Ningirsu

“ The writer of the tablet is mainly concerned with the sacrilege committed in the temples of the gods, and with the magnitude of the offence against Ningirsu. He can find no reason for the wrongs the city has suffered in any transgression on the part of Urukagina, its king; for Ningirsu has had no cause to be angry with his representative. All he can do is to protest his belief that the city-god will one day be avenged upon the men of Umma and their goddess Nidaba. Meanwhile Lagash lay desolate, and Umma inherited the position she had held among the cities of Southern Babylonia. ”

“ For Ningirsu, his lord, he has built the temple of Ekhud, the tower in stages, from the summit of which Ningirsu grants him a happy lot.
“Besides the offerings which Gudea made of his free will to Ningirsu and to the goddess Bau, daughter of Anna, his beloved consort, he has made others to his god Ningiszida. ”

“ They have shed blood in E-engura, the temple of the goddess Ninâ, and they have carried away the silver and the precious stones therefrom! They have shed blood in Sag..., the temple of Amageshtin, and the silver and the precious stones of Amageshtin have they carried away! They have removed the grain from Ginarbaniru, the field of the god Ningirsu, so much of it as was under cultivation! The men of Gishkhu, by the despoiling of Shirpurla, have committed a transgression against the god Ningirsu! The power that is come unto them, from them shall be taken away! ”

“ Indeed, Enlitarzi, another priest of Ningirsu during Entemena's reign, subsequently secured the throne of Lagash. Entemena's building-inscriptions afford further evidence of his devotion to Ningirsu, whose temple and storehouses he rebuilt and added to. Next in order of importance were his constructions in honour of the goddess Ninâ, while he also erected or repaired temples and other buildings dedicated to Lugal-uru, and the goddesses Ninkharsag, Gatumdug, and Ninmakh. ”

“ As the day began to brighten and the sun rose, Gudea set out as offerings in the temple a fat ox and a fat sheep, and he brought a vase of lead and filled it with wine, which he poured out as a libation, and he performed incantations. Then, having duly established Ningirsu and Bau in the chief shrine, he turned his attention to the lesser gods and installed them in their appointed places in the temple, where they would be always ready to assist Ningirsu in the temple ceremonies and in the issue of his decrees for the welfare of the city and its inhabitants. ”

“ For his destruction of the men of Umma is merely invoked as a possible occurrence in the future, while the god on the stele is already engaged in clubbing captives he has caught; and, whether the net of Ningirsu was referred to in a missing portion of the text or not, the fact that the figure on the stele grasps the emblem of Lagash is [Pg 133] sufficient indication that Ningirsu and not Enlil, nor any other deity, is intended. ”

“ If ever in time to come the men of Gishkhu should break out across the frontier-ditch of Ningirsu, or the frontier-ditch of Ninâ, in order to seize or lay waste the lands of Shirpurla, whether they be men of the city of Gishkhu itself or men of the mountains, he prays that Enlil may destroy them and that Ningirsu may lay his curse upon them; and if ever the warriors of his own city should be called upon to defend it, he prays that they may be full of courage and ardour for their task. ”

“ We find from these inscriptions that the deities especially worshipped at Lagash were not the same as those who held the foremost places contemporaneously in the Accadian, and at a later time in the Babylonian Pantheon. Ningirsu and “his beloved consort,” the goddess Bau, received in Lagash the highest honours. On one of the statues of Gudea, “the priestly governor of Lagash,” this inscription occurs: [28] —
“To Ningirsu, the powerful warrior of Ellilla [this is dedicated] by Gudea, priestly governor of Lagash, who has constructed the temple of Eninnu, consecrated to Ningirsu. ”

“ In his dream he beheld the god Ningirsu, who appeared to him in visible form and came near him and stood by his head. And the god encouraged his patesi and promised him victory over his enemies. He was to go forth to battle and Babbar, the Sun-god who makes the city bright, would advance at his right hand to assist him. Thus encouraged by Ningirsu, and with the knowledge that he was carrying out the orders of his city-god, Eannatum marshalled his army and set out from Lagash to attack the men of Umma within their own territory. ”

“ In further support of this view we may perhaps cite a reference to one of the cities conquered by Eannatum, which occurs upon a votive text drawn up in Entemena's reign, though not by the patesi himself. The text in question is stamped upon the perforated relief of Dudu, chief priest of Ningirsu, [15] which at one time formed the support of a colossal ceremonial mace-head dedicated in the temple of Ningirsu at Lagash.
The material of which the block is composed is dark in colour, comparatively light in weight, and liable to crack ”

“ A good example of their bolder method of composition is afforded by the relief of a god, generally identified with Ningirsu, which dates from the epoch of Gudea; he is seated upon a throne, and while the torso and bearded head are sculptured full-face, the legs are in profile. ”

“ That a chief priest of Ninmar should lead an army against the enemies of Lagash and should send a report of his success to the chief priest of Ningirsu, in which he refers to the share of the spoil to be assigned to the patesi, may be regarded as an indication that the central government of Lagash was not so stable as it once had been under the more powerful members of Ur-Ninâ's dynasty. ”

“ We might, perhaps, see in her Ningirsu's wife Bau, the daughter of Anu, or his sister Ninâ, the goddess of the oracle, to whose service Eannatum was specially devoted, or Gatumdug, the mother of Lagash. But the military standard which accompanies the goddess in the upper scene, and the ends of two darts or javelins [Pg 135] which appear in the same fragment to rise from, or be bound upon, her shoulders, seem to show that the upper goddess, at any rate, is of a warlike character. ”

“ On the Stèle des Vautours the person represented is not a god, but a king, Eannatum, with captured soldiers enclosed in the Net (Shusgal) . What is more, the king in the accompanying inscription, not only designates the Net as that of Enlil, the earth god, but also of Ninharsag, the mother goddess, of Enki, the water god, of Siu, the moon god, and of Shamash, the sun god. All the greater gods were supposed to carry nets: Ningirsu must certainly have possessed one, but neither he or it are depicted here. ”

“ Nearly all are from temples in Matsue or its vicinity; and the Buddhist ones indicate by the sacred words upon them to what particular shu or sect, the family belong—for nearly every soul in this community professes some form of Buddhism as well as the all-dominant and more ancient faith of Shinto. And even one quite ignorant of Japanese ideographs can nearly always distinguish at a glance the formula of the great Nichiren sect from the peculiar appearance of the column of characters composing it, all bristling with long sharp points and banneret zigzags, like an army ”

“ At intervals each raps the low lacquer table before him and bends low, while the big temple drum sounds, the high-priest touches his gong, and slowly, behind the lights and incense clouds of the altar, the gilded doors of the shrine swing open to disclose the precious image of sainted Nichiren. On all sides stand the faithful, extending their rosary-wrapped hands and muttering the Nichirene’s special form of prayer ”

“ The mirror is shown at the shrine of Ise, the sword in a temple near Nagoya, while the stone has [pg 35] always been kept by the Mikado. Ninigi, accompanied by a host of gods, alighted upon a mountain in the province of Satsuma, and his son, Jimmu Tenno, finally made a conquest of Japan.
The Emperor Jimmu is said to have been the first human sovereign in the land. He rowed up through the Inland Sea with his warriors, overcoming and subjugating the savages whom he encountered. ”

“ When the work of Nichiren had been completed, and his realistic pantheism had been able to include {283} within its great receiver and processes of Buddha-making, everything from gods to mud, the circle of doctrine was complete. Kōbō's leaven had now every possible lump in which to do its work. All grades of men in Japan, from the most devout and intellectual to the most ranting and fanatical, could choose their sect. Yet it may be that Buddhism in Nichiren's day was in danger of stagnation and formalism, and needed the revival which this fiery bonze gave it ”

“ The Imperial Prince Midzuha wake represented to the Heir, saying:—"Is not the Great Man's [9] anxiety excessive? At present the Imperial Prince Nakatsu's unprincipled conduct is detested by the officials and the people alike. His own household, moreover, are against him, and think him a brigand. He stands alone, and there is nobody whom he can consult. I knew of his rebellion, but I had not received the commands of the Heir, and was therefore merely indignant at it. Now that I have received an order, why should I make any difficulty about killing the Imperial Prince Nakatsu? ”

“ This place, known as Tai-no-ura—Sea-bream Coast—small and remote as it is, has a fame which extends throughout Japan. For it was the abiding place of the thirteenth-century fisherman-priest Nichiren, who, though he antedated Martin Luther by about two and a half centuries, is sometimes called the Martin Luther of Japanese Buddhism. The Nichiren sect is to this day powerful, having more than five thousand temples and a million and a half adherents. ”

“ They are the Protestants and Presbyterians of the Buddhist religion; firm, hard, and unrelenting in their faith, rejecting all other creeds as false, and zealously proselyting. Nichiren was a great scholar, who, poring over Chinese and Sanscrit sutras, believed himself to have discovered the true and hidden meaning of the sacred books. His labors were colossal, and though exiled, imprisoned, tortured, and condemned to death, he lived to see his followers increasing to a great body of true believers, and himself established as high-priest over the temples of Ikegami. ”

“ Nichiren saw clearly that Japan or Japanese life had been greatly harmed by the pessimistic interpretation of Buddhism, with its thought of Nirvana or peaceful haven far beyond where your absorption of the infinite can only be realised through the virtue of death, a death that does not recognise individuality. ”

“ This road was made two centuries ago, when the Shoguns chose Nikko as their burial place, and these venerable trees have shaded the magnificent funeral trains of the old warriors, and the splendid processions of their successors, who made pilgrimages to the tombs of Iyeyasu and Iyemitsu. In our day, alas, instead of mighty daimios and men-at-arms in coats of mail, or brocaded grandees in gilded palanquins, telegraph-poles, slim, ugly, and utilitarian, impertinently thrust themselves forward before the grand old tree-trunks, and the jinrikisha and the rattle-trap basha take their plebeian way. ”

“ And although a single spark and a high wind are sufficient in combination to obliterate a larger city in one day, great fires are unknown in Matsue, and small ones are of rare occurrence.
The charm is peculiar to the city; and of the Inari in question this tradition exists:
When Naomasu, the grandson of Iyeyasu, first came to Matsue to rule the province, there entered into his presence a beautiful boy, who said: 'I came hither from the home of your august father in Echizen, to protect you from all harm. But I have no dwelling-place, and am staying therefore at the Buddhist temple of Fu-mon-in. ”

“ The greatest event in October is the commemoration of the death of Nichiren, the founder of the Buddhist sect of that name, who died in 1282 at the temple of Honmonji, a few miles south-west of Tokyo. On the evening of the twelfth, the votaries leave Tokyo in parties chanting prayers and beating flat drums; and they sit up all night in the temple or, if they cannot get lodging{304} anywhere, lie down in the extensive temple-grounds. On the thirteenth, the anniversary of Nichiren’s death, mass is held in great state in the temple. ”

“ Yet it is by it, so far at least as the Tsugawa river, that the produce and manufactures of the rich plain of Aidzu, with its numerous towns, and of a very large interior district, must find an outlet at Niigata. In defiance of all modern ideas, it goes straight up and straight down hill, at a gradient that I should be afraid to hazard a guess at, and at present it is a perfect quagmire, into which great stones have been thrown, some of which have subsided edgewise, and others have disappeared altogether. ”

“ Futen, the god of winds, has a grass-green skin, two horny toes to each foot, and a big bag over his shoulders. A fine heavy-roofed red gate-way and bell-tower distinguish another cluster of temples in this still forest nook, their altars covered with gilded images. One open shrine, which should be the resort of jinrikisha men, is dedicated to a muscular red deity, to whom votaries offer up a pair of sandals, beseeching him for vigorous legs. ”

“ They consider themselves as in the only true church, and their succession to the priesthood, the only valid one. The strict Nichiren churchmen will not have the Shintō gods in their household shrines, nor will they intermarry among the sects. The Nichirenites are also very fond of controversy, and their language in speaking of other creeds and sects is not that characteristic of the gentle Buddha. ”