Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/173

 respects a beautiful model, was without sculptured decoration in the interior, the only features that relieved its simplicity being dragons coiled round the four pillars supporting the eaves of the third storey, and mural paintings. This comparatively plain structure offers a marked contrast to the wealth of decorative work which, in such buildings as the mausolea of Nikkō and Shiba, the later temple of Kyōtō and many of the medival castles, astonishes and delights foreign visitors, and will always be classed among the most attractive achievements of artistic conception and technical skill that the world possesses. It is with these specimens of wood-carving that Japanese sculpture is chiefly associated in the mind of Occidental students, and there would be much interest in determining the exact date and nature of the impulse that led architects to depart from the comparatively austere precedents of early eras. Buddhism itself does not supply an explanation. It is true that from the first day of its advent in Japan, Buddhism imparted to religious observances many elements of splendour and richness which were entirely absent from the Shintō ceremonial. The gorgeous vestments of the priests; the glowing radiance of the altar and its furniture; the elaborate beauty of the temple utensils; the impressive majesty of the monster images and the glory of the multitudinous smaller idols with their mysterious attributes and varied aspect; the mystic incomprehensibleness of the sutras, and the sensuous solemnity of the services of chaunted litany and floating incense,—all these things stood in sharp contrast to the ascetic simplicity and unbending severity of the Shintō cult. But the Buddhist temple itself, though its architects had free recourse to the artist's brush for