The Sparrow’s Buddhist Awakening

In his preface to Kokin wakashū (Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern, ca. 905), an imperial anthology of Japanese poetry, Ki no Tsurayuki (872–945) famously compared the sounds of birds and animals to human verse, declaring that “when we hear the twittering of the bush warbler in the blossoms and the voices of the frogs in the water, we realize that every living being has its song.”1 The Sparrow’s Buddhist Awakening (Suzume no hosshin), also known as The Tale of Kotōda (Kotōda monogatari), imaginatively extends Tsurayuki’s analogy by providing an illustrated record of the sad songs of more than a dozen birds and a single snake in the thirty-one-syllable waka form. The story is dominated by its poetry, much as The War of the Twelve Animals is. Even the michiyuki travelogue and other prose passages are replete with poetic wordplay. As the plucky sparrow-protagonist Kotōda wanders through the land as a Buddhist monk in the latter part of his tale, he seems to be cast in the role of an itinerant poet-priest in the manner of Saigyō (1118–1190), the famed waka poet.

As its title indicates, The Sparrow’s Buddhist Awakening is also a religious fable, describing for readers how the devastating loss of a child inspired an avian husband and wife to take monastic vows. The work is playfully Amidist in its orientation, even claiming at its end that it was actually Kotōda who invented “nenbutsu dancing,” a Pure Land devotional practice historically associated with the thirteenth-century Priest Ippen and his Jishū sect of Pure Land Buddhism. In its text and illustrations, the work depicts Kotōda’s transformation from lay to monastic and, somewhat more subtly, from animal to human (the latter being a necessary stage on a non-human being’s path to enlightenment). In the first part of the story, Kotōda is portrayed as a bird fluttering in the trees; but upon taking monastic vows, he is shown in traditional Buddhist garb, and he walks instead of flies. By abandoning secular life, Kotōda seems to attain partial release from the animal realm, achieving a higher level of existence as a quasi-human monk, which he appears to recognize in the poem that he composes at Kiyomizu Temple.

Although the author of the story is unknown, an inscription on the paulownia box containing the scrolls from which this translation is derived attributes the calligraphy to Shin Naishi no Suke, the daughter of Asukai Masayasu (1436–1509). Alternatively, in his travel record Kiryo manroku (Chronicle of Peregrinations, 1802), Kyokutei Bakin suggested that the same scrolls should be credited to Kōtō no Naishi, whom he identified as one of the poets represented in the renga (linked-verse) anthology Shinsen Tsukubashū (New Tsukuba Collection, 1495).2 The Sparrow’s Buddhist Awakening was widely reproduced in the late Muromachi (1337–1573) and early Edo (1600–1867) periods, and it survives in multiple versions with major variations in the number and contents of its poems.

At a time not so long ago, something peculiar happened in Katayama Village in the Miya district of Yamato Province. There was an especially cheeky little fellow by the name of Kotōda the Sparrow. Seeking out a proper spouse, he told her of his love and sealed a bond with her for the rest of their lives and beyond. They shared a profound affection, like lovebirds with wings as one.

One spring, the wife found herself unusually out of sorts. Kotōda was distressed, but when her condition turned out to be nothing other than the pains of pregnancy, he, too, was overjoyed. He immediately built a birthing nest. The days eventually passed, and then, without incident, there was a child to raise.

Once when the couple was out seeking sustenance, a snake mercilessly swallowed their little bird. Never imagining what had occurred, they came home with some food. But when they looked around, their baby was gone. “What could have happened?” they cried. Their shock and confusion were beyond compare.

Thinking that it was the snake’s doing, Kotōda addressed him, saying, “Listen here, Lord Snake! For what crime have you sought to repay us by murdering our child? You, too, have been blessed with life, and among all living creatures, are there any that don’t love their children? Out of all the fifty-two species, you’re the most odious in shape and form, which, indeed, seems to be the result of your wretched karma. Nevertheless, this land of ours is a Buddhist realm, and when you happen to have been born here, wouldn’t you want to establish some kind of karmic link to achieve buddhahood this time around? Even if you haven’t planted many good roots, if you were to make a single-hearted appeal, why wouldn’t you be able to attain buddhahood by means of the other power of the Original Vows?3 But until you do, if you just go on living and even adding to your karmic burden by killing things, when will you ever obtain release? It’s pathetic!

“You may look down on us, but our bodies are built for flight, so if I were to tell Lord Stork, who can soar up and around in an instant, how far do you think you’d get? But it wouldn’t do any good. Even with you gone, our little one could hardly come back. And what’s more, due to the sin of having you killed, I’d fall even deeper into the Three Evil Realms.4 Then, when would I ever obtain release? But if my wife and I were to take a lesson from our loss, seizing this chance to shave our heads, wrap ourselves in the dark-dyed robes of the clergy, and seek a link to enlightenment, we’d certainly be reborn in the Pure Land Paradise, where we could share a single lotus dais with our baby. When I think of it that way, I don’t bear you any malice. Goodbye, Lord Snake.”

In its shame and its fear of the stork, the snake was at a loss for words. It simply flicked its tongue and crawled off into the grass. As it left, the snake recited a poem:

iyashiku mo	Though despicable,
kuchi yue haji wo	it’s to fill my mouth
kaku bakari	that I disgrace myself.
ukina wo nagasu	Oh, the misery of being
mi koso tsurakere	such a scandalous beast!5

The sparrow Kotōda and his wife berate the murderous snake. (From Suzume no hosshin, courtesy of the Suntory Museum of Art)

Now the sparrow couple spent the rest of the day and all that night lingering around the place where their nest had been. Yet the grief of that tragic separation! In a daze, they had no words to express their loss. They could only weep pitifully. All the other birds heard the news, and feeling very sorry for the sparrows, they each composed a poem in mourning. The Bush Warbler Lesser Captain recited:

suzumeko no	Hearing of the death
naki zo to kikeba	of your sparrow child—
yosonagara	though not my loss,
koe mo oshimazu	I cry with sudden sorrow,
ne koso nakarure	holding nothing back.6

Kotōda replied:

omoiki ya	Did I ever think
imasara kakaru	that now I might grieve
nageki shite	like this—
yoso no tamoto wo	so much as to soak
nurasubeshi to wa	a stranger’s sleeves?

Shinzaemon the Chickadee composed:

awaresa wo	Hearing such sadness,
kiku ni namida no	would that my own tears
susumebaya	flow freely,
itodo ukine no	adding yet another voice
kazu zo masareru	to the chorus of laments.7

Kotōda replied:

tare tote mo	What person,
shijū wa kaku to	cognizant of his life from
shirinagara	beginning to end,
ima towarubeki	could be unaware that now
mi to wa shirazu ya	was his time to be consoled?8

Kotōda exchanges poems with the White Heron Commander of the Gate Guards. (From Suzume no hosshin, courtesy of the Suntory Museum of Art)

The Shrine Crow Assistant Chamberlain composed:

chihayaburu	Since I am one
kami ni tsukōru	who serves the mighty gods,
mi ni areba	even if I come and go,
yukite kō to mo	how could I not stop
towanu mono kana	to pay my sad respects?

Kotōda replied:

towarete ya	Even consoled,
nakanaka sode wo	I’ll still soak my sleeves
nurasuran	in streams of tears,
waga kotonoha wo	my laments, like leaves,
yoso ni shirarete	all known to others.

The White Heron Commander of the Gate Guards composed:

ada nari to	For me, too,
waga mi no ue mo	the snake is a foe,
shirasagi no	which is why
yoso no aware ni	I wet my sleeves
sode nurasu kana	for a sorrow not my own.9

Kotōda replied:

kotowari wo	Though I thought
yomo shirasagi to	I couldn’t see the sense of it,
omoishi ni	White Heron,
aware wo toishi	how kind of you
koto zo yasashiki	to inquire of my grief!10

Nakatsukasa the Pheasant composed:

mi ni tsumite	Weighted with sorrow,
omoi koso yare	I send my thoughts out to you.
tarachine ga	How sad
sa koso wakare no	must be the parents
kanashikaruran	who have lost a child!

Kotōda replied:

nagekite mo	Though mourning
kaerubeki ni wa	won’t bring our baby back,
aranedomo	it’s still
sasuga ni oshiki	so very hard
ko no wakare kana	to bid a child farewell.

Shinzaemon the Heavy-Drinking Bulbul composed:11

ōkata wa	Everyone calls me
hiyodori jōgo to	the Heavy-Drinking
iwaruredo	Bulbul,
kono nageki shite	but in this grief
sake mo nomarezu	I can’t drink my wine.

Kotōda replied:

hito shirenu	Though I thought it was
nageki to koso wa	a grief that
omoishi ni	no one else could know,
samo toridori ni	how the birds all offer me
towarenuru kana	their respective sympathies!12

Nakatsukasa the Crane composed:

tare tote mo	Now I understand
ko yue yamiji ni	how anyone, for a child,
mayou zo to	can wander lost
omoishirarete	on paths of darkness.
nururu sode kana	Ah, my teary sleeves!13

Kotōda replied:

adashi yo to	Since I am one
omoinazorau	who thinks of this world
mi ni areba	as a fleeting realm,
sa made mo ware wa	I really haven’t grieved
nagekazarikeri	to quite that extent!

Hachirōzaemon the Bullfinch composed:

kono koto wo	People would
uso to ya hito no	surely think this
omouran	a bullfinch lie—
namida no fuchi ni	that I would sink and drown
shizumu waga mi wo	in a pool of tears.14

Kotōda replied:

nanigoto mo	In this world
uso to omoishi	in which I thought that
yo no naka ni	everything
kono koto bakari	was a bullfinch lie,
makoto narikeri	your words alone are true.

The Wild Goose Deputy of Computation composed:

suzume-ko no	The sparrow-child has
aki no inaba no	disappeared like the dew,
matazu shite	without awaiting
kiekemu tsuyu no	the ripe rice of autumn.
mi koso tsurakere	Oh the pain of a fleeting life!

Kotōda replied:

yo no naka wa	Though I know
kari no yadori to	that this world
shirinagara	is a temporary dwelling,
aki hitokoro wa	I’ll still miss that dew-like life,
oshiki tsuyu no mi	especially in the autumn.15

The Rooster Deputy of Music composed:

tarachine no	Such grieving
wakare wo sa nomi	for parents
nageku kana	who have lost a child!
ada naru yo to wa	Before now I never knew
kanete shirazu ya	what an uncertain world this is.

Kotōda exchanges poems with the Rooster Deputy of Music. (From Suzume no hosshin, courtesy of the Suntory Museum of Art)

Kotōda replied:

omoiki ya	Did I ever think
ada naru yo to wa	this parting would really
shirinagara	be so hard,
sasuga ni oshiki	knowing as I did the
ko no wakare to wa	uncertainty of the world?

Shinroku the Quail said, “I feel so sorry for you, particularly since we’re birds of a feather.” And he composed:

omowaji to	Though I’d decided
omoedo itodo	not to feel, I’m affected
akugarete	all the more—
samo hoshikanuru	how difficult it is
waga tamoto kana	to dry my sleeves!

Kotōda replied:

nakaji to wa	It seems there’s
iu mo nageki no	no one to tell us
kotoba zo to	that declaring
omoishirasuru	“I won’t cry”
hito wa araji na	is itself a lament!

The Cuckoo Cloud-Well Commander composed:

yosonagara	Since I’ve heard
kimi ga aware wo	about your sadness
kiku kara ni	secondhand,
waga naku ne wo ba	will anyone recognize
hito ya shiruran	the grief within my cries?

Kotōda replied:

iza saraba	In that case,
namida kuraben	Cuckoo, let us
hototogisu	compare our tears.
ware mo ukiyo ni	I, too, can only cry my cry
ne wo nomi zo naku	in this suffering world.

The Mandarin Duck Ginkgo Commander composed:

izuko wo mo	I thought that
mina oshidori to	everyone everywhere
omoishi ni	was a mandarin duck,
wakareshi toki no	for the waters of parting
mizu ya musubitsu	take shape as tears!16

Kotōda replied:

mizudori no	To hear your kindness,
nasake wo kikeba	you water bird,
tanomoshi ya	is heartening indeed.
kusaba no kage ni	Now dwell in the shade
yadore waga ko yo	of the leaves, my child!

Kotōda addressed his wife, saying, “When I think hard about this world, it seems like a vision or a dream. Even if we were to live out our lives in it, what pleasure could we have? Indeed, if we were to compare ourselves to other things, we’re like small boats that never dock at the shore or duckweed drifting off the jutting coast. Our lives are as uncertain as the dew atop a morning glory, vanishing before the twilight. If we cling to our fleeting lives and go on living in our self-contented ways, we’ll be bound for the evil realms, where we’ll be trapped for lives and ages to come. I think I’d like to take a lesson from what’s happened, enter the monastic path, and pray for our baby in the afterworld. Then I, too, could escape from the cycle of birth and death. You’re young, so you should make some kind of home for yourself in the lay world and never forget our child! When I think that our pledge to tread the same path through every sort of fire or flood was all in vain … that in this world in which those who meet are sure to part, and those who are born are sure to die, I should go on living out my days with you as my heart would wish … it’s just too awful!”

Amid her tears, the wife recited a single verse:

futa oya wo	For the two parents
mata chirijiri ni	now to be torn asunder—
nasu koto mo	is this, too, because
kakego yue naru	of the child: a hanging tray
tamakushige kana	inside a jeweled comb box?17

Kotōda replied:

futa oya no	For the two parents
makoto no michi ni	to enter the True Path—
iru koto mo	this, too, is because
kakego yue naru	of the child: a hanging tray
tamakushige kana	inside a jeweled comb box.

Kotōda and his wife converse. (From Suzume no hosshin, courtesy of the Suntory Museum of Art)

After a while, the wife spoke: “It’s just as you say. Even if we mourn, it won’t bring our baby back, of course. I’ve loved you ever so much, but I’m deeply grateful for this decision you’ve made. It’s a joy within my sorrow. Those who are born in the morning are taken away by the evening wind, and although we may gaze on the moon at night, it’s concealed by the clouds at dawn. In this heartbreaking world in which the morning dew won’t await the dusk, to set our hearts on anything is to invite chagrin. The ties between a husband and a wife transcend the present world, so even if this bond of ours is weak, we’ll certainly be born on a single lotus in the world to come. Farewell, then, and goodbye.” The wife flew away. But owing to the inevitable sorrow of parting, she returned and composed:

sakidataba	If you die first,
kusa no kage nite	then wait for me a while
mate shibashi	in the shady grass.
ware sakidataba	And if I go first,
machi mo koso seme	I’ll wait for you, too.

Kotōda replied:

tare tote mo	Who at all
sakidatsu mi zo to	ought to think in terms of
omoubeshi	dying first?
yume miru hodo mo	Is this world any more
nokorubeki yo ka	lasting than a dream?

Aided by the owl-monk Son’amidabu, Kotōda receives the tonsure. (From Suzume no hosshin, courtesy of the Suntory Museum of Art)

In tears, the sparrows flew their separate ways. The wife sought out a hermitage at “Nun’s Point” Amagasaki, where, at the age of nineteen, she took religious vows. She chanted the nenbutsu with single-hearted devotion and eventually attained her long-standing desire for rebirth in the Pure Land.18

Kotōda ascended Amida Peak in the same province, where he sought out the abode of a priestly owl by the name of Son’amidabu and stated that he wished to take monastic vows. Moved by the sparrow’s aspiration, the master called him in and said that there should be no difficulty. “The benefits of becoming a monk are enormous,” he explained, “because to do so is superior even to making offerings to the eighty thousand buddhas.” The owl conferred the verse about “transmigrating through the Three Worlds.”19 With that, in the twenty-third year since his birth, Kotōda finally came to uphold the monastic precepts. The owl shaved his head and gave him the Buddhist name of Jakuamidabu.20 It was all most excellent!

Kotōda stayed on Amida Peak for some ten days, after which he took leave of the priestly owl and went to visit Mount Kōya.21 From there, he traveled to the Kumano Shrines, followed by a tour of the western provinces as far as Tsukushi.22 Next, he visited Zenkōji Temple in Shinano Province. He made his way on to Kamakura, after which he wandered the six northern provinces. After that, he traveled to the capital.23

In the western mountains, Kotōda visited Atago, Takao, and Togano’o. He went to the temple on the Saga Plain,24 where he bowed down and prayed to the sacred image of Shakyamuni carved by the craftsman-deity Viśvakarman. He traveled on to Tenryūji Temple and Rinsenji Temple, known for its waterwheel spinning through this suffering world. From atop the bridge at the Ōi River, where crowds of people come and go, he stared out at the boulder from which the lady Yokobue drowned her wretched self in longing for Takiguchi Tokiyori.25 He was all the more moved to see it for himself.

At “stormy” Mount Arashi, bane of blossoms, Kotōda visited Hōrinji Temple, where he prayed for his fate in the world to come. He bowed down and prayed at Iwakura, Yoshimine, and other temples and buddha halls on peaks and in mountain valleys. He marveled at the sight of Mount Oshio, where Munesada once lived in seclusion, mourning the loss of his former emperor,26 and he crossed the Katsura River where cormorant fishers pole their boats. Since quitting the secular world, his heart had never been so pure as he made his way to “Pure Water” Kiyomizu Temple, deeply inspired by the Kiyomizu Kannon’s great merciful vow to save sentient beings.27

The place was more splendid than he had heard. With its soaring peak, Mount Otowa was suffused with the fragrance of the temple cherry blossoms borne on the spring breeze. Their petals lit on his monkish sleeves like a dusting of snow, lovely beyond the power of words to express or the mind to conceive. Gazing out at the trees, he composed a single verse:

inishie wa	Though in the past
hana fumichirasu	I was one to trample and
mi naredomo	scatter the blossoms,
ima wa kozue wo	these days I view
yoso ni koso mire	the treetops from afar.

Kotōda travels to Kiyomizu Temple. (From Suzume no hosshin, courtesy of the Suntory Museum of Art)

Upon leaving Kiyomizu Temple, Kotōda bowed down and prayed at Sōrinji Temple at Washino’o Sacred Eagle Peak.28 The bell at Chōrakuji Temple in the deepening night echoed with the sound of impermanence, while in the Gion Forest, with his head pillowed on the root of a pine, he passed the endless hours until dawn. Setting out from the woods, he came to Awataguchi, meeting point for strangers and acquaintances alike,29 and then to Mount Kachō, the “flowery summit” whose name is the same in winter, too. He bowed down and prayed at Hokkeji Temple; at “middle-of-the-mountains” Nakayama Temple, which is not in fact on a peak; and at Kamo Shrine, whose “righteous” Tadasu Deity rectifies the people’s lies.

He continued on to “deep mud” Mizoro Pond, the bottom of which is actually pure, and then to Mount Kurama of the setting moon, where he earnestly prayed to the great merciful Tamonten to lead him to the Pure Land after death.30 Returning to the capital, he made his way to Kitano Shrine, where he wholeheartedly prayed, “Hail, great sacred powerful heavenly deity! I ask that you please fulfill the requests in my heart!” It was toward the middle of the third month, and looking around the shrine grounds, he saw the tops of young and old trees alike enshrouded in clouds of blossoms. Pushing through snowy drifts in the shade of branches, he lost his way out. As he left the shrine, he composed:

kokoro seyo	Watch out,
kono miyashiro no	you glorious blossoms
hanazakari	around the shrine!
kaze no toga naru	The vengeance of the wind
oimatsu no kami	comes from the old pine god.

As Kotōda was wandering beyond the stables of the Right Imperial Guards, making his way through the Second Avenue region west of Uchino, a passing storm filled the sky with clouds. No rain fell, but in the manner of such storms, the sun was obscured. Because he had no fondness for any place over another, he was taken by a desire to build himself a hermitage there. Remembering that those who shelter in the shade of the same tree or drink from the same stream are linked by the bonds of former lives, he fashioned a hideaway in which to dwell for just a little while. But as he lived there from one day to the next, the year eventually came to an end, and he was still reluctant to leave. Looking in the sutras, he saw that there was no place where a person might abide. Still, he spent the rest of his life there, and since that time, those woods have been called the “Sparrow’s Forest.”

Now Kotōda—Jakuamidabu—made it his Buddhist practice to perform what is known as the dancing nenbutsu.31 He did so with unwavering devotion until the age of one hundred. At the time of his death, he maintained right concentration and achieved his long-held desire for Great Pure Land Rebirth.

Although sparrows may live to be one hundred, the practice of dancing to the nenbutsu began with Jakuamidabu. As you can see from this story, he behaved in just the proper way until death, which is why I have set down his tale in these bird tracks of letters.32 Thus even birds can eschew this suffering world and hanker in their hearts for the Pure Land. In the face of their example, we humans should be ashamed! We should all do our best to embrace the Buddhist teachings and seek out ties to enlightenment.

TRANSLATION AND INTRODUCTION BY KELLER KIMBROUGH

 

 

The translation and illustrations are from the two-scroll Suzume no hosshin picture scrolls (sixteenth century) in the collection of the Suntory Museum of Art (former Akagi Bunko emaki), typeset in Yokoyama Shigeru and Matsumoto Ryūshin, eds., Muromachi jidai monogatari taisei (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1979), 7:588–97. The first paragraph of the translation is from an early-Edo-period picture scroll in the Daitōkyū Kinen Bunko archive, typeset on page 581 of the same volume.

  1. Ozawa Masao, ed., Kokin wakashū, Nihon koten bungaku zenshū 7 (Tokyo: Shōgakukan, 1971), 49.

  2. Matsumoto Ryūshin and Akai Tatsurō, “Sakuhin kaisetsu,” in Otogizōshi, Shirīzu taiyō 19, Taiyō koten to emaki shirīzu 3 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1979), 147c.

  3. The Original Vows (hongan) are Amida (Skt. Amitābha) Buddha’s vows guaranteeing the possibility of rebirth in his Pure Land Paradise. The other power (tariki) is the power of Amida Buddha, which functions independently of any unenlightened being’s power, practice, or achievement.

  4. The Three Evil Realms are the realms of hell, animals, and hungry ghosts. As a bird, Kotōda already occupies the animal realm.

  5. In Japanese, the word kuchi (mouth) combines with the syllables na wo (in ukina wo) to suggest kuchinawa, an old word for “snake.”

  6. The word naki has the triple meaning of “birdsong,” “weeping,” and “absence/death.” Alternatively translated, the first two lines might read, “Hearing the chirps / of your sparrow child—.”

  7. The poem contains the word “sparrow” (susume / suzume) embedded in its third line.

  8. Kotōda’s reply echoes the preceding verse by employing the word shijū (beginning to end) to suggest shijūkara (chickadee).

  9. The word ada can mean both “enemy” and “fleeting/evanescent.” In addition, shirasagi (white heron) suggests shira[zu] (not knowing), so the first three lines might be translated, “I did not know / that for me, too, / life could be so fleeting.”

10. As in the previous poem, shirasagi (white heron) suggests shira[zu] (not knowing).

11. Shinzaemon is identified as a hiyodori-jōgo, a name that puns on hiyodori-jōgo (Solanum lyratum, a vine-like plant native to East and Southeast Asia), and hiyodori (bulbul) and jōgo (heavy drinker). The plant is said to be so-named because of the bulbul’s fondness for its berries.

12. The poem contains a pun on toridori, which means both “birds” and “respective.”

13. The crane’s poem alludes to poem 1102 in Gosen wakashū (Later Collection, 951), attributed to Fujiwara no Kanesuke (877–933):

hito no oya no	Though a parent’s heart
kokoro wa yami ni	may not be mired
aranedomo	in darkness,
ko wo omou michi ni	one still wanders lost
madoinuru ka na	on paths of love for a child.

14. Both this poem and its reply contain plays on uso, which means both “bullfinch” and “prevarication.”

15. Kotōda’s reply contains a play on kari, which means both “wild goose” and “temporary.”

16. In the poem’s second line, the word oshidori (mandarin duck) contains the word oshi (hard to relinquish), which suggests the pains of separation. Alternatively translated, the first part of the poem might read, “I thought that / everyone everywhere / begrudged their losses.” The word mizu (water) is both a metonym for “tears” and an associated word (engo) echoing oshidori.

17. The word futa (two) is a homonym of futa (lid), which is an associated word (engo) anticipating tamakushige (jeweled comb box). Also, kakego (hanging tray) contains the word ko/go (child).

18. The nenbutsu is the ritual invocation of the name of Amida Buddha.

19. This verse is traditionally recited when a person takes the tonsure.

20. Jakuamidabu can be written with characters that mean either “Sparrow Amida Buddha” or “Shakyamuni Amida Buddha.” The inclusion of Amida’s name in Kotōda’s own indicates Kotōda’s devotion to the Pure Land cult. The owl’s name, Son’amidabu, means “Reverend Amida Buddha.”

21. Mount Kōya is the headquarters of the Shingon school of esoteric Buddhism.

22. Tsukushi is an old name for the island of Kyūshū. The three Kumano shrines are located on the Kii Peninsula, relatively near Mount Kōya.

23. The Kyoto capital, not far from where Kotōda first set out.

24. This is Seiryōji Temple, also known as the Saga Shakadō (Shakyamuni Hall of the Saga Plain). The phrase “western mountains” refers to the mountains immediately to the west of Kyoto.

25. According to the otogizōshi Yokobue sōshi (The Tale of Yokobue) and other sources, the seventeen-year-old Yokobue drowned herself in the Ōi River after her lover, Saitō Takiguchi Tokiyori, left her for the priesthood.

26. According to the noh play Munesada, the courtier Yoshimine Munesada (815–890), better known today as the poet-monk Henjō, renounced his secular life at Mount Oshio in the Ōhara district of the capital upon the death of Emperor Ninmyō (808–850, r. 833–850).

27. The Kiyomizu Kannon is the statue of the bodhisattva Kannon at Kiyomizu Temple in the eastern foothills of Kyoto.

28. Washino’o, written with characters that mean “eagle’s tail,” is an area in the Higashiyama district of Kyoto. It is here identified with Sacred Eagle Peak (Skt. Gṛdhrakūṭa-parvata; J. Ryōjusen), where Shakyamuni is said to have preached the Lotus Sutra.

29. The author puns on the place-name Awataguchi, which contains a form of the verb afu (to meet).

30. Tamonten is another name for Bishamonten (also Bishamon, Skt. Vaiśravaṇa), one of the four Buddhist guardian deities. A famous statue of Bishamonten is enshrined at Kurama Temple in the mountains north of Kyoto.

31. The dancing nenbutsu is a kind of ecstatic dancing to the ritual incantation of the name of Amida Buddha, popularized by Priest Ippen (1234–1289) and his Jishū sect of Pure Land Buddhism.

32. The author puns on the phrase tori no ato, which means both “bird tracks” and “writing” (because written characters are said to resemble the footprints of birds).