Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/343

 from the time when that faith had just been introduced from China. To art connoisseurs its interest is unique because of its old Hondo, containing frescos executed by a Korean artist at the time of its erection, which, with one exception, are the only frescos proper in Japan, and among the few paintings executed on a surface erect before the artist. All other paintings in Japan—kakemono, panels of screens, and sections of ceilings or wall space—are done with the wood, paper, or silk lying on the floor before the seated artist. These Horiuji frescos are dim and faded, and only pale wraiths and suggestions of haloed saints, here a head and there a bit of drapery, can be made out. In recent years attention has been called to these works. By imperial command an artist came down from Tokio to copy them; and when the Imperial Art Commission came from their Nara work to inspect and catalogue the Horiuji treasures, Ogawa, their photographer, spent two days at work making flash-light exposures in the dark interior of the Hondo.

Among the sacred relics of Horiuji is the veritable eyeball of Buddha, the legacy of the holy Shotoku Taisho, the Emperor who founded Horiuji, and left to it statues of himself, carved by his own hand at different ages. Shotoku Taisho talked when he was four months old, and a little later conversed in eight languages all at once. It is therefore easy to believe that when this prodigy of legend was a year old, and, turning to the East, with clasped hands repeated the invocation of his sect—Namu Amida Butsu (Hail, or Hear us, Great Buddha!)—he found this precious relic of Buddha’s body, the eyeball, in his hands. That he knew it to be an eyeball is not the least part of the miracle, as it looks most like the tiny, discolored pearl of a common oyster; The eyeball of Buddha is shown every day at high noon, a special mass being chanted by the priest while the relic 327