formalism of the Fujiwaras. Each local knight strove hard
as against all others, not only in martial prowess, but in the power of
self-conquest, courtesy, and charity, which were qualities considered above
muscular might, as the marks of true courage.
"To know the sadness of things" was the motto of
the time, so bringing to birth the great ideal of the Samurai, whose raison
d’être was to suffer for the sake of others, Indeed, the very etiquette of
this knightly class during the Kamakura period points as unmistakably to the
conception of the monk, as the life of any Indian woman to that of the nun.
Some of the Samurai, or military officers, grouped around their chiefs or
daimyos, and followed in turn by their own clansmen, wore a priestly garment
over their armour, and many even went the length of shaving the head. There was
nothing incongruous with religion in the art of war, and the noble who
renounced the world
became one of the militant monks of his new order. The
Indian idea of the Guru, or giver of spiritual life, was here projected upon
the Samurai's war-lord, whoever he might be, and a surging passion of loyalty
to "the banner-chief," became the motive of a career. Men would
devote their lives to the avenging of his death, as in other countries women
have died for their husbands, or the worshipper for his gods.
It is possible that this fire of monasticism has been the
great influence in robbing Japanese chivalry of its romantic element. The
idealising of women would seem to have been an instinctive note of early
Japanese life. Were we not of the race of the Sun-goddess? Only after the
Fujiwara epoch, with its exploration of the realm of religious emotion, the
devotion of man to woman amongst us assumes its true Eastern form, of a worship
the more powerful because the shrine is secret, an inspiration the stronger
because
its source is hidden. A reserve as of religion seals the
lips of Kamakura poets, but it must not be thought on that account that the
Japanese woman was not adored. For the seclusion of Oriental zenanas is a
veiled sainthood. It may have been in the Crusades that the troubadours learnt
this secret of the strength of mystery. It will be remembered that their most
binding tradition was the obscurity in which the name of "my lady"
was involved. Dante, at any rate, as a singer of love, is entirely an Eastern
poet singing of Beatrice, the Oriental woman.
This was an age, then, of silence as to love, but it was
also an age of epic heroism, in the midst of which looms large the romantic
figure of Yoshitsune, of the house of Minamoto, whose life recalls the tales of
the round table, and is lost, like that of the knight of Pendragon, in poetic
mist, so as to furnish the imagination of a later day with
and the horrors of hell are for the first time presented,
in order to over-awe the rising populace, who under this new régime were
becoming more prominent than before. At the same time, the Samurai, or knightly
class, adopted as its ideal the teaching of the Zen sect (perfected under the
Sung dynasty, by the Southern Chinese mind), that salvation was to be looked
for in self-control and strength of will. Thus the art of this period lacks
both the idealised perfection of the Nara and the refined delicacy of the
Fujiwara, epochs, but is characterised by the vigour of its return to the line,
and by the virility and strength of its delineation.
Portrait statues, so significant a production of the heroic
age, now claim the foremost place in sculpture. Among these may be mentioned
the statues of monks of the Kegon sect in Kofukuji in Nara, and several others.
Even the Buddhas and devas assume personal
Museum. These are falsely attributed to Keion, an artist
whose very existence is without foundation.
The gorgeous succession of depictments of the terrors of
hell in the makimonos of Jigokusoshi and Tenjinengi of Kitano - where the
warlike spirit of the time seems to delight in the awful spectacle of
destruction and sublime horror - suggests the imagery of Dante's Inferno.
NOTES
Shogunate. - Shogun is an abbreviation of Seyi
tai Shogun, or Commander-in-Chief of the Armies that fight the Barbarians.
This title was first conferred on Yoritomo of the Minamoto family, who
destroyed the Tairas. The long succession of military regents of Japan, after this date, were called Shoguns, and of them, the Minamotos reigned in Kamakura, the
Ashikagas in Kyoto, and the Tokugawas in Yedo (Tokio).
Sakti. - A Sanscrit word meaning force or power,
the cosmic energy. It is always symbolised by the feminine, as Durga, Kali, and
others. All women are supposed to be its embodiment.
Sûtras. - Sûtra, in Sanscrit, means thread,
and is