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hand.
    Kobodaishi also painted the tablet of the gate called Ko-kamon of the
Emperor's palace at Kyoto. Now there was a man, dwelling near that gate,
whose name was Kino Momoye; and he ridiculed the characters which
Kobodaishi had made, and pointed to one of them, saying: 'Why, it looks
like a swaggering wrestler!' But the same night Momoye dreamed that a
wrestler had come to his bedside and leaped upon him, and was beating
him with his fists. And, crying out with the pain of the blows, he
awoke, and saw the wrestler rise in air, and change into the written
character he had laughed at, and go back to the tablet over the gate.
    And there was another writer, famed greatly for his skill, named Onomo
Toku, who laughed at some characters on the tablet of the Gate Shukaku-
mon, written by Kobodaishi; and he said, pointing to the character Shu:
'Verily shu looks like the character "rice".' And that night he dreamed
that the character he had mocked at became a man; and that the man fell
upon him and beat him, and jumped up and down upon his face many times—
even as a kometsuki, a rice-cleaner, leaps up and down to move the
hammers that beat the rice—saying the while: 'Lo! I am the messenger
of Kobodaishi!' And, waking, he found himself bruised and bleeding as
one that had been grievously trampled.
    And long after Kobodaishi's death it was found that the names written by
him on the two gates of the Emperor's palace Bi-fuku-mon, the Gate of
Beautiful Fortune; and Ko-ka-mon, the Gate of Excellent Greatness—were
well-nigh effaced by time. And the Emperor ordered a Dainagon
[7]
, whose
name was Yukinari, to restore the tablets. But Yukinari was afraid to
perform the command of the Emperor, by reason of what had befallen other
men; and, fearing the divine anger of Kobodaishi, he made offerings, and
prayed for some token of permission. And the same night, in a dream,
Kobodaishi appeared to him, smiling gently, and said: 'Do the work even
as the Emperor desires, and have no fear.' So he restored the tablets in
the first month of the fourth year of Kwanko, as is recorded in the
book, Hon-cho-bun-sui.
    And all these things have been related to me by my friend Akira.

Chapter Three - Jizo
*
Sec. 1
    I HAVE passed another day in wandering among the temples, both Shinto
and Buddhist. I have seen many curious things; but I have not yet seen
the face of the Buddha.
    Repeatedly, after long wearisome climbing of stone steps, and passing
under gates full of gargoyles—heads of elephants and heads of lions—
and entering shoeless into scented twilight, into enchanted gardens of
golden lotus-flowers of paper, and there waiting for my eyes to become
habituated to the dimness, I have looked in vain for images. Only an
opulent glimmering confusion of things half-seen—vague altar-
splendours created by gilded bronzes twisted into riddles, by vessels of
indescribable shape, by enigmatic texts of gold, by mysterious
glittering pendent things—all framing in only a shrine with doors fast
closed.
    What has most impressed me is the seeming joyousness of popular faith. I
have seen nothing grim, austere, or self-repressive. I have not even
noted anything approaching the solemn. The bright temple courts and even
the temple steps are thronged with laughing children, playing curious
games; arid mothers, entering the sanctuary to pray, suffer their little
ones to creep about the matting and crow. The people take their religion
lightly and cheerfully: they drop their cash in the great alms-box, clap
their hands, murmur a very brief prayer, then turn to laugh and talk and
smoke their little pipes before the temple entrance. Into some shrines,
I have noticed the worshippers do not enter at all; they merely stand
before the doors and pray for a few seconds, and make their small
offerings. Blessed are they who do not too much fear the gods which they
have made!
Sec. 2
    Akira is bowing and smiling at the door. He slips off his sandals,
enters in his white digitated