The Cat who went to Heaven, by Elizabeth Coatsworth

This book was another interestingly weird book.  It was written in 1930 about a Japanese artist.  He is very poor and has a housekeeper who tries to get as much food as she can every day to keep them from starving. One day she comes home without food and with a cat in her basket.  He is angry at first and then comes to enjoy the company of the cat.

The priest of the temple comes to him to ask him to paint a picture of the death of Buddha.  The artist spends days imagining the animals who came to visit the dying Buddha to get his blessing.  Apparently, the cat never  accepted the teachings of Buddha so it is said that a cat cannot enter heaven and they are evil and of the devil.  Now, there is a Buddhist teaching I can go along with.  Sorry, to any cat lovers, but I do not enjoy cats at all.  So, the cat watches him paint all the animals, but not a cat.  The cat seems to be expressing concern about this.  The artist seems to sense thoughts from the cat.  The very last day, he thinks he is done, and the cat is so sad.  The artist decides to paint the cat in the picture knowing that he would not receive his fortune if the temple did not accept his painting. After he painted the cat the cat, named Good Fortune, falls over dead "too happy to live another minute."

This painting was going to change his life.  They had offered him a relatively large sum of money.  They gave him an advance and they bought some clothes and they ate three regular meals.  So, he paints the cat anyway and expects them to burn the painting.  The priest tells him that he must burn it and another painting will have to hang in the temple.  The housekeeper cries because she thinks it is all her fault since she brought the cat home.  The artist does not regret what he has done because he sensed the joy it brought to the cat.  The next day he is awakened by shouts of a miracle occurring.  He visits the temple and his picture is hanging there.  But miraculously it had changed.  Where he had painted the cat, the last animal in line to visit Buddha, it was pure white silk.  Buddha, whom he had painted lying down, now had an arm reaching out.  It was reaching for the cat which was near him bowing in "happy adoration".

The story was nice, he made a sacrifice to make someone else happy, no matter the monetary consequence.  I really think this was just a cat lover who didn't agree with the Buddhist teaching that cats can't go to heaven, so she decided to rewrite Buddhist theology.