Slovesnost kegon v templju Tōdaiji

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Slovesnost kegon v templju Tōdaiji

This, too, is a tale of long ago. At Tōdaiji there is a great annual service called the Kegon Assembly. A high seat is set up inside the Great Buddha Hall, and the lecturer ascends it, only to slip away through the back of the hall as though vanishing into thin air. The elders tell the following story. When the temple was first founded, an old man came selling mackerel. The retired emperor, who had vowed to build the temple, summoned him and appointed him lecturer at the great assembly. When the mackerel he was selling were laid upon the scripture desk, they changed into the eighty-fascicle Flower Garland Sutra. As he expounded the scripture, he uttered words in Sanskrit, and midway through the service he suddenly vanished from the high seat. Another account says that the old mackerel seller carried his fish slung from a wooden staff. There were eighty fish, and these became the eighty fascicles of the Flower Garland Sutra. He planted the staff before the eastern corridor within the Great Buddha Hall, and at once it put forth branches and leaves. This was a white alder. It is said that the tree flourished or withered according to whether the temple itself was to prosper or decline. Even in recent times, the lecturer at that assembly has imitated the old man by descending from the high seat midway through the service and slipping out through the rear door as though vanishing. Until thirty or forty years ago, the tree that had grown from the mackerel seller’s staff was still flourishing, its leaves green. Afterward it remained standing, though dead, until it was consumed in the fire set by the Heike. How grievous it is to see so clear a sign that the world has entered its final age.