IN THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS
The
following story was written by Lafcadio Hearn in 1894 or early in 1895 when he
had moved from Kumamoto to Kobé, having taken a position with the Kobé
Chronicle as a journalist. He had been unhappy to say the least in Kumamoto,
primarily due to bad relationships with his colleagues and an overall
dissatisfaction with Kumamoto conventions and customs, which he found to be far
more severe and less good-natured than in Matsué or even Tokyō. That is not to
say that he didn’t find much to dislike in Kobé as well; indeed, he spent much
of his time there writing his book Kokoro, of which this tale as a part, a socio-political
look at Meiji Japan, in which he frequently railed against the changes and
disintegrations of Meiji, foreigners in general and their regard for Japan and
the Japanese people in particular.
In
reading this story, while editing Kokoro
for a new, annotated and illustrated version, I found it evoking in me some
strong emotions (stronger than many emotions that Hearn conjures in me as I
read his books) and at once I could more fully understand the taint of the
Meiji era, which Hearn had grown to detest so much. I felt strongly that this
was a story well-worth sharing as an insight into the not-so-romantic side of
Hearn’s Japan; so, I offer it to you now, with a couple of comments at its
conclusion.
In the Twilight of the Gods
“Do
you know anything about josses?”[1]
“Josses?”
“Yes,
idols. Japanese idols — josses.”
“Something,
“I answered, “but not very much.”
“Well,
come and look at my collection, won’t you? I’ve been collecting josses for
twenty years, and I’ve got some worth seeing. They’re not for sale though —
except to the British Museum.”
I
followed the curio dealer through the bric-a-brac of his shop, and across a paved
yard into an unusually large “go-down.”[2]
Like all go-downs it was dark: I could barely discern a stairway sloping
through the gloom. He paused at the foot.
“You’ll
be able to see better in a moment,” he said. “I had this place built expressly
for them; but now it is scarcely big enough. They’re all in the second story.
Go right up; only be careful — the steps are bad.”
I
climbed, and reached a sort of twilight, under a very high roof, and found
myself face to face with the gods.
In
the dusk of the great go-down the spectacle was more than weird: it was
apparitional. Arhats[3]
and Buddhas[4]
and Bohdisattvas,[5]
and the shapes of a mythology older than they, filled all the shadowy space;
not ranked by hierarchies, as in a temple, but mingled without order, as in a
silent panic. Out of the wilderness of multiple heads and broken aureoles and
hands uplifted in menace or in prayer — a shimmering confusion of dusty gold
half lighted by cobwebbed air holes in the heavy walls — I could at first see
little; then, as the dimness cleared, I began to distinguish personalities. I
saw Kwannon,[6]
of many forms; Jizō[7]
of many names; Shaka,[8]
Yakushi,[9]
Amida,[10]
the Buddhas and their disciples. They were very old; and their art was not of
Japan, nor of any one place or time: there were shapes from Korea, China, India
— treasures brought over sea in the rich days of the early Buddhist missions. Some
were seated on lotus flowers — the lotus flowers of Apparitional Birth.[11]
Some rode leopards, tigers, lions, or mystical monsters — typifying lightning,
typifying death. One, triple-headed and many-handed, sinister and splendid,
seemed moving through the gloom on a throne of gold, uplifted b a phalanx of
elephants. Fudō[12]
I saw, shrouded and shrined in fire, and Maya-Fujin,[13]
riding her celestial peacock; and strangely mingling with these Buddhist
visions, as in the anachronism of a Limbo, armored effigies of daimyō, and images of the Chinese sages.
There were huge forms of wrath, grasping thunderbolts, and rising to the roof:
the Deva Kings,[14]
like impersonations of hurricane power; the Ni-O, [15]
the guardians of long-vanished temple gates. Also there are forms voluptuously
feminine: the light grace of the limbs folded within their lotus cups, the
suppleness of the fingers numbering the numbers of the Good Law — ideals
possibly inspired in some forgotten time by the charm of an Indian dancing
girl.
Shelved
against the naked brickwork above, I could perceive multitudes of lesser
shapes: demon figures with eyes that burned through the dark like the eyes of a
black cat, and figures half man, half bird, winged and beaked like eagles — the
tengu[16]
of Japanese fancy.
“Well?”
queried the curio dealer, with a chuckle of satisfaction at my evident
surprise.
“It
is a very great collection,” I responded.
He clapped
his hand on my shoulder, and exclaimed triumphantly in my ear, “Cost me fifty
thousand dollars.”
But
the images themselves told me how much more was their cost to forgotten piety,
notwithstanding the cheapness of artistic labor in the East. Also they told me
of the dead millions whose pilgrim feet had worn hollow the steps leading to
their shrines, of the buried mothers who used to suspend little baby dresses
before their altars, of the generations of children taught to murmur prayers to
them, of the countless sorrows and hopes confided to them. Ghosts of the
worship of centuries had followed them into exile; a thin, sweet odor of
incense haunted the place.
“What
would you call that?” asked the voice of the curio dealer. “I’ve been told it’s
the best of the lot.”
He
pointed to a figure resting on a triple golden lotus — Avalokitesvara: she “who
looketh down above the sound of prayer.”…Storms
and hate give way to her name. Fire is quenched by her name. Demons vanish at
the sound of her name. By her name one may sand firm in the sky, like a sun…The
delicacy of the limbs, the tenderness of the smile, were dreams of the Indian
paradise.
“It
is a Kwannon,” I replied, “and very beautiful.”
“Somebody
will have to pay me a very beautiful price for it,” he said, with a shrewd
wink. “It cost me enough! As a rule, though, I get these things pretty cheap.
There are few people who care to buy them, and they have to be sold privately,
you know: that gives me an advantage. See that joss in the corner — the big
black fellow? What is it?”
“Emmei-Jizō,”
I answered — Jizō, the giver of long life. It must be very old.”
“Well,”
he said, again taking me by the shoulder, “the man from whom I got that piece
was put in prison for selling it to me.”
Then
he burst into a hearty laugh — whether at the recollection of his own
cleverness in the transaction, or at the unfortunate simplicity of the person
who had sold the statue contrary to the law, I could not decide.
“Afterwards,”
he resumed, “they wanted to get it back again, and offered me more than I had
given for it. But I held on. I don’t know everything about josses, but I do
know what they are worth. There isn’t another idol like that in the whole
country. The British Museum will be glad to get it.”
“When
do you intend to offer the collection to the British Museum,” I presumed to
ask.
“Well,
I first want to get up a show,” he replied. “There’s money to be made by a show
of josses in London. London people never saw anything like this in their lives.
Then the church folks help that sort of show, if you manage them properly: it
advertises the missions. ‘Heathen idols from Japan!’…How do you like the baby?”
I
was looking at a small gold-colored image of a naked child, standing, one tiny
hand pointing upward, and the other downward — representing the Buddha newly
born.
Sparkling with light he came from the
womb, as when the sun first rises in the east…Upright he took deliberately
seven steps; and the prints of his feet on the ground remained burning as seven
stars. And he spoke with clearest utterance, saying, “This birth is a Buddha
birth. Rebirth is not for me. Only this last time I am born for the salvation
of all on earth and in heaven.”
“That
is what they call a Tanjō-Shaka,” I said. It looks like bronze.”
“Bronze
it is,” he responded, tapping it with his knuckles to make the metal ring. “The
bronze alone is worth more than the price I paid.”
I looked at the four Devas whose heads almost
touched the roof, and thought of the story of their apparition told in the Mahavagga.[17]
On a beautiful night the For Great Kings
entered the holy grove, filling all the place with light; and having
respectfully saluted the Blessed one, they stood in the four directions, like
four great firebrands.
“How
did you ever manage to get those big figures upstairs,” I asked.
“Oh,
hauled them up! We’ve got a hatchway. The real trouble was getting them here by
train. It was the first railroad trip they ever made…But look at these here: they will make the sensation of the
show!”
I
looked, and saw two small wooden images, about three feet high. “Why do you
think they will make a sensation?” I inquired innocently.
“Don’t
you see what they are? They date from the time of the persecutions. Japanese devils trampling on the cross!”
They
were small temple guardians only; but their feet rested on X-shaped supports.
“Did
any person tell you these were devils trampling on the cross?” I made bold to
ask.
“What
else are they doing?” he answered evasively. “Look at the crosses under their
feet.”
“But
they are not devils,” I insisted; “and those cross-pieces were put under their
feet simply to give equilibrium.”
He
said nothing, but looked disappointed; and I felt a little sorry for him. Devils trampling on the cross, as a
display line in some London poster announcing the arrival of “Josses from
Japan,” might certainly have been relied on to catch the public eye.
ššššš
I
suppose I expected more directly expressed antagonism or resentment from Hearn
at the conclusion of this story; yet, his concluding sarcasm is probably
sufficient — I can be angry for both of us. Perhaps he did express his antipathy
is some editorial in the Kobé Chronicle
or perhaps some letter. I’m searching and if I find such I thing I will share
it. That having been said, my thoughts immediately went to three people that
the unfeeling, dull-witted curio dealer typifies — robbers and raiders all. The
first person that came to mind was William Anderson, F.R.C.S. (December
18, 1842 – October 27, 1900).
In
1873, the Meiji government established the Imperial Naval Medical College in
Tokyō and chose Anderson, a surgeon and dermatologist, as Professor of Anatomy.
He resided in the English colony in the city where he also served as medical
officer to the British envoy in Japan from 1874 through 1879. It was during
this time that he began to collect Japanese art. His first collection was
destroyed in a fire but he was soon able to replace much of what had been lost.
While in Japan, he was able to build a substantial collection of Japanese art,
engravings, and etchings, as well as illustrated books on the history and
development of Japanese art; purchases made largely from Samurai families who
were experiencing poverty for the first time with the disestablishment of the
samurai class, and crooked officials of the Meiji government. Subsequently,
upon his return to England, he sold his collection to the British Museum, at
that time considered the finest collection in Europe. Collect? I rather doubt
that he did so with a mind towards a fairness in price or treatment of the
seller; nor, any thought to the significance in religious, cultural, or
artistic terms of what he was “collecting.” One can little doubt that he made a
considerable profit, perhaps several times over.
The
second was Avery
Brundage (September 28, 1887 – May 8, 1975), the fifth president of the
International Olympic Committee (IOC), serving from 1952 to 1972. He was also a
prodigious “collector” of Asian art, much of which can be found at the Asian
Art Museum in San Francisco.
The roots of Brundidge’s interest in Asian art lie in a visit he made
to an exhibition of Chinese art at the Royal Academy in London in 1936. He
stated about the experience, “We [his first
wife Elizabeth and himself] spent a week
at the exhibition and I came away so enamored with Chinese art that I've been
broke ever since.” That having been said, he did not actively begin “collecting”
until he and his wife visited Japan for two weeks in April 1939 where they
visited Yokohama, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara and Nikko. They followed-up their Japan
trip with visits to Shanghai and Hong Kong, but due to the war between Japan
and China, they were unable to explore China further.
On his return to the United States after the June 1939 IOC session in
London, Brundage systematically set about becoming a major collector of Asian
art. The unsettled conditions caused wealthy Chinese and Japanese to sell
family heirlooms, and prices were depressed, making it an opportune moment to “collect.”
He bought many books on Asian art, stating in an interview that a “major
library is an indispensable tool.” After the US entered World War II, art stock
owned by Japanese dealers in the United States was impounded; Brundage was able
to purchase the best items at a premium. Dealers found him willing to spend
money, but knowledgeable and a hard bargainer. Brundage rarely was fooled by
forgeries, and was undeterred by the few he did buy, noting that in Asian art,
fake pieces were often a thousand years old. In a 1948 article on Brundage for Life, note was made that “his collection
is regarded as one of the largest and most important in private hands in this
country.”
Brundage engaged the French scholar René-Yvon Lefebvre d'Argencé,
then teaching at the University of California, as full-time curator of his
collection and advisor on acquisitions. The two men made a deal—no piece would
be purchased unless both men agreed. They built a collection of jade which
ranged from the Neolithic period to the modern era; and hundreds of Chinese,
Japanese and Korean bronzes, mostly Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The painter whom
Brundage admired the most was Huizong, 12th-century Chinese emperor of the Song
dynasty; but he never was able to obtain any of his work.
Brundage several times bought pieces smuggled out of their lands of
origin on the premise that they would be to restore here. Many would testify
that when Brundage sold a piece, it was most likely because he no longer
favored it artistically, rather than to realize a profit: the subject of great
debate in view of a 1954 financial statement prepared for Brundage listed the
value of his collection as more than $1 million. In 1960, Robert Shaplen, in
his article on Brundage for The New
Yorker, noted that Brundage, during his travels as IOC president, always
seemed to find time to visit art dealers, and stated that the collection was
actually valued at $15 million.
By the late 1950s, Brundage was increasingly concerned about what to
do with his collection. Accounts say that his homes in Chicago and California
were so overwhelmed with art that priceless artifacts were kept in shoeboxes
under beds. In 1959, Brundage agreed to give part of his collection to the City
of San Francisco. The following year city voters passed a bond issue of
$2,725,000 to house the donation. The result was the Asian Art Museum of San
Francisco, which opened in 1966 in Golden Gate Park, initially sharing space
with the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum before moving to its own facility near
the Civic Center in 2003. Brundage made another major donation in 1969 (despite
a fire which destroyed many pieces at his California home near Santa Barbara in
1964), and left the remainder of his collection to the museum in his will.
Today, the museum has 7,700 pieces from Brundage among the 17,000-plus objects
which make up its collection.
And the third “raider” was William Randolph Hearst whose appetite for
art as well as his megalomania and greed are legendary. Hearst amassed a
considerable collection of Asian art which one can be certain was not acquired
with any sense of altruism. Perhaps it was karma, but beginning
in 1937, Hearst began selling some of his art collection to help relieve the
burden he had suffered from the depression. The first year he sold 11 million dollars’
worth. In 1941 he put an additional 20,000 items (from all over the world) up
for sale.
Be that as it may, when viewing museum
collections of Asian art, one has to approach such assemblages with a thought
(at least) to the prices paid and not paid in acquisition.
Photos courtesy
of Gabi Greve or from my own collection.
© Copyright
2017 by Hayato Tokugawa. All rights reserved.
[1] The term “joss” is Chinese Pidgin English, derived from the Portuguese “deos” (c. 1705) referring to a Chinese
deity worshipped in the form of an idol or a Chinese house idol or cult image.
Usage would appear to have been more common to Westerners in Asia than Asians,
who applied the term not just to Chinese Taoist or Buddhist images but
eventually was applied by uneducated or otherwise unsympathetic Westerners to
any non-Christian statue found in East Asia and Japan. Later the term made its
way even to California along with Cantonese immigrants, where it was applied to
Chinese temples, such as the Temple among the Trees Beneath the Clouds (雲林廟) in Weaverville, where it is more commonly known
now as the Weaverville Joss House State Historic Park, and various locations in
San Francisco's Chinatown.
[2]
Author’s Footnote: A name given to fireproof storehouses in the open ports of
the Far East. The word is derived from the Malay
gûdong.
[3] (In
Buddhism and Jainism) someone who has attained the goal of the religious life; people far advanced along the path of Enlightenment,
but who may not have reached full Buddhahood.
[4] The word ‘Buddha’ is a title, which means
“one who is awake” — in the sense of having “woken up to reality.”
[5] Bodhisattva
is a word from Sanskrit meaning “one enlightened in essence.” The word refers
to a person who has achieved great moral and spiritual wisdom and is a
potential Buddha; especially, such a person who has rejected Nirvâna in order
to assist suffering mankind.
[6]
Kwannon (
観音) or
Kannon, is a
bodhisattva; one who has
achieved enlightenment but postpones Buddhahood until everyone can be saved. In
Japan’s Pure Land Buddhism, whose principal deity is Amida, Kwannon, who
personifies compassion and mercy, is the more important of Amida’s two main
attendants; the other is Seishi Bosatsu.
[7] Jizō
is one of the most beloved deities of all Japanese Buddhism, who works to ease
the suffering and shorten the sentence of those serving time in Purgatory, to
deliver the faithful into Amida Buddha’s western paradise, and to answer the
prayers of the living for health, success, children, and all manner of
petitions. In modern Japan, Jizō is a friend to all, never frightening, even to
children, and his many manifestations, often cute, even cartoon-like,
incorporate Taoist, Buddhist, and Shintō components.
[8] In Japan the historical Buddha is called
Shaka Nyorai (釈迦如来), or Shakyamuni
Tathāgata (Shaka in the
common shortened form)
.
[9] Yakushi Nyorai or the Medicine/Healing
Buddha.
[10]
Amida or Amida Butsu is the central figure of Amida Buddhism or Pure Land
Buddhism (
浄土教, Jōdokyō).
[11] Apparitional birth is a
complex concept of Buddhism, in which sentient beings start up into existence,
in an instant, from nothingness: spontaneous. Such a birth applies to beings
who come into existence fully grown and complete. To some, this implies that
there is always someone in existence previous to the appearance of the new
existence, by whom the new existence is caused. In Shinto, the "original
gods" are born without parents by apparitional birth.
[12]
In Indian Buddhism, Ācala (known as Fudō in Japanese Buddhism) is the best
known of the
Five Wisdom Kings or
Five Guardian Kings of the
Womb
Realm. His name is derived from the
Sanskrit word
termācala, meaning “immovable.” Fudō is regarded as the destroyer of delusion
and the protector of Buddhism; unmoved by carnal temptations, whose role is to
aid all beings by presenting to them the teachings of Buddha; thus, leading to
self-control. In Japanese Buddhist
tradition, he is regarded as one of the
Thirteen Buddhas, typically
portrayed holding a sword and a lariat, clad in rags, with one fang pointing up
and another pointing down, with a braid on one side of his head.
[13]
The mother of
Shaka Nyorai.
[14] The Four Heavenly Kings, four Buddhist gods, each of whom watches over one
cardinal direction of the world.
[15] Niō (仁王) or Kongōrikishi (金剛力士)
are two wrath-filled and muscular guardians of the Buddha standing today at the
entrance of many Buddhist temples in East Asian Buddhism in the form of
frightening wrestler-like statues. They are dharmapala manifestations of the
bodhisattva Vajrapāṇi, the oldest and most powerful of the Mahayana Buddhist
pantheon. According to Japanese tradition, they travelled with Gautama Buddha
to protect him and there are references to this in the Pāli Canon as well as
the Ambaṭṭha Sutta. Within the generally pacifist tradition of Buddhism,
stories of dharmapalas justified the use of physical force to protect cherished
values and beliefs against evil. The Niō are also seen as a manifestation of
Mahasthamaprapta, the bodhisattva of power that flanks Amitābha in Pure Land
Buddhism and as Vajrasattva in Tibetan Buddhism.
[16]
In Japanese popular mythology and art, the
tengu are commonly represented
either as winged men with beak-shaped noses, or as birds of prey. There are
different kinds of
tengu; but all are supposed to be mountain-haunting
spirits, capable of assuming many forms, and occasionally appearing as crows,
vultures, or eagles. Buddhism appears to class the
tengu among the
Mârakâyikas.
[17] Mahavagga. A section of the Vinaya Pitaka, divided into chapters called Khandhakas. The
introductory chapters give an account of the incidents immediately following
the Buddha’s enlightenment, leading up to the foundation of the Order of the
Sangha. It then gives various rules for members of the Sangha, together with
the circumstances which led to the formulation of each rule.
