There, Too, They Pray, If That Can Be Called Prayer Which
Frequently Consists Only In The Repetition Of An Uncomprehended
Phrase in a foreign tongue, bowing the head, raising the hands and
rubbing them, murmuring a few words, telling beads,
Clapping the
hands, bowing again, and then passing out or on to another shrine
to repeat the same form. Merchants in silk clothing, soldiers in
shabby French uniforms, farmers, coolies in "vile raiment,"
mothers, maidens, swells in European clothes, even the samurai
policemen, bow before the goddess of mercy. Most of the prayers
were offered rapidly, a mere momentary interlude in the gurgle of
careless talk, and without a pretence of reverence; but some of the
petitioners obviously brought real woes in simple "faith."
In one shrine there is a large idol, spotted all over with pellets
of paper, and hundreds of these are sticking to the wire netting
which protects him. A worshipper writes his petition on paper, or,
better still, has it written for him by the priest, chews it to a
pulp, and spits it at the divinity. If, having been well aimed, it
passes through the wire and sticks, it is a good omen, if it lodges
in the netting the prayer has probably been unheard. The Ni-o and
some of the gods outside the temple are similarly disfigured. On
the left there is a shrine with a screen, to the bars of which
innumerable prayers have been tied. On the right, accessible to
all, sits Binzuru, one of Buddha's original sixteen disciples.
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