Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/257

 starry firmament, and that good is invited or evil averted by turning towards the auspicious quarter or away from the inauspicious at critical seasons in life. The Gregorian calendar was finally adopted in Japan thirty years ago, but the two series of "terrestrial stems" and "celestial branches" out of which the cycles of the old almanack were constructed, still present to the astrologer and horoscopist ready means of establishing connections between any point of the compass and the date of a birth, and nothing then remains except to assign special attributes to special stars or combinations of stars. It would appear that in remote ages this theory had not emerged from a rudimentary form. Men believed that somewhere away in the northeast stood the demon's gate (ki-mon), and that human beings should preserve towards that quarter a demeanour of reverential deprecation — should not face it in sleeping, should not turn their feet thitherward at the commencement of a journey, should not give their houses a northeasterly aspect, should not cultivate the corner of their parks or gardens on which the eyes of the evil spirits looked out from the portals of bad omen. The celebrated monastery of Hiei-zan on the northeast of the Imperial Palace in Kyōtō, and the scarcely less celebrated temples of Uyeno on the northeast of the Shōgun's palace in Tōkyō, were religious barriers suggested by this superstition, and if any one examines the pleasure-grounds