Japanese Mythology - F. Hadland Davis

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Buddha found out who his visitor was, and what he wanted at so unearthly an hour, he condescendingly stepped down from his pedestal and came outside the temple. There was utter amazement on both sides. Had the whale possessed knees they would assuredly have knocked together. He knocked his head on the ground instead. For his part, Buddha was surprised to find a creature of such gigantic proportions.

      We can imagine the consternation of the chief priest when he found that the pedestal did not bear the image of his Master. Hearing a strange conversation going on outside the temple, he went out to see what was taking place. The much-frightened priest was invited to join in the discussion, and was requested to take the measurement of the image and the whale, and accordingly began to measure with his rosary. During this proceeding the image and the whale awaited the result with bated breath. When the measurements had been taken the whale was found to be two inches longer and taller than the image.

      The whale went back to the Northern Sea more utterly vain than ever, while the image returned to its temple and sat down again, and there it has remained to this day, none the worse, perhaps, for finding that it was not quite so big as it imagined. Dealers in dry goods and dealers in wood and iron agreed from that day to this to differ as to what was a foot—and the difference was a matter of two inches.

      In ancient days there lived in Japan a great State Minister named Kamatari. Now Kamatari's only daughter, Kohaku Jo, extremely beautiful, and as good as she was beautiful. She was the delight of her father's heart, and he resolved that, if she married, no one of less account than a king should be her husband. With this idea continually in his mind, he steadfastly refused the offers for her hand.

      One day there was a great tumult in the palace courtyard. Through the open gates streamed a number of men bearing a banner on which was worked a silken dragon on a yellow background. Kamatari learnt that these men had come from the court of China with a message from the Emperor Koso. The Emperor had heard of the exceeding beauty and exquisite charm of Kohaku Jo, and desired to marry her. As is usual in the East on such occasions, the Emperor's offer was accompanied with the promise that if Kohaku Jo should become his bride he would allow her to choose from his store of treasures whatever she liked to send to her own country.

      After Kamatari had received the envoys with due pomp and ceremony, and put at their disposal a whole wing of the palace, he returned to his own room and bade his servant bring his daughter into his presence.

      When Kohaku had entered her father's room she bowed before him and sat patiently on the white mats waiting for her august parent to speak to her.

      Kamatari told her that he had chosen the Emperor of China to be her husband, and the little maid wept on hearing the news. She had been so happy in her own home, and China seemed such a long way off. When, however, her father foretold more happiness in the future than she had ever had in the past, she dried her eyes and listened to her parent's words, a little amazed to hear, perhaps, that all China's treasures were to be laid at her own small feet. She was glad when her father told her that she would be able to send three of these treasures to the temple of Kofukuji, where she had received a blessing when a little babe.

      So Kohaku obeyed her father with not a little misgiving, not a little heartache. Her girl companions wept when they heard the news, but they were comforted when Kohaku's mother told them that some of their number would be chosen to go with their mistress.

      Before Kohaku sailed for China she wended her way to the beloved temple of Kofukuji, and, arriving at the sacred shrine, she prayed for protection in her journey, vowing that if her prayers were answered she would search China for its three most precious treasures, and send them to the temple as a thank-offering.

      The Emperor Koso led her from palace to palace, and she knew not which was the most beautiful, but her royal husband was aware that she was far more lovely than any of them. Because of her great loveliness he desired that it should be ever remembered throughout the length and breadth of China, even beyond the bounds of his kingdom. "So he called together his goldsmiths and gardeners," as Madame Ozaki writes in describing this story, "and commanded them to fashion a path for the Empress such as had never been heard of in the wide world. The stepping-stones of this path were to be lotus-flowers, carved out of silver and gold, for her to walk on whenever she strolled forth under the trees or by the lake, so that it might be said that her beautiful feet were never soiled by touching the earth; and ever since then, in China and Japan, poet-lovers and lover-poets in song and sonnet and sweet conversation have called the feet of the women they love 'lotus feet.'"

      After Kohaku had gazed for some time upon these treasures she sent for Admiral Banko and bade him safely convey them to the temple of Kofukuji.

      Everything went well with Admiral Banko and his ship until they were in Japanese waters, sailing into the Bay of Shido-no-ura, when a mighty tempest whirled the vessel hither and thither. The waves rolled up with the fierceness of wild beasts, and lightning continually blazed across the sky, to light up for a moment a rolling ship, now flung high upon a mountain of water, now swept into a green valley from which it seemed it could never rise again.

      Suddenly the storm abated with the same unexpectedness with which it had arisen. Some fairy hand had brushed up all the clouds and laid a blue and sparkling carpet across the sea. The admiral's first thought was for the safety of the treasures entrusted to him, and on going below he discovered the musical instrument and ink-stone box just as he had left them, but that the most precious of the treasures, Buddha's Crystal, was missing. He contemplated taking his life, so grieved was he at the loss; but on reflection he saw that it would be wiser to live so long as there was anything he could do to find the jewel. He accordingly hastened to land, and informed Kamatari of his dreadful misfortune.

      No sooner had Kamatari been told about the loss of Buddha's Crystal than this wise minister perceived that the Dragon King of the Sea had stolen it, and for that purpose had caused the storm, which had enabled him to steal the treasure unperceived.

      Kamatari offered a large reward to a number of fishermen he saw upon the shore of Shido-no-ura if any of their number would venture into the sea and bring back the Crystal. All the fishermen volunteered, but after many attempts the precious jewel still remained in the keeping of the Sea King.

      Kamatari, much distressed, suddenly became aware of a poor woman carrying an infant in her arms. She begged the great minister that she might enter the sea and search for the Crystal, and in spite of her frailty she spoke with conviction. Her mother-heart seemed to lend her courage. She made her request

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