OF A MIRROR AND A BELL

Eight centuries ago, the priests of Mugenyama, in the province of

Tōtōmi (1), wanted a big bell for their temple; and they asked the

women of their parish to help them by contributing old bronze mirrors

for bell-metal.

[Even to-day, in the courts of certain Japanese temples, you may see

heaps of old bronze mirrors contributed for such a purpose. The largest

collection of this kind that I ever saw was in the court of a temple of

the Jōdo sect, at Hakata, in Kyūshū: the mirrors had been given for the

making of a bronze statue of Amida, thirty-three feet high.]

There was at that time a young woman, a farmer’s wife, living at

Mugenyama, who presented her mirror to the temple, to be used for

bell-metal. But afterwards she much regretted her mirror. She

remembered things that her mother had told her about it; and she

remembered that it had belonged, not only to her mother but to her

mother’s mother and grandmother; and she remembered some happy smiles

which it had reflected. Of course, if she could have offered the

priests a certain sum of money in place of the mirror, she could have

asked them to give back her heirloom. But she had not the money

necessary. Whenever she went to the temple, she saw her mirror lying in

the court-yard, behind a railing, among hundreds of other mirrors

heaped there together. She knew it by the _Shō-Chiku-Bai_ in relief on

the back of it,—those three fortunate emblems of Pine, Bamboo, and

Plumflower, which delighted her baby-eyes when her mother first showed

her the mirror. She longed for some chance to steal the mirror, and

hide it,—that she might thereafter treasure it always. But the chance

did not come; and she became very unhappy,—felt as if she had foolishly

given away a part of her life. She thought about the old saying that a

mirror is the Soul of a Woman—(a saying mystically expressed, by the

Chinese character for Soul, upon the backs of many bronze mirrors),—and

she feared that it was true in weirder ways than she had before

imagined. But she could not dare to speak of her pain to anybody.

Now, when all the mirrors contributed for the Mugenyama bell had been

sent to the foundry, the bell-founders discovered that there was one

mirror among them which would not melt. Again and again they tried to

melt it; but it resisted all their efforts. Evidently the woman who had

given that mirror to the temple must have regretted the giving. She had

not presented her offering with all her heart; and therefore her

selfish soul, remaining attached to the mirror, kept it hard and cold

in the midst of the furnace.

Of course everybody heard of the matter, and everybody soon knew whose

mirror it was that would not melt. And because of this public exposure

of her secret fault, the poor woman became very much ashamed and very

angry. And as she could not bear the shame, she drowned herself, after

having written a farewell letter containing these words:—

“When I am dead, it will not be difficult to melt the mirror and to

cast the bell. But, to the person who breaks that bell by ringing it,

great wealth will be given by the ghost of me.”

—You must know that the last wish or promise of anybody who dies in

anger, or performs suicide in anger, is generally supposed to possess a

supernatural force. After the dead woman’s mirror had been melted, and

the bell had been successfully cast, people remembered the words of

that letter. They felt sure that the spirit of the writer would give

wealth to the breaker of the bell; and, as soon as the bell had been

suspended in the court of the temple, they went in multitude to ring

it. With all their might and main they swung the ringing-beam; but the

bell proved to be a good bell, and it bravely withstood their assaults.

Nevertheless, the people were not easily discouraged. Day after day, at

all hours, they continued to ring the bell furiously,—caring nothing

whatever for the protests of the priests. So the ringing became an

affliction; and the priests could not endure it; and they got rid of

the bell by rolling it down the hill into a swamp. The swamp was deep,

and swallowed it up,—and that was the end of the bell. Only its legend

remains; and in that legend it is called the _Mugen-Kané_, or Bell of

Mugen.

Now there are queer old Japanese beliefs in the magical efficacy of a

certain mental operation implied, though not described, by the verb

_nazoraëru_. The word itself cannot be adequately rendered by any

English word; for it is used in relation to many kinds of mimetic

magic, as well as in relation to the performance of many religious acts

of faith. Common meanings of _nazoraëru_, according to dictionaries,

are “to imitate,” “to compare,” “to liken;” but the esoteric meaning is

_to substitute, in imagination, one object or action for another, so as

to bring about some magical or miraculous result_.

For example:—you cannot afford to build a Buddhist temple; but you can

easily lay a pebble before the image of the Buddha, with the same pious

feeling that would prompt you to build a temple if you were rich enough

to build one. The merit of so offering the pebble becomes equal, or

almost equal, to the merit of erecting a temple... You cannot read the

six thousand seven hundred and seventy-one volumes of the Buddhist

texts; but you can make a revolving library, containing them, turn

round, by pushing it like a windlass. And if you push with an earnest

wish that you could read the six thousand seven hundred and seventy-one

volumes, you will acquire the same merit as the reading of them would

enable you to gain... So much will perhaps suffice to explain the

religious meanings of _nazoraëru_.

The magical meanings could not all be explained without a great variety

of examples; but, for present purposes, the following will serve. If

you should make a little man of straw, for the same reason that Sister

Helen made a little man of wax,—and nail it, with nails not less than

five inches long, to some tree in a temple-grove at the Hour of the Ox

(2),—and if the person, imaginatively represented by that little straw

man, should die thereafter in atrocious agony,—that would illustrate

one signification of _nazoraëru_... Or, let us suppose that a robber

has entered your house during the night, and carried away your

valuables. If you can discover the footprints of that robber in your

garden, and then promptly burn a very large moxa on each of them, the

soles of the feet of the robber will become inflamed, and will allow

him no rest until he returns, of his own accord, to put himself at your

mercy. That is another kind of mimetic magic expressed by the term

_nazoraëru_. And a third kind is illustrated by various legends of the

Mugen-Kané.

After the bell had been rolled into the swamp, there was, of course, no

more chance of ringing it in such wise as to break it. But persons who

regretted this loss of opportunity would strike and break objects

imaginatively substituted for the bell,—thus hoping to please the

spirit of the owner of the mirror that had made so much trouble. One of

these persons was a woman called Umégaë,—famed in Japanese legend

because of her relation to Kajiwara Kagesue, a warrior of the Heiké

clan. While the pair were traveling together, Kajiwara one day found

himself in great straits for want of money; and Umégaë, remembering the

tradition of the Bell of Mugen, took a basin of bronze, and, mentally

representing it to be the bell, beat upon it until she broke it,—crying

out, at the same time, for three hundred pieces of gold. A guest of the

inn where the pair were stopping made inquiry as to the cause of the

banging and the crying, and, on learning the story of the trouble,

actually presented Umégaë with three hundred _ryō_ (3) in gold.

Afterwards a song was made about Umégaë’s basin of bronze; and that

song is sung by dancing girls even to this day:—

Umégaë no chōzubachi tataïté

O-kané ga déru naraba

Mina San mi-uké wo

Sōré tanomimasu

[“_If, by striking upon the wash-basin of Umégaë, I could make

honorable money come to me, then would I negotiate for the freedom of

all my girl-comrades._”]

After this happening, the fame of the Mugen-Kané became great; and many

people followed the example of Umégaë,—thereby hoping to emulate her

luck. Among these folk was a dissolute farmer who lived near Mugenyama,

on the bank of the Ōïgawa. Having wasted his substance in riotous

living, this farmer made for himself, out of the mud in his garden, a

clay-model of the Mugen-Kané; and he beat the clay-bell, and broke

it,—crying out the while for great wealth.

Then, out of the ground before him, rose up the figure of a white-robed

woman, with long loose-flowing hair, holding a covered jar. And the

woman said: “I have come to answer your fervent prayer as it deserves

to be answered. Take, therefore, this jar.” So saying, she put the jar

into his hands, and disappeared.

Into his house the happy man rushed, to tell his wife the good news. He

set down in front of her the covered jar,—which was heavy,—and they

opened it together. And they found that it was filled, up to the very

brim, with...

But no!—I really cannot tell you with what it was filled.