(14 July, 1901) From two tall brass candle-sticks on the mantel of a back parlor in San Francisco glimmers faintly a light that the western world is likely to hear and think a good deal about in a future not so very far off.
The back parlor is the temple and the mantel is the altar of Buddha Sakyamuni and the glimmering light is the Light of Asia -- the light of the faith of six hundred millions of people, carried piously across the seas to illumine for the new west as it does for the ancient east the Eight-fold Way that leads at length to Nirvana. The back parlor temple in San Francisco is the first shrine of Buddhism that the occident has known, the forerunner of real temples, built on ground consecrated to the Prince Gautama, where bonzes in the elaborate ceremonial robes of their faith will burn incense, beat gongs and offer sacrifices just as fifty thosand priests of Buddha are doing today in the unnumbered temples of Japan. For it is a Japanese mission, this pioneer establishment of Buddhism in the new world. Humble though it be, it means much. Being it is the wealth and power of the Shin or Monto sect of Japanese Buddhists, the richest in all Nippon, and the most influential, as it is the most liberal. It is the beginning of one of the most significant religious movements in the world's recent history. The animating and directing spirit of the eastward movement of Buddhism is Count Koson Otani, a noble ecclesiastic of Kioto and the center from which the propaganda is spread is the Nishi Hongwanji of that city. A recent traveler in the orient affords us these glimpses of the Buddhist nobleman and his sect:
"At the Nishi Hongwanji of Kioto the vast interior discloses masses of carving, gilding, lacquer, damascening and paintings on golden ground work, and Monto altars are more splendid than those of any other sect. This Hongwanji is very rich, having been endowed with lands and mines in the days of Hideyashi, its special protector. . . Connected with the temple is a great Yashiki or Abbot's residence, and the wall screens and superb ceilings, brought from Hidayashi's castle at Fushmi to adorn the suites of reception rooms, are finer than any in the Imperial palace. ... The Hongwanji services are splendid and impressive ceremonies: the companies of gorgeously clad priests, the chanting, the incense, the lighted tapers, the bells, the opening of the doors of the golden shrine to display the image of Buddha, all bearing a strange resemblance to the worship of Roman churches. The faithful kneel, touch themselves and use the rosary in praises. High mass at the Hongwanji might almost be high mass at St. Mark's.
... The fortnightly afternoon services consist of reading from the sacred scriptures and the chanting of Japanese and Chinese sacred poems by some twenty priests in black gauze stoles, a larger chorus hidden behind the central shrine and altar joining in and responding. The high priest in a cardinal and gold brocade kesa, sits directly facing the shrine, and at intervals touches tha swinging plate of bronze used as a gong in the
order of worship. The golden shrine, in a great gilded alcove, or chancel, bears countless gilded lotus flowers and candelabra, and slender columns of incense rise from the priests' low reading desk. At the conclusion of the chanted service the doors of the shrine are opened and the sacred image displayed in a silence, broken only by the low strokes of the gong. Then the priests file away, and the faithful, flocking into the vacant space behind the rail and kneeling where the priests' have knelt, rub their rosaries in their palms and repeat with ecstatic fervor the Invocation. 'Nama Amida
Butsu' (Halt, Great Lord- Buddha.)"
This same traveler said, writing in 1898: "These Monto priests, too, express broad
views about the reciprocity of nations and the fair exchange of missionaries. Now that English clergymen and thinkers study Buddhism in the monasteries of Ceylon, avowing their acceptance of the articles with much sacred ceremony, Monto apostles may yet preach to the people of England and America."
This cautious prophecy was not slow in the fulfillment. It was on a September afternoon in 1839 that two strikingly attired Japanese Monto priests anneared in
a downtown hotel. Though it was their first glimpse of any land save their own
picturesque and romantic Nippon, they bore themselves with ease and assurance and spoke the difficult Anglo-Saxon tongue with a clearness that told of arduous preparation in the school of the Nishi Hongwanji, while they fitted themselves
to become, so to say, the Jesuits of Buddhism, and to erect upon new soil the altars
of a faith 600 years older than the gospel of Christianity. The pioneer missionaries
were Rev. Shuye Sonoda and his coadjutor Rev. K. Nishijlma. A few days later the first of the Buddhist missions outside of the east was opened in a two-story dwelling in the heart of San Francisco's residence quarter.
Two months later the, "Dharma-Sangha" was incorporated under the laws of California, as is attested by the framed certificate bearing the gaudy seal of the
commonwealth which hangs in the front parlors of the mission temple. In the
preamble of the corporation's by-laws is this statement of its character and purposes:
"This corporation is known as the Dharma-Sangha of Buddha, its members
recognizing the universal nature of Law of Life and Being, of Religion, and
of the Divine nature in man as set forth : In the Tri-Pitaka of the Buddha Sakyamuni,
showing the Law of Life to be the object of Faith and Religion of Science and Philosophy immutable and eternal, harmonizing the spiritual and human nature
in man, bringing all men into the bond of fellowship and uniting all humanity
In the universal spirit of Truth. The establishment of the Kingdom of
Righteousness by the fusion into one of xxxxxxis of religion, in order to promote
scientific and Philosophical research, the physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual welfare of man being the main object of this corporation."
Besides the missionary, Sonoda, the incorporators were were J. L. Guelph-Norman,
already a Buddhist of Burmese association; Kathleen Melvena McIntire, Jenny
Ward Hays, Charles Frank Jones, Eliza R. H. Stoddard and Agnes White. The
"Dharma-Sangha" will soon have a temple of its own, as Japanese and as Buddhistic
with regard to its interior as the building ordinances, and the fire department of San Francisco will permit, but probably Americanized as to exterior in such degree as to avoid any appearance of what the unbelievers might call : "heathenism." Besides their wondrous patience and courtesy the missionaries of Buddhism have displayed not a little tact and diplomacy. In 'their services' aimed to attract and hold the westerner there is little of the formalism or ritualism of the Nishi Hongwanji at Kioto. The altar is simple, though, thoroughly oriental. The image of Buddha is inconspicuous, and the ceremony which prospective converts are invited to witness is not much more than an exposition of the principles of Buddhism. In their long planning for the conversion of the new world -- a planning which include personal inspection, of the field and intimate study of the views and prejudices of the Occident -- the missionary Buddhists
saw the possible danger of an out-cry against idolatry and heathenish sacrifices to images if the splendid ceremonials of their faith were revealed all at once to a people who regarded Buddhism as plain paganism. They had heard in the Christian missions at Kioto the Christian hymn, which tells how
"The heathen in their blindness,
Bow down to wood and stone,"
and they measured carefully the possibility of a crusade against them and their outlandish practices in the country across the sea. On this account, they decided
to address the situation with a mere exposition of the Buddhistic principles, omitting most of the solemn and elaborate rituals of the Shin-Shiu. For Japanese, converted or reclaimed, they planned and are holding regularly in San Francisco services that lack only the magnificent setting of the Nishi Hongwanji, and the hosts of gorgeously robed priests to make them all that Buddhist worship in Kioto offers, to the eye and
ear; and yet, simple, though it be, and shorn of glittering formalism, a Sunday morning service at the pioneer mission is curiously interesting. Down the gentle
slope of Polk street, half way of a square crowded with homes of the fairly well-to-do, stands the western outpost of Buddhism, a sober, old-fashioned two-story house that doubtless was, in its day, a comfortable and roomy residence. The little missionary, Rev. T. Mizuki, standing in his pulpit which hides, for the time being, most of the gorgeous altar, is undisturbed by the outer inharmonies. Somber enough he is in his black gauzelike stole, falling in crisp, full folds to his feet. About his shoulders, like the familiar fraternal regalia, is an embroidered collar of white. On his wrist hangs the rosary of Buddhism.
And the outpost in San Francisco is not all of the invasion. Already the founder of the mission here, Sonoda, is in Berlin, where on April 7th, Japanese officers, legation attaches and travelers joined in the celebration of Buddha's birthday. Nishijima, who came as Sonoda's assistant, is in the interior of California, paving the way to the establishment of missions at Sacramento and Fresno. At Sacramento a temple is about to be erected, $6,000 having been raised already for buying the ground. In London is the Right Reverend Kozui Otani, son of the titled High Priest Kioto, who will return to Japan after a long tour of the world, devoted to close study of social and religious conditions.
The above article appeared in July 1901 in a newspaper called The Atlanta Constitution.
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Foreign retirees in Manchuria
Prejevalsky's Exploration in Mongolia
Japanese priest crosses desert to Tibet
Was Prejevalsky the father of Stalin?
The Third Asiatic Expedition in Mongolia
Waiting in Ulaan Baatar
My first trip to Tibet
The Expulsion of Count Tolstoi
Around the world on a bicycle
The Assyrian Origin of Devil Worshippers
