Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [354]
“How are your wounds?” he asked.
“Thanks to the good treatment I’ve received here, they’re about healed now. Please tell the head priest I am very grateful.”
“If you’re carving an image of Kannon, you should visit the main hall. There’s a statue of Kannon by a very famous sculptor. If you’d like, I’ll take you there. It’s not far—only half a mile or so.”
Delighted by the offer, Musashi finished his meal, and the two of them started for the main hall. Musashi had not been outdoors in the ten days since he’d arrived, covered with blood and using his sword as a cane. He’d barely begun to walk when he discovered his wounds were not so thoroughly healed as he had thought. His left knee ached, and the breeze, though light and cool, seemed to cut into the gash on his arm. But it was pleasant outside. Blossoms falling from the gently swaying cherry trees danced in the air like snowflakes. The sky showed signs of the azure hue of early summer. Musashi’s muscles swelled as if they were buds about to burst open.
“Sir, you’re studying the martial arts, aren’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Then why are you carving an image of Kannon?”
Musashi did not answer immediately.
“Instead of carving, wouldn’t it be better to spend your time practicing swordsmanship?”
The question pained Musashi more than his wounds. The acolyte was about the same age as Genjirō, and about the same size.
How many men had been killed or wounded on that fateful day? He could only guess. He had no clear memory even of how he had extricated himself from the fighting and found a place to hide. The only two things that stuck quite clearly in his mind, haunting him in his sleep, were Genjirō’s terrified scream and the sight of his mutilated body.
He thought again, as he had several times in the past few days, of the resolution in his notebook: he would do nothing that he would later regret. If he took the view that what he had done was inherent in the Way of the Sword, a bramble lying on his chosen path, then he would have to assume that his future would be bleak and inhuman.
In the peaceful atmosphere of the temple, his mind had cleared. And once the memory of spilled blood and gore began to fade, he was overcome by grief for the boy he had slaughtered.
His mind coming back to the acolyte’s question, he said, “Isn’t it true that great priests, like Kōbō Daishi and Genshin, made lots of images of the Buddha and bodhisattvas? I understand quite a few statues here on Mount Hiei were carved by priests. What do you think of that?”
Cocking his head, the boy said uncertainly, “I’m not sure, but priests do make religious paintings and statues.”
“Let me tell you why. It’s because by painting a picture or carving an image of the Buddha, they draw closer to him. A swordsman can purify his spirit in the same way. We human beings all look up at the same moon, but there are many roads we may travel to reach the top of the peak nearest it. Sometimes, when we lose our way, we decide to try someone else’s, but the ultimate aim is to find fulfillment in life.”
Musashi paused, as though he might have more to say, but the acolyte ran ahead and pointed to a rock almost hidden in the grass. “Look,” he said. “This inscription is by Jichin. He was a priest—a famous one.”
Musashi read the words carved on the moss-covered stone:
The water of the Law
Will presently run shallow.
At the very end
A cold, bleak wind will blow on
The barren peaks of Hiei.
He was impressed by the writer’s powers of prophecy. The wind on Mount Hiei had indeed been cold and bleak since Nobunaga’s merciless raid. There were rumors that some of the clergy longed for the old days, for a powerful army, political influence and special privileges, and it was a fact that they never selected a new abbot without a lot of intrigue and ugly internal conflict. While the holy mountain was dedicated to the salvation of the sinful, it actually depended