The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-03-09

stOISH uOSe, ana from Knee to knee
in measures ,thirty-fve feet. It's
eyes are Of pure gold and they are
more than three feet in length: while
the ears are so long that If you stood
In the hole Of one OF the lobes you
could not reach to the top. This
Buddha has a mouth a yard wide. It's
face is eight feet long and it's thumb
is just one foot in thickness. It's beau
tiful head is covered with what looks
like curls, but which the japanese tell
us represent snails. Tradition says
that Buddha was so kind to all ami
NAL creation that the snails. as an
evidence of their gratitude, crawled
upon his head to shield him from the
sun. There are more than 500 such
snails or Buddha's head. and each
of them is nine inches high.
The making of a work like this
would be difficult today. 1t would tax
the skill Of our greatest artists. This
Buddha vas made by the Japanese
two hundred years before Columbus
started across the Atlantic and found
the new world. At that time our an
cestors were still eating with their
fingers and sleeping on straw.
An even greater Buddha, although
less known, is one which I have just
seen, in the temple at Nara, about
TWENTY-FIVE miles from here. This
Buddha is under cover and it is al
most impossible to gel a good photo
graph of it. 1t stands in a building,
filling a larger than h dome
of the Capitol at Washington. It is
made of bronze, and it sits upon a
lotus flower Of solid bronze. against a
background Of carved gold. The flow
er is big enough for the foundation
of q gOOd-siZed house, and each OF
the lotus petals would carpet a par
Tor. This Buddha is fifty-three feet
high and its eyes are three feet in
length. The hand IS about eleven
feet long. ] measure foot where
i. lies upon the knee. It is Just SIX
teen feet from heel to toe. The stat
ne is mymmatrical and the face is
wonderfully beautiful. personifying
cOntentment and reDOSe. This stat
ne is almost twice as old as that at
kamaqura. 1t was made many centu-
ries ago, along about the time that
little Mohammed. the founder of the
| great religion which bears his name.
was a half-naked boy, playing in the
| sands Of Arabia. The head Of the
| original statue fell off and was burned
several hundred years ago. The pres
ent head was made during the six
teenth century, and the remainder
Of the body was made more than eight
hundred years before that time.
Here, in kyoto, there is a Buddha
which is all hea n shoulders. 1t
! fills a temple. and is bigger than
either Of the Buddhas / have mention
ed. It has eyes five feet long, nos
triIs two feet wide. and it measures
fo~rty-three feet across the shoulders.
1t is almost sixty feet high and II
has q nose nine feet long. Just out
side the temple is n OF the biggest
bells Of Japan, which is rung now
and thea to wake up the statue. 1t
weighs sixty-three tons and s about
as big as a hayStaCk.
All Of the above Buddhas are old.
I saw one at HyOgO. about two hours
ride from here by train. which was
erected in 1891 by q paper ~n1anufac-
was grateful to the gods. That
Buddha is of bronze. It measures
eighty-fve feet around the waist, and
the diameter Of its lap is twenty-five
feet. The ears are six feet long and
by my tape line it is just two feet
around the humb. It has an electric
bulb in its forehead.
Religion and the War.
There has been a decided reyfVal
among the native religions here since
the Russian war. Many Of n priests
went to the front to give spiritual
consolation to the. soldiers. This was
SO OF both eBuddhists and Shintoists
When the war closed the empero1
added to. this revival by visiting the
Great Shinto Shrine at 1se. where he
proclaimed to the imperial ancestors
that the war was successfully ended
! Since Their many other famous per
scnages have visited Ise, and Shlnto-
ism and anyestral worship stand high
e1 than they have for years. Many OF
the cannon and other trophies Wh1cf
were captured in Manchuria were
brought to Japan and given to the
temples, where they are kept as mon
uments., Among such things Is 9
great water tank, which shows the
marks OF many cannon balls. It now
stands in he, grounds Of h Yaka-
SUM temple in Toxic. During the
fighting in M~anchuria the people here
r showed their faith by the way the!
went to the shrines to pray for thel1
loved ones. Many Of them tool slab: