherished by any of the numberless denominations who have sent their propagandist forces there is doomed to disappointment. The Christianity which gains a foothold or any lasting influence in the empire will be neither Presbyterian, nor Methodist, nor Unitarian Christianity. It will not be even American, nor English, nor German, nor Roman Christianity. It will be, if anything at all, an essentially Japanese faith, based upon and assimilated with the old loyalties . . . In her faith, as in her polity, Japan will remain, as always in the past, the unconquered Island Realm”
(p. 222).
Olcott accepts the invitation
At the time of the Noguchi commission I had none of my present familiarity with his nation, but I loved them as I do all Oriental peoples, instinctively, and with my whole heart, and in accepting his invitation I felt that with love and sincerity one may unlock all doors that lead to the popular heart.
I knew, from experiences in India, Ceylon, and Burma, that modern education but paints a gloss over the outer man, leaving the inner self what heredity and Karma have made it:
I felt that even so feeble an agency as one man’s voice must arouse the dormant religious sentiment and call back at least the most earnest of the people from the slimy path of greed and worldly success into the clean, broad road traced out by the Buddha, in which their forefathers had trod for thirteen hundred years.
It would not be I, but the resistless power of the Buddha Dharma that would be pitted against the forces of irreligion and moral revolt. When we were driving home from the place of meeting, Noguchi expressed his wonder that so huge an audience had listened to him in such perfect courtesy and silence; saying that I must expect nothing to equal it from my Japanese audiences, who were in the habit of interrupting public speakers with protests and comments, and sometimes making a good deal of disturbance.
I bade him not distress himself on that score, for it had never happened within my experience to be interrupted when speaking, perhaps because I kept my hearers so busy thinking as to give their thoughts no chance to wander. The result—as will be seen later—proved me to be right, for a more courteous reception than that given me would have been impossible to conceive of.
The last Delegate to the Convention of 1888 left Adyar on the 30th (December), and we of the household enjoyed the calm after the storm of clashing opinions. On the last day I wrote: “Thus closes the year 1888, which has been rife with disagreeable incidents, trials, and obstacles of sorts, yet on the whole prosperous. The resignations of Subba Row, Oakley and others bring evil sequences, among them the discontent, almost rebellion, of Tookaram, who has been misled by hasty judgment prompted by X.’s machinations. The outlook for 1889 is much better. We have got rid of a certain pestiferous fellow who kept us all in misery.”
Thus, then, we roll up the scroll from which our notes of the year’s history have been copied, and lay it on the table of Chitragupta, the Record-keeper of Yama, for production at that future day when the deeds of our lives have to be scrutinised by the Lords of Karma.
Attendance at public meetings, reception, and making of visits, a grand dinner given by the Colombo Branch, a public lecture or two, presiding at school celebrations, and other matters, took up all my time, and sent me to bed each night tired and sleepy. On the evening of the 17th we had a most dramatic send off from a crowded meeting convened to hear the High Priest lecture on Bana. It was stifling hot in our packed hall, and the enthusiasm bubbled over.
Speech by Sumangala Thero
(Who was one of the pioneers of the Buddhist revivalist movement in Sri Lanka in the 19th century.)
Sumangala Thero gave a most eloquent and kindly discourse, setting forth the magnitude of the task which I had undertaken, handing me an engrossed Sanskrit letter of credence to the Chief Priests of Japanese Buddhism, which assured them of the sympathy and good-will that they might count on from their co-religionists of the Southern Church.
In the course of his remarks he reminded his hearers of the historical incident of the Buddhist monk, Punna Thero, who, when starting on a foreign mission of propaganda, was interrogated by the Buddha as to the course he should adopt in case he should be refused a hearing, should he be reviled, opposed, stoned, persecuted or killed, declared his readiness to bear all, suffer all, and yield up even life if needs be to spread the Dharma among foreign nations who had not yet enjoyed the inestimable blessing of hearing it preached.
He applied the lesson to my case, and exhorted the Sinhalese to prove their devotion by deeds of self-sacrifice.
In conclusion, he said:
“He is the only person who could undertake and carry out this missionary work for Buddhism. It is well, therefore, that our Japanese brothers have heard of the great good that he has done for our religion, and have sent for him to help them also.” After complimenting Dharmapala and saying that “he is worthy to share the high honor of his task, and be the first Sinhalese who sets foot upon the shores of Japan,” [an error, since I met a Sinhalese merchant there], he added: “I invoke upon their heads the blessings of the Devas, and I ask you all to speed them on their way with your heartiest good wishes.” (1)
When, at last, we left the hall for the steamer and passed out into the moonlit street, the welkin rang with cries of “Sâdhu! Sâdhu”! [which means: holy man] and Noguchi’s and Dharmapala’s bosoms swelled with emotion, as mine did, and our hearts were warmed with hope and infused with courage to face the difficulties before us.
Yet, in comparison with the striking pageantry of the scene at Rome in 1584, when the Japanese ambassadors to the Pope asked his religious help, how modest and unnoticeable were the conditions under which our present visit was taking place: a single schoolmaster, representing a small committee of enthusiasts, mostly young men, comes and takes me by the hand and leads me to Japan, not to build up Christianity, but to revive Buddhism.
Yet the sequel will show that in this, as in many other cases, great results may follow the employment of insignificant agencies.
The trip to Japan
So superstitious have I become in the matter of the association of the numbers 7, 17, and 27 with our Society’s most important events that I confess to having taken it as a good augury for this present tour that we embarked on the “Djemnah” on the 17th of the month.
This was my first long voyage on a French mail steamer, and I was delighted with the arrangements on board.
Travelling second-class, as I almost always do, from motives of economy, I found that the whole deck was free to us to occupy day and night; we mixed on terms of equality with the saloon passengers, and were not made to feel as if we were social pariahs, as one is aboard the British liners.
Our table was the same as that of the saloon save in the number of entrées and our not having a huge tiffin at 1 p.m. to gorge on top of a 10 o’clock breakfast: the officers were most courteous, the servants as respectful and attentive as those in good families, and the baggage-room was accessible daily between fixed hours, and one had only to descend a short staircase to get at it.
We reached Singapore on the sixth day, and were visited by some Sinhalese who are settled there, and with whom we organised, on the next day, a local T. S. Branch, with Mr. B. P. De Silva, the well-known jeweller, as President, and nineteen members.
We sailed the same day and reached the coquettish little Cambodian town of Saigon on the 27th, Sunday.
Like Pondicherry, Chandernagore, and all other French colonial towns, Saigon bears the distinct national stamp. There are cafés, marble-topped little tables on the sidewalks, blue and white signs on the street corners, shops that remind one of the Palais Royal, a theatre subsidised by Government, military men walking about in uniform, civilians with tiny rosettes in their button-holes, and other external signs that unmistakably indicate the presence of Gallic occupancy.
There was a performance of Romeo and Juliet as a grand opera that night, to which all of us passengers went. The auditorium would have astonished an untravelled Frenchman, as the building stood in its own large grounds, was open to all the breezes by arches at the sides, and there were broad verandahs on which one could stroll between the acts. It was a pleasant outing to break the monotony of a sea voyage.
The Zoological Garden of Saigon is very pretty, and at that time possessed a splendid collection of birds of all kinds—as fine a one as I ever saw. I came near being compelled to remember it distinctly, as a gigantic scarlet-plumed flamingo took a notion to chase me, and I would have fared ill from his strong beak if his attention had not been diverted at the critical moment.
On the 28th we sailed for Hong Kong, and on our way began to feel the touch of winter, poor Dharmapala shivering and suffering from the cold, icy wind. Hong Kong was found in gala dress for the Chinese New Year (February 1), and we were greatly interested in all the sights.
The men and women were gorgeously apparelled, the children, funny moon-faced mites, with their cheeks highly rouged and heads shaved, dragging after their parents, the streets full of jinrickshas, palanquins, and uncouth carts, fire-crackers snapping, peripatetic restaurant men carrying their charcoal kitchen-stoves and cooked food by poles across their shoulders, and many other strange things to see.
The next, day we sailed for Shanghai, and went right into a cold air-current which made us huddle around the cabin stove, and me to realise what life in the tropics did for Western constitutions. Dharmapala began to suffer rheumatic pains in his feet and limbs, and to wish himself back in warm Ceylon.
Anchored at Woosung, the river harbor of Shanghai, a snow-storm struck us, and the prospects were so uninviting that we stuck to the ship and the stove, and let the other passengers go up the river in the Company’s big launch without us.
On the 6th we moved on towards Kobé (Japan) and had a bright, sunny day, fairly comfortable in the sun, but bitter cold in the shade.
Up to noon on the 7th the ship made 284 miles within the twenty-four hours, and we got into the warmer air of the black current, which sweeps across the ocean to Japan, and modifies the temperatures of both air and water.
A pretty island with snowy mountain peaks was sighted off the coast of Korea, and on the 8th we were sailing through the inland sea of Japan, amid surroundings that were so beautiful as to have made it world-famed. At times it seemed to me like sailing up past the Hudson River highlands or through Lake George.
We reached Kobé at daylight on 9th February, and before I had finished dressing, some members of the committee of invitation came to my cabin and testified their delight in welcoming me to their country.
Reception in Japan
On the pier, ranged in a line, were a number of Buddhist priests of all the sects, who saluted me with that exquisite politeness for which the nation is celebrated.
Of course, the first thing to strike the eye of one familiar with the appearance and dress of the bhikkus of Southern Buddhism was the entire contrast in the costume of the Japanese monks.
Instead of the yellow robe, the bare head, leg, arm, and foot, here we saw them clothed in voluminous garments with huge drooping sleeves, their heads covered in most cases, and the feet protected by tailor-made socks, and sandals with wooden or other soles.
They wear under-cloths, and kimonos or outer coats, sometimes several, and, in the cold season, wadded with cotton to protect them from the severity of the climate. Some are made of silk, others of cotton.
There are parts of Japan where snow falls to the depth of eight feet, and on some of the mountain peaks the snow never melts. Clearly, then, the robes of India, Burma, and Ceylon are quite unfit for the northern lands where Buddhism flourishes.
Forming a procession of jinrickshas, and supplying us with one each, and taking charge of our luggage, they took us to the most ancient temple of the Ten Dai sect, crowds of priests and people following, where I was formally welcomed, and made a suitable reply.
In the evening I held a conversazione which ran into a lecture. In the afternoon I had been to the American Consul and procured my passport to Kyoto, without which I could not have travelled under then existing laws.
The name of the venerable Chief Priest of the temple was Jiko Katto. He treated me with the greatest urbanity, and assured me that the whole nation were waiting to see and hear me, as a defender of Buddhism.
Kyoto
After a second lecture, the next morning we left for Kyoto by train, and I found a multitude of well-wishers awaiting me in the station, and crowding the street in front.
We were escorted in procession to Nakamaraya’s Hotel, whence, after a rest and some refreshments, I was taken to the great Choo-in Temple of the Jodo sect, and in the “Empress’s Room” held a reception until nightfall.
The display of costly lacquered screens and panels, artistic bronzes and paintings on silk was magnificent. The room is set apart as a royal apartment for the use of H. M. the Empress on the occasions of her visits. It was given me for use for functions of sorts during my stay at the ancient capital.
After dinner, American-like, I went sight-seeing with an interpreter and had my first experience with a jinricksha. It is an excellent vehicle—provided that the cooly be sober enough to keep his footing. Mine wasn’t; and the first thing I knew, he had fallen flat, and I came sailing through the air over him, but, fortunately, being sure-footed, I landed with one foot at each side of his head, no worse for the adventure.
We strolled through Theatre Street, or at any rate the street which is lined on both sides with theatres and show-places of all kinds, and stopped to see a performance of trained birds, which did many wonderful tricks. But I was glad enough to get to bed early; as I was pretty well tired out.
Poor Dharmapala was laid up with neuralgia in the feet, suffering cruelly.
The next morning I attended by invitation an imposing ceremony in Choo-in Temple, in which some 600 priests took part. It was to celebrate the voluntary promulgation of a Constitution by H. M. the Emperor, an act which has been rightly characterised as one of unprecedented magnanimity.
The most undisputedly autocratic sovereign on earth, out of profound regard for the welfare of his country and his people, had given them the political blessing of a Constitutional Government; not driven to it by rebellious barons, like King John of England, but of his own free will, and because he loved his people with his whole heart.
The ceremonies at the Temple included the chanting of hundreds of verses to the rhythmic tapping of drums, which produced vibrations of a strong hypnotic character.
At the High Priest’s request I stood before the high altar and in front of the statue of the Buddha, and recited the service of the Panch a Sila in Pali, as it is done in Ceylon. They were all so interested that not one moved until I had finished.
Was it not a unique experience for an American man to be standing there, as one of his race had never stood before, in the presence of those hundreds of priests and thousands of laymen, intoning the simple sentences which synthesise the obligations assumed by every professing Buddhist of the Southern Church?
I could not help smiling to myself when thinking of the horror that would have been felt by any of my Puritan ancestors of the seventeenth century could they have looked forward to this calamitous day! I am sure that if I had been born among them at Boston or Hartford, I should have been hanged for heresy on the tallest tree within easy reach of their infant settlement. And very glad I am to believe it.
The first Buddhist images and sutras were introduced from Korea into Japan, according to that historical book Nihongi, in the year A.D. 552, but the religion did not at once gain popularity.
“In the beginning of the ninth century the priest Kûkai, or more generally known as Kôbô Daishi, compounded out of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shintô (ancestor worship), a system of doctrine called Riôbu Shintô, the most prominent characteristic of which was the theory that Shintô deities were nothing more than transmigrations of Buddhist divinities.
Buddhism, thus fairly introduced, ere long obtained complete ascendency; it became the religion of the whole nation. By different emperors grants were made to Buddhist temples and monasteries, but after the revolution of 1868 these were withdrawn, and Buddhism has been virtually disestablished since 1st January, 1874.” (2)
Certain temples do, however, still receive governmental patronage, but it is because the monks act as guardians of the tombs of sovereigns; the others, to the number of some 70,000, if I am right, are supported by voluntary subscriptions and other gifts of the pious.
Mr. J. Morris (3) notes the coincidence that just when Buddhism was being introduced into Japan by monks from China and Korea, Catholic missionaries were Christianising the kingdom of Northumbria; and as the influence of King Oswy was thrown into the scale in that country in favor of the new religion, so the announced preference of the Empress Gemmei for the rights of Buddhism aided very materially to establish it in Japan—both events going to prove, as one might say, the principle that at certain epochs and places nucleating centres of religious power are developed, making them the initial points of circling waves that run outward into the mass of mankind.
On the 12th of February I paid my respects to the Chief Priest of the Shin Gon sect, the Esoteric Buddhists of Japan, it is said. We had a long and interesting talk, during the course of which it came out that we held many ideas in common. The learned prelate showed me the greatest good-will, and promised me a welcome from his whole body of followers.
At 2 p.m. I lectured in the vast preaching-hall of Choo-in Temple to an audience of about 2,000. Mr. Kinza Hirai interpreted, and my remarks on the state of Buddhism were received with storms of applause.
The next day I had a grand reception at the chief temple of the Western Hongwanji, one of the two great divisions of the Shin Shu sect. (4)
The sacred building was decked with the national ensign, and, in compliment to me and the Ceylon Buddhists, the Buddhist symbolical flag, which the Colombo Buddhist T. S. has introduced in the Island of Ceylon. This charming courtesy was shown me throughout my whole tour in Japan, the two flags being grouped together at every hotel, railway station, and temple visited. On the occasion in question 600 pupils of the Temple College were drawn up in two ranks to salute me as I walked between. By request I addressed them, their teachers and the priests, on the subject of education and religion, after which a collation of cakes, etc., was served.
The visitor to Japan is astonished to see the exquisite taste displayed in the preparation of these products of the baker’s art; the cakes being made into the shapes of flowers, so deftly colored and moulded that in the light momi wood boxes in which they are laid in cotton, in layers of trays, one might fancy one was receiving a present of hothouse blooms. This developed artistic sense shows itself in every detail of Japanese life—it is ingrained in the national character. In the serving of food, the very vegetables hidden under the inverted lacquer saucers, when uncovered, are seen to have been arranged with an eye to contrast of colors, and to make the meal more appetising by an appeal to the palate through the sense of sight. Oh, the dear, kind people! who could help loving them after once seeing them in their own homes!
A similar reception was given me the next day at the Eastern Hongwanji, the body to which belongs Mr. Bunyin Nanjio, the brilliant Sanskrit pupil of Professor Max Müller, and with him co-editor of Sukhâ-vati-Vyûha, a description of the Land of Bliss (5), and I am under obligations to him for kindly interpreting for me on several occasions. I was shown over the huge temple, which was then nearly completed, and which was the finest in the country. They showed me huge cables, each 15 inches thick and 18 yards long, entirely made of tresses of hair cut from the heads of pious women who had offered them to be thus used for hauling the timbers of the new shrine! Did anyone ever hear of a similar act of devotion?
On this occasion I received my first present of books for the Adyar Library, the nucleus of the large and rich collection which we possess, thanks to the generosity of our Japanese friends. My third lecture in Kyoto was given that evening to the usual crowd of patient listeners. Later, I sat for my portrait to a very famous artist, whose name I was not fortunate enough to catch. Whatever came of it I have never heard.
On the 15th I went to Osaka, the second largest city of Japan, Kyoto ranking third. It is to the empire what Liverpool or Glasgow is to Great Britain, or Boston or Philadelphia to the United States. It is the headquarters of one of the six military divisions of Japan. One of the quarters of the city bears the name of Tennôji, the Temple of the Heavenly Kings, from the existence there of one of the most sacred fanes of the Buddhist religion—the one, in fact, which I visited on the 17th.
I was told that it is the oldest temple in Japan. There is an ancient revolving library arrangement there, the books being shelved on revolving frames which may be turned in search of any desired volume, just like the modern revolving bookcases, quite recently rediscovered, and now in general use; only these at Tennôji are huge structures, and have stood there for no end of years.
An interesting feature of this place is a temple for the babies who have left their weeping mothers’ arms to pass on towards Sukhâvati, the Japanese heaven. It is filled with the clothes, toys, and other loved objects which formerly belonged to the little ones, and a bell hangs there for the mother to ring as she offers up her prayer, that the ears now closed in death but reopened in the brighter sphere may hear her heart-cry, and the child answer by coming near to feel the love that rushes out in greeting. The senior trustee of the temple gave me an ancient Japanese gold coin, flat, thin, with rounded ends, and an inscription in the Chinese character. I lectured here to a Prisoners’ Reform Society.
Osaka
On my arrival at Osaka on the 15th, before reaching my lodging-place, the Un-rai-ji Temple of the Nichiren sect, I had to visit a girls’ school called “So-gai-suchi-een” and address the pupils, and also a large boys’ school, “Kyo-ritsu-gakko,” and address them. The damp cold at the former place was so trying to me, standing as I did, according to Japanese custom, in my thin cotton stockings, that I took a severe cold, which threatened an attack of pneumonia; but the timely use of a hot foot-bath and warmed blankets, followed by a refreshing sleep, averted the calamity. Dharmapala, however, did not fare so well, for it intensified the neuralgia in his feet to such a degree that he had to go to the hospital at Kyoto, and stop there until the very last days of my tour. The kindness shown him by all, young and old, hospital officials and outsiders, was simply marvellous. A Society of young Buddhists constituted themselves his nurses, and stopped with him night and day, anticipating his every want, and ministering to him in loving devotion. This national custom of putting off the shoes on entering a house or temple is a dangerous one for foreigners, and I suffered much from it until I learnt from a kind English friend at Kobé to carry with me a pair of woollen felt chaussons, such as the French peasants wear inside their wooden sabots in winter, to put on at the door after removing my shoes. After that there was no further difficulty. I recommend friends who may contemplate a tour in Japan to profit by this warning. At 10 a.m. on the 16th I went to Cho-sen-ji Temple, of the Shin Shu sect (a ride of three miles in jinrickshas), and lectured; thence to the house of Mr. Tamuda for tiffin; and, later, to the Nam-ba-mido Temple, of the same sect as the above, and lectured to an audience of 2,500 persons. On the morning of the 18th I returned to Kyoto, leaving Noguchi behind, sick abed.
Money problems
Things had now reached a critical point as regarded my Japanese tour. It now came to my knowledge that the committee of young men who had invited me had not command of the money that would be needed for the tour, and that they had even been obliged to charge 10 sen for admission to my Kyoto lectures to cover the preliminary expenses. At this juncture the wealthy Shin Shu directors had come forward and offered to take over the tour and pay for everything, on condition that the original committee should withdraw and leave the management of affairs in their hands. This proposal at once put things on a footing of absolute certainty as regarded the success of the tour, but it did not satisfy me, for it would virtually hand me over to one only of the nine principal sects of Buddhists to escort me throughout the empire, thus possibly making the people at large to believe that I specially favored the views of Shin Shu. Now this sect presents the curious anomaly that their priests marry and have families, whereas celibacy was particularly enjoined on his bhikkus by the Buddha. They get over this by claiming to be only samaneras, or, as we should say, clerks in holy orders, not full priests. Be that as it may, it was clearly injudicious for me to consent to the arrangement—made with the committee without my knowledge—so I rebelled.
Olcott organizes a council
I sent out invitations to the Chief Priests of all the sects to meet me in Council in the Empress’s Room at Chooin-Temple on 19th February and listen to what I should have to say. To attend this Council I returned from Osaka on the 18th, as above mentioned. The meeting was, I was told, unprecedented in Japanese history, such a thing as a General Council of the Heads of all the sects never having been held before. That did not trouble me, for I had been bringing together into friendly relations in India and Ceylon, for years past, priests, Pandits, and other people of various sects, and I felt within me that sense of power and of certainty which made me sure that I should succeed. The fact is that the instantaneous and enthusiastic welcome given me from the moment of landing, and the vast crowds that had thronged to hear my message of brotherly love, had placed me in a position to dictate terms, and I had not the least intention to let my visit be exploited for the profit of any one sect, however rich or powerful it might be. I fancy that this decision of mine helped to influence the several sectarian Heads to come and hear my views, however determined they might be not to let themselves be persuaded into concurrence in any plan, even though most ingeniously and speciously set forth, which should seem likely to assign them individually a place that would lessen their importance in the eyes of their followers and the general public. At all events, the Council met at the designated time and was a complete success, as the continuation of my narrative in the next chapter will show.
The sun shone bright for our meeting; and its reflected light made every point of gold in the lacquer panels to sparkle, every sheeny surface in the embroidered satin decorations to blossom out in its lovely hues. A long table had been placed in the middle of the room, with chairs at each side, which were to be occupied, at my suggestion, by the Chief Priests, in the order of their seniority of age: a small table in one corner was meant for the interpreter, Mr. Matsumura, of Osaka. I was invited to take the seat at the top of the long table, but respectfully declined, saying that as I held no official rank in their order, no proper place could be assigned me; as an outsider and a layman, it would be more respectful if I sat at the small table with my interpreter. Second point scored, the first one being the arrangement of seats according to age, it being a fundamental principle among the Orientals to yield precedence to age. This brushed away, at the same time, the difficulty as to which sect was entitled to the highest place at the board; a point of etiquette as scrupulously held to as it was by that fiery chieftain who said: “Where the Douglas sits is the head of the table.” Among the delegates were several very old men with grey hair and bent forms, who kept their hands and bodies warm in the unheated room with brass braziers placed before them on the table and an ingenious contrivance, a curved tin case with perforated cover, to fit around the pit of the stomach, inside a sash, with a sausage of powdered charcoal in a thin paper cover inside, which, being lighted at one end, consumes away very slowly and gives a pleasant warmth to the body.
All preliminaries being thus disposed of, I first had read by Mr. Matsumura a Japanese translation of the salutatory letter in Sanskrit to the Buddhists of Japan from Sumangala Thero—mentioned above—in which he begged his co-religionists to receive me as a zealous and consistent Buddhist, and help me to realise my plans. Then followed the reading of a joint note of similar purport from the principal priests of both Sinhalese Buddhist sects. I then read in English my address, in which I defined my views and hopes with regard to the present tour, and my reasons for convening the meeting. Inasmuch as the consequences of the meeting were of a permanently important nature, and the event has become historical in Japan, I venture to copy from the Theosophist Supplement for April, 1889, the text of the document in full.
“REVEREND SIRS,
“I have invited you to meet me to-day on neutral ground, for private consultation.
“What can we do for Buddhism?
“What ought we to do?
“Why should the two great halves of the Buddhist Church be any longer ignorant and indifferent about each other?
“Let us break the long silence; let us bridge the chasm of 2,300 years; let the Buddhists of the North and those of the South be one family again.
“The great schism took place at the second council of Vaisâli, and among its causes were these questions: ‘May salt be preserved in horn by the monks for future use?’ ‘May solid food be eaten by them after the hour of noon?’ ‘May fermented drinks which look like water be drunk?’ ‘May seats covered with cloths be used?’ ‘May gold and silver be received by the order?’
“Does it seem worth while that the vast Buddhist family should be estranged from each other for such questions as these? Which is the most important, venerable Sirs, that salt shall or shall not be stored up for future use, or that the Doctrines of Buddhism shall be preached to all mankind? I am come from India—a journey of 5,000 miles, and a long one for a man of nearly 60 years of age—to ask you this question? Answer me, O chief priests of the twelve Japanese sects: I charge you upon your consciences to answer. I have brought you a written appeal from your co-religionists of Ceylon and a Sanskrit letter from the learned Sumangala, High Priest of Adam’s Peak, begging you to receive their brotherly salutations, and to listen to me and help me carry out my religious work. I have no special, private word to speak to any of you, but one word for all. My mission is not to propagate the peculiar doctrines of any sect, but to unite you all in one sacred undertaking. Each of you I recognise as a Buddhist and a brother. All have one common object. Listen to the words of the learned Chinese pilgrim and scholar, Hiouen Thsang: ‘The schools of philosophy are always in conflict, and the noise of their passionate discussions rises like the waves of the sea. Heretics of the different sects attach themselves to particular teachers, and by different routes walk to the same goal.’ I have known learned priests engage in bitter controversy about the most childish subjects, while the Christian missionaries were gathering the children of their neighborhoods into schools and teaching them that Buddhism is a false religion! Blind to their first duty as priests, they thought only of quarrelling about unimportant matters. I have no respect for such foolish priests, nor can I expect them to help me to spread Buddhism in distant countries, or defend it at home from its bitter, rich, and indefatigable enemies. But my helpers and well-wishers will be all sincere, intelligent, broad-minded Buddhist priests and laymen, of every country and nation.
“We have these two things to do. In Buddhist countries, to revive our religion; purify it of its corruptions; prepare elementary and advanced books for the education of the young and the information of adults, and expose the falsehoods circulated against it by its opponents. Where these latter are trying to persuade children to change their family religion for another, we must, strictly as a measure of self-defence, and not in any angry or intolerant spirit—condemned by our religion—collect and publish all available facts about the merits and demerits of the new religion offered as better than Buddhism. And then it is our duty—as taught by the Lord Buddha himself—to send teachers and preachers to distant lands, such as Europe and America, to tell the millions now disbelieving Christianity, and looking about for some religion to replace it, that they will find what will convince their reason and satisfy their heart in Buddhism. So completely has intercourse been broken between Northern and Southern Buddhists since the Vaisâli Council, you do not know each other’s beliefs nor the contents of your respective Scriptures. One of the first tasks before you, therefore, is to have the books compared critically by learned scholars, to ascertain which portions are ancient and which modern, which authoritative and which forgeries. Then the results of these comparisons must be published throughout all Buddhist countries, in their several vernaculars. We may have to convene another great Council at some sacred place, such as Buddha-Gaya or Anuradhapura, before the publications mentioned are authorised. What a grand and hopeful spectacle that would be! May we live to see it!
“Now kindly understand that, in making all these plans for the defence and propagation of Buddhism, I do so in the twofold character of an individual Buddhist and President of the Theosophical Society, acting through and on behalf of its Buddhist Division. Our great Brotherhood comprises already 174 Branches, distributed over the world as follows: India, Ceylon, and Burma 129; Europe 13; America 25; Africa 1; Australasia 2; West Indies 2; Japan 1; Singapore 1. Total, 174 Branches of our Society, all under one general management. When first I visited Ceylon (in the year 1880) and formed several Branches, I organised a Buddhist Division of the Society, to include all Buddhist Branches that might be formed in any part of the world. What I now offer you is to organise such Branches throughout Japan, and to register them, along with our Buddhist Branches in Ceylon, Burma, and Singapore, in the “Buddhist Division”; so that you may all be working together for the common object of promoting the interests of Buddhism. This will be an easy thing to do. You have already many such Societies, each trying to do something, but none able to effect as much as you could by uniting your forces with each other and with the sister Societies in foreign countries. It would cost you a great deal of money and years of labor to establish foreign agencies like ours, but I offer you the chance of having these agencies ready-made, without your being put to any preliminary expenses. And since our Buddhist Division has been working for Buddhism without you for the past ten years, I doubt if you could find more trustworthy or zealous co-operators. The people of Ceylon are too poor and too few in number (only some 2,000,000 of Buddhists) to undertake any such large scheme as I propose, but you and they together could do it successfully. If you ask how we should organise our forces, I point you to our great enemy, Christianity, and bid you look at their large and wealthy Bible, Tract, Sunday-school, and Missionary Societies—the tremendous agencies they support to keep alive and spread their religion. We must form similar Societies, and make our most practical and honest men of business their managers. Nothing can be done without money. The Christians spend millions to destroy Buddhism; we must spend to defend and propagate it. We must not wait for some few rich men to give the capital: we must call upon the whole nation. The millions spent for the missionaries are mainly contributed by poor people and their children: yes, their children, I say, for they teach their children to deny themselves sweets and toys and give the money to convert you to Christianity. Is not that a proof of their interest in the spread of their religion? What are you doing to compare with it? Where are your monster Buddhist Publication Societies, your Foreign Mission Societies, Missionaries in foreign lands? I travel much, but have not heard of them in any country of Europe or America. There are many Christian schools and churches in Japan, but is there a Japanese Buddhist school or temple in London, or Paris, or Vienna, or New York? If not, why not? You know as well as I that our religion is better than Christianity, and that it would be a blessed thing if the people of Christendom were to adopt it: why, then, have you not given them the chance? You are the watchmen at the gates of our religion, O chief priests! why do you slumber when the enemy is trying to undermine its walls? Yet, though you neglect your duty, Buddhism is rapidly spreading in Christian countries from several causes. First of all its intrinsic merit, then its scientific character, its spirit of love and kindness, its embodiment of the idea of justice, its logical self-consistency. Then the touching sweetness of the story of the life of Sakhya Muni, which has touched the hearts of multitudes of Christians, as recounted in poem and story. There is one book called The Light of Asia, a poem by Sir Edwin Arnold, of which several hundred thousand copies have been sold, and which has done more for Buddhism than any other agency. Then there are and have been great authors and philologists like Professor Max Müller, Messrs. Burnouf, De Rosily, St. Hilaire, Rhys Davids, Beal, Fausböll, Bigandet, and others, who have written about the Lord Buddha in the most sympathetic terms. And among the agencies to be noticed is the Theosophical Society, of which I am President. The Buddhist Catechism, which I compiled for the Sinhalese Buddhists eight-years ago, has already been published in fifteen different languages. A great authority told me recently in Paris that there were not less than 12,000 professed Buddhists in France alone, and in America I am sure there must be at least 50,000. The auspicious day has come for us to put forth our united efforts. If I can persuade you to join hands with your brothers in Ceylon and elsewhere, I shall think I am seeing the dawn of a more glorious day for Buddhism. Venerable Sirs, hearken to the words of your ignorant yet sincere American co-religionist. Be up and doing. When the battle is set, the hero’s place is at the front: which of you shall I see acting the hero in this desperate struggle between truth and superstition, between Buddhism and its opponents?”
To put everything on a practical footing, I suggested the formation of a General Committee of Buddhist affairs, to comprise representatives of all their sects, and to act for the general interest of Buddhism, not for anyone sect or subdivision. This plan I urged upon them very strenuously. I added that I positively refused to make the tour in Japan unless I could do it under their conjoint auspices, for otherwise my appeals would be taken as though made on behalf of the one sect having the tour in charge, and their influence minimised. I warned them that the Christian missionaries were vigilant and zealous, and would spare no effort to throw discredit upon my mission, not even the employment of calumny and falsehood, as they had done in Ceylon and in India since we first began our labors there. Finally, I gave notice that unless they did form such a Joint Committee I would take the next steamer back to my place of departure. Dharmapala, being somewhat better that day, was carried to the meeting in a chair and sat through the session. I am not sure, now that I come to look back at it, but that those venerable pontiffs, spiritual teachers of 39,000,000 Japanese and incumbents of about 70,000 temples, must have thought me as dictatorial a fellow as my countryman Commodore Perry. .It doesn’t matter now, since my terms were accepted; the Joint Committee, since known as the Indo-Busseki-Kofuku-Kwai—I think that is the title—was formed, the preliminary outlay of the Young Men’s Committee was refunded to them, and thenceforth my programme was laid out by the Committee so as to take me to every important Buddhist centre throughout the empire, and to have me become the guest of each of the sects and give my lectures at selected temples of each. In the course of the tour a group photograph was taken of the members of the Managing Committee, myself and Mr. Matsumura, and may be seen by visitor’s to our Adyar Headquarters.
The 20th of February is noted in my Diary as a quiet day, a rest after the stiff work of the Council. I consented to visit Yokohama on receipt of telegraphic advices that all was ready for us. I had many visitors on that and the three succeeding days, but the pleasure was marred by the sight of the sufferings of Dharmapala, who was in almost constant agony. I found time for a visit to a new silk-spinning mill, the machinery for which was being set up by a representative of the firm of Birmingham manufacturers. He called my attention to the super-excellence of the plant, which was the best that money could buy—the finest, he assured me, he had ever installed in the course of his twenty years’ connection with the business. It struck us both that if the Japanese practised the same wise foresight in all their commencements of manufacturing enterprises, they would become most formidable competitors in the marts of the world’s commerce. We have seen during the succeeding ten years how safe was our prognostic.
On the 24th I went to Otsu and lectured in a great hall at the border of the Lake Biwa. A group of Christians were in the audience at first, but when they heard me expounding the beauties of Buddha Dharma they all left, poor things! Lake Biwa is one of the prettiest in the world, its waters glassy-smooth, its snowy mountains and its hills clad in piney woods, going to make up a charming picture. There is a legend that in a dreadful earth-convulsion in 286 B.C. this lake was hollowed out in a single night, while simultaneously Fuji-San, the peerless conical, snow-capped mountain, two hundred miles away, shot up to its height of 12,000 feet above high-water level, with a crater 500 feet deep. Standing on the slope before Mee-de-ra Temple, with the panorama spread out before us, it was interesting to hear the folk-legends of gods and heroes who frequented the locality, and the valiant deeds they performed. At the same time I brought the minds of the party of friends around me to the paramount subject of my mission. Looking down upon Otsu from it tea-kiosk that stood at the brow of a spur of the hill, and pointing to the great cluster of houses, I asked how many Buddhists the Lord Buddha would find there if he should be standing beside us. Why, so-and-so many thousand, they replied, mentioning approximately the population of the place. I don’t mean that, I said, but how many out of those thousands would he call real Buddhists, the practitioners of his Five Precepts? Oh! hardly any, they said. Well, I rejoined, let us try and increase the number by our good advice, but chiefly by our example. They took it very good-naturedly, and, in fact, I always found them ready to laugh whenever a point was made against themselves: so sweet-tempered are they, they bore no malice when convinced of the friendliness and good-will of their visitor.
One legend of the lake deals with the slaughter of a monstrous serpent which ravaged the whole countryside. No man had the courage to attack it until the Queen of the Watery Kingdom, taking pity upon mankind, assumed the form of a beautiful lady of the Japanese Court, and appealed to Ben-Kei, the hero demigod, to exhibit his superhuman powers. Thereupon, the Japanese St. George bent his strong bow and sped a shaft so truly that it pierced the monster’s brain and effectually silenced him. I purchased for a trifling sum a picture depicting the interesting event.
On the next day I went to see Dharmapala at the hospital and found him a little better. The rest of my time was taken up with visitors. The first application for a Charter for a T. S. Branch was received this day. On the 26th I went to Kobé, where I was put up by Mr. T. Walsh, a paper-mill owner. He called with me on Mr. Jerningham, the United States Consul.
Yokohama
The next day, with my committeemen, I sailed for Yokohama in an excellent Japanese steamer, and arrived there on the 28th at 6 p.m., after a sail through the Inland Sea, and having had a grand view of Fujiama, or Fuji-San. The slopes are so gradual as to deceive the eye as to its height, and make it seem much lower than it is. Representatives of the General Committee met me on arrival and escorted me to the Grand Hotel, where I found myself very comfortable. Mr. James Troup, H. B. M. Consul, the well-known writer on Northern Buddhism, and I exchanged visits and had much agreeable conversation.
Tokyo
Our party left for Tokyo (Yeddo), the capital, by the 4 p.m. train. A vast crowd swarmed about the station to greet me, and I could not doubt my being welcome. Nor could the Committee. In the evening Mr. Bunyin Nanjio called with Mr. Akamatsu, another Cambridge man of great intellectual powers and high culture, who has been advanced to a post of great responsibility in the Western Hongwanji, and a most delightful conversationist he is. Other important personages called. The next day I paid my respects to Mr. Hubbard, the American Minister Plenipotentiary, and H. E. Marquis Aoki, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to whom I had a letter of introduction. The Committee took me to see the tombs of two former Shoguns, where were superb carvings in wood, lacquered panels, and other ornamentations. I was told that a Shogun is interred in a nest of seven coffins, but nobody knew why. Can it typify the sevenfold constitution of man? Near one tomb was the great wardrum of the dead sovereign, which was formerly beaten at the head of his conquering army. The temptation to give them a surprise was so strong that I seized the beater and crashed out a booming note on the gigantic drum. “There,” I cried; “I summon you in the name of this Shogun to the battle of your ancestral religion against the hostile force that would overthrow it,” the next moment asking them to pardon me if I had been guilty of any breach of good manners; but they protested that I had done no more than my duty in reminding them of the obligation resting upon them to be active for their faith, and that they would make good use of the incident with the public.
On 3rd March I was invited to address a large gathering of the most important priests of the capital and environs, and I did so, showing them, with all the earnestness at my command, where their duty lay, and how closely it was associated with their best interests. As I had done in Ceylon, so here showed them that if they were only a little wise they would use every possible exertion to keep up in the rising generation the religious spirit which would make them when adults the willing supporters of the temple and priests, which their forefathers had been and their parents now were; for if this was suffered to die out, the temples must crumble and the monks die off for lack of sustenance. For myself, I told them, I asked nothing, not the smallest recompense. I stood there as a mouthpiece only of the Founder of our religion, calling them to arouse and work before it was too late to ward off disaster. This was my keynote throughout the tour, and, as will be seen later on, it was effective.
On 4th March I paid a ceremonial visit to the Chief Priest of the Eastern Hongwanji, Otani Koson San, a noble by birth, of the rank of Marquis under the new system. I found him a dignified, courtly man, who seemed to wish well to my mission, and promised all needed help. Thence to the American Embassy; and, later, Messrs. Nanjio, Akamatsu, and I had a long conference about Buddhistic affairs.
In the evening, with Marquis Otani and Mr. Akamatsu, I attended a party at the house of Viscount Sannomiya, Imperial Chamberlain, whose wife is a German Lady-in-Waiting of H. I. M. the Empress. As this was my first party in Japan, and I had been seeing all sorts of high officials in the national dress, I did not know what to wear, and asked Mr. Akamatsu and an American gentleman for advice. Both said it didn’t matter; I might wear the frock-coat I then had on. I was afraid to expose myself to catching a pneumonia by donning our Western evening-dress, but remembering the old rule of Hoyle, “When in doubt take the trick,” I thought it would be the wiser plan to conform to our established usage. Well was it that I did. On arrival at the house, the host and other gentlemen met us at the door, some in our evening costume, some in Western military dress, all wearing orders. On ascending to the drawing-rooms I saw the whole company similarly clad, the ladies in the latest Parisian fashions. Fancy how I felt at the thought of what I should have looked like but for my instinctive precaution! I cannot say that I was pleased with the sight of all those Orientals doffing their own picturesque apparel, which suits them so well, for our European dress, which suits us, but decidedly does not an Asiatic. But it was a comfort to find, when I called on these personages at their houses, that almost invariably they wear their national dress, and put on the other in public as the imperial regulations prescribe. The party at Viscount Sannomiya’s was in every respect like one of our own, even to the dancing, in which Japanese gentlemen, and sometimes even ladies, indulged. What struck me forcibly, after so many years of India and other Eastern countries, was the tone of respect and equality in the intercourse between the natives and the foreign residents. There was a total absence of that cringing and self-suppression, on the one part, and supercilious patronage, on the other, which are so galling to a lover of Asiatics and their countries. I can hardly express my delight in regard to this during my whole visit in Japan. Among Madame Sannomiya’s guests were royal princes and princesses, and lesser nobles of all ranks. I also made the acquaintance of Professor Fenolosa, of Boston, U. S. A., Director of the School of Fine Arts, his wife, and a friend, Dr. W. S. Bigelow, all three charming people, with whom I was fortunate enough to form most friendly relations. With Fenolosa I called, the next day, on an old army comrade of mine, Brigadier-General C. W. Legendre, of the Fifty-first New York Regiment, of the Burnside Expedition to North Carolina, with whom I passed through several battles, at one of which—Newbern—I saw him desperately wounded. Of course, we were delighted to meet again, after twenty-six years, in this remote corner of the world, and to talk over old times. At the Tokyo Club, where I was made an Honorary Member, I became acquainted with many of the most influential and cultured men of the day, among them Captain Brinckley, R. A., retired, Editor of the Japan Mail, Dr. Edward Divers, Professor of Chemistry at the University, Professor Milne, the seismologist of world-wide fame, Captain J. M. James, of the Japanese Naval Department, Hon. Mr. Satow, Dr. Baelz, Mr. Basil, Hon. Chamberlain, Honorary Secretary, Asiatic Society of Japan, and others. From one and all I received only the greatest courtesy.
At 3 p.m. on 6th March I lectured in Rin-sho-in Temple to an “educated” audience, without an interpreter, and then made calls. The next day the lecture was in Zo-jo-ji Temple, to junior priests on their duty, and I spoke as plainly as the occasion demanded. I dined at the same temple, and viewed a collection of paintings of alleged Rahans (Arahats, Rahats, Munis, Mahatmas), the originals of which I should never have taken for spiritually advanced persons if I had casually met them. In fact, I told the friendly monks who were conducting me about that if they had ever seen the sublime faces of real Rahans they would wish to burn these travesties. That same evening I had the pleasure of seeing a performance by a noted Japanese conjurer. He was dressed in a European walking-suit, his black frock-coat buttoned up high, and wore a small gold cross! This, it was explained to me, did not signify that he was a Christian, which he was not, but only that he could work miracles—the cross being associated by popular rumor with miracle-working! He marched in a short procession from a door at the side of the hall, preceded by a drummer and a flute-player, and followed by his assistants, male and female, in native dress. Among the striking feats that he did was to make a jet of water spirit out of a closed fan, and another from the top of a man’s head, while a jet of fire leaped from the same fan the next moment. A girl lying on a wooden bench was apparently transfixed by the blade of a sword, and another suspended by thongs at the wrists and ankles to a large wooden cross was pierced through the body at the point of the heart by a lance, and a torrent of blood poured from the wound. As, however, both damsels were presently walking about again as though nothing unusual had happened, I inferred that that was the real fact, and that I and the rest of the audience had been simply befooled.
At 2 p.m. on the 8th I lectured at Higashi Hongwanji to a very large concourse of priests. On the next day my lecture was at the University, before the Educational Society of Japan, which counts the Princes of the Blood and most of the great men of the country among its members. I was told that no less a personage than H. I. M. the Emperor was present incognito. I was vexed to hear from Captain Brinckley, at the close, that my interpreter had mistranslated a sentence of mine so as to give it a political sense, which, of course, was farthest from my thoughts.
A lecture to the general public followed the next day, and another ,on the 11th, both audiences huge and enthusiastic, and all the Missionaries at the second one, taking notes. Much good did it do them! On that same evening I attended a grand ball given by the merchants of Tokyo to the Imperial Princes. I was introduced to the Prime Minister, General Count Kuroda, the Vice-Ministers of the Treasury and of Communications, the Chief Judge of Kyoto, and many other important personages, Japanese and foreign.
On the 12th I lectured at Shinagawa, in Kon-o-Kong Temple; on the next day at Den-zu-een, a temple of the Jo-do sect, and paid my respects to H. E. Baron Takasaki, Governor of Tokyo, and a most affable gentleman. We had a long discussion about religious and educational matters.
A crematorium
I also visited the Crematorium, “Nippori,” and was greatly interested in all the arrangements, most of which are well worth copying. The building and furnaces are of brick, the latter lined with fire-bricks and having raised floors of iron, which pull out and run in for the removal of the ashes and introduction of new corpses. The cost of cremating a body is only 28 cents, (about 12 annas), and the time required three hours. Tasteful glazed earthenware vases for holding the ashes and unconsumed portions of bone are available at the trifling cost of 30, 12, and 10 cents respectively for first, second, and third qualities. The charges for cremation are $ 7, $ 2.50, and $ 1.30 (the dollar is now worth about Rs. 3) according to the “class” of cremation. In point of fact there is no difference whatever between the quality or quantity of fuel used, nor in any other detail; it is simply a question of family pride. The establishment belongs to a private corporation with a paid-up capital of $ 30,000, and the ground and buildings cost but $ 12,000. Thirty-one corpses may be cremated simultaneously, in as many separate furnaces or cubicles. The funeral ceremonies are held in an adjoining chamber, the body being packed in a tub, in sitting posture, resting on a trolley and covered with a white sheet. At the conclusion of the prayers, the tub is rolled into the cremating chamber assigned to it, and in due course the waiting relatives receive the ashes, and take them away for disposal according to fixed custom.
Nothing could have been better than the Committees’ management of the tour, it having been planned so as to give all classes the chance of hearing what was to be said on behalf of Buddhism.
Under the mutual-benefit compact made between the sect-leaders at the momentous Council at Choo-in Temple, Kyoto, I was made to lecture at the temples of their several religious bodies, now at one, now at another, sometimes at two in one day.
Such mutual good-feeling between them was unprecedented, and all did their best to swell the numbers of my auditors and gather together the learned and unlearned, priests and laity, nobles and commoners, military and naval officers, and civilians. Every paper and magazine in the country occupied itself with accounts of the mission, its objects, its arguments, the proposed creation of a good understanding between Northern and Southern Buddhist, and the physical appearance of the “American Buddhist”. Meanwhile, poor Dharmapala lay in hospital at Kyoto, agonising with his neuralgia, and attended with loving tenderness by his self-constituted young nurses.
My discussion with H. E. the Governor of Tokyo led to his inviting me to dine with him at the Nobles’ Club, and meet the Prime Minister and his colleagues of the Cabinet. I was not a vegetarian then, so it is quite natural that I should have relished a meal out of the ample menu for the occasion, a copy of which, printed in Japanese and in French in parallel columns, I find pasted in my Diary, along with scores of visitors’ cards in Japanese, Chinese, English, and French, kept as souvenirs of this marvellous tour. To anticipate the wishes of those among my readers who like their mouths to water even though the eating be done by proxy, I think I shall copy the bill of fare just to show how far Feudal Japan is vanishing into the mists at the coming in of the French cook and his batterie de cuisine:
DINER DU 19 MARS, 1889
Potage tortue, à l’anglaise.
Brochet au court-bouillon aux crevettes.
Cotelettes ae veau piquées aux petits pois.
Cailles au riz.
Filet de bæuf, marine sauce piquante.
Aspic de foie gras belle vue.
Asperge en branche.
Dindonneaux rotis. Salade.
Pouding au painnoir.
Glaces aux fraises.
Desserts.
What do you, reader of old illustrated books of travel, with their pictures of the dresses of Shogun, Mikado, Daimio, and their trains of Samurai knights of two swords, as complete incarnations of chivalric valor as the world ever saw or troubadour ever celebrated; of pike-bearers, forerunners, harbingers, clerks, and cooks; of feudatory petty chiefs and retainers, with pikes, scimitars, bows, and arrows, umbrellas, palanquins, led horses, and other marks of their grandeur suitable to their birth, quality, and office, and an hundred other appanages of the dignity of the families of these very Cabinet Ministers who sat at H. E. the Governor’s board with me, and ate his young turkey, his foie gras and his strawberry ices—what do you think of this spectacle of the 19th of March at the Nobles’ Club? There’s progress of a certain sort—backward, towards the kitchen and the stomach!
The dinner finished, H. E. the Prime Minister said that the gentlemen present would be glad to hear my views about the system of education which I thought most likely to advance the interests of a nation. Thereupon, I urged the necessity for blending the development of body, mind, and conscience in such a way that the ideal man and woman would be developed, declaring any other system faulty as tending to cultivate, as it were, monstrosities, abnormal growths, of athletes, opportunists, quibblers, casuists, seekers after mere worldly success. No nation could be really great whose foundations were not laid on character, and the loftiest ideal of human character was the individual who did his duty in this world, while training his spiritual nature to prepare it for the environment of the future, and push him on faster around the orbit of his cosmic evolution. I cited the examples of the nations which had fallen from great heights to the lowest of depths before disappearing from the face of the earth, and implored them to open their eyes to the strange operation of karmic law which had brought Japan to a front rank in the family of nations, aroused her wonderful latent potentialities, and brought my hearers and their colleagues and hereditary associates to the responsible opportunity of directing this revolution in the grooves of national progress.
Having made it widely known that I would thankfully accept gifts of books for the Adyar Library, kind friends and sympathisers daily brought such gifts, until by the time of my departure from Japan I had an accumulation of some 1,500 volumes. Included in these was the entire collection of the Tripitikas, over 300 volumes, formerly belonging to a deceased High Priest of the Jo-do sect. This was a very valuable present, as it enables one who knows both Pali and Japanese to compare the texts of the Northern and Southern Canons. Already we have had this done to some extent by Japanese priest-students who were guests at Adyar, but the real work is still to be done, and great results ought to come out of it.
On 18th March I lectured, by invitation, on “Practical and Scientific Agriculture” before the Japanese Agricultural Society, and on the next morning received notice of my election as an Honorary Member, together with a present of two rare Satsuma-ware vases, now deposited in our Library. At 2 p.m. I lectured in English to a cultured audience on “The Scientific Basis of Religion.” Showing the strong array of proofs which recent psychical research supplied towards the elucidation of the problem of the trans-corporeal extension of human consciousness. I also showed by diagrams on a blackboard how the basic idea of the correlation of spirit with matter for the evolution of visible nature had been expressed and preserved for our instruction in the arbitrary language of symbols, each of which had as definite meaning as the signs of algebra.
My appointed time for departure from the capital having come, I made farewell calls on the Prime Minister, the American Ambassador, and other acquaintances, got my passports from our Embassy, had a good-bye dinner given me at the Japanese Buddhist sects (6), and on the 23rd at 6 a.m. left by train for Sendai, a station far to the north, which was reached after a twelve hours’ run. Mr. Kimura, my Interpreter, and Rev. Shaku San, a most genial and excellent priest of the Zen-shu and Member of the Joint Committee, accompanied me. As an indication of the tome of the Japanese press, the following paragraph from the Dandokai, an influential paper of the capital, will be read with interest:
“The arrival of Colonel Olcott has caused great excitement among the Christians in Japan. They say that he is an adventurer, a man of bad principles, and an advocate of a dying cause. How mean and cowardly are they! They may use the unprincipled pens at their disposal as much as they choose, but they cannot weaken the effects of his good principles, nor fasten upon him any of their scandalous insinuations. They do not produce the least effect upon Colonel Olcott or upon Buddhism. . . How ridiculous all this is! How great has Colonel Olcott’s influence become in Japan!”
From another issue the following is quoted:
“Since Colonel Olcott’s arrival in Japan, Buddhism has wonderfully revived. We have already stated that he has been travelling to all parts of the empire. He has been everywhere received with remarkable enthusiasm. He has not been allowed a moment of leisure. He has taught our people to appreciate Buddhism, and to see our duty to impart it to all nations. Since his discourses in Tokyo, the young men of the Imperial University and High Schools have organised a Young Men’s Buddhist Association, after the model of the Young Men’s Christian Association, to propagate our religion; and some learned and influential gentlemen have given encouragement. An additional lustre has also been given to Buddhism by his coming.”
A correspondent of the Indian Mirror wrote: “One of the high functionaries who was present at the Colonel’s lecture predicted that his visit to Japan would have a considerable influence on Buddhism and the Buddhist people.” When we come to summing up the results of the visit, we shall see what remarkable testimonies have been given by Japanese authorities themselves. The tour must have been made at the real “psychological moment”.
Tour of the provinces
We found it bitterly cold at Sendai. The Japanese empire stretches, it must be remembered, from 24° to 50° 40´ N. lat., and from 124° to 156° 38´ E. long., and the climate, as might be expected, is extremely varied. Thus, while the Riukiu and Bonin groups of islands, lying in the tropics, enjoy perpetual summer, the northern boundaries have the arctic temperature of Kamtchatka. In these northern latitudes snow has been known to fall to a depth of 8 feet: at Tokyo itself they have several snowstorms during the winter, each of from 3 to 5 inches’ fall, while in 1876 the whole city was covered to a depth of 2 feet or more. Add that, save in the few European-fashioned houses, there are no grates or heating furnaces, and that the screen-walled construction of most dwellings lets in every wandering air of heaven, and the reader can imagine what must have been the comforts of travel, and lecturing in huge, unwarmed temples, for me, a visitor from the tropics. I wondered how the Sinhalese priests would have enjoyed it in their loose yellow togas, their bare legs and feet, and their shaven scalps!
On the 24th I lectured before H. E. Mr. Matsudaira, the Governor of Sendai Fu (Province), and the other principal officials of the place, and was, later, entertained by His Excellency at dinner. Fifty guests were present, and the evening was spent in interesting talk. The lecture in the great theatre to the public, on the next morning, was a grand success, to judge from the crush and the applause. Afterwards, Shaku San and Kato San, of the Committee, took me for a day’s rest to see Matsushima, a pretty seaside place, where there is a small cave and an old temple. It was a sunshiny day, but snow lay on the ground, and our sail among the group of islets off the shore was not as balmy an outing as would have been a similar one in Colombo or Galle harbor! However, it was an outing after all, a day’s respite from the fatiguing round of lecturings to overflowing audiences of thousands, and a break in the sense of deprivation of all privacy by day or night. My audience on the 26th numbered 3,500 as estimated, and they listened in deathlike silence, albeit they had fought and pushed and scrambled to get in. They consoled themselves, however, at the close by a furious outburst of applause that could have been heard a long way off. I paid a farewell visit to the Governor, and received, in the evening, a complimentary address from a deputation representative of all the sects, who gave me also a present of 30 yen towards the travelling expenses. On the 27th we went to Utsonomiya, where we stopped overnight. But at 9 p.m., tired though I was, I was dragged out to visit a temple and make a ten minutes’ speech!—like stirring up the animals in a travelling menagerie to make them growl. In the morning we started for Mayabashi. At a wayside station a body of priests in full canonicals paid me their respects, and presented me a silk handkerchief. We reached Mayabashi at 12.30, and an hour later I was on the platform again with a large audience to talk to. Some missionaries turned up after I had closed. But the next day’s audience was tremendous: I lectured at 2, and at 5.30 moved on to Tagasaki, where I spoke in a theatre to another big crowd. We left the next morning early, and dined and lectured at Kanagama. The view of the sea from the house of my host, Mr. Takashma, the great railway contractor, was very lovely, the harbor, shipping, and town of Yokohama being in sight. I slept at the Grand Hotel in that place that night, and at 11 A.M., the next day lectured in the Yokohama theatre, which, of course, was packed from floor to ceiling, though it was raining and the streets were very muddy. It was amusing to see the arrangement for caring for shoes and sandals at the door. When I arrived there must have been 1,000 each, in two different heaps, each pair tied together with a string of tough twisted paper, with a tag bearing a certain number, the corresponding ticket having been given to the owner on entering the building, a very simple and sensible plan. My own shoes were similarly cared for when I removed them and put on my warm, thick French chaussons. The Vice-Governor was present and brought me a complimentary message from his chief. At 2.30 we took train for Shidzuoka, and got there at 9.30 p.m. Then “to wished-for bed” at the hotel, which was exquisitely neat and well-ordered. The furniture—well, shall I describe it? I would, only there was none to speak of. The floor, as usual, laid out in squares of 3 x 6 feet in frames, within which was very fine white matting, stuffed with something underneath, thus forming a soft surface to sit on. At one side a sort of recess in which stands a handsome porcelain jar, a dwarfed tree in a pretty box, a religious scroll hung on the wall, and—nothing more. Soft small cushions for us to sit on around a brassy brazier or fire-pot in a square wooden tin-lined box, where a charcoal fire is kept burning, a couple of movable iron rods laid across to rest the kettle on, a tray close by with tiny eggshell porcelain cups and a canister of green tea, ready to hand for anybody who wants hot tea to warm his stomach with, and--a cordial, well-bred, sweetly kind manner, which shows you that you are most welcome. Those are my recollections of the Shidzuoka Hotel. But not quite all, for there were the sleeping arrangements. Fancy stuffed cotton mattresses, six or eight inches thick, one to lie on, the other to cover yourself with, and pillows to build up for your head to rest upon. That is all; no bedstead, no cot, no stretcher, just the two fthoon, and draughts of cold air getting at one from under the movable screen partitions. I tried to tuck the end of the top mattress around my neck, but that was impracticable, so I had recourse to my clothing, at the same time registering a vow to bring my own rugs with me, as we do in India.
It rained heavily that day, but I had to lecture in a Jo-do temple at 7 p.m. having previously called on the Governor and discussed politics and religion. We had bright sunshine again on 2nd April, and I lectured at 2 p.m. Our dear enemies the missionaries tried the game of putting me questions on what they thought vulnerable points in Buddhism, but my Diary says they “got more than they had expected,” so I may just leave the matter there. From a Dr. Kasuabara I received the unique gift of the large and ancient Mandara (religious painting) of woven silk, 1,200 years old, which is to be seen at our Library. It represents the doctrine of the Shingon sect as to the appearance of the Buddhas in the world and the glorious company of the Apostles (of Shin-gon orthodoxy). The generous Doctor told me that this had hung for centuries in a certain temple of which his family were the hereditary custodians; that this temple was burnt in, I think, some domestic internal war, and totally consumed with all its priceless art treasures save and except this very Mandara, which had been almost miraculously saved.
At 7 a.m. on the 3rd we left for Hamamatsu, on an open platform truck part of the way, and by trolley the rest, the railway being in course of construction then. I lectured in the afternoon, and, later, dined with seventy persons of influence, invited by H. E. the Governor.
Okasaki was reached on the following day, and after an early dinner I lectured, with the Governor in the chair. The crowd was awful; hundreds could not get into the building, and I had to go out and show myself to them, and pacify their clamor. At 4 that afternoon we went on to Nagoya, Mr. Nanjeo’s place of residence. He met me in the train and put me up in the Hongwanji Temple. Our welcome at the railway station was a real ovation: there were bomb-firings, groves of Buddhist and national flags, gay, laughing crowds, cheers, and a procession of thirty or forty jinrickshas in line after me, each containing a priest or some important layman.
The next day I called on H. E. the Governor, visited the ancient castle, one of the chief historical edifices in Japan, where I saw wonderful. paintings, wood carvings, brass lanterns, and lacquers, and lectured to 4,000 people in the Hongwanji Temple hall. It was a grand sight. Here let me note a fact that upsets our Western popular theories as to the cause of baldness. We say it is due to wearing the hat too much or keeping the head too hot, but I noticed in Japan, as I had always among the Bhikkus of Ceylon, about the same proportion of bald heads as one sees among us, and yet those people go bareheaded throughout life. It was amusing to stand facing the door, looking over the heads of thousands of squatting persons, and see the shining bald heads reflecting the light among the multitude of stubbly, hairy scalps, like a shining saucer inverted in the grass of a field.
If the 6th was not a busy day, I am much mistaken. At 8 a.m. we went to Narumi, a place 7 miles distant, and lectured; at 1 p.m. lectured in Nogoya in the other (Eastern) Hongwanji to 4,000 people; and at 7 p.m. gave a third lecture before the Governor, the Military Officers of the Province, and a picked company of 200 to 300 more, personally invited by the Governor. Mr. Kimura broke down, and Mr. Bunyio Nanjie finished the interpretation of the discourse. Kimura was a strong young man, I was 57. The Governor’s friendliness cost me dearly, for he kept me talking in a private room after the lecture, with a strong, cold, side-draught blowing on me from an open window, and I caught a severe cold in the bowels, which brought on an attack of my old army complaint, dysentery, which gave me trouble until almost the last day of my stay in the country. It made it doubly hard for me to travel about in jinrickshas and all sorts of other conveyances, standing up to lecture, eating meals at irregular hours, sleeping anyhow and anywhere, and being overwhelmed by the auras of swarming thousands of all sorts and conditions of men.
Our next point was Gifu, where there was a great crowd to hear me. The next morning, at the Mayor’s request, I gave a lecture at the Club to an audience of persons who would not come to the Hongwanji lecture: for which pettiness I gave them some plain talk, upbraiding them for frivolous quarrels with co-religionists when all ought to be united to promote the interests of our religion. I reminded them that, since I had come 5,000 miles to see them, they had paid me a poor compliment in staying away from my public lecture, and compelling me, ill as I was that morning, to give them a special lecture. I cannot say how much of this was translated to them, but at least those present who knew English had the benefit of my opinions. We left for Ogaki, but upon arrival I was so done up with fever, pain, and diarrhoea that I was forced to lie abed. Two doctors came, but could not do much, and I had a bad night. The next morning, however, I bestirred myself again, and lectured to 2,500 people before taking train at 11.30 a.m. for Kyoto. Part of the journey was by steamer, 50 miles, on Lake Biwa. How lovely the picture of blue hills with snowy peaks, glassy water, luxuriantly green shores, pretty islands and islets, picturesque hamlets, and here and there native craft with their queer sails and hulls! We reached Kyoto at 7, and I went straight to bed.
It is worth while to supplement my perhaps too optimistic narrative of the features and probable results of the tour with an occasional quotation from the press. The Madras Mail, a conservative Anglo-Indian journal, said:
“We observe, says a Japanese paper, that in Nagoya Colonel Olcott has been welcomed with extraordinary enthusiasm. His lectures were attended by fully 4,000 people on each occasion, and the wildest applause greeted his declarations of the close relationship that must, in his opinion, exist between the revival of Buddhism and the stable progress of the nation.
Evidently the people’s hearts are inclined towards such teaching, for it is not at all likely that addresses, which necessarily lose nearly all their verve in translation, could rouse an audience to sympathy so strongly marked unless a powerful feeling existed in favor of the speaker’s idea. Of course the farther south Colonel Olcott goes, the warmer the response his preaching is sure to awaken. Religion in Tokyo and religion in Kyoto are two very different things. Nagoya occupies, perhaps, an intermediate position in respect of the vitality of its citizens’ creed. It would seem that Colonel Olcott’s Buddhist guides are determined not to let the grass grow under his feet. We read that he proceeded from Nagoya to Narumi and delivered a lecture there, returning at noon to address an immense audience in the Hongan Temple, and winding up with a third address to the Governor and a select party of about 250 at 7 o’clock in the evening. We have noted that the Tokyo critics express amusement at the notion that an American should be brought to Japan to propagate Buddhism. The criticism is certainly just if it be held that the Buddhist creed is essentially the property of the Orient, and that Westerners can have no proper share in propagating it. But the masses do not reason so closely. The coming of Colonel Olcott has evidently given Buddhism a fillip in Japan.”
Wednesday the 10th was a bright day, so I went to the hospital to see Dharmapala, whom I found convalescent, and revisited that splendid silk mill, but my physical troubles came again to the fore. The Indian mail brought me the latest Theosophist and a copy of The Secret Doctrine just out. On the Thursday Dharmapala was discharged cured, and with me visited Mr. Akamatsu for a long talk on Buddhistic affairs. My illness kept me rather quiet during the next four days, but I then went to Osaka and lectured on “India” to an audience of 500 or so at the Military Club, on the invitation of the Mayor and the General commanding the troops of the district. This was followed by a dinner given me by the Mayor, and I slept at the principal hotel. The Rev. Arisawa gave me a valuable old printed work on rollers, and Mr. Tamura, the merchant, specimens of old Japanese coins. The next day we went to Nara, visiting on the way the ancient temple Ho-diu-ji, where I saw a vast number of swords, spears, bows, women’s mirrors, combs, etc., etc., left as votive offerings in gratitude to the god Mu-nyak-ushi for cures of diseases and rescue from dire perils. We reached Nara in the afternoon, I very ill with the old army pest. I was shown the gigantic image of the sitting Buddha, the largest in Japan, as it measures 53 feet to the top of the head. It has been twice destroyed by fire, its last reconstruction dating back two centuries. The temple To-dai-ji (of the now almost extinct Kaygon sect) we visited. This sect is said to be a very old one, and the temple bears every appearance of it. At present the sect possesses only 5 temples, whereas it formerly had 1,000, the decadence being explained as due to the monks having been tempted to play soldier in some domestic troubles, and having been worsted and decimated, as by rights they should have been, for it is not the business of the Sangha of the Lord Buddha to debase their monastic ideal by entering the military career. The lay monks of the Tibetan lamaseries numbering thousands and tens of thousands, are said to do it, but that is no excuse. On the Friday we returned to Kyoto in jinrickshas, a 20-miles ride, through the rain. On the following day we witnessed a grand ceremony in Choo-in Temple in honor of the memory of the Founder of the Jo-do sect, and I was presented a 30-volume book on the Nichi-ren sect, in a neat wooden case, which was a very fine example of the fine carpentry for which Japan is renowned. I had up to this time delivered 46 lectures since the 9th of February, 64 days, besides all the journeyings hither and thither. The 47th was given at Nagahama to an audience of 3,500, my interpreter being a charming young gentleman of noble rank, Professor Sakuma, of Kyoto College, whose acquaintance, it was an honor to have made. The next day to Nagasawa, on the shore of Lake Biwa, to lecture at 1.30 p.m., and then dine; after which our programme took us to Hikone by rowing-boat. The lake was smooth as a mirror, but a Scotch mist was falling. We slept at the country-seat (now a Club) of the late Prince Ji-ka-mon-mokani, Lord of Hikone, who was assassinated on his way to Court for opening intercourse with foreigners—a martyr to the Karma of progress. The next morning I lectured at 8.30, despite my severe illness, and at 10 took the steamboat from Otsu to Kyoto. That evening I had the pleasure of witnessing the altogether charming ballet of the Miako-odori. Fifty-one pretty and graceful damsels, apparelled in the old court costume, danced and sang with exquisitely artistic groupings and posturings. It is a dance which, I believe, represents the budding of the flowers at the opening of spring. With Dharmapala I visited the new and huge temple of the Eastern Hongwanji, then almost ready for the opening ceremony. Dharmapala, his hospital doctors and company of boy nurses, were photographed on the 25th. On the 26th I had a cable from London from H. P. B. to come for a proposed two months’ tour. On the 27th I gave my 50th lecture at Choo-in Temple, and Dharmapala also spoke. There was an immense audience, and it was very demonstrative. On the 28th we started in jinrickshas with Professor Sakuma and some of the Committee for a mountain town hitherto unvisited by a European. We went 34 miles over an execrable road, and the ride was a very severe and trying one for one in my physical condition. We slept at Hinoke, and resumed our journey the next morning. By noon I was almost dead with fatigue, but I kept on after dinner (at To-no-ichi, where some rare books were given me), and reached our destination at last—Fu-kutchi-yama. The whole town was out to see our entry. A body of richly dressed priests came out to meet me, and headed the procession through the town. I was lodged at the Fo-ju-ji Temple, and did not keep my bed long waiting for its occupant. I rested all the next morning, receiving visitors and presents of books from all the chief priests of the local temples (of the Zen, Nichi-ren, Jo-do, and Shin Shu sects). At 2 p.m., lectured to as many people as could crowd into the building and on its verandahs and steps. Again, the next morning, a lecture to a crowd, among them being many people who had come from Ayabe, a town 2 ri off, which I was to have visited, but was obliged to cut off the list owing to my fatigue. Over 200 boys from a Buddhist school visited me, and I found on cross-questioning that not one of them knew who the Lord Buddha was—an ignorance that only matched that which prevailed in Ceylon before the Buddhist Catechism came into circulation.
On the 2nd we rode in jinrickshas 12 ri to Sonobé, where we passed the night. On Friday we shot the rapids of the Origawa river from Sonobé to Arashiyâma, about 20 miles, and enjoyed it exceedingly. I retain a vivid mental picture of the mountain gorges, the green clear water, the rushing rapids, the touch-and-go between ugly rocks, and the whirl of excitement—a splendid souvenir. From Arashiyâma to Kyoto by jinricksha, but before starting we went to see a sandalwood statue of the Buddha, said to be nearly 3,000 years old, and to be one of the historic three sent from India. There is the legend for whomsoever cares to believe it. The morning after our return to Kyoto we witnessed a gorgeous pageant in the Eastern Hongwanji Temple, the Master, Otani San, typifying Sakya Muni himself. He was attended: by a group of gaudily dressed youths personifying Bodhisattvas! The Committee gave me an excellent corner from which to see the procession move past, and the splendor of the silk silver-and-gold embroidered clothing was something to make Southern Buddhists, nursed on the traditions of the austere simplicity of the dress and habits of the priesthood, stare. Mr. Otani paid me what was considered an extraordinary honor by stopping as he came opposite the place where I stood and giving me a low bow. This from one who is looked upon as a sort of demi-god by the multitude of his sectaries was about as great a shock to them as an earthquake would have been. Yet, while thankful for the intended courtesy, I cannot say that it seemed to me to be the salutation of a typical Buddha in view of the gorgeous robes he wore, worth, I fancy, twenty or thirty thousand dollars, but rather that of some noble of the feudal Court of Japan, possibly a high Ambassador, trained to graduate the shares of court ceremonial to a nicety, so as to definitely express an entire message by a stately obeisance at a given angle of inclination. At any rate I fully comprehended that the Chief of the Eastern Hongwanji had told me as plainly as if the words had been spoken that the Buddhists of Japan were grateful for my efforts to restore the influence of the religion which had consoled and comforted so many countless millions during the past fifteen centuries.
CHAPTER 9
On the evening of the same day I formed—well, no, I can hardly say formed, but went through the ceremony of forming—a local Branch, T. S., with Hongwanji officials for officers. The Branch never did any practical work as such, and, for commonsense reasons that were explained to me, I was not dissatisfied. When discussing the question of the extension of T. S. work to Japan with some of the most enlightened statesmen in the sects, they said that if I would come and settle in the country they would make as many Branches and give me as many thousand members as I chose; but otherwise it would be useless, for the spirit of sectarianism was so rife that they could never consent to come into an organisation where, of necessity, some must be officers and the others simple members, and it would be an even chance if the leaders were not of some sect antipathetic to their own. Only a white man, a foreigner outside all their sects and social groups, could carry on such a Society successfully: moreover, he would have to be a sincere Buddhist, else his motives would be open to misconstruction; and as I was the only man they knew who possessed these requirements, they made me the offer in question. The knowledge of this circumstance, added to my intimacy with the Sinhalese and Burmese nations, caused me to see that, if I could be spared from the Theosophical movement proper, and were free to occupy myself exclusively with Buddhistic interests, I could very soon build up an International Buddhistic League that might send the Dharma like a tidal wave around the world. This was the chief motive which prompted me to offer my resignation of the Presidency, and to pass it over to H. P. B., for reasons specified in my Annual Address before the Fifteenth Convention of the T. S. (Theosophist, vol. xii). Old readers will be able to recall the effect of this offer on her. She found that she had crowded me too far, and that if she let me go, something like an avalanche of official responsibility would come tumbling on her head; so she wrote and cabled that if I resigned she would at once quit the Society. Still, this would not have stopped me if a far higher personage than she had not come and told me that the Buddhist scheme must be postponed, and that I must not leave the post confided to me. The Buddhist League is, therefore, a great and splendid work that lies in the closed hand of the future; for it goes without saying that it can never be effected by any existing organisation known as a Buddhistic agency.
On 5th May I said farewell to the assembled Chief Priests of all the sects, advising them most strongly to keep up the Central Committee, and use it as the best practical instrument in cases where something had to be done for Buddhism as a whole. At 3 p.m. I lectured for the last time in Kyoto before H. E. the Governor, the Chief Justice, and many other persons of influence—military, civil, and ecclesiastic. On the 6th I left for Osaka by the noon train, and thence took steamer for Okayama. The boat was small, the saloon a den into which eleven persons were packed—like an overcrowded sheepfold, it seemed to me; and as the between-decks was built far a smaller race than ours, I had to bend nearly double to walk through. We landed at San Banco at 3 in the morning, and took refuge in a hotel at the landing. The Governor of Okayama, Mr. Chisoka, kindly sent his carriage for me in the morning, and was very polite in his attentions during my visit to the place. I was put up at the Club, in a splendid garden laid out in the unique Japanese style, with stone and wooden bridges, little islets, artificial mounds, stone lanterns, dwarfed and quaintly-trimmed trees, and abundance of flowers. At 3 p.m. I gave my first lecture before the public. The local committee had, for inscrutable reasons, issued 10,000 tickets, but as not more than half that number could squeeze into the building, there was much confusion outside. Some medical students, who had came early and placed themselves near the platform with intent to create a disturbance, made just one little attempt. When I said that Buddhism had brought with it into Japan the refinements of life, a young fellow sitting close by my feet cried out “No! No!” Remembering Noguchi’s forewarning at Madras, and knowing how to deal with such young conspirators, I stopped speaking, turned towards him, looked at him steadily until he felt that he was under observation by the whole audience, and then continued my remarks. After that a flock of lambs could not have kept more quiet. Later in the day, the Governor called and took me to an exhibition of autographs of noted personages, i.e., signatures, with or without accompanying sentences or single words, written vertically on large rolls of silk paper, in big characters, with brush and Indian ink. There were also some pictures, of which His Excellency purchased and gave me one representing a Japanese warrior of the old style, mounted on horse-back. A second public-lecture and an address to priests were given on the following day, after which we left in a small boat, sculled by four men, for Takamatsu, which was reached at 5 p.m. Mr. Tadas Hyash, the Governor, formerly of the Japanese Legations at Washington and London, called on me, and in the evening I lectured to 2,000 people. The trip across the Inland Sea was lovely.
At 10 the next morning a lecture was given on “The Evidences of Buddhism” to a great assemblage, which was very cordial. That afternoon an exhibition of Japanese wrestling was given us in the public park, in the presence of the Governor. It is needless to describe it, since it has been so often described by travellers; suffice it to say that the style is quite different from ours, and that the favorite athlete was a very fat man, whose weight was enough to crush down any antagonist on whom he might succeed in getting the upper hold. We left at 3 p.m. by steamer for Imabaru, and had a miserable time of it on board. There was almost every conceivable inconvenience to endure; but as the others seemed to regard them with indifference, I could do no less. It was a splendid day, and the picture before us on approaching the landing was striking. A stone-paved slope leading up from the water’s edge was black with thousands of people, who also lined the crest and spread away to right and left. A boat, with purple silk awnings from the temple, and national and Buddhist flags flying, took me to the stone pier, amid the bursting of bombs, the ringing of bells, and the roar of shouting voices. The projection into the air of paper bells, umbrellas, dragons, fish, and other devices, when the clay bombs burst high up overhead, was something new to me. What charmed me most, however, was the projection of a Buddhist flag, made of thin strips of paper of the conventional colors, so arranged with a tiny parachute at the top end of a retaining string and 5 oz. of small shot in a little bag at the lower end as to stand up straight in the air as though nailed to a pole, while it fluttered in the gentle breeze and the sun shone vividly through the colors as it floated very gently away to leeward. Instantly the fiction of the seeing by Constantine of the figure of a Cross in the air, with the legend In hoc signo vinces, came to my mind. Pointing to the lovely object before us in the sky, I said--referring to that story, that was probably false—“But there, my brothers, you see the symbol of our religion, under which we may conquer the minds and hearts of men of all nations if we unite for fraternal co-operation.” The lecture was fixed for 9 the next morning, and after it we left by specially chartered steamer for Hiroshima, one of the most important political and military centres of the empire. The day was fine, the boat dressed with flags, the Buddhist flag at the fore and peak. After a run of five hours we arrived, and found an even more enthusiastic welcome awaiting us. The throngs at the pier and through the town were immense; a number of bombs were fired, from them two very large and several smaller Buddhist flags emerging; a military company of boys, with muskets, fifes, and drums, as an escort, and hundreds of school children, boys and girls, drawn up in two lines for us to pass through. The Senior Army Surgeon, Dr. Endo, a staunch Buddhist and holder of the Imperial University Igakushi degree of Doctor of Medicine, drove me in his own carriage in the very imposing procession in which we moved slowly towards our assigned quarters. The Committee of Reception wore as a badge a gilt circular plate transpierced with the Svastika emblem, so pretty that I procured a supply of them to introduce among the Sinhalese, and it was adopted by the Women’s Education Society of Ceylon as their badge. On the morrow I addressed an audience of 5,000, and, later, the school children. On the 13th (May) another 5,000 audience, and after that an address to the senior boys of the Buddhist School. Then came a special lecture before H. E. the Governor of Hiroshima, Viscount Nodzu, the General commanding the District, and the other principal officers and officials, after which the Governor gave me a collation. I considered it a very great privilege to make the acquaintance of General Nodzu, for he was at the same time a most staunch Buddhist, one of the greatest soldiers of the empire, and a man of the most blameless character in every respect. In the recent war with China, it will be remembered, he commanded one of the two wings of the invading army, and won for himself great renown. Letters have comparatively recently been exchanged between us about the religious state of his country, in which his friendly regard for myself was clearly shown.
Our Hiroshima visit ended that night, and we pushed on by water towards Shimonoséki. It poured in torrents when we got to the pier, yet the Committee had had it lighted up with torches as bright as day; flags were flying, friends thronging, the air was rent with cheers. We had to change boats at Bakwan and make a fresh start at 3 a.m. We got to Shimonoséki at 7 p.m., and found only a few waiting, for the boat had been expected at 2, and the multitude had dispersed after waiting several hours. We stopped only three hours and left at 10 for Nagatsu, where there were the usual crowds, bomb-firing, flags, parades of schoolboys, etc. From one bomb was flung out a very long streamer of paper, on which was written in giant characters the words “Olcott San is come”! This, I was told, was to notify the inhabitants of the surrounding districts, so that they might come into town. (San is the common honorific suffix, having something of the same value as our Esquire.) At 1 p.m. I lectured in the theatre to 3,500 people, some of whom had come 50 miles, and others shorter distances, from neighboring islands, and camped all night in the theatre. Others had taken their places at daybreak. We left Shimonoséki at 8 p.m. by the Yokohama-Shanghai mail steamer “Tokio Maru” for Nagasaki. She was a very fine and commodious boat, seeming quite palatial after my experience, in small coasting steamers, and the supper and breakfast served us were something to remember. To my great surprise and pleasure, the breakfast bill-of-fare contained those popular American dishes, boiled hominy and buck-wheat cakes, neither of which had I tasted since leaving home. There seems a confusion of entries in my Diary, so that I do not see how I got from Nagatsu to take the steamer, but I certainly did, and it appears that the Committee took the size of my audience there, 2,500, all admitted by tickets, as a measure by which to calculate the average size of my audiences throughout the tour. So that as 75 lectures in all were given, the gross number of my auditors at the above average would be 187,500, and when one remembers that the Committee managed to bring me before all classes and conditions of men, one maybe prepared to believe the statements made to the Adyar Convention of 1890 by the Japanese Delegates in their address, to which place will be given in the proper connection. Certainly, it was one of the most remarkable events in contemporary history; and we Theosophists are compelled to see in the results the working beneath the surface of influences far more potent than the efforts of the inferior agent who helped to throw the shuttle in the loom of Karma.
The steamer landed us at Nagasaki at 10 a.m. on the 18th of May, and I lectured at 3 p.m. My excellent and respected interpreter, Professor Sakuma, was confined to bed the next day, and my experiences at the second lecture were not of the happiest kind, for I had two interpreters: one would listen to me and tell the other briefly in Japanese what I had said, while the second would render it to the audience. It is enough to make one shudder to think what misconceptions as to my views must have been given to the public by this roundabout plan. The Committee gave me a farewell banquet, and then there was a lantern-and-jinricksha procession to escort me to the harbor—all of which splendor made me lose my steamer for Kumamoto, my southernmost place on the programme. We got away the next day at noon, and landed at Missooni at 6, spending the night there, and going by jinricksha the next day. The intestinal troubles again attacked me and gave me much pain. I tried to lecture to a great crowd in the theatre on the 21st, but as Professor Sakuma was laid up at Nagasaki, and two amateur interpreters broke down in an attempt to see me through, I had to give up the attempt. Somehow, I seem to have succeeded better the next day, for I see that I lectured in a temple to a crowd which packed the building and filled the courtyard, and at 3 p.m. before the Governor and other chief officials, military and civilian, after which we returned by jinricksha to rejoin the steamer at Missooni.
We got to Nagasaki at noon on the 23rd, where I went ashore and passed a pleasant day. I was presented a dwarf orange tree on which were two or three dozen fruits growing, two Buddhist flags in silk crêpe, and other tokens of regard. A lecture on “Practical Religion” was given at a Hongwanji temple in the afternoon, and I returned to the steamer at bedtime. The next two days were passed at sea amid charming surroundings, and a part of the time, was utilised in drafting a Memorandum about the rules which should be adopted by the Chief Priests for sending students to Colombo to pursue their studies in Sanskrit, Pali, and Sinhalese, under the High Priest Sumangala. We reached Kobé on Sunday the 26th, and went to a town named Hameiji, two hours by rail, to lecture, and got back by 8.30 p.m. The morning of the 27th was taken up with getting my return tickets and with other preparations for leaving, and at 4 p.m. I gave my 76th and last lecture at a new preaching hall of the local Hongwanji to an overflowing audience. As I stood there facing the door, the whole town and harbor of Kobé was spread out before me like a beautiful picture, lighted up by dazzling sunshine. I hardly ever saw anything more charming. A last dinner was given me at a regular Japanese hotel in the native fashion, my hosts being the members of the Joint General Committee, who were most kind and cordial. After dinner I had many invitations to write Buddhist moralities and my name in Chinese characters on the paper or silk scrolls called Kakomono, which, mounted on map-rollers, are suspended in Japanese houses as ornaments, or, when the scroll (then called mendara) bears a religious picture, as objects promotive of devotional feeling. I had done numberless things of the kind throughout my tour, until, as I told the Committee, I had squeezed my brain dry of Buddhistic axioms. But this being our time of parting, they urged me to compliance, so I went ahead as usual. Finally, a certain lay member of the Committee who was too much inclined to drink Saké, the national beverage—a slightly alcoholic liquor obtained from rice—importuned me to do a Kakomono for him. I protested, on the ground that while at Kyoto I had done two or three for his temple, but he said that was for others, not for himself; so, as he was an obliging, cheerful sort of fellow, I consented. He brought me a piece of fine silk, the Indian-ink cake, small water-bottle and mixing saucer, and a large hair pencil. I asked him what he wanted me to write. “Oh, some sound Buddhistic maxim,” he replied. So, spreading the silk out on a little lacquered stand, I painted this: “Break thy Saké-bottle if thou wouldst reach Nirvana.” There was a general roar of laughter when it was translated to him, and he was good-natured enough to join in the merriment.
Return trip to India
The next day we were steaming down the Inland Sea on the French mail steamer “Oxus,” having left Kobé at 5 a.m. Among the passengers was a Father Villion, a Roman Catholic priest and savant, who had lived 23 years in Japan, and was thoroughly versed in the language and literature, as well as in Northern Buddhism. Shanghai was reached on the 30th, and the passengers went ashore to look about. I passed some pleasant hours with my compatriots, the American Consul-General, Judge O. N. Denny, Adviser to the King of Korea, Mrs. Denny, and others. I also had as close an inspection of the Chinese town as I shall ever care to make, and was almost choked with the foul smells, which excel anything of the sort I ever came to a knowledge of. In the evening the Master of the local temple of the Hongwanji, and the Chief Priest of a Chinese Buddhist temple, and Mr. Shevey Yessan, Minister of Provincial Military Affairs, came aboard to call on me. The Chief Priest made me the valuable present for our Library of a copy of the Lalita Vishtara, or Legendary Life of the Buddha, in folio, in several volumes, every other page being faced with a full-page picture engraved on wood. Every important detail of the life of the Buddha, as we have it narrated to us in the canon, is there depicted in outline engravings, which are simply admirable examples of the art. In some there are hosts of figures of men and gods. This is the book first translated by Eugene Burnouf, and which really introduced the story of the Buddha to the notice of the Western scholars. From the Chinese General and the Chief Priest 1 had a warm invitation to come and make a tour in China like that in Japan, but I had to decline it for various reasons.
Under a queer arrangement of the Messageries Maritimes Company the homeward bound boats wait at Shanghai until relieved, a fortnight later, by the next ship in the list. Thus, we were transhipped at Shanghai to the “Natal” and dropped down the river to Woosung, in readiness to start with the next day’s ebb tide. That night I was aroused from sleep to receive visits from the Chief Priest of the Zen-shin Temple and a Delegate from the General, who brought a letter of thanks from him for a reply I had sent to a letter of his. Presents of books were also made me. The ship weighed anchor at 1 a.m. and sailed for Hong Kong. The day was fine and clear. We reached Hong Kong on the second day, but the weather was so damp and hot that I did not go ashore until the morrow, when I found a scene of desolation in the city. A cloud-burst, two days previously, had discharged 24 inches of water and caused a loss of $1,500,000 to Government, besides enormous losses to merchants. The main street was buried 3 feet deep in sand washed down from the hills, the sewers had burst, some houses had been swept away, and great trees, uprooted, had been washed down into the town. The funicular railway track, climbing to the Peak, was broken up, and long stretches had completely disappeared. On the 6th, at noon, we sailed for Saigon, and got there on the 9th. A party of us went ashore to pass the time and see the quaint types of humanity and strange objects that abound. The steamer sailed the next morning for Singapore, and got there on the 11th, and to Colombo on the 18th, without notable incident, save that on emerging from the Straits of Sumatra we were buffeted by the monsoon and had rough weather the rest of the way. Our welcome was enthusiastic at our Theosophical Headquarters that evening. The High Priest presided, W. Subhuti and a representative of the Wimelasara sect were present, and an improvised audience filled the place to suffocation. The room was tastefully decorated with flowers, leaf compositions, and garlands, and brilliantly illuminated with Japanese flags, while trophies of Buddhist and Japanese flags increased the festive appearance of the hall. An hour before the time of meeting the Headquarters was packed, hundreds being turned away for want of standing room. The first number on the programme was the reading of an Address from the Women’s Education Society by Miss M. E. De Silva, this being the first time when a Sinhalese young lady had ever read an address in English. A few brief remarks by Sumangala Thero preceded my report of the mission for international religious comity, in the course of which I introduced four young Japanese Samaneras (theological students), who had, on my appeal, been sent here to study under the High Priest and Pandit Batuvantudawe, and take back with them copies of the Tripitakas of the Southern Canon. The Japanese each made short addresses, expressive of the hope of their sects that there might henceforth be a close brotherly relationship between the two hitherto isolated sections of the Buddhist family, after which the High Priest said: “You have all heard Colonel Olcott’s account of his mission to Japan, and it must have made you all glad and proud to hear it. The propagation and improvement of Buddhism is the noblest work in the world, and that is the work in which Colonel Olcott has been engaged. It is true that there is a slight difference between the Northern and Southern Churches, but still the Japanese are Buddhists as we are, and are struggling against the maleficent influence of Christianity as we are, and we therefore look upon them as brothers. We must never forget the cordial reception they have given to Colonel Olcott as our representative, and the brotherly love that they have shown towards us. I trust that this may be the commencement of a real spiritual union between all Buddhist countries.” The four young priests from Japan preceded my return to Adyar by a steamer earlier than mine, under the charge of Dharmapala, and had settled down by the time of my arrival.
A glance at the map of Japan will show the large extent of area which my tour covered, viz., from Sendai, in the extreme north, to Kumamoto, in the far south of the empire. From day of arrival to day of embarkation I was ashore 107 days; during which time I visited 33 towns and delivered 76 public and semi-public addresses, reaching, as above stated, 187,500 hearers. This was more work of the sort than I had ever done before, the nearest approach to it having been in my Galle Province tour for the Sinhalese Buddhistic Fund, when I lectured 57 times within 100 days.
To finish the story of the Japan tour, it will be better that we should insert here the testimony of Mr. Tokusawa, as given by him to the T. S. Convention of 1890, as it gives in a condensed statement the tangible and permanent results of my mission. Mr. Tokusawa said:
“Brothers,—My presence, and that of this Buddhist priest, Mr. Kozen Gunaratne, indicates the influence which your Society, through the President, has acquired in our distant country. With my little smattering of English, it is impossible for me to describe all that Colonel Olcott has done there. The effect of his tour through Japan last year has been so great and so lasting that the current of public opinion has been actually turned in the opposite direction. The letters and newspapers received weekly at Colombo by myself and compatriots prove what I have just stated. It is wonderful that one man could have done so much. When I think of the condition of my religion three years ago, I feel inclined to shudder, because it was then at its lowest ebb. The more I reflect upon these evil times, the more inclined I am to bless our Theosophical Society and Colonel Olcott. A comparison between the state of Buddhism then and now justifies what I say . . . Till quite recently the more educated of our people regarded Buddhism and its priests with contempt. A few staunch followers of the Lord Buddha’s doctrine tried to counteract the influence of the Christians, but it was in vain. It was at this dark moment that the Buddhists came to hear of the work of Colonel Olcott, and asked his aid and sympathy. Therefore, last year, Mr. Noguchi was sent to this country to persuade the Colonel to go to Japan and make a lecturing tour through the whole country. This, I am happy to say, he did, and his success was far beyond our most sanguine expectations. Buddhism took life again, and Buddhists began everywhere to undertake the revival of their ancient faith. Among the most conspicuous effects of this revival are the three Buddhist Universities and various Colleges now about to be instituted, and the establishment of about 300 periodicals advocating and defending Buddhism. The spread of materialism and scepticism was checked; the insufficiency of Christianity for our wants was shown, and the truth of Buddhism vindicated. A reaction of a most marvellous character has—as I have remarked—set in favor of Buddhism. The founding of many Buddhist schools, Buddhist newspapers and religious journals are the visible results of the Colonel’s mission. Imperial princes and princesses have begun to take a prominent part in Buddhistic education and propaganda. An imperial princess has become the patroness of the Buddhist Women’s Society of Nagoya, which was founded soon after he had lectured in that city, and in consequence of his tribute to women. An imperial prince has become President of the ‘Dasa Sila Society,’ a body founded ten years ago for promoting the observance of the Ten Precepts of Buddhism, but which, owing to the streng opposition of the Christian and sceptical classes, had died out. After the Colonel’s mission it has been revived, and is now working. The people now look to the Colonel as their benefactor, and to many he is almost their father. The Christians have ceased to be so aggressive as before: their converts are inventing a new form of their faith. Yes, the mission of Colonel Olcott to Japan will be recorded in history. The Japanese will ever remain grateful to him and to his Society; and I hope, brothers, you will always take a kindly interest in our people.”
Naturally, I should have liked to go home and have some rest after the Japan tour, but it could not be done, so I stopped three weeks in the island, visiting Anuradhapura, where I lectured under the shade of the historical Bo-tree (whose original stock, a cutting from the sacred Bo-tree of Buddha Gya, under which the Bodhisattva Siddhartha had attained enlightenment, had been brought from India by the Princess Sanghamitta, daughter of the Emperor Asoka); Matale (where I formed a T. S. Branch); Kandy (where a big procession took me through the streets, and where I gave two lectures); Gampola; Marvanwella, in the four Korales; Kaigalle; Kurunegalle, where I formed another Branch, and where the picturesque surroundings at my open air lecture so vividly linger in my memory that I must give them more than a parenthesis. How I wished for a photographer to take the scene! Back of me rose a hill in which is excavated a rock temple of Buddha. A spur called Elephant Rock sprang out from the hillside. A crowd of 1,500 or so were clustered in a natural amphitheatre at my feet; to the right, front, and left was a grove of old cocoanut trees without undergrowth, and from the trunks were suspended Buddhist flags and other decorations, giving the needed touch of bright color to make the picture perfect. Messrs. Leadbeater, Hogen, and Kawakami, the latter two from Japan, addressed the crowd, and received great applause. The name given to the new Branch, the Maliyadeva, was that of the last of the historical great adepts, the time of whose decease I am not acquainted with, but it was long ago. Since then Ceylon has had no recognised real Arahat, and it is no wonder that its Buddhism has been growing less and less spiritual, until now one would search in vain from Hambantotte to Uva for a single man to whom the Sinhalese could look up with adoring reverence as the embodiment of the truth of the efficacy of the esoteric Yogic system practised and taught by the Founder. That is what makes my work so hard among them; all they care for is the intellectual and moral training of their families; the spiritual is something beyond their grasp; and when I first went to the island, they even told me the ridiculous story that the time for development of Arahats had elapsed, whereas (as shown in the Buddhist Catechism) the Buddha himself expressly declares that there would never be lack of Arahats so long as the members of his Sangha continued to observe the Ten Precepts (7).
My tour also took me to several wards in Colombo and to Matara, far away down in the Southern Province, where that saintly woman Mrs. Cecilia Dias Ilangakoon lived, and where I lectured at her large house, in presence of the Chief Priests of the Province, all of whom were interested to hear about the state of Buddhism in Japan. It was during this visit of her that Mrs. Ilangakoon gave into my possession the splendid collection of the Tripitikas, in 60 volumes which she has had copied for me by 12 copyists at a cost of £300, and which work occupied two years in the doing. It is, perhaps, the finest collection of palm-leaf writings to be seen in India. Mrs. Ilangakoon also promised me to add to it the Tikka, or Commentary, which would fill about the same number of volumes; and an old relative of hers at Galle told me last season, when I called on him, that she had put a clause in her will to that effect, but all I can say is, that while I have reason to know that there is a clause ordering the Tikka to be prepared, it has not come to my hands as yet, although her estate was large, and the cost could well have been afforded. Possibly her representatives or executors are not so friendly in feeling towards us as she was, and so have indefinitely postponed the fulfilment of her wishes. I visited Kataluwa, and then Galle, where great courtesies were shown me; thence back to Colombo, and, on the 8th of July, sailed for Madras. The ever blessed Adyar saw me again on the 11th, as glad a person to get home as ever was.
Notes
1. Extract from report of C. W. Leadbeater in Theosophist, February, 1889.
2. Encycl. Brit. (ninth ed.), vol. xiii.
3. Advance Japan, London, 1896, W. H. Allen & Co., Ltd.
4. For an exposition of the views of this religious body consult “A Shin Shu Catechism” in Theosophist, vol. xi, pp. 9 and 89, by an officer of the Hongwanji.
5. Anecdota Oxoniensis, Aryan Series, vol. i, part ii, Oxford, 1883.
6. Cf. article “Buddhist and Indian Rosaries,” by S.E. Gopalacharlu, Theosophist, xi, 671.
7. Cf. Buddhist Catechism, footnote, page 56 (33rd ed.). “In the Digha Nikâya the Buddha says: Hear, Subhadra! The world will never be without Arahats if the ascetics (Bhikkus) in my congregations well and truly keep my precepts.”
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