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You are in the park or pleasure garden attached to the Shinto temple of Sumiyoshi in the southern suburbs of Osaka.  The city proper lies ahead.
These stately lanterns are only a few among hundreds of such monuments erected in different parts of the temple grounds as votive offerings by the devout.  It is a common custom here in Japan.  Almost without exception every temple has such a garden, the favorite resort of the people on holidays and festival days, and people give lanterns like those to the temple grounds just as in western countries they might give stained-glass windows or sculptured fonts or alter vessels to a Christian church.  In that second lantern you can see into the open space where a lamp is set on festival occasions when the place is illuminated.

The general shape of the lanterns is,as you see, about the same - public opinion in matters of this sort is conservative - still, on the whole, there my be wide variety in details.  The carved inscriptions record the pious dedication of each one to the Gods of the Sea.  Many of these offerings were made by men whose lives and fortunes were associated with sea and shipping.  The temple to which they belong - only a few rods from here - is said to have been founded about seventeen hundreds years ago by the Empress Jingo Kogo on her return from the conquest of Korea, in gratitude to the Sea-Gods for her safe voyages.  (It was in consequence of that early conquest of Korea, you remember, that Japan became familiar with the doctrines of Buddhism, learned how to use a written alphabet and made a start in what are now her most celebrated art-industries.)

These urchins are such as are always playing about the temple grounds; the men are coolies of the respectable working class.

From Notes of Travel, No.8, copyright 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.


Beautiful Stone Lanterns at Osaka, Japan.
Belles Lanternes de Pierre à Osaka, Japon.
Schöne Steinlaterne in Osaka, Japan.
Bonitas Linternas de Piedra en Osaka, Japón.
Vackra stenlyktor vid Osaka, Japan.
Красивые каменные фонари въ томъ Осакѣ, Японія.