Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1885-10-26

The CEREMONIAL OvBR THE DEAD n BUD
DHIsr SANCTUARY.

| A letter from japan says: Further alont
the hill vail large white temple, surmount'
ed by . large golden ball, stands out distinct
| ~ against the green, and q populous grave
yard lice below and around it. This temple
Of the Gold Ball il the chief Buddhist sane
tuary at Kobe, and 10 more especially the
| scene Of all the great funerals. Many of thu
stones in the graveyard have the stones and
moses of centuries clinging to them, and
others newly Get up are family stones, bear.
ing the written characters of the names of
those already buried in black letters and Of
those still to die in red letters.
1t 10 rather novel, At least. to have q living
man beside one point reverently to the large
stone covering his relatives ashes, and then
show the carmine characters of his own name
also on the sepulchral stone, but to the Japa-
nese it ia rational and right. One day there
wass funeral of an imposing order at the
Gold Ball, . rich samural having chosen to
die. We met his body as it was carried TO
the temple in q gilded kago, or palanquin,
followed u at least 200 men in ceremonial
dresses ofthe olden time, consisting OF volu-
minous hakama (trousers) and wing-like
shoulder pieces of deeply-plaited corn or
silk. The female relatives, in white klmo-
nos and red obs, surrounded the widow, who
was 10 white robes aad covered with white
tissue veil, and at the rear of the procession
followed women and poorer people in every
day costumes of dark blue.
Arrived at the temple, the kano was set on
the floor and covered with a piece of superb
brocade, and the priests in their guazes and
brocades, with rosaries of beads, bells, books,
and candles went through ceremony that at
every step proved how the Roman Catholic
religion is founded on and its observances
taken from the older Buddhism. At the end
of the service the kago bearers resumed their
burden, and then in the cool shadows of the
late afternoon the professor wound up the
steep paths of Cremation valley to the furnace
temple near its head. There the kago disap-
peared behind the white doors of the temple
and the company dispersed At this crema-
ton temple bodies are reduced over night,
the furnace being heated up before sunset and
the fires left to burn and die out during the
night.
The bodies are not entirely consumed, as
is proven by the heap Of bones lying back of
the temple, in which one can often poke up
fnger-joints and thigh-bones, bits of jaw, and
an occasional tooth. The ashes of the rich
and the better class are not thrown out in this
heap, but gathered by the re-
latves and deposited in hollow in the
in a socket of which a green
branch or flowers are constantly kept. A
simpler funeral seen at the Gold Ball temple
on another day was that of baby, whose
young and pretty mother in white komono
and red obi had only few women friends
with her to watch the ceremony. The moth
er was calm, if not smilingly Indifferent, dur
ing the proceedings at the temple, and, when
the b.ocade cover was drawn from the bier,
there was only small wooden tub, bound
with withes, as coffin. coolie took the
covered tub on his shoulder and started up
the pathway to Cremation valley, and the
mother and friends trudged after him.