Chapter 3

THE KAMAKURA PERIOD

The Kamakura period began in 1183 with the establishment of the bakufu, or military government, in Kamakura, near present-day Tokyo, by Minamoto Yoritomo, the leader of the Minamoto (Genji) clan, which defeated the Heike (Taira) in 1185. The Genpei war between the Genji and the Heike is vividly recounted in the epic narrative The Tales of the Heike, part of which is translated here. After the end of the Genpei war, a struggle broke out between Yoritomo and his younger brother Yoshitsune, a prominent Minamoto military leader, who was killed in 1189 by Fujiwara no Yasuhira, a general of the Fujiwara clan in Ōshū (northeast Honshū). Yoritomo, in turn, destroyed the Fujiwara forces, thus ending all major domestic armed conflict. The legends surrounding Yoshitsune can be found in The Story of Yoshitsune (Gikeiki).

After Yoritomo’s death, control of the bakufu passed from the Minamoto to the Hōjō family, led by Hōjō Masako (1157–1225), the wife of Yoritomo and the mother of Minamoto Sanetomo (1192–1219), the third shogun and a noted waka poet. A key political turning point in the Kamakura period was the Jōkyū rebellion in 1221, when, in an attempt to regain direct imperial power from the military, the retired emperor GoToba (r. 1183–1198, 1180–1239) attacked the Hōjō but was soundly defeated and exiled to the small and remote island of Oki. The Jōkyū rebellion revealed the weakness of the nobility and the emperor and the growing strength of the samurai class, whose power had risen in the late Heian period. GoToba’s exile to Oki is nostalgically recounted in The Clear Mirror (Masukagami, 1338–1376), a vernacular historical chronicle, in a section translated in this book.

The Kamakura period ended in 1333 with the defeat of Hōjō Takatoki (1303–1333) and the Hōjō clan by Emperor GoDaigo (r. 1318–1339, 1288–1339), who gained power briefly, for two years, during the Kenmu restoration (1333–1336), before being defeated by another military clan, the Ashikaga. GoDaigo retreated to Yoshino, south of the capital, and established the Southern Court and the beginning of the rival court system known as the Northern and Southern Courts period (1336–1392). The political career of Emperor GoDaigo and his failed attempt at imperial restoration is one of the focal points of the Taiheiki (Chronicle of Great Peace, 1340s–1371), a major military chronicle whose highlights are included here.

The Kamakura period marks the beginning of the so-called medieval period, a four-hundred-year span from the fall of the Heike (Taira) clan in 1185 to the battle of Sekigahara in 1600, when Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616) triumphed over his rivals and unified the country under his control. Sometimes the beginning of the medieval period is pushed back as far as the beginning of the Heian period (794–1185), and sometimes the end of the medieval period is pushed forward as far as the end of the Tokugawa (Edo) period (1600–1867). Generally, however, the Kamakura period (1183–1333), the Northern and Southern Courts (Nanbokuchō) period (1336–1392), and the Muromachi period (1392–1573), when warrior society came to the fore, are considered to be the three main historical divisions of the medieval period.

The Muromachi period extended from the rule by the Ashikaga clan, based in Kyoto (in the Muromachi quarter), through the end of the Northern and Southern Courts era to the defeat of the fifteenth shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki by Oda Nobunaga in 1573. The latter half of the Muromachi period is referred to as the Warring States (Sengoku) period, from the beginning of the Ōnin war (1467–1477) to 1573, when Oda Nobunaga destroyed the Ashikaga bakufu and unified the country. The Azuchi-Momoyama period (1573–1598) refers to the short period of time when two powerful generals, first Oda Nobunaga and then Toyotomi Hideyoshi, gained national power before eventually succumbing to Tokugawa Ieyasu at the battle of Sekigahara in 1600. The most striking cultural and literary changes occurred between the early medieval period, from the fall of the Heike clan in 1185 to the fall of the Kamakura bakufu in 1333, and the late medieval period, from the Kenmu restoration onward, with a particularly significant break after the Ōnin war that forced the aristocratic culture, centered in the capital for many centuries, to disperse to the provinces.

THE SAMURAI AND LITERATURE

One of the principal aspects of medieval society was the emergence of a warrior government and culture. As a result of the Hōgen (1156) and Heiji (1159) rebellions, the Heike (Taira), a military clan, displaced the Fujiwara clan which had dominated the throne and the court for most of the Heian period. If the ascendance of the Heike is considered the beginning of the warrior rule then the medieval period begins with the first year of Hōgen (1156). But the Heike elite emulated the Fujiwara regents before them, continuing the court bureaucratic system based in Kyoto, and they soon were defeated by the Genji (Minamoto), who established a military government in Kamakura, between 1183 and 1185. Minamoto Yoritomo’s establishment of a bakufu in Kamakura resulted in two political centers—a court government in Kyoto and a military government in the east—thereby laying the foundation for a system of dual cultures.

During the medieval period, the bakufu in the east gradually increased its control to the point that the court government in Kyoto lost its political power. Seeing their fortunes waning, the aristocrats in Kyoto occasionally tried to restore the imperial authority of the court-centered government. But the Jōkyū rebellion in 1221 ended in failure, and the Kenmu restoration lasted for only two years. The extended struggle during the Northern and Southern Courts period, when the imperial court was split, eventually ended these attempts and dispersed the nobility, with the political power permanently shifting to the military. The result in the Muromachi period was the full emergence of a samurai-based society and culture.

As the social and economic status of the samurai rose, their cultural activities multiplied as well. During the early medieval period, the samurai were drawn to aristocratic culture and the culture of the capital, which they tried to imitate. Although there were very few samurai waka poets during the Heian period, their number steadily increased during the medieval period. The most prominent was Minamoto Sanetomo (1192–1219), the third Kamakura bakufu shogun (1203–1219), who took an interest in Man’yōshū-style poetry. In the late medieval period, scholars and poets of samurai origin such as Imagawa Ryōshun (1326–1414), Tō no Tsuneyori (1401–1484), and Hosokawa Yūsai (1534–1610) became prominent, and a number of renga masters had samurai origins.

The first major works of “warrior” literature during the medieval period are the military chronicles (gunki-mono), which were organized chronologically and focused on the lives and families of samurai. Relatively few samurai actually helped produce these chronicles, however. More often, they were the work of fallen or lesser aristocrats (often recluses) or Buddhist priests, who gave military narratives like The Tales of the Heike a heavily Buddhistic and aristocratic coloring. Likewise, in the latter half of the medieval period, the founder of kōwakamai (ballad drama), Momonoi Kōwakamaru (1393–1470), the scion of a warrior family, gave kōwakamai a samurai flavor. The other playwrights of nō drama and kōwakamai were not samurai, although samurai did form an important part of the audience.

THE SPREAD OF BUDDHISM AND THE WAY OF THE GODS

The Genpei war and subsequent military struggles left their survivors with a deep sense of the impermanence of the world. For followers of Buddhism, the situation was so apocalyptic that it signaled for them the latter age of the Buddhist law (mappō). Buddhism promised worldly benefits (protection, rewards in this life) as well as future salvation, a sense of sustenance amid turmoil and uncertainty. Buddhism had entered Japan from China as early as the sixth century and, especially Tendai and Shingon Buddhism, had become a central institution in Heian aristocratic society, but not until the late Heian period did it begin to penetrate commoner society at large.

Innovative priests who had become disillusioned with the older, established Buddhist institutions in the capitals of Nara and Kyoto created new Buddhist schools that appealed to commoners, who often were unable to read the Buddhist scriptures. Hōnen (1133–1212) founded the Jōdo (Pure Land) sect, which had a profound influence on medieval culture, and his disciple Shinran (1173–1262) created the Shinshū (New Pure Land) sect. A generation later, Ippen (1239–1289) founded the Jishū (Time) sect. These Pure Land sects, which stressed the recitation of the name of the Amida Buddha, promised an easily attainable way to salvation, relying on the power of grace and the benevolence of the Amida Buddha. The hymns and personal writings of these Pure Land leaders, particularly those by Hōnen, are included here both because of their high literary quality and as a necessary context for understanding medieval literary texts like The Tales of the Heike, which are based on Kamakura Pure Land beliefs. Zen Buddhism, which was imported from China in the medieval period and welcomed by the samurai in Kamakura, stressed meditation, non-dualism, and a frugal, minimalist lifestyle.

As the Buddhist sects (including Tendai, which continued to exert considerable institutional influence) rose in prominence, so too did belief in the native gods (kami), which laid the foundation for the institutional rise of Shinto (Way of the Gods) and its various local and national deities. Samurai leaders such as Minamoto Yoritomo, the founder of the Kamakura bakufu, worshiped and relied on both kami and buddhas. Kami were believed to bring worldly benefits and protections for the state, the community, and the clan, and they became the focus of worship at major shrines like the Ise Shrine. One result was the emerging doctrine of Japan as a “country of the gods” (shinkoku), evident in later Northern and Southern Courts-period texts such as Kitabatake Chikafusa’s Chronicle of the Gods (Jinnō shōtōki, 1343). The rise of popular Buddhism and of cults of native gods led to a belief in honji suijaku (original ground—manifest traces), according to which Shinto gods are local manifestations (suijaku) of original buddhas (honji). This syncretist view had precedents in earlier periods but became prominent in the medieval period and is a frequent motif of the setsuwa of the Kamakura period and of the otogi-zōshi of the Muromachi period.

THE ARISTOCRACY AND LITERATURE

Even while their political and economic status declined, the aristocracy retained their prestige as the custodians of high culture and canonical literature, and the long tradition of aristocratic court literature continued to flourish in the early medieval period. Indeed, the first thirty or forty years of the Kamakura period, until the Jōkyū rebellion in 1221 when the power of the nobility was abruptly terminated, represents one of the peaks of aristocratic literature. Some of the greatest waka anthologies—beginning with the Shinkokinshū (New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems, ca. 1205), the eighth imperial waka collection and often considered the finest of the twenty-one imperial waka anthologies—were compiled at this time. The best poetic treatises, such as Fujiwara Shunzei’s Poetic Styles from the Past (Korai fūteishō, 1197) and Fujiwara Teika’s Essentials of Poetic Composition (Eiga taigai, ca. 1222), were written during the early decades of the Kamakura period, an age of increased cultural production by the aristocracy. In fact, more monogatari (tales) were written during the early medieval period than in the Heian period, although many such works were imitative, drawing heavily on The Tale of Genji, which had become a model for literary and poetic composition. It was not until the Muromachi period that the monogatari received new stimulus from commoner culture, taking the form of what are now called otogi-zōshi (Muromachi tales).

Aristocratic literature in the medieval period was characterized by strong nostalgia for the Heian-court past and an emphasis on preserving court traditions. Indeed, literary production was the only means for many aristocrats to make a living on the basis of their heritage. The twenty-first and last imperial waka anthology, the Shinshokukokinshū, edited in 1439, symbolically marked the end of aristocratic literature. Not only did the aristocrats compose waka and monogatari in the medieval period, but they also turned their attention to preserving their cultural inheritance by collating, annotating, and commenting on earlier texts. Their scholarship extended from ancient texts such as the Kojiki, Nihon shoki, and Man’yōshū to major Heian texts like the Kokinshū, The Tales of Ise, and The Tale of Genji, which became the three most heavily annotated texts. The work by these aristocrats (beginning with Fujiwara Teika, who produced what became the most authoritative versions of The Tale of Genji) in constructing and transmitting the literary canon was eventually shared by other social groups, the priests and the samurai, who also had a strong nostalgia for the Heian classics. Two great literary figures of the late Muromachi period were Shōtetsu (1381–1459), a prolific and innovative poet who is regarded as one of the last distinguished exponents of classical waka, and the renga (linked verse) master Sōgi (1421–1502), of commoner birth, who wrote influential treatises on renga and numerous commentaries on the Heian classics. Such commentaries were motivated by the fact that Japanese poetry, specifically waka and renga, the two most important literary forms, required a knowledge of the diction and allusive associations of the Heian classics.

THE PRIESTHOOD AND LITERATURE

The contribution of the Buddhist priesthood to literature was enormous, especially in light of the dominant role that Buddhism played throughout the period. The first major contribution was the hōgo, teachings of the Buddhist law in kana prose. Although Buddhist writings such as the Record of Miraculous Events in Japan (Nihon ryōiki) and The Essentials of Salvation (Ōjōyōshū) appeared in the mid-Heian period, they were written in Chinese. In the Kamakura period, however, the priest-intellectuals of the new Buddhist sects wrote in kana, thereby producing vernacular Buddhist literature. Buddhist leaders like Shinran and Ippen also wrote wasan (Buddhist hymns), which made their teachings easily accessible and available for wide dissemination. Equally important was Zen Buddhism, introduced to Japan by Dōgen (1200–1253) and others. One product of Zen culture was the literature of the Five Mountains (Gozan bungaku), writings in Chinese by Zen priests from the late thirteenth to the sixteenth century, with which Ikkyū (1394–1481), whose poetry is included here, was associated. Zen Buddhism also had a profound impact on nō drama, as is evident in works such as Stupa Komachi (Sotoba Komachi).

Equally important were the collections of setsuwa edited by Buddhist priests and used for preaching to commoners. Setsuwa were collected from as early as the Nara period, beginning with the Nihon ryōiki, and appeared in the late Heian period in the massive Collection of Tales of Times Now Past (Konjaku monogatari shū), but it was in the Kamakura period that most of the setsuwa collections were edited and produced. At that time a new type of setsuwa emerged: the engi-mono (tales of origins), which describe the origins and miraculous benefits of the god or buddha worshiped by a specific temple or shrine complex. Engi-mono were produced by the priests or shrine officials at the religious site, using historical documents and popular legend to record, embellish, or reinvent the history of the temple or shrine and to advertise the powers of the enshrined deity. Almost all of them were preserved as illustrated scrolls (emakimono). A good example is “The Avatars of Kumano” in the Shintōshū, about the origin of the gods of the Kumano Shrine. Similar kinds of illustrated scrolls formed the basis for the later Muromachi otogi-zōshi. A sekkyō (sermon-ballad) tradition emerged in which priests narrated or chanted Buddhist teachings or engi-mono with a musical accompaniment. In the late medieval period this tradition was consolidated as sekkyō-bushi (ballads sung to the beat of the sasara), performed by commoner storytellers. This genre became the basis of sekkyō jōruri (ballads sung to shamisen accompaniment), a medium for narrating double suicides and revenge tales that eventually evolved into jōruri (puppet theater) in the Tokugawa period. Buddhist priest-storytellers (monogatari sō) also became specialists in narrating military chronicles like the Taiheiki (Chronicle of Great Peace).

Buddhist priests were also prominent composers of waka and renga. In fact, there is probably no genre in the medieval period that was not related to the Buddhist clergy. One consequence is that Buddhist thought permeates medieval literature: warrior tales, historical chronicles, setsuwa, essays (zuihitsu), nō drama, otogi-zōshi, and sekkyō-bushi. Even the treatises on waka, renga, and nō drama are permeated by Buddhist perspectives. In sum, all forms of cultural production in the medieval period were inseparable from Buddhist concepts and worldviews. This is why the notion that literature amounts to nothing more than kyōgen kigo (wild words and decorative phrases) came to the fore. On the one hand, in the Buddhist context, literature and its production were thought to be illusory and even an impediment to salvation, encouraging worldly attachments. On the other hand, it could, as argued in the selections from the Collection of Sand and Pebbles (Shasekishū, 1279–1283), be rationalized by Buddhist writers as an expedient means (hōben) of teaching the Buddhist law and leading readers (or listeners) to insight and, ultimately, enlightenment.

SAIGYŌ

Satō Norikiyo, now known as Saigyō (1118–1190), was the son of a wealthy family of hereditary warrior aristocrats. At the age of fifteen, he entered the service of the powerful Tokudaiji family, and later he served the retired emperor Toba as one of the Northern Guard (Hokumen no bushi), a select group of military bodyguards. Members of the Northern Guard also served as cultural companions to the retired emperor, exhibiting skill in poetry, music, kemari,¹ and other aristocratic pastimes. For reasons still being debated, in 1140, at the age of twenty-three, Saigyō suddenly abandoned his post and his family to become a Buddhist monk. For the next fifty years, Saigyō alternately lived in seclusion, traveled about the country, spent time in the capital, and carried out various Buddhist activities. Throughout his tonsured life, Saigyō continued to compose poetry, increasing his fame. The pinnacle of Saigyō’s poetic influence came fifteen years after his death, when ninety-four of his poems (more than those of any other poet) were included in the imperially sponsored Shinkokinshū (New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems, ca. 1205).

Although reliable historical documents concerning Saigyō’s life are scarce, the autobiographical nature of many of his poems has fed the imagination of readers for centuries, giving rise to a vast body of semilegendary material. “The Woman of Pleasure at Eguchi,” from the Tales of Renunciation (Senjūshō), is a good example of how Saigyō’s poems became the object of legends. It now is nearly impossible to separate the legend Saigyō from the actual poet and his poems. Saigyō spent many years in and around the capital and nearly thirty years in relative seclusion near Mount Kōya, the headquarters of the Shingon Buddhist establishment. He is best known as a travel poet, making the long and arduous trip to Michinoku (northeastern Honshū) twice—once shortly after becoming a monk and again when he was around sixty-nine years of age. He also traveled to Shikoku, Kumano, and Ise, where he spent the duration of the Genpei (Heike/Genji) war (1180–1186). After the fighting ended, Saigyō returned to the capital and then to Kawachi (near present-day Osaka), where he lived out his remaining years, dying on the sixteenth day of the Second Month in 1190.

Although Saigyō composed poetry covering the entire range of traditional waka topics, his most famous poems are on travel, reclusion, cherry blossoms, and the moon. Travel was an established category in both waka composition and the imperially sponsored anthologies. Later interpreters and scholars have perceived a special sense of immediateness in Saigyō’s travel poetry. Many waka poets never saw the poetic sites they described in their poems, relying instead on established associations of poetic place-names. Even though Saigyō is known for his travels, he also composed many poems on famous places without visiting them.

Similarly, it is not entirely clear just how secluded from the world Saigyō was. He likely lived alone in the capital or far away in Kōya or Ise, but he probably was never in total seclusion. Rather, he lived near and associated with others who had abandoned the world. Furthermore, Saigyō nourished ties with the poetic establishment; he maintained relationships with high-ranking aristocrats and imperial personages from the time of his service as a samurai; and he actively participated in poetic and Buddhistic activities in and around the capital as well as at Kōya and Ise.

SELECTED POEMS

Saigyō is noted for his poetry on cherry blossoms, being especially fond of the blossoms in the mountainous region of Yoshino, not far from Mount Kōya. Saigyō’s cherry blossom poems often express a sense of attachment to the blossoms and have been interpreted as self-remonstrative in the Buddhist sense. Saigyō’s moon poems also carry Buddhist overtones, for in both Buddhist sutras and waka, the moon is the symbol of enlightenment. Many of Saigyō’s moon poems also, however, retain the traditional association of love or longing.

Saigyō’s poetry is marked by unadorned self-expression, seeming simplicity of diction, self-reflection, and the interweaving of nature imagery with Buddhist motifs and ideals. These traits have made his poems among the most popular and influential in the poetic canon.

SANKASHŪ, MISCELLANEOUS, NO. 723

At the time that I decided to abandon the world, some people at Higashiyama composed on the topic “expressing one’s feelings on mist.”

sora ni naru	The empty sky
kokoro wa haru no	of my heart
kasumi ni te	enshrouded in spring mist
yo ni araji to mo	rises to thoughts of
omoi tatsu kana	leaving the world behind.2

SHINKOKINSHŪ, LOVE, NO. 1267; SANKASHŪ, MISCELLANEOUS, NO. 727

When I was staying somewhere far away, I sent the following to someone in the capital around the time of the moon.

tsuki nomi ya	Only the moon
uwa no sora naru	in the sky above
katami ni te	a vacant reminder,
omoi mo ideba	should you think of me,
kokoro kayowamu	perhaps it will link your heart to mine.3

SHINKOKINSHŪ, MISCELLANEOUS, NO. 1535

sutsu to naraba	If I’ve forsaken
ukiyo o itou	the world of sorrows
shirushi aramu	there must be proof I despise it—
ware ni wa kumore	shroud yourself for me,
aki no yo no tsuki	autumn night moon.4

SHINKOKINSHŪ, MISCELLANEOUS, NO. 1611; SANKASHŪ, MISCELLANEOUS, NO. 728

When I abandoned the world and was on my way to Ise, I composed this at Suzuka-yama (Bell Deer Mountain).

Suzuka-yama	Suzuka Mountain,
ukiyo o yoso ni	I’ve tossed aside the world of sorrows
furisutete	as a stranger to myself,
ika ni nariyuku	so what note will I now sound,
waga mi naruran	what will become of me?5

SANKASHŪ, SPRING, NO. 66

Yoshino yama	Since the day
kozue no hana o	I saw the treetop blossoms
mishi hi yori	in Yoshino’s mountains
kokoro wa mi ni mo	my heart has not stayed
sowazu nari ni ki	with my body at all.6

SHINKOKINSHŪ, MISCELLANEOUS, NO. 617

Yoshino yama	Mount Yoshino,
yagate ideji to	I’d like to stay
omou mi o	and never leave,
hana chirinaba to	though some are surely waiting, thinking
hito ya matsuran	“once the blossoms have fallen …”7

SANKASHŪ, SPRING, NO. 76

hana ni somu	Why should my heart
kokoro no ikade	remain stained
nokorikemu	by blossoms,
sutehateteki to	when I thought
omou waga mi ni	I had tossed all that away?8

SANKASHŪ, SPRING, NO. 87

When I thought I’d like some peace and quiet, people came to see the cherry blossoms.

hanami ni to	Wanting to see the blossoms
muretsutsu hito no	people come in droves
kuru nomi zo	to visit—this alone
atara sakura no	regrettably
toga ni wa arikeru	is the cherry tree’s fault.9

SANKASHŪ, SPRING, NO. 139

On the topic “cherry blossoms scattering in a dream,” composed with others at the residence of the former Kamo Priestess.

harukaze no	When I dream
hana o chirasu to	of spring wind
miru yume wa	scattering cherry blossoms
samete mo mune no	my heart stirs
sawagu narikeri	even after waking.10

SHINKOKINSHŪ, MISCELLANEOUS, NO. 1471

yo no naka o	When I think of
omoeba nabete	this world
chiru hana no	all is scattering blossoms,
waga mi o satemo	so where else
izuchi kamo semu	might I choose to be?11

SHINKOKINSHŪ, MISCELLANEOUS, NO. 1846; SANKASHŪ, SPRING, NO. 77

negawaku wa	My wish is
hana no shita nite	to die in spring
haru shinan	under the cherry blossoms
sono kisaragi no	on that day in the Second Month
mochizuki no koro	when the moon is full.12

SANKASHŪ, SPRING, NO. 78

hotoke ni wa	Offer up
sakura no hana o	cherry blossoms
tatematsure	to the deceased,
waga nochi no yo o	if anyone wishes to mourn me
hito toburawaba	after I’m gone.13

SHINKOKINSHŪ, AUTUMN 1, NO. 362; SANKASHŪ, AUTUMN, NO. 470

Composed along the way to somewhere in autumn.

kokoro naki	Even one
mi ni mo aware wa	with no heart could not help
shirarekeri	but know pathos:
shigi tatsu sawa no	a snipe takes flight in a marsh
aki no yūgure	this autumn evening.14

SHINKOKINSHŪ, WINTER, NO. 625

Tsu no kuni no	Was spring at Naniwa
Naniwa no haru wa	in Tsu Province
yume nare ya	a dream?
ashi no kareha ni	Wind blows
kaze wataru nari	over the withered reeds’ leaves.15

SHINKOKINSHŪ, MISCELLANEOUS, NO. 1676

furuhata no	From a tree
soba no tatsu ki ni	standing on a cliff
iru hato no	by an old field
tomo yobu koe no	the voice of a dove calling a friend
sugoki yūgure	in the eerie twilight.16

SANKASHŪ, AUTUMN, NO. 414

With a certain purpose in mind, I went to Ichinomiya in Aki. Along the way, at a place called Takatomi Bay, I was stopped for a while by the wind. Upon seeing moonlight filtering through a rush-thatched hut, I composed the following:

nami no oto o	My heart troubled
kokoro ni kakete	by the sound of the waves,
akasu kana	I spend the night,
toma moru tsuki no	my only friend the moon’s light
kage o tomo ni te	winnowing through this hut.17

SHINKOKINSHŪ, AUTUMN 1, NO. 472

kirigirisu	Cricket,
yosamu ni aki no	as the autumn night cold
naru mama ni	wears on,
yowaru ka koe no	are you weakening?
tōzakariyuku	Your voice grows more distant.18

SHINKOKINSHŪ, WINTER, NO. 627

sabishisa ni	I wish there were another here
taetaru hito no	who could bear
mata mo are na	this loneliness;
iori narabemu	we’d build our huts side by side
fuyu no yamazato	in this wintry mountain village.19

SHINKOKINSHŪ, SUMMER, NO. 262

michinobe ni	In the shade
shimizu nagaruru	of a roadside willow
yanagi kage	near a clear flowing stream
shibashi tote koso	I stopped,
tachidomaritsure	for just a while, I thought.20

KIKIGAKISHŪ, NO. 165

When I was living in Saga, I and others wrote poems in a light vein.

unaiko ga	The sound of children
susami ni narasu	playfully blowing
mugibue no	straw whistles
koe ni odoroku	wakes me from my
natsu no hirubushi	summer afternoon nap.21

SHINKOKINSHŪ, TRAVEL, NO. 987

Composed when going to the eastern provinces.

toshi takete	Did I ever imagine
mata koyubeshi to	I would make this pass again
omoiki ya	in my old age?
inochi narikeri	Such is life!
Sayanonaka yama	Sayanonaka Mountain.22

SHINKOKINSHŪ, MISCELLANEOUS, NO. 1613

On Mount Fuji, composed when carrying out religious practices in the eastern provinces.

kaze ni nabiku	Trailing in the wind,
Fuji no keburi no	Fuji’s smoke
sora ni kiete	fades into the sky
yukue mo shiranu	destination unknown,
waga omoi kana	just like my own thoughts!23

SHINKOKINSHŪ, MISCELLANEOUS, NO. 1536

fuke ni keru	As I ponder
waga yo no kage o	my waning shadow
omou ma ni	of life far gone,
haruka ni tsuki no	in the distance
katabuki ni keri	the moon sets.24

SHINKOKINSHŪ, BUDDHIST POEMS, NO. 1978

On looking at one’s heart.

yami harete	Darkness dispels,
kokoro no sora ni	and the moon shining clear
sumu tsuki wa	in my heart’s sky
nishi no yamabe ya	now seems to near
chikaku naruramu	the western hills.25

[Introduction and translations by Jack Stoneman]

FUJIWARA NO TEIKA

Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241), or Sadaie, was the son of Shunzei and heir to the Mikohidari house of poetry. Teika was recognized at a fairly early age as one of the most controversially innovative poets of his generation, and he was one of the four primary compilers of the Shinkokinshū. From the age of eighteen to the age of seventy-four, he kept a diary entitled the Meigetsuki. Between 1185 and 1199, he began to explore a new poetic style, which was criticized as “daruma” poems, or “incomprehensible” poems. Despite his audacious experiments with syntax and disdain for convention, Teika could also be remarkably conservative, especially in his later years, and notoriously called for a return to early classical models of composition. His dictum “new meanings, old words” is an emblem of the difficult demands he made for originality within the constraints of precedent. Few poets were able to follow Teika’s demands without resorting to tedious conventionalism. This fact, combined with his overwhelming influence as the patriarch of the dominant schools of court poetry for several centuries, is often blamed for the stultification of courtly waka after the thirteenth century. Forty-six of Teika’s poems were included in the Shinkokinshū.

ESSENTIALS OF POETIC COMPOSITION (EIGA NO TAIGAI, CA. 1222)

Essentials of Poetic Composition explains Teika’s approach to waka composition in his later years and reflects a fundamental technique of medieval aristocratic literature: allusive variation. Essentials of Poetic Composition divides poetic technique into three key notions: meaning (kokoro), diction (kotoba), and style (fūtei). The meaning (kokoro) of a poem should be neither “old” (inishie) nor “modern” (ima); instead, it should be “new” (atarashi). Teika usually uses the word kokoro in close relation to the “topic” (dai). Thus a more elaborate translation of the opening line would be: “For the meaning of the poem as it relates to the essence of the given topic, one should, above all, be innovative.” Diction (kotoba), by contrast, should be “old.” What kokoro and kotoba have in common here is that neither can be “modern.”

Teika also contrasts “modern poets”—from the latter half of the twelfth century—with “ancient poets” and strictly forbids drawing on either the diction or the meaning introduced by “modern poets”—that is, those writing in the past seventy or eighty years. For him, diction must be circumscribed and publicly recognized. “Old diction” is not a matter of age but of the canon. “Old words” refers to the poetic diction exemplified in the Three Collections (Sandaishū): the Kokinshū, Gosenshū, and Shūishū, the first three imperial collections of waka. The only exceptions are the poems of the Man’yōshū, primarily those by Hitomaro, Akahito, and Yakamochi, which are included in the Thirty-six Poets’ Collection (Sanjūrokuninshū), compiled by Fujiwara no Kintō in the mid-Heian period. With regard to “style” (fūtei), however, Teika notes that one should learn from poets both “old and new.” In summary, the meaning of the poem should be new; its diction should derive from the superior poems in the Three Collections: and the superior poems of both old and new poets should provide a model for poetic style.

Teika also is concerned about plagiarism and the lack of originality. His rules for allusive variation (honkadori) on a base poem are an extension of those he prescribed for kotoba and represent a solution to the difficulties imposed by the necessity of using only “old” diction. At the end of the preface, which is written in kanbun, Teika notes that “one should always keep in mind the scene [keiki] of old poetry and let it sink deep into the heart.” Keiki refers to not just the poetic scenes and images that appear in the poetic world but also its poetic associations. Significantly, Chinese poetry, which played a significant role in the development of Heian waka, became a major source for these associations. In the original text, certain lines appear to be notes—as they are in smaller print than that of the main text—and have been placed in parentheses in the translation.

As for the meaning [kokoro] of poetry, newness must come first. (One must seek a conception or an approach that has yet to be used.) When it comes to diction [kotoba], one must use old words. (One must not use anything not found in the Three Collections. The poems of ancient poets collected in the Shinkokinshū can be used in the same way.) The style [fūtei] of poetry can be learned from the superior poems of superior poets of the past. (One should not be concerned about the period but just learn from appropriate poems.)

Regarding the conception and diction of recent poets, even if it is a new phrase, one should be careful and leave it alone. (In regard to the poetry of those poets, one should never use the words from poems composed in the last seventy or eighty years.)

Poets frequently use and compose with the words of the poetry of the ancients. That already is a trend. But when using old poems and composing new poems, taking three out of the five measures [ku]²⁶ is too much, and these poems will lack freshness. It is permissible to take three or four syllables more than two measures [ku]. However, it is too much if the content is the same and one uses words from old poems. (For example, using a foundation poem on flowers to compose on flowers or using a foundation poem on the moon to compose on the moon.) One should take a foundation poem on the seasons and compose on love or miscellaneous topics, or take a foundation poem on love and miscellaneous topics and compose on the four seasons. If done in this way, there probably will be no problems with borrowing from old poetry….

One should always keep in mind the scene [keiki] of old poetry and let it sink deep into the heart. One should learn in particular from the Kokinshū, The Tales of Ise, Gosenshū, Shūishū, and from superior poets in the Thirty-six Poets’ Collection. (Those who should come to mind from the Thirty-six Poets’ Collection are Hitomaro, Ki no Tsurayuki, Tadamine, Ise, Ono no Komachi, and so on.)

Even if one is not a master of Japanese poetry, in order to understand the seasonal scenes, the ups and downs of the human world, and the essence of things, one should always be sure to absorb the first twenty volumes of Bo Juyi’s Collected Works.²⁷ (These deeply resonate with Japanese poetry.)

Poetry has no master. One simply makes the old poems one’s teacher. If one dyes one’s heart in the old style and learns from the words of one’s predecessors, who would not be able to learn to compose poetry? No one.

SHINKOKINSHŪ (NEW COLLECTION OF ANCIENT AND MODERN POEMS, CA. 1205)

The Shinkokinwakashū, better known as the Shinkokinshū, is an anthology of nearly two thousand Japanese poems (waka), all in the same standard prosodic form, thirty-one syllables in five measures. It was compiled and edited during the first two decades of the thirteenth century and was the eighth in what became a series of twenty-one anthologies of classical poetry created in response to an imperial edict, beginning with the Kokinshū (ca. 905) and ending with the Shinshokukokinshū (1439). Its title—literally, New Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems or New Kokinshū—implies that the Shinkokinshū was conceived and edited in calculated emulation of the first such imperially commissioned collection. The attempt to produce an anthology that would match, if not surpass, the achievements of the Kokinshū was widely deemed successful in the judgment of later generations. Its chronological scope is broader, not only because it postdates the Kokinshū by three centuries, but also because it includes poetry by authors of earlier periods deliberately excluded from the Kokinshū, and the range of styles encompassed is arguably richer. The question of which of these collections is superior, makes for better reading, or serves as a more reliable model for aspiring poets has been the subject of debate for several centuries and has not yet been resolved.

Following the precedent of the Kokinshū, the Shinkokinshū has two prefaces, one in Sino-Japanese kanbun and one in kana. The poems are arranged by topics into twenty volumes. The topics or poetic themes of these books generally follow the conventions established by the Kokinshū but, in their details, are much closer to the precedent of the Senzaishū (1187), the seventh imperially commissioned anthology. In chronological order from one through twenty, the topics consist of two books on spring; one on summer; two on autumn; one on winter; one each on felicitations, mourning, parting, and travel; five on love; three of miscellany; and one each on poems on Shinto and Buddhist topics. Quantitatively, the emphasis is on seasonal poems and poems of love, the favored genres for public, formal poetic composition. But the Shinkokinshū allows for considerably more coverage, compared with the Kokinshū, of “miscellaneous” topics, which tend to consist of personal reflections on the contingencies of life. The typology of the Shinkokinshū’s twenty books was sufficient to encompass the entire range of topics considered suitable, as of the late twelfth century, for the composition of court poetry and thus gives a rough overview of how the world of poetic experience was partitioned at the time. Given the immense authority accorded to the Kokinshū in the construction of this world, even the less conspicuous departures from its precedent are significant. That is, the Kokinshū contains virtually no poetry on specifically Buddhist topics, and its few more or less explicitly Shinto-inspired poems are mainly in the two books of miscellany. Anagrammatic (mono no na) poems, which make up the entire tenth book of the Kokinshū, have disappeared. All the poems in variant prosody (zōtai) have been omitted as well.

In each of the twenty books, but most noticeably in the books of seasonal and love poems and those on miscellaneous topics, the compilers took great care to arrange their materials into clusters of poems on the same conventional topics, such as “Beginning of Autumn” (risshū, the first seventeen poems in the first book of autumn), with common images or motifs (in this instance, “Autumn Winds”). These clusters were often linked by word associations (engo) to adjacent clusters. The effect of this was a sense of progression, with intermittent digressions, through the phases of seasonal change or movement toward the inevitable disappointments of a courtly love affair. The subtleties of such patterns were complicated and sometimes undermined by efforts to alternate sequences of recent poems—the “modern” of the anthology’s title—with those by “ancient” poets, and by deleting individual poems during the ultimately unfinished process of revising the anthology over many years.

Especially significant for appreciating the changes in the topography of decorum that the editors of the Shinkokinshū sought is the resulting exclusion of haikai (dissonant poems), which were included among poems of variant prosody (zōtai) in the Kokinshū.²⁸ The question raised by the exclusion of haikai from the Shinkokinshū is one of many about the designs of this collection’s editors and, by extension, about the meaning of its title. Was the “renewal” of courtly poetic traditions suggested by its title meant to be a return to the origins, a restoration of the hallowed traditions of early court poetry, or an affirmation of new directions in poetic practice? Numerous and diverse answers have been proposed, but it is up to the reader to decide.

The poems translated here were selected from works by poets of the late twelfth century most prominently represented in the anthology, those who defined its distinctive aesthetic. As far as possible, the translations are literal in the sense that each word of the English answers to some word or wording of the Japanese. The poems are parsimonious in form and extravagant in sense, and if the English is ambiguous or occasionally obscure, it is (ideally) because the text is so to more or less the same degree. The poems achieve their depths and breadth through the exploitation of a received array of figures and an accepted vocabulary of connotations, as well as through techniques of punning (kakekotoba) and allusions to earlier classical poems (honka-dori) and subtexts (honsetsu), all of which made it possible for a single phrase or word to resonate well beyond its denotative sense. The commentary attempts to explicate some of what the poets presumably expected their readers to take for granted or recognize anew, supplies the honka (base poem) or honsetsu (subtext) in translation, and provides occasional citations from early commentaries or from the judgments of the poetry matches in which many of the poems originally were presented.

Spring 1

1

On the motif “Spring Begins.”

Miyoshino wa	Fair Yoshino, mountains
yama mo kasumite	now wrapped in mist:
shirayuki no	to the village where snow
furinishi sato ni	was falling
haru wa kinikeri	spring has come.29

The Regent Prime Minister³⁰

3

When the poet presented a hundred-verse set of poems, a poem on “Spring.”

yamafukami	By a gate of pine
haru to mo shiranu	in mountains too deep
matsu no to ni	to know spring has come,
taedae kakaru	one by one they fall,
yuki no tamamizu	jewel drops of melting snow.31

Princess Shokushi³²

4

For a fifty-verse set of poems composed for presentation to the retired emperor.

kakikurashi	Cloud-darkened,
nao furusato no	this ancient village:
yuki no uchi ni	in falling snow
ato koso miene	not a trace of spring,
haru wa kinikeri	yet surely it has come.33

Kunaikyō³⁴

23

On the topic “Lingering Cold,” for a hundred-verse poetry match at the poet’s residence.

sora wa nao	Under skies still
kasumi mo yarazu	awaiting mist,
kaze saete	the wind chills
yukige ni kumoru	a spring night’s moon
haru no yo no tsuki	hiding in snow-fraught clouds.35

The Regent Prime Minister

24

At the Bureau of Poetry, on the motif “Spring Mountain Moon.”

yama fukami	In mountains deep
nao kage samushi	a spring moon’s light
haru no tsuki	still cold—
sora kakikumori	the sky thickens with clouds
yuki wa furitsutsu	as snow falls and falls.36

Echizen

25

On the topic “Spring Vista at a Waterside Village,” when Japanese poems were matched with poems in Chinese.

Mishima-e ya	By the Bay of Mishima
shimo mo mada hinu	even as frost lingers
ashi no ha ni	spring winds
tsunogumu hodo no	call forth new shoots
harukaze zo fuku	from withered reeds.37

Michiteru

26

On the topic “Spring Vista at a Waterside Village,” when Japanese poems were matched with poems in Chinese.

yūzukuyo	Evening of a new moon—
shio michikuru rashi	the tide must be rising
Naniwa-e no	in the Bay of Naniwa:
ashi no wakaba ni	over the young shoots of reeds
koyuru shiranami	crests of white waves.38

Hidetō

36

When some courtiers were making verses in Chinese and matching poems to them, a poem on “Water.”

miwataseba	Gazing out over
yamamoto kasumu	mist-shrouded foothills
Minasegawa	beyond the river Minase,
yūbe wa aki to	who could have thought
nani omoiken	evenings are autumn?39

The Retired Emperor GoToba

37

For a poetry match at the residence of the regent prime minister, on the motif “Spring Dawn.”

kasumi tatsu	Mist rises over
Sue no Matsuyama	Far Pine Mountain—
honobono to	faintly aglow,
nami ni hanaruru	a sky of drifting clouds
yokogumo no sora	parts from the waves.40

Fujiwara no Ietaka⁴¹

38

For a fifty-verse set of poems composed at the request of the cloistered Prince Shukaku.

haru no yo no	A spring night’s
yume no ukihashi	floating bridge of dreams
todaeshite	breaks:
mine ni wakaruru	sky of cloud drift
yokogumo no sora	parting from a mountain peak.42

Fujiwara no Teika⁴³

44

When the poet presented a hundred-verse set of poems.

ume no hana	On sleeves scented
nioi o utsusu	by blossoms of plum
sode no ue ni	moonlight spilling
noki-moru tsuki no	through the eaves
kage zo arasou	claims its place.

Fujiwara no Teika

45

When the poet presented a hundred-verse set of poems.

ume ga ka ni	When I ask of the past
mukashi o toeba	in the scent of the plum,
haru no tsuki	the spring moon
kotaenu kage zo	keeps still
sode ni utsureru	glistening on my sleeves.44

Fujiwara no Ietaka

47

For the Poetry Match in Fifteen Hundred Rounds.

ume no hana	Never do I tire of their
akanu iro kamo	color or their scent:
mukashi ni te	plum blossoms
onaji katami no	the spring night’s moon
haru no yo no tsuki	recalling the past.45

Master of the Household of the Dowager Empress, Shunzei

58

For the hundred-verse poetry match at the regent prime minister’s residence.

ima wa tote	The wild geese in the field,
tanomu no kari mo	knowing it’s time to leave,
uchiwabinu	cry plaintively:
oborozukiyo no	mist-shrouded moon
akebono no sora	lingering in the dawn sky.46

Priest Jakuren

Spring 2

133

For a picture of Mount Yoshino on a sliding screen panel at Saishōshitennō-in.

Miyoshino no	Flowers must be falling
takane no sakura	on Yoshino’s peaks:
chirinikeri	this spring dawn’s
arashimo shiroki	gusting winds
haru no akebono	blossom in white.47

The Retired Emperor GoToba

134

For the Poetry Match in Fifteen Hundred Rounds.

sakurairo no	Of winds of spring in my garden
niwa no harukaze	of the color of cherry blossoms
ato mo nashi	not a trace, nor visitor
towaba zo hito no	to take these petals
yuki to dani min	for fallen snow.48

Fujiwara no Teika

Summer

179

Composed as a poem on “Beginning of Summer.”

orifushi mo	As seasons change
utsureba kaetsu	they too change
yo no naka no	their flowered robes:
hito no kokoro no	the fickle hearts of
hanazome no koromo	men of this world.49

Daughter of Shunzei⁵⁰

Autumn 1

361

Topic unknown.

sabishisa wa	Loneliness has no
sono iro to shi mo	color of its own:
nakarikeri	pine trees
maki tatsu yama no	on a darkening mountain
aki no yūgure	evening of autumn.51

Priest Jakuren

363

For a hundred-verse set of poems composed at the suggestion of Priest Saigyō.

miwataseba	Looking out across
hana mo momiji mo	the shore
nakarikeri	no flowers, no autumn leaves:
ura no tomaya no	a thatched hut’s
aki no yūgure	evening of autumn.52

Fujiwara no Teika

380

When the poet presented a hundred-verse set of poems, a poem on “The Moon.”

nagame-wabinu	Gazing till weary of these skies
aki yori hoka no	I long for a dwelling
yado mogana	away from autumn:
no ni mo yama ni mo	must the moon light
tsuki ya sumuran	every field and mountain?53

Princess Shokushi

419

When the poet had a fifty-verse set of poems on “The Moon” composed for delivery at his residence.

tsuki dani mo	Heedless that the moon
nagusamegataki	brings sadness enough
aki no yo no	to this autumn night,
kokoro mo shiranu	the wind
matsu no kaze kana	sighs in the pines.54

The Regent Prime Minister

420

When the regent prime minister had a fifty-verse set of poems on “The Moon” composed for delivery at his residence.

samushiro ya	On a mat of rush
matsu yo no aki no	as autumn winds deepen
kaze fukete	her night of waiting,
tsuki o katashiku	the Maiden of Uji Bridge
Uji no Hashihime	spreads a robe of moonlight.55

Fujiwara no Teika

Winter

671

When the poet presented a hundred-verse set of poems.

koma tomete	No shelter to rest my horse
uchiharau	or brush my sleeves,
kage mo nashi	not a shadow
Sano no watari no	at Sano Crossing
yuki no yūgure	in snow-falling dusk.56

Fujiwara no Teika

Mourning

788

In the autumn of the year his mother died, on a day of windstorms, the poet went to the place where he had once lived with his mother.

tamayura no	Not fleeting drops
tsuyu mo namida mo	of dew nor tears will pause:
todomarazu	winds of autumn
nakihito kouru	sweep the dwelling
yado no akikaze	loved by one now gone.

Fujiwara no Teika

Travel

939

For a fifty-verse set of poems composed for presentation [to the retired emperor].

akeba mata	Yet another mountain peak
koyubeki yama no	to be crossed after dawn?
mine nareya	White clouds touched
sorayuku tsuki no	by the distant reach
sue no shirakumo	of the setting moon.

Fujiwara no Ietaka

Love 1

1034

For a hundred-verse set of poems, on the topic “Love Endured.”

tama no o yo	If this jewel thread of life
taenaba taene	is to break, let it break:
nagaraeba	living on
shinoburu koto no	would be to endure
yowari mo zo suru	love’s torment alone.57

Princess Shokushi

1035

For a hundred-verse set of poems, on the topic “Love Endured.”

wasurete wa	Another evening’s sighs:
uchinagekaruru	have I forgotten
yūbe kana	this hidden longing
ware nomi shirite	is mine alone to suffer
suguru tsukibi o	as days become months?58

Princess Shokushi

Love 2

1136

Among the poems for the Minase-koi Poetry Match on fifteen topics, on the motif “Spring Love.”

omokage no	My loved one’s image
kasumeru tsuki zo	shimmers in the misted moon
yadorikeru	of a spring now past
haru ya mukashi no	dwelling in tears
sode no namida ni	on my sleeves.59

Daughter of Shunzei

Love 3

1206

Composed as a poem of love.

kaeru sa no	Does he now gaze
mono to ya hito no	as one returning might
nagamuran	on the moon at dawn
matsu yo-nagara no	of this night
ariake no tsuki	I waited in vain?60

Fujiwara no Teika

Miscellaneous Topics 3

1764 (1762)

At the Bureau of Poetry, on the motif “Regretting.”

oshimu to mo	I do not regret these
namida ni tsuki mo	heartfelt tears
kokoro kara	nor the earnest moon
narenuru sode ni	shining on my sleeves
aki o uramite	resenting autumn.61

The same poem might be translated as

oshimu to mo	I do not grudge autumn
namida ni tsuki mo	nor my sleeves drenched
kokoro kara	in heartfelt tears,
narenuru sode ni	too familiar moonlight
aki o uramite	resenting both.

Daughter of Shunzei

[Introduction and translations by Lewis Cook]

RECLUSE LITERATURE (SŌAN BUNGAKU)

During the late Heian and early Kamakura periods, many aristocrats took holy vows and retreated from the secular world, not to the busy Buddhist monasteries in Nara and the capital (such as Mount Hiei, the headquarters of the Tendai sect), but to retreats outside the cities, which they believed to be a purer form of renunciation. The physical separation from the secular world freed the “recluses” from heavy obligations to their families or superiors and allowed for devotion to their own interests, which often included literary and cultural pursuits. Many of these recluse monks were intellectuals and artists who produced what is now referred to as “recluse literature” (sōan bungaku). Recluse literature, which contains some of the finest writing in this period, is characterized by a deep interest in nature and in self-reflection. Prominent figures are Saigyō in the late Heian period; Kamo no Chōmei, author of An Account of a Ten-Foot-Square Hut (Hōjōki) in the early Kamakura period; and Kenkō, who wrote Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa) in the fourteenth century. Prominent recluse figures in the late medieval period include Sōgi (1421–1502), a renga master and literary scholar; and Yamazaki Sōkan (1465–1533), one of the founders of haikai (comic or popular linked verse).

KAMO NO CHŌMEI

Kamo no Chōmei (1155?–1216) was born into a family of hereditary Shinto priests who had served many generations at the Shimogamo (Kamo) Shrine, a prestigious shrine just north of the capital. Chōmei was the second son of Kamo no Nagatsugu, the head administrator of the shrine. As a child, Chōmei lived in comfortable circumstances and studied classical poetry (waka) and music, but his father died young while Chōmei was still in his teens, leaving him without the means for social advancement. Chōmei, however, continued to devote himself to the study of poetry and music, two fields in which he excelled.

In 1200, Chōmei began composing with the prominent poets of the day and was invited in 1201 by the retired emperor GoToba to take a prestigious position in the Imperial Poetry Office, where the imperial waka anthologies were edited and compiled. In the spring of 1204, at around the age of fifty, Chōmei suddenly took holy vows. It is generally believed that the cause for his sudden retirement was his disillusionment in not having received a high position at the Tadasu Shrine, part of the Shimogamo Shrine complex, a position for which he had long hoped but which was blocked by the shrine’s existing head administrator.

AN ACCOUNT OF A TEN-FOOT-SQUARE HUT (HŌJŌKI, 1212)

Chōmei wrote An Account of a Ten-Foot-Square Hut at the end of the Third Month of 1212 while in retirement at Hino, in the hills southeast of Kyoto. It is written in a mixed Japanese–Chinese style that draws heavily on Chinese and Buddhist words and sources. Probably the most noticeable rhetorical feature of this style is the heavy use of parallel phrases and of metaphors. The work is noted for its vivid descriptions of a series of disasters in the capital during a time of turmoil (the war between the Taira and Minamoto at the end of the twelfth century) and for its description of the law of impermanence of all things, one of the central tenets of Buddhism, which had a profound impact on Japan at this time. As a recluse who retreats from society and turns toward the pursuit of the Pure Land, a western paradise envisioned by the Pure Land Buddhist sect, the author is representative of a larger movement among the cultural elite at this time. In the end, however, Chōmei finds himself in the paradoxical position of advocating detachment and rebirth in the Pure Land while at the same time becoming attached to the beauties of nature and the four seasons and the aesthetic life of his ten-foot-square hut at Hino.

The current of the flowing river does not cease, and yet the water is not the same water as before. The foam that floats on stagnant pools, now vanishing, now forming, never stays the same for long. So, too, it is with the people and dwellings of the world. In the capital, lovely as if paved with jewels, houses of the high and low, their ridges aligned and roof tiles contending, never disappear however many ages pass, and yet if we examine whether this is true, we will rarely find a house remaining as it used to be. Perhaps it burned down last year and has been rebuilt. Perhaps a large house has crumbled and become a small one. The people living inside the houses are no different. The place may be the same capital and the people numerous, but only one or two in twenty or thirty is someone I knew in the past. One will die in the morning and another will be born in the evening: such is the way of the world, and in this we are like the foam on the water. I know neither whence the newborn come nor whither go the dead. For whose sake do we trouble our minds over these temporary dwellings, and why do they delight our eyes? This, too, I do not understand. In competing for impermanence, dweller and dwelling are no different from the morning glory and the dew. Perhaps the dew will fall and the blossom linger. But even though it lingers, it will wither in the morning sun. Perhaps the blossom will wilt and the dew remain. But even though it remains, it will not wait for evening.

In the more than forty springs and autumns that have passed since I began to understand the nature of the world, I have seen many unexpected things. I think it was on the twenty-eighth of the Fourth Month of Angen 3 [1177]. Around eight o’clock on a windy, noisy night, a fire broke out in the southeastern part of the capital and spread to the northwest. Finally it reached Suzaku Gate, the Great Hall of State, the university, and the Popular Affairs Ministry, and in the space of a night they all turned to dust and ash. The source of the fire is said to have been the intersection of Higuchi and Tominokōji, in makeshift housing occupied by bugaku dancers. Carried here and there in the violent wind, the fire spread outward like a fan unfolding. Distant houses choked on smoke; nearby, wind drove the flames against the ground. In the sky, ashes blown up by the wind reflected the light of the fire, while wind-scattered flames spread through the overarching red in leaps of one and two blocks. Those who were caught in the fire must have been frantic. Some choked on the smoke and collapsed; some were overtaken by the flames and died instantly. Some barely escaped with their lives but could not carry out their possessions. The Seven Rarities and ten thousand treasures all were reduced to ashes.⁶² How great the losses must have been. At that time, the houses of sixteen high nobles burned, not to mention countless lesser homes. Altogether, it is said that fire engulfed one-third of the capital. Thousands of men and women died, and more horses, oxen, and the like than one can tell. All human endeavors are foolish, but among them, spending one’s fortune and troubling one’s mind to build a house in such a dangerous capital is particularly vain.

Then, in the Fourth Month of Jishō 4 [1180], a great whirlwind arose near the intersection of Nakanomikado and Kyōgoku and raged as far as the Rokujō District. Because it blew savagely for three or four blocks, not a single house within them, large or small, escaped destruction. Some were flattened; some were reduced to nothing more than posts and beams. Blowing gates away, the wind carried them four or five blocks and set them down; blowing fences away, it joined neighboring properties into one. Naturally, all the possessions inside these houses were lifted into the sky, while cypress bark, boards, and other roofing materials mingled in the wind like winter leaves. The whirlwind blew up dust as thick as smoke so that nothing could be seen, and in its dreadful roar no voices could be heard. One felt that even the winds of retribution in hell could be no worse than this. Not only were houses damaged or lost, but countless men were injured or crippled in rebuilding them. As it moved toward the south-southwest, the wind was a cause of grief to many people. Whirlwinds often blow, but are they ever like this? It was something extraordinary. One feared that it might be a portent.

Then, in the Sixth Month of the same year, the capital was abruptly moved.⁶³ The relocation was completely unexpected. According to what I have heard, Kyoto was established as the capital more than four hundred years ago, during the reign of the Saga emperor.⁶⁴ The relocation of the capital is not something that can be undertaken easily, for no special reason, and so it is only natural that the people were uneasy with this move and lamented together about it. Objections having no effect, however, the emperor, the ministers, and all the other high nobles moved. Of those who served at court, who would stay behind in the old capital? Those who vested their hopes in government appointments or in rank, or depended on the favor of their masters, wasted not a day in moving, while those who had missed their chance, who had been left behind by the world, and who had nothing to look forward to, stayed sorrowfully where they were. Dwellings, their eaves contending, went to ruin with the passing days. Houses were disassembled and floated down the Yodo River as the land turned into fields before one’s eyes. Men’s hearts changed; now they valued only horses and saddles. No one used oxen and carriages any more. People coveted property in the southwest and scorned manors in the northeast. At that time I had occasion to go to the new capital, in the province of Tsu. I saw that there was insufficient room to lay out a grid of streets and avenues, the area being small. To the north, the city pressed against the mountains and, to the south, dropped off toward the sea. The roar of waves never slackened; a violent wind blew in off the saltwater. The palace stood in the mountains. Did that hall of logs look like this?⁶⁵ It was novel and, in its way, elegant. Where did they erect the houses they had torn down day by day and brought downstream, constricting the river’s flow? Open land was still plentiful, houses few. Even though the old capital had become a wasteland, the new capital was yet unfinished. Everyone felt like the drifting clouds. Those who had lived here before complained about losing their land. Those who had newly moved here bemoaned the pains of construction. In the streets, I saw that those who should have used carriages rode on horses, and most of those who should have dressed in court robes and headgear wore simple robes instead. The ways of the capital had changed abruptly; now they were no different from the ways of rustic samurai. I heard that these developments were portents of disorder in the land, and it turned out to be so: day by day the world grew more unsettled and the people more uneasy, and their fears proved to be well founded, so that in the winter of the same year the court returned to this capital.⁶⁶ But what became of all the houses that had been torn down? Not all of them were rebuilt as they had stood before.

I have heard that in venerable reigns of ancient times, emperors governed the nation with compassion: roofing his palace with thatch, Yao⁶⁷ of China refrained from even trimming the eaves; seeing how thin the smoke that rose from the people’s hearths, Nintoku⁶⁸ of Japan forgave even the lowest taxes. They did so because they took pity on the people and tried to help them. By measuring it against the past, we can know the state of the present.

Then, was it in the Yōwa era [1181–1182]?—long ago, and so I do not remember well, the world suffered a two-year famine, and dreadful things occurred. Droughts in spring and summer, typhoons and floods in fall—adversities followed one after another, and none of the five grains ripened. In vain the soil was turned in the spring and crops planted in the summer, but lost was the excitement of autumn harvests and of the winter laying-in. Consequently, people in the provinces abandoned their lands and wandered to other regions, or forgot their houses and went to live in the mountains. Various royal prayers were initiated and extraordinary Esoteric Buddhist rites were performed, to no effect whatever. It was the habit of the capital to depend on the countryside for everything, but nothing was making its way to the capital now. How long could the residents maintain their equanimity? As their endurance wore down, they tried to dispose of their valuables as if throwing them away, but no one showed any interest. The few who did engage in barter despised gold and cherished millet. Beggars lined the streets, their pleas and lamentations filling one’s ears. In this way, the first year struggled to a close. Surely the new year would bring improvement, one thought, but on top of the famine came an epidemic, and conditions only got worse. The metaphor of fish in a shrinking pool fit the situation well, as people running out of food grew more desperate by the day.⁶⁹ In the end, well-dressed men wearing lacquered sedge hats, their skirts wrapped around their legs, went intently begging house to house. One would see them walking, exhausted and confused, then collapse, their faces to the ground. The corpses of people who had starved to death lay along the earthen walls and in the streets; their numbers were beyond reckoning. A stench filled the world, as no one knew how to dispose of so many corpses, and often one could not bear to look at the decomposing faces and bodies. There was not even room for horses and carriages to pass on the Kamo riverbed. As lowly peasants and woodcutters exhausted their strength, firewood, too, came to be in short supply, and so people with no other resources tore apart their own houses and carried off the lumber to sell at market. I heard that the value of what one man could carry was not enough to sustain him for a single day. Strangely, mixed in among the firewood were sticks bearing traces here and there of red lacquer, or of gold and silver leaf, because people with nowhere else to turn had stolen Buddhist images from old temples and ripped out temple furnishings, which they broke into pieces. I saw such cruel sights because I was born into this impure, evil age.⁷⁰ There were many pathetic sights as well. Of those who had wives or husbands from whom they could not part, the ones whose love was stronger always died first. The reason is that putting themselves second and pitying the others, they gave their mates what little food they found. So it was that when parents and children lived together, the parents invariably died first. I also saw a small child who, not knowing that his mother was dead, lay beside her, sucking at her breast.

The eminent priest Ryūgyō of Ninna Temple,⁷¹ grieving over these countless deaths, wrote the first letter of the Sanskrit alphabet on the foreheads of all the dead he saw, thereby linking them to the Buddha. Wanting to know how many had died, he counted the bodies he found during the Fourth and Fifth Months.⁷² Within the capital, between Ichijō on the north and Kujō on the south, between Kyōgoku on the east and Suzaku on the west, more than 42,300 corpses lay in the streets. Of course, many others died before and after this period, and if we include those on the Kamo riverbed, in Shirakawa, in the western half of the capital, and in the countryside beyond, their numbers would be limitless. How vast the numbers must have been, then, in all the provinces along the Seven Highways. I have heard that something of the sort occurred in the Chōjō era [1134], during the reign of Emperor Sutoku, but I do not know how things were then. What I saw before my own eyes was extraordinary.

Then—was it at about the same time?—a dreadful earthquake shook the land.⁷³ The effects were remarkable. Mountains crumbled and dammed the rivers; the sea tilted and inundated the land. The earth split open and water gushed forth; boulders broke off and tumbled into valleys. Boats rowing near the shore were carried off on the waves; horses on the road knew not where to place their hooves. Around the capital, not a single shrine or temple survived intact. Some fell apart; others toppled over. Dust and ash rose like billows of smoke. The sound of the earth’s movement and of houses collapsing was no different from thunder. People who were inside their houses might be crushed in a moment. Those who ran outside found the earth splitting asunder. Lacking wings, one could not fly into the sky. If one were a dragon, one would ride the clouds. I knew then that earthquakes were the most terrible of all the many terrifying things. The dreadful shaking stopped after a time, but the aftershocks continued. Not a day passed without twenty or thirty quakes strong enough to startle one under ordinary circumstances. As ten and twenty days elapsed, gradually the intervals grew longer—four or five a day, then two or three, one every other day, one in two or three days—but the aftershocks went on for perhaps three months. Of the four great elements, water, fire, and wind constantly bring disaster, but for its part, earth normally brings no calamity. In ancient times—was it during the Saikō era [855]?—there was a great earthquake and many terrible things occurred, such as the head falling from the Buddha at Tōdai Temple,⁷⁴ but, they say, even that was not as bad at this. Everyone spoke of futility, and the delusion in their hearts seemed to diminish a little at the time; but after days and months piled up and years went by, no one gave voice to such thoughts any longer.

All in all, life in this world is difficult; the fragility and transience of our bodies and dwellings are indeed as I have said. We cannot reckon the many ways in which we trouble our hearts according to where we live and in obedience to our status. He who is of trifling rank but lives near the gates of power cannot rejoice with abandon, however deep his happiness may be, and when his sorrow is keen, he does not wail aloud. Anxious about his every move, trembling with fear no matter what he does, he is like a sparrow near a hawk’s nest. One who is poor yet lives beside a wealthy house will grovel in and out, morning and evening, ashamed of his wretched figure. When he sees the envy that his wife, children, and servants feel for the neighbors, when he hears the rich family’s disdain for him, his mind will be unsettled and never find peace. He who lives in a crowded place cannot escape damage from a fire nearby. He who lives outside the city contends with many difficulties as he goes back and forth and often suffers at the hands of robbers. The powerful man is consumed by greed; he who stands alone is mocked. Wealth brings many fears; poverty brings cruel hardship. Look to another for help and you will belong to him. Take someone under your wing, and your heart will be shackled by affection. Bend to the ways of the world and you will suffer. Bend not and you will look demented. Where can one live, and how can one behave to shelter this body briefly and to ease the heart for a moment?

I inherited my paternal grandmother’s house and occupied it for some time. Then I lost my backing,⁷⁵ came down in the world, and even though the house was full of fond memories, I finally could live there no longer,⁷⁶ and so I, past the age of thirty, resolved to build a hut. It was only one-tenth the size of my previous residence. Unable to construct a proper estate, I erected a house only for myself.⁷⁷ I managed to build an earthen wall but lacked the means to raise a gate. Using bamboo posts, I sheltered my carriage. The place was not without its dangers whenever snow fell or the wind blew. Because the house was located near the riverbed, the threat of water damage was deep and the fear of robbers never ebbed. Altogether, I troubled my mind and endured life in this difficult world for more than thirty years. The disappointments I suffered during that time awakened me to my unfortunate lot.⁷⁸ Accordingly, when I greeted my fiftieth spring, I left my house and turned away from the world. I had no wife or children, and so there were no relatives whom it would have been difficult to leave behind. As I had neither office nor stipend, what was there for me to cling to? Vainly, I spent five springs and autumns living in seclusion among the clouds on Mount Ōhara.⁷⁹

Reaching the age of sixty, when I seemed about to fade away like the dew, I constructed a new shelter for the remaining leaves of my life. I was like a traveler who builds a lodging for one night only or like an aged silkworm spinning its cocoon. The result was less than a hundredth the size of the residence of my middle age. In the course of things, years have piled up and my residences have steadily shrunk. This one is like no ordinary house. In area it is only ten feet square; in height, less than seven feet. Because I do not choose a particular place to live, I do not acquire land on which to build. I lay a foundation, put up a simple, makeshift roof, and secure each joint with a latch. This is so that I can easily move the building if anything dissatisfies me. How much bother can it be to reconstruct it? It fills only two carts, and there is no expense beyond payment for the porters.

Now, having hidden my tracks and gone into seclusion in the depths of Mount Hino,⁸⁰ I extended the eaves more than three feet to the east, making a convenient place to break and burn brushwood. On the south I made a bamboo veranda, on the west of which I built a water-shelf for offerings to the Buddha, and to the north, behind a screen, I installed a painting of Amida Buddha,⁸¹ next to it hung Fugen,⁸² and before it placed the Lotus Sutra. Along the east side I spread soft ferns, making a bed for the night. In the southwest, I constructed hanging shelves of bamboo and placed there three black leather trunks. In them I keep selected writings on Japanese poetry and music, and the Essentials of Salvation. A koto and a biwa stand to one side. They are what are called a folding koto and a joined lute.⁸³ Such is the state of my temporary hut. As for the location: to the south is a raised bamboo pipe. Piling up stones, I let water collect there. Because the woods are near, kindling is easy to gather. The name of the place is Toyama. Vines cover all tracks.⁸⁴ Although the ravines are overgrown, the view is open to the west. The conditions are not unfavorable for contemplating the Pure Land of the West. In spring I see waves of wisteria. They glow in the west like lavender clouds. In summer I hear the cuckoo. Whenever I converse with him, he promises to guide me across the mountain path of death.⁸⁵ In autumn the voices of twilight cicadas fill my ears. They sound as though they are mourning this ephemeral, locust-shell world. In winter I look with deep emotion upon the snow. Accumulating and melting, it can be compared to the effects of bad karma. When I tire of reciting the Buddha’s name or lose interest in reading the sutras aloud, I rest as I please, I dawdle as I like. There is no one to stop me, no one before whom to feel ashamed. Although I have taken no vow of silence, I live alone and so surely can avoid committing transgressions of speech.⁸⁶ Although I do not go out of my way to observe the rules that an ascetic must obey, what could lead me to break them, there being no distractions here? In the morning, I might gaze at the ships sailing to and from Okanoya, comparing myself to the whitecaps behind them, and compose verses in the elegant style of the novice-priest Manzei;⁸⁷ in the evening, when the wind rustles the leaves of the katsura trees, I might turn my thoughts to the Xunyang River and play my biwa in the way of Gen Totoku.⁸⁸ If my enthusiasm continues unabated, I might accompany the sound of the pines with “Autumn Winds” or play “Flowing Spring” to the sound of the water.⁸⁹ Although I have no skill in these arts, I do not seek to please the ears of others. Playing to myself, singing to myself, I simply nourish my own mind.

At the foot of the mountain is another brushwood hut, the home of the caretaker of this mountain. A small child lives there. Now and then he comes to visit. When I have nothing else to do, I take a walk with him as my companion. He is ten years old; I am sixty. Despite the great difference in our ages, our pleasure is the same. Sometimes we pluck edible reed-flowers, pick pearberries, break off yam bulbils, or gather parsley. Sometimes we go to the paddies at the foot of the mountain, collect fallen ears of rice, and tie them into sheaves. If the weather is fair, we climb to the peak and gaze at the distant sky above my former home, or look at Mount Kohata, the villages of Fushimi, Toba, and Hatsukashi. Because a fine view has no master,⁹⁰ nothing interferes with our pleasure. When walking is no problem and we feel like going somewhere far, we follow the ridges from here, crossing Mount Sumi, passing Kasatori, and visit the temple at Iwama or worship at the Ishiyama temple. Then again, we might make our way across Awazu Plain and go to see the site where Semimaru lived, or cross the Tanakami River and visit the grave of Sarumaru Dayū.⁹¹ On our return, depending on the season, we break off branches of blossoming cherry, seek out autumn foliage, pick ferns, or gather fruit. Some we offer to the Buddha, and some we bring home to remind us of our outing. When the night is quiet, I look at the moon at the window and think fondly of my old friends;⁹² I hear the cries of the monkey and wet my sleeve with tears.⁹³ Fireflies in the grass might be taken for fishing flares at distant Maki Island; the rain at dawn sounds like a gale blowing the leaves of the trees. When I hear the pheasant’s song I wonder whether it might not be the voice of my father or mother;⁹⁴ when the deer from the ridge draws tamely near I know how far I have withdrawn from the world.⁹⁵ Sometimes I dig up embers to keep me company when, as old men do, I waken in the night. This is not a fearful mountain, and so I listen closely to the owl’s call.⁹⁶ Thus from season to season the charms of mountain scenery are never exhausted. Of course one who thinks and understands more deeply than I would not be limited to these.

When I came to live in this place, I thought that I would stay for only a short time, but already five years have passed. Gradually my temporary hut has come to feel like home as dead leaves lie deep on the eaves and moss grows on the foundation. When news of the capital happens to reach me, I learn that many of high rank have passed away since I secluded myself on this mountain. There is no way to know how many of lower rank have died. How many houses have been lost in the frequent fires? Only a temporary hut is peaceful and free of worry. It may be small, but it has a bed on which to lie at night and a place in which to sit by day. Nothing is lacking to shelter one person. The hermit crab prefers a small shell. This is because he knows himself. The osprey lives on rugged shores. The reason is that he fears people. I am like them. Knowing myself and knowing the world, I have no ambitions, I do not strive. I simply seek tranquillity and enjoy the absence of care. It is common practice in the world that people do not always build dwellings for themselves. Some might build for their wives and children, their relations and followers, some for their intimates and friends. Some might build for their masters or teachers, even for valuables, oxen, and horses. I now have built a hut for myself. I do not build for others. The reason is that given the state of the world now and my own circumstances, there is neither anyone I should live with and look after, nor any dependable servant. Even if I had built a large place, whom would I shelter, whom would I have live in it?

When it comes to friends, people respect the wealthy and prefer the suave. They do not always love the warmhearted or the upright. Surely it is best simply to make friends with strings and woodwinds, blossoms and the moon. When it comes to servants, they value a large bonus and generous favors. They do not seek to be nurtured and loved, to work quietly and at ease. It is best simply to make my body my servant. How? If there is something to be done, I use my own body. This can be a nuisance, but it is easier than employing and looking after someone else. If I have to go out, I walk. This can be painful, but it is not as bad as troubling my mind over the horse, the saddle, the ox, the carriage. Now I divide my single body and use it in two ways. My hands are my servants, my legs my conveyance, and they do just as I wish. Because my mind understands my body’s distress, I rest my body when it feels distressed, use it when it feels strong. [And] though I use it, I do not overwork it. When my body does not want to work, my mind is not annoyed. Needless to say, walking regularly and working regularly must promote good health. How can I idle the time away doing nothing? To trouble others is bad karma. Why should I borrow the strength of another? It is the same for clothing and food. Using what comes to hand, I cover my skin with clothing woven from the bark of wisteria vines and with a hempen quilt, and sustain my life with asters of the field and fruits of the trees on the peak. Because I do not mingle with others, I am not embarrassed by my appearance. Because food is scarce, my crude rewards taste good. My description of these pleasures is not directed at the wealthy. I am comparing my own past only with my present.

The Three Worlds exist only in the one mind.⁹⁷ If the mind is not at peace, elephants, horses, and the Seven Rarities will be worthless; palaces and pavilions will have no appeal. My present dwelling is a lonely, one-room hut, but I love it. When I happen to venture into the capital, I feel ashamed of my beggarly appearance, but when I come back and stay here, I pity those others who rush about in the worldly dust. Should anyone doubt what I am saying, I would ask them to look at the fishes and birds. A fish never tires of water. One who is not a fish cannot know a fish’s mind.⁹⁸ Birds prefer the forest. One who is not a bird cannot know a bird’s mind. The savor of life in seclusion is the same. Who can understand it without living it?

Well, now, the moon of my life span is sinking in the sky; the time remaining to me nears the mountaintops. Soon I shall set out for the darkness of the Three Paths.⁹⁹ About what should I complain at this late date? The essence of the Buddha’s teachings is that we should cling to nothing. Loving my grass hut is wrong. Attachment to my quiet, solitary way of life, too, must interfere with my enlightenment. Why then do I go on spending precious time relating useless pleasures?

Pondering this truth on a tranquil morning, just before dawn, I ask my mind: one leaves the world and enters the forest to cultivate the mind and practice the Way of the Buddha. In your case, however, although your appearance is that of a monk, your mind is clouded with desire. You have presumed to model your dwelling after none other than that of Vimalakirti,¹⁰⁰ but your adherence to the discipline fails even to approach the efforts of Suddhipanthaka.¹⁰¹ Is this because poverty, a karmic retribution, torments your mind,¹⁰² or is it that a deluded mind has deranged you? At that time, my mind had no reply. I simply set my tongue to work halfheartedly reciting the name of the compassionate Amida Buddha two or three times, and that is all.

The monk Ren’in wrote this late in the Third Month of Kenryaku 2 [1212], at his hut on Toyama.¹⁰³

[Translated by Anthony H. Chambers]

TALES OF AWAKENING (HOSSHINSHŪ, CA. 1211)

Tales of Awakening, a collection of Buddhist setsuwa, or anecdotes, was edited by Kamo no Chōmei (1155?–1216), who also wrote the preface. It contains a little over a hundred stories set in Japan. According to the preface, the aim of the collection was to lead those like Chōmei, who were wandering in darkness, to salvation. As the title suggests, several of the stories are about awakening to the Buddhist truth (hosshin) and being reborn in the Pure Land. Some of the stories illustrate how and why the precepts of Buddhism are to be observed; others are about reclusion or the failure to be reborn in the Pure Land. Kamo no Chōmei’s career as a writer peaked around 1212, when he wrote his noted essay An Account of a Ten-Foot-Square Hut and when he became even more deeply committed to Buddhism. In the following story about Rengejō, Chomei suggests, as he does in An Account of a Ten-Foot-Square Hut, that the key to salvation and rebirth in the Pure Land is just a single issue: one’s prevailing spiritual state, particularly at the point of death. This position, in which the individual determines his or her fate, predates the type of Pure Land Buddhism advocated by Hōnen (1133–1212) and others that relies on the other and on the nenbutsu, intoning the Amida Buddha’s name as an expression of faith in his power to save.

Rengejō’s Suicide by Drowning

Not long ago there lived a rather well known holy man named Rengejō. He was on friendly terms with the priest Tōren, who over the years had now and then had occasion to be helpful to him in one way or another.¹⁰⁴ This holy man, however, was now beginning to get on in years, and he spoke to Tōren, saying, “I now grow weaker with each passing year and have little doubt that my death is drawing near. As my most earnest wish is to pass away with a clear mind fully focused on rebirth in the Pure Land, I have resolved that I shall end my life by drowning myself while my mind is in a state of composure.”¹⁰⁵

Tōren was astonished to hear this and remonstrated with him, saying, “You mustn’t do that! Your aim should be to devote yourself, if for even one more day, to accruing spiritual merit by reciting the nenbutsu, the name of the Amida Buddha. What you propose is the sort of thing the ignorant do!” But seeing that Rengejō was absolutely unbending in his determination, Tōren said, “Well, if you are this resolute, I suppose there is no stopping you. It may be that this was predestined by karma.” And he worked together with Rengejō, helping him make various arrangements in preparation for death.

When the time came, they went to a stretch of the Katsura River where the water was deep, and Rengejō began reciting the nenbutsu in a loud voice and, after a time, submerged himself and sank to the bottom of the river. By this time, word about Rengejō’s intentions had gotten around, and so many people were gathered there that it looked like market day. Their expressions of boundless admiration and sorrow for him went on for some time. Tōren was deeply grief-stricken. “And we’d known each other for so many years!” he lamented and returned home, fighting back the tears.

Some days after this, Tōren fell ill with a sickness that appeared to be the result of possession by some sort of malignant spirit. Those around him were just beginning to sense that this was no ordinary illness, that something strange was going on, when the spirit manifested and identified itself, saying, “I am he who was once Rengejō.” Tōren said, “I cannot believe that this is true. We were friends for many years, and to the very end I did nothing whatsoever to arouse your resentment. What’s more, the level of your spiritual dedication was extraordinary, and your end was most exemplary. So why would you come here in this totally unexpected form?”

The spirit replied, “That’s just it! Although you had tried so hard to stop me, I did not fully understand my own heart, and so I went and threw my life away. I wasn’t particularly doing it for anybody else’s sake, so I never imagined that when it came down to it I might have a change of heart; but through whatever trick of Tenma, at the very moment when I was about to enter the water I was suddenly assailed by misgivings.¹⁰⁶ But with all those people there, how could I just feel free to change my mind? ‘Ah, if only you would try to stop me now!’ I thought, attempting to catch your eye; but as your face gave no indication of noticing, it seemed as though you were urging me, ‘Now, hurry up and get on with it!’ so I felt compelled to submerge myself—and in my bitterness at that, my mind held no thought whatsoever of Pure Land rebirth. Now I find myself in a rebirth that I had not bargained for at all. This was my own foolish error, so I have no business blaming anyone else for it; but because my final thought was of unwillingness to go, I have ended up coming back here like this.”

Now this affair may indeed be a matter of karmic seeds sown in a previous existence. Yet it still ought to serve as a warning to the people of this degenerate age. The hearts of others are difficult to fathom and are not always motivated by attitudes that are pure and honest. Caught up in competitiveness and ambition or driven by pride and jealousy, some foolishly believe that immolating themselves as human-offering lamps or drowning themselves in the sea will secure them rebirth in the Pure Land, and so they rashly take it into their heads to commit this sort of act. This is, in fact, identical to “the ascetic practices of the heretics” and should be labeled as a major perverse view.¹⁰⁷ For this reason, such a person’s suffering on entering into the flames or water is by no means insignificant. If his resolution is not exceedingly deep, how will he be able to endure it? And due to that agony, his heart will not be serene. Not only begging for the Buddha’s aid but also maintaining a mind of unwavering conviction¹⁰⁸ will be extremely difficult.

It seems that even among the silly prattlings of ignorant people, they say things like “I could never bring myself to become a human-offering lamp, but I could easily submerge myself in water.” No doubt this is because from an onlooker’s standpoint, it appears as though there is practically nothing to it; but in fact they have no idea what the experience is really like. One holy man relates, “I was drowning in the water and had already begun to die when somebody rescued me, and I just barely survived. On that occasion, so intense was the torment of the water’s assault as it came in through my nose and mouth that it seemed to me that the agonies of hell itself could not possibly be this excruciating. The fact that people can nevertheless believe that water is a soft and gentle thing is because they are not yet acquainted with water as a killer.”

Someone once observed, “All the various actions that we perform lie in the hearts of each of us. It is we alone who perform these actions, and we alone can know them. They are difficult for an outside observer to judge. In regard to past karmic causes, future karmic effects, and the Buddha’s protection, if we just concentrate on composing our own state of mind, it will become obvious how to judge them. But let us at least clarify one thing.¹⁰⁹ In order to practice the way of the Buddha, if a person secludes himself in mountain forests or dwells alone in open fields yet still cherishes an attitude of fearing for his body and clinging to survival, it is by no means certain that he will be able to depend on the Buddha’s protection. He should adopt the attitude that it is necessary to withdraw from the world, hiding himself behind fences and walls; and by protecting his own body and saving his own self from sickness, he should aspire to make gradual progress in his spiritual practice. If you regard your body as entirely consecrated to the Buddha—so that even if a tiger or wolf tries to harm you, you will not be overly fearful and so that even if you run out of food and are starving to death, you will not become disheartened—then without fail the Buddha will extend to you his protection, and the host of bodhisattvas, too, will come to protect you.¹¹⁰ Dharma-obstructing demons and venomous beasts will find no opening for attack. Robbers will have a change of heart and go away, and through the power of the Buddha your diseases will be healed. But if you do not realize this and allow your heart to remain as shallow as ever, yet still count on the protection of the Buddha, then you will do so at your own peril.”

And this, it seems to me, is indeed the truth of the matter.

[Translated by Herschel Miller]

ANECDOTES (SETSUWA)

Collections of setsuwa (anecdotes) existed from as early as the fudoki (provincial gazetteers) in the Nara period and the Nihon ryōiki (ca. 822), but the great period of setsuwa is the late Heian period, beginning with the Collection of Tales of Times Now Past (Konjaku monogatari shū, ca. 1120), through the Kamakura period (1185–1333), when several setsuwa collections were compiled. The most famous of the Kamakura-period setsuwa collections, at least today, is A Collection of Tales from Uji (Uji shūi monogatari, early thirteenth century). These collections, which were edited by aristocrats or priests of aristocratic origin, mark the emergence of a new, robust form of literature, reflecting new values and social groups, which ranged from commoners, warriors, and priests to aristocrats. They embraced a wide variety of topics, from poetry to violence to sex.

Yanagita Kunio (1875–1962), one of the founders of modern Japanese folklore studies, once defined setsuwa both as a narration that is spoken and heard and as written literature, as collections of recorded stories. All setsuwa now are in written form, though they reveal traces of their original oral transmission.

In contrast to monogatari, which admit to their fictionality, setsuwa present the narration as history, as a record of past events, even when these events tend to be about the strange, miraculous, or unusual, causing surprise. In the medieval and Tokugawa periods, setsuwa collections were considered to be a kind of historical record or vernacular Buddhist writing (hōgo), and it was not until the modern period that they were considered a type of literature (bungaku) comparable to the monogatari.

The setsuwa also differ from monogatari and military chronicles by their brevity. They tend to be action oriented (plot centered) and compact, often focusing on a single event, much like a short story. The collections or anthologies of setsuwa, however, can be very large, such as the Collection of Tales of Times Now Past and A Collection of Tales from Uji, and have their own complex thematic structure. Like the poems in a poetry collection, setsuwa can be read both independently and as part of a larger sequence or section.

The setsuwa genre is also marked by didactic endings. The editor of each setsuwa collection gives each setsuwa a particular function. Thus the same setsuwa may appear in one collection as a Buddhist setsuwa, in another collection as a secular setsuwa, and in yet another collection as part of a poetry handbook. About half the extant setsuwa collections are Buddhist, beginning with the Nihon ryōiki, reflecting the large role they played in preaching and teaching the Buddhist law. Although we sometimes know the editors, such as Priest Mujū (1226–1312), the editor of Shasekishū (Collection of Sand and Pebbles, 1279–1283), the setsuwa themselves, which were constantly recycled and reworked, are anonymous. In contrast to those in the early fudoki and the Nihon ryōiki, which are written in Chinese, the collections from the late Heian through the Kamakura period, the heyday of the setsuwa, are written in vernacular Japanese.

In the late medieval period, the setsuwa were replaced by otogi-zōshi (Muromachi tales), which are a longer narrative form that incorporates more elements of the monogatari. Both during and after their peak, setsuwa provided a constant and deep source of material for other genres, such as the literary diary (nikki), monogatari, warrior tale, historical chronicle, nō drama, kōwakamai (ballad drama), kyōgen, otogi-zōshi, and sekkyō-bushi. A closely related genre is the warrior tale or chronicle, which often integrates setsuwa into a longer chronological narrative.

A COLLECTION OF TALES FROM UJI (UJI SHŪI MONOGATARI, EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY)

A Collection of Tales from Uji is the most popular and widely read of the medieval setsuwa collections. The quality of the writing was considered to be unsurpassed among setsuwa collections, and it was widely printed and read in the Tokugawa period. Although the author and date of composition are uncertain, it is generally considered to be an early-thirteenth-century work. A late-Heian-period aristocrat, the senior counselor (dainagon) Minamoto no Takakuni, who lived in the twelfth century at the Byōdō-in at Uji, south of the capital, is thought to have written a work entitled Tales of the Senior Counselor (Uji dainagon monogatari), which was very popular but was lost. The attempt to reconstruct the lost text in the early thirteenth century resulted in Uji shūi monogatari. The Uji in this title refers to the Byōdō-in, and shūi (collection of remains) probably refers to collecting the remains of the Uji dainagon monogatari.

Uji shūi monogatari contains 197 stories, of which 80 also appear in the Heian-period Collection of Tales of Times Now Past (Konjaku monogatari shū), and a number appear in other setsuwa collections. The fact that so many of these stories appear elsewhere is an indication of how popular they were at the time. Fifty of the stories are not duplicated elsewhere, however, including humorous tales with sexual content and folktales, such as “How Someone Had a Wen Removed by Demons.”

The stories in Uji shūi monogatari are not arranged according to subject matter, as they are in Konjaku monogatari shū, nor does the collection seem to have any particular order or plan, except to include the most interesting stories. They are of many kinds: serious and humorous, Japanese and foreign (India and China), Buddhist (about one-third to one-half of the stories), and secular, with many of the most noted being secular. Unlike the Buddhist anecdotes in Konjaku monogatari shū, these Buddhist-related stories do not appear to be intended for immediate religious use. Instead, the interest is in looking at individuals and human society with an ironic eye and a love of good storytelling. Whereas in the late Heian and early Kamakura periods, setsuwa were collected as part of the attempt to preserve artifacts of court culture that was rapidly disappearing, in Uji shūi monogatari the point of view is not at all fixed, instead exploring different classes and social groups from different angles.

The stories in Uji shūi monogatari are not records of oral performances but are written narratives that assume the characteristics of such a performance. Accordingly, they open with set phrases like “Now, long ago” (Ima wa mukashi) and end with “so it has been told” (to ka, to zo, to nan). Both “Wen Removed by Demons” and “How a Sparrow Repaid Its Debt of Gratitude” finish with a didactic message, but these were probably added as part of the convention of storytelling.

“How Someone Had a Wen Removed by Demons” (1:3) is a variation on a folktale (mukashi-banashi) that reappears in myriad forms across the centuries. Although most of the oni (demons) that appear in Uji shūi monogatari are fearful in appearance, here they dance, drink, and enjoy themselves, so much that the old man joins them, an image that no doubt appealed to commoner audiences.

“How a Sparrow Repaid Its Debt of Gratitude” (3:16) is another variation on a folktale. The sparrows (like other creatures) provide rewards and punishments in accordance with actions of the humans. Like “Wen Removed by Demons,” this setsuwa draws on a familiar folktale pattern, of neighbors who stand in contrast to one another in moral character, in which the rewards and punishments directly reflect their contrasting moral character.

“How Yoshihide, a Painter of Buddhist Pictures, Took Pleasure in Seeing His House on Fire” (1:38), which also appears in the Jikkinshō (1:6), provided the basis for the famous short story “Hell Screen” (Jigokuhen), by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892–1927). Although Yoshihide’s house is burning, he makes no effort to put out the fire and thus is able to create a great painting of the Fudōmyō Buddha in the midst of flames. In Akutagawa’s story, the author takes the story of absolute dedication to one’s artistic path one step further: the painter watches his daughter burn to death. “About the Priest with the Long Nose” (2:7), which also is included here, was adapted by Akutagawa as well, into a noted short story entitled “Nose” (Hana).

How Someone Had a Wen Removed by Demons (1:3)

Again, there was once an old man who had a big wen on his right cheek, the size of an orange. On account of this he avoided mixing with people and made his living gathering firewood. When in the mountains one day, he was caught in such a violent storm that he was unable to get home and had no choice but to stay where he was, out there in the wilds. Having no other woodcutter with him, he was scared out of his wits, so he got inside a nearby hollow tree and squatted down, though he made no attempt to sleep. Suddenly he heard in the distance a noisy crowd of people approaching. It put new life into him to find some signs of humanity when he was all alone in the wilds, and he looked out—only to find a swarm of some hundred creatures of all sorts and descriptions, red ones dressed in blue, black ones wearing red loincloths, some with only one eye and some with no mouth—the whole lot hideous beyond words. In a noisy, jostling throng, carrying torches that blazed as brightly as the sun, they seated themselves in a circle before the hollow tree where he was sheltering. He was almost beside himself with terror.

One demon who appeared to be the leader sat at the head, and in two rows on his right and left were countless other demons, every single one of them indescribably horrible to look at. They were offering each other wine and enjoying themselves just like ordinary people. The wine jar went round many times, and the chief demon seemed particularly drunk. A young demon at the end of a row got up and walked slowly out in front of the chief, holding up a tray and evidently chattering away in a low voice—though what it all was that he was saying, the old man could not make out. The chief demon looked just like any ordinary person as he sat with a cup in his left hand and his face wreathed in smiles. The young demon performed a dance and sat down, then, beginning from the ends of the rows, the other demons danced in turn, some of them well, some badly. Watching in amazement, the old man heard the chief say, “Tonight’s entertainment has been even better than usual. But what I should like to see is some dance that’s really special.” At these words—perhaps some spirit took possession of him, or some god or Buddha put the thought into his mind—the old man suddenly felt an urge to rush out and do a dance. At first he thought better of it, but then the rhythm that the demons were chanting sounded so attractive that he said to himself, “I don’t care what happens, I’ll rush out and dance. If I die, I die.” And with his hat down over his nose and his woodchopper’s axe stuck in his belt, he left his hollow tree and danced out in front of the chief. The demons leapt to their feet with loud shouts of surprise. The old man danced with all his might, jumping in the air and bending low, twisting this way and that, and marking the time with loud yells, until he had danced right round the clearing. The chief and the whole company of demons watched in delighted astonishment.

“We’ve been having these parties for many years now,” the chief said, “but we’ve never had anything like this before. Old man, from now on you must always attend our parties.” “You don’t need to tell me, sir,” replied the old man, “I shall be there. This time I was unprepared and forgot the last steps. But if it pleases you so much, sir, I’ll do it again in less of a hurry.” “Well said,” declared the chief. “You must come again, without fail.” “The old man may promise this now,” said a demon three places away from the chief, “but I am afraid he may not come. Shouldn’t we get some pledge from him?” “Yes, we certainly should,” the chief agreed, and they all began to discuss what they should take. “What about taking the wen off his face?” said the chief. “A wen is a lucky thing, so I doubt if he’d want to lose that.” At this, the old man begged, “Take an eye or my nose, but please allow me to keep this wen, sir. It would be very hard on me to be robbed for no reason at all of something I’ve had for so many years.” “If he’s that unwilling to part with it, take it from him,” said the chief, whereupon a demon went up to the old man and with a “Here goes!” twisted the wen and pulled. The old man felt no pain at all. “Now then, see to it that you attend our next party,” he was told. By this time it was nearly dawn, and as the cocks were crowing, the demons went away. When he felt his face, the old man could find no trace of the wen he had had for so long. It had disappeared completely, as if it had been just wiped away. All thought of going to cut wood went out of his mind, and he returned to his home. When his aged wife questioned him about what had happened, he told her the story of the demons. “Who would have thought such a thing possible?” she exclaimed.

Now the old man who lived next door to them had a large wen on his left cheek, and when he found that his neighbor no longer had one, he asked him how he had got rid of it. “Where did you find a doctor to take it away? I wish you would tell me, then I could have mine taken away too.” “It wasn’t taken away by a doctor,” replied the old man, and he explained what had happened and how the demons had removed it. “I’ll get rid of mine in the same way,” said the other, and he persuaded his neighbor to tell him all the details of what had happened.

The second old man, following his instructions, got into the hollow tree and waited; then, just as he had been told, the demons appeared and sat round in a circle, enjoying themselves drinking. “Where is he? Is the old man here?” called the chief, and the second old man tottered out, trembling with fright. “Here he is,” shouted the demons, and the chief ordered him to be quick and dance. Compared with the first old man’s dance, this was a very poor and clumsy effort, and the chief demon said, “This time his dance was bad, very bad indeed. Give him back that wen we took from him as a pledge.” A demon came out from the end of a row and shouting, “The chief’s giving you back the wen we took as a pledge,” threw the wen at the old man’s other cheek, so that he now had one on each side of his face.

Never be envious of others, they say.

About the Priest with the Long Nose (2:7)

Once there lived at Ikenoo¹¹¹ a court priest named Zenchin.¹¹² He was a very saintly man, being thoroughly versed in the esoteric teachings of Buddhism and having practiced its rites for many years, and thus he was in great demand to say all manner of prayers. As a result he was very prosperous, and there was never a sign of dilapidation in the temple buildings or in the priests’ living quarters. The offerings to the Buddha and the votive lamp were never neglected. The periodic banquets to the priests and the temple sermons—all were held regularly. And so the priests’ quarters in the temple were always fully occupied. Never a day passed without the bath being heated and a noisy crowd of priests bathing. In the neighborhood, too, a number of small houses were built and a flourishing village grew up.

Now Zenchin had a long nose, five or six inches long, in fact, so that it seemed to hang down beyond his chin. It was purply-red in color, swollen and pimply like the peel of an orange. It itched terribly, and he used to boil water in a kettle and put his nose into it, protecting his face from the fire by means of a tray in which he had cut a hole just large enough to allow the nose to pass through. He would give it a good boiling, and when he took it out it was a deep purple hue. Then he would lie down on his side, and putting something underneath the nose, he would get someone to tread on it, whereupon something like smoke oozed out from the hole in each of the pimples. As the treading grew heavier, white maggots emerged from each of the holes and were pulled out with a pair of hair-tweezers—a white maggot about half an inch long from each hole. You could even see the open holes they had come from. Then the nose was put back into the same water and boiled up again, which made it shrink until it was the size of an ordinary person’s nose. But within two or three days it would swell up again to its former size.

This same process went on over and over again, so that there were a great many days when it was swollen. At mealtimes, therefore, Zenchin would get one of his acolytes to sit opposite him and hold a strip of wood about a foot long and an inch wide under his nose to keep it up, staying like that until the meal was over. When Zenchin got anyone else to hold his nose up, they were not gentle in the way they did it and he got so annoyed that he lost his appetite. Accordingly this one priest was given the job of holding his nose up at every meal. One day, however, he was feeling unwell, and when Zenchin sat down to his breakfast gruel there was no one to support his nose. While he was wondering what to do, a lad who was one of his servants volunteered to hold the nose up for him. “I’m sure I shall do just as well as that priest,” he said. He was overheard by one of the acolytes, who reported his offer to Zenchin, and the boy, a good-looking lad in his middle teens, was summoned to come and sit in front of his master, where he took up the nose-supporter and, holding himself very formally and correctly, kept the nose at just the right height, not too high and not too low, so that Zenchin could drink his gruel. As he drank, Zenchin remarked how skillful the lad was, even better than the priest. But just then the boy turned aside to sneeze, and as he sneezed, his hand shook, the stick supporting the nose wobbled, and the nose slipped off and fell plop into the gruel, which splashed up all over their faces. Zenchin was furious, and as he wiped his head and face with paper, he ordered the boy out, bellowing, “You confounded idiot! A stupid lout, that’s what you are. Just you go and hold up some bigwig’s nose, instead of mine, then I’ll bet you wouldn’t do this. You stupid great fool! Get out, get out!” “Certainly, I’ll go and hold his nose up,” called the lad, as a parting shot, “—if there is anybody else with a nose like yours. You don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.” The acolytes all went where they could not be seen and had a good laugh.

How Yoshihide, a Painter of Buddhist Pictures, Took Pleasure in Seeing His House on Fire (3:6)

Again, long ago there was a painter of Buddhist pictures named Yoshihide. His neighbor’s house caught fire, and when the flames threatened to engulf Yoshihide’s house too, he saved himself by running out into the street. Inside the house he had some pictures of Buddhist divinities that he had been commissioned to paint. Also inside were his wife and children, all caught there without even having time to dress. But Yoshihide did not give them a thought, he simply stood on the other side of the street congratulating himself on his own escape. As he watched, he could see that the fire now had a grip on his own house, and he continued to watch from the other side of the street until the house was a mass of billowing smoke and flame. Several people came up to him to express their sympathy at this awful disaster, but he was completely unperturbed, and when asked why, all he did was to go on standing there on the other side of the street watching his house burn, nodding his head and every now and then breaking into a laugh. “What a stroke of luck!” he said. “This is something I’ve never been able to paint properly for all these years.” The people who had come to express their condolences asked him how he could just stand there like that. “What a shocking way to behave! Has some demon got into you?” they asked. Yoshihide, however, only stood laughing scornfully, and replied, “Of course not. For years now I’ve not been able to paint a good halo of fire in my pictures of the god Fudō.¹¹³ Now that I’ve seen this, I’ve learned what a fire really looks like. That’s a real stroke of luck. If you want to make a living at this branch of art, you can have any number of houses you like—provided you’re good at painting Buddhas and gods. It’s only because you have no talent for art that you set such store by material things.”

It was perhaps from this time on that he began to paint pictures of his “Curling Fudō,” which even nowadays people praise so highly.

How a Sparrow Repaid Its Debt of Gratitude (3:16)

Long ago, one fine day in spring, a woman of about sixty was sitting cleansing herself of lice when she saw a boy pick up a stone and throw it at one of the sparrows that were hopping around in the garden. The stone broke the bird’s leg, and as it floundered about, wildly flapping its wings, a crow came swooping down on it. “Oh, the poor thing,” cried the woman, “the crow will get it,” and snatching it up, she revived it with her breath and gave it something to eat. At night, she placed it for safety in a little bucket. Next morning, when she gave it some rice and also a medicinal powder made from ground copper, her children and grandchildren ridiculed her. “Just look,” they jeered, “Granny’s taken to keeping sparrows in her old age.”

For several months she tended it, till in time it was hopping about again, and though it was only a sparrow, it was deeply grateful to her for nursing it back to health. Whenever she left the house on the slightest errand, the woman would ask someone to look after the sparrow and feed it. The family ridiculed her and wanted to know whatever she was keeping a sparrow for, but she would reply, “Never you mind! I just feel sorry for it.” She kept it till it could fly again, then, confident that there was no longer any risk of its being caught by a crow, she went outside and held it up on her hand to see if it would fly away. Off it went with a flap of its wings. Everyone laughed at the woman because she missed her sparrow so much. “For so long now I’ve been used to shutting it up at night and feeding it in the morning,” she said, “and oh dear, now it’s flown away! I wonder if it will ever come back.”

About three weeks later, she suddenly heard a sparrow chirruping away near her house, and wondering if all this chirruping meant that her sparrow had come back, she went out to see, and found that it had. “Well I never!” she exclaimed. “What a wonderful thing for it to remember me and come back!” The sparrow took one look at the woman’s face, then it seemed to drop some tiny object out of its mouth and flew away. “Whatever can it be, this thing the sparrow has dropped?” she exclaimed, and going up to it, she found it was a single calabash-seed. “It must have had some reason for bringing this,” she said, and she picked it up and kept it. Her children laughed at her and said, “There’s a fine thing to do, getting something from a sparrow and treating it as if you’d got a fortune!” “All the same,” she told them, “I’m going to plant it and see what happens,” which she did. When autumn came, the seed had produced an enormous crop of calabashes, much larger and more plentiful than usual. Delighted, the woman gave some to her neighbors, and however many she picked, the supply was inexhaustible. The children who had laughed at her were now eating the fruit from morning to night, while everyone in the village received a share. In the end, the woman picked out seven or eight especially big ones to make into gourds, and hung them up in the house.

After several months, she inspected them and found that they were ready. As she took them down to cut openings in them, she thought they seemed rather heavy, which was mysterious. But when she cut one open, she found it full to the brim. Wondering whatever could be inside it, she began emptying it out—and found it full of white rice! In utter amazement, she poured all the rice into a large vessel, only to discover that the gourd immediately refilled itself. “Obviously some miracle has taken place—it must be the sparrow’s doing,” she exclaimed, bewildered but very happy. She put that gourd away out of sight before she examined the rest of them, but they all proved to be crammed full of rice, just like the first one. Whenever she took rice from the gourds, there was always far more than she could possibly use, so that she became extremely rich. The people in the neighboring villages were astonished to see how prosperous she had become, and were filled with envy at her incredible good fortune.

Now the children of the woman who lived next door said to their mother, “You and that woman next door are the same sort of people, but just look where she’s got to! Why haven’t you ever managed to do any good for us?” Their criticism stung the woman into going to see her neighbor. “Well, well, however did you manage this business?” she asked. “I’ve heard some talk about it being something to do with a sparrow, but I’m not really sure, so would you tell how it all came about, please?” “Well, it all began when a sparrow dropped a calabash-seed and I planted it,” said the other woman, rather vaguely. But when her neighbor pressed her to explain the whole story in detail, she felt she ought not to be petty and keep it to herself, so she explained how there had been a sparrow with a broken leg that she had nursed back to health, and how it must have been so grateful that it had brought her a calabash-seed, which she had planted; and that was how she had come to be wealthy. “Will you give me one of the seeds?” she was asked, but this she refused to do. “I’ll give you some of the rice that was in the gourds,” she said, “but I can’t give you a seed. I can’t possibly let those go.” The neighbor now began to keep a sharp lookout in case she too might find a sparrow with a broken leg to tend. But there were no such sparrows to be found. Every morning as she looked out, there would be sparrows hopping around pecking at any grains of rice that happened to be lying about outside the back door—and one day she picked up some stones and threw them in the hope of hitting one. Since she had several throws and there was such a flock of birds, she naturally managed to hit one, and as it lay on the ground, unable to fly away, she went up to it in great excitement and hit it again, to make sure that its leg was broken. Then she picked it up and took it indoors, where she fed it and treated it with medicine. “Why, if a single sparrow brought my neighbor all that wealth,” she thought to herself, “I should be much richer still if I had several of them. I should get a lot more credit from my children than she did from hers.” So she scattered some rice in the doorway and sat watching, then when a group of sparrows gathered to peck at it, she threw several stones at them, injuring three. “That will do,” she thought, and putting the three sparrows with broken legs into a bucket, she fed them a medicinal powder made from ground copper. Some months later, feeling very pleased with herself now that they had all recovered, she took them outdoors and they all flew away. In her own estimation she had acted with great kindness. But the sparrows bitterly resented having had their legs broken and being kept in captivity for months.

Ten days went by, and to the woman’s great joy the sparrows returned. As she was staring at them to see if they had anything in their mouths, they each dropped a calabash-seed and flew off. “It’s worked,” she thought exultantly, and picking up the seeds, she planted them in three places. In no time, much faster than ordinary ones, they had grown into huge plants, though none of them had borne much fruit—not more than seven or eight calabashes. She beamed with pleasure as she looked at them. “You complained that I had never managed to do any good for you,” she said to her children, “but now I’ll do better than that woman next door,” and the family very much hoped that she would. Since there were only a few calabashes, she did not eat any herself or let anyone else eat any, in the hope of getting more rice from them. Her children grumbled, “The woman next door ate some of hers and gave some to her neighbors. And we’ve got three seeds, which is more than she had, so there ought to be something for ourselves and the neighbors to eat.” Feeling that perhaps they were right, the woman gave some away to the neighbors, while she cooked a number of the fruit for herself and her family to eat. The calabashes tasted terribly bitter, however; they were just like the kihada fruit that people use as a medicine, and made everyone feel quite nauseated. Every single person who had eaten any, including the woman herself and her children, was sick. The neighbors were furious and came round in a very ugly mood, demanding to know what it was she had given them. “It’s shocking,” they said. “Even people who only got a whiff of the things felt as if they were on their last legs with sickness and nausea.” The woman and her children, meanwhile, were sprawled out half-unconscious and vomiting all over the place, so that there was little point in the neighbors’ complaining, and they went away. In two or three days, everyone had recovered, and the woman came to the conclusion that the peculiar things which had happened must have been the outcome of being overhasty and eating the calabashes which should have given rice. She therefore hung the rest of the fruit up to store. After some months, when she felt they would be ready, she went into the storeroom armed with buckets to hold the rice. Her toothless mouth grinning from ear to ear with happiness, she held the buckets up to the gourds and went to pour out the contents of the fruit—but what emerged was a stream of things like horseflies, bees, centipedes, lizards, and snakes, which attacked and stung her, not only on her face but all over her body. Yet she felt no pain, and thought that it was rice pouring over her, for she shouted, “Wait a moment, my sparrows. Let me get it a little at a time.” Out of the seven or eight gourds came a vast horde of venomous creatures which stung the children and their mother—the latter so badly that she died. The sparrows had resented having their legs broken and had persuaded swarms of insects and reptiles to enter the gourds; whereas the sparrow next door had been grateful because when it had broken its leg it had been saved from a crow and nursed back to health.

So you see, you should never be jealous of other people.

[Translated by Douglas E. Mills]

TALES OF RENUNCIATION (SENJŪSHŌ, EARLY THIRTEENTH CENTURY)

Tales of Renunciation is a collection of 121 Buddhist setsuwa divided into nine volumes. Although the date of 1183 is given in its colophon, it probably was composed about a century later. The collection has been popularly attributed to Saigyō (1189–1190), a noted late Heian monk and waka poet, probably because Saigyō figures prominently in the collection. He appears as the first-person narrator in one of the tales, and poems from Sankashū, Saigyō’s poetry collection, are incorporated into several tales, whereas several other tales appear to be based on headnotes from Sankashū. But it is clear that Saigyō was not the author or compiler.

The collection is unified by the theme of renunciation. The tales in Senjūshō usually begin with an anecdote, followed by an exposition or a commentary on the main theme of the anecdote. The first tale, which is included here, is representative of the tales’ format. The commentary, which is almost as long as the anecdote itself, argues that attachment to worldly possessions and reputation leads to sin and must be overcome, which Zōga does in an extreme fashion. Significantly, the eccentric Zōga is inspired by Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, whose presence reflects the Shinto–Buddhistic syncretism typical of the medieval period. The second example, Saigyō’s encounter with a prostitute at Eguchi, is the most famous of the Saigyō episodes and became the source for the nō play Eguchi.

The Venerable Zōga (1:1)

Long ago there lived a man known as the Venerable Zōga who had been deeply religious from an early age.¹¹⁴ For a thousand nights he kept vigil in the Main Hall on Mount Tendai,¹¹⁵ praying that he might attain perfect sincerity of heart, but he still found this difficult to accomplish. Once, when he had gone alone to the Great Shrine of Ise and was praying, he received, as if in a dream, this revelation: “If you would give rise to a heart that follows the Way, you must not regard your body as a body.”

Zōga was astonished and thought, “This means, ‘Rid yourself of all desire for fame and fortune.’ Well then, I shall do just that.” So he took off his priestly robes and gave them all away to beggars. He did not keep even his unlined underrobe but left the shrine completely naked.

Those who saw him were amazed. They crowded around to look at him, exclaiming, “He’s going mad. What a sad and dreadful sight!” But Zōga was not at all disturbed. He set out on his travels, begging as he went, and on the fourth day of the month again climbed the mountain to the chambers of Master Jie, where he had once lived.¹¹⁶ It is said that some of his fellow monks watched him, thinking, “The son of the consultant has gone mad,” while others viewed him with pity.

When no one was watching, the Master, who was Zōga’s teacher, invited him in and admonished him, “You have learned that a person should disregard fame and fortune. Still, you shouldn’t go to such extremes. Just behave properly, without desiring fame and fortune.”

But Zōga replied, “This is the way that a person who has long ago completely abandoned desire for fame and fortune should behave.” Then he cried out, “Oh, oh, I’m so happy,” and ran off.

The Master, too, went out the gate and wept as he watched Zōga disappear in the distance.

Zōga wandered until at last he reached Tōnomine in Yamato. There he lived in the ruins of the hermitage in which Zen Master Chirō had dwelt.

Ambition for fame and fortune is fearful indeed. Grave troubles also result from the three poisons of greed, anger, and ignorance. We believe that our bodies really exist, and so we create many other fictions to support them. Men born into military families wage war; fitting arrows to the bowstring in quick succession and wielding their long swords, they lose their lives in quest of the glory and gain that come from overpowering others. Women paint on fine, willow-leaf brows and perfume their robes with orchid and musk, calculating that their appearance will dispel the last traces of the autumn breezes of their lovers’ fickleness, and they, too, do this for no other reason than glory and fortune.

Furthermore, there are those who don the drab, dark robes of a priest and, fingering their rosary beads, preach to people as a way of supporting themselves. Or else they aspire to the highest rank and office in the hope that they will sit with nobles at religious assemblies and be honored by three thousand disciples. They, too, are not free from the desire for fame and profit.

But in addition to those who are not aware of this truth, there also are people who have seen the Yuishiki and Shikan texts¹¹⁷ and have the capacity to understand the ultimate truths of the scriptures. Despite this, they do not reject fame and fortune and so remain drifting in the ocean of birth and death. Everyone who tries to discard his reputation finds it difficult to change a habit of many lifetimes. It is truly wonderful that the Venerable Zōga was finally able to discard all longing for fame and fortune. How could he have ever reached that resolve without the aid of the Great Shrine of Ise? How impressive and awesome it is that a man in the eternal night of worldly desires was cleansed by the waves of the Isuzu River¹¹⁸ and that the clustered clouds of greed, anger, and ignorance vanished in the light of Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess. This incident should never be forgotten.

[Translated by Jean Moore]

The Woman of Pleasure at Eguchi (9:8)

Once around the twentieth of the Ninth Month, as I passed by a place called Eguchi, the sight of houses squeezed together on the north and south banks of the river and the hearts of the pleasure women set on the comings and goings of travelers made me think, “How pitiful and hopeless!” As I was thus gazing at the scene, an unseasonably wintry shower suddenly darkened the skies, so I approached the dwelling of one of these unseemly folk and asked for shelter until the skies cleared, but because the woman of pleasure of the house showed no sign of letting me in, I casually recited the following:

yo no naka o	It may be difficult
itou made koso	for you to despise
katakarame	this fleeting world,
kari no yadori o	but you begrudge me
oshimu kimi kana	even momentary lodging!

The woman of pleasure of the house then replied despairingly:

ie o izuru	Because I heard
hito to shi kikeba	that you had taken vows
kari no yado	my only thought was:
kokoro tomu na to	do not set your heart
omou bakari zo	on this momentary lodging!119

She then quickly let me in.

Although I had intended to seek shelter only during the rain, this poem was so wonderful that I stayed through the night. This woman of pleasure must have been more than forty at the time. Her appearance and manner were quite elegant and graceful. As we talked throughout the night about this and that, the woman of pleasure said: “I became a pleasure girl when I was quite young, and although I’ve carried on for many years this way, I still find it piteous. I’ve heard that women are particularly sinful, and the fact that on top of that I have carried on in this way makes me think that it must have been the result of karma from a previous existence, and that leaves me very depressed. But in the last two or three years my feelings have greatly deepened, and furthermore, since I’ve grown old, I don’t engage in such practices at all any more. Even though the same bell sounds each night from the temple in the fields, tonight I am filled with sorrow, and for some reason I am blinded by tears. When I wonder how long I might linger in this impermanent world of sorrows, how fleeting it all seems! At dawn my heart is clear, and I am deeply moved by the voices of birds bidding their fond farewells. Likewise in the evening I think to myself, ‘What will become of me when this night passes?’ And with the break of dawn I think, ‘Once this night has passed I’ll take on a nun’s appearance and make my resolve,’ but for years now I’ve grown accustomed to this world and its ways, and I feel like a bird in snowy mountains. What sorrow it is to have so helplessly fretted all this time!”

So saying, she wept uncontrollably. When I heard this, I was deeply moved and found it so rare and wonderful that I was unable to wring the tears from my own darkly dyed sleeves.¹²⁰ When the night had turned to dawn, though with great regret, we promised to meet again and parted.

Now, on the road back, I thought several times of how noble she was and shed more tears. Even now my heart is moved, and even at the sight of grasses or trees, I feel as though surrounded by darkness.¹²¹ Is this perhaps what is meant by “the amusement of wild words and decorative phrases is the cause for praise of the Dharma”?¹²² If I had not recited my poem, “but you begrudge me even momentary lodging,” this woman of pleasure probably would not have given me shelter. And so how else should I have met this wonderful person? How glad I was, for thanks to this lady my heart was inspired in a small way for a moment, and why shouldn’t this, in some small way, cause the seed of unsurpassed enlightenment to sprout?

Now, in the promised month, just as I was thinking I should visit her, a certain holy man came from the capital, and so I was completely distracted. Disappointed at my failed intentions, I related the situation to someone I could trust and then wrote a letter to send with which I included the following:

karisome no	“Don’t leave any
yo ni wa omoi o	thoughts behind
nokosu na to	in this fleeting world!”
kikishi koto no ha	These words I heard
wasurare mo sezu	have not been forgotten.

After sending this, the following reply came with her letter:

wasurezu to	“Not forgotten,”
mazu kiku kara ni	as soon as I heard this
sode nurete	my sleeves were wet.
waga mi mo itou	I too despise
yume no yo no naka	this world of dreams.

At the end she had also written, “I have changed my appearance,¹²³ and yet my heart remains unchanged,” to which she added:

kami oroshi	I’ve cut my hair
koromo no iro wa	and the color of my robes
somenuredo	has changed.124
nao tsurenaki wa	What remains the same, though,
kokoro narikeri	is my heart.

When I read this, for some reason the tears flowed so freely that my sleeves could not absorb them all. Such a remarkable woman of pleasure she was! Such women of pleasure usually hope to become familiar with someone who would love them, but she distanced herself from such desires and devoted herself with all her heart to the next world—how could this not be rare and wonderful? Surely this was not the result of just a little good karma here and there. Although her many observations of the precepts had accumulated over many lives and had been blessed by the waters of Eguchi, even her poetry was remarkable. “In the evening I think, when the night has passed … and at dawn I weep, thinking, when the day comes …” So she told me, and yet I wonder whether those sentiments continue? No, for she has become a nun!¹²⁵ I wanted to visit her after she had taken vows, but when I heard that she no longer lived in Eguchi after becoming a nun, my hopes in the end were in vain. Quite often I can’t help but wonder what that woman of pleasure’s final moments must have been like.

[Translated by Jack Stoneman]

WARRIOR TALES (GUNKI-MONO)

Warrior tales or chronicles (gunki or gunki-mono) are one of the main genres of medieval literature. In Notes on Foolish Views (Gukanshō), written in the early Kamakura period, Jien (1155–1225) distinguishes between historical chronicles like The Great Mirror (Ōkagami) and those that describe the world of warriors and battle.

The first period of warrior tales is the mid-Heian, beginning with the Record of Masakado (Shōmonki, ca. 940) and the Record of the Deep North (Mutsuwaki, ca. 1062), both written in kanbun by Buddhist monks or middle-rank intellectuals. Shōmonki describes the uprising by Taira no Masakado (d. 940) and reveals the attempt to save his spirit from hell.

The second period began with texts like The Tales of Heiji (Heiji monogatari, 1221?), The Tales of Hōgen (Hōgen monogatari, 1221?), and The Tales of the Heike (Heike monogatari, mid-thirteenth century), marking the transition from the early period to medieval warrior society. Both Hōgen monogatari and Heiji monogatari, which describe military conflicts leading up to the Genpei war, resemble Shōmonki and Mutsuwaki as narratives about warriors who caused major disturbances. But in contrast to Shōmonki and Mutsuwaki, which are “records” (ki) written in kanbun (Chinese prose) with a documentary focus, Hōgen monogatari and Heiji monogatari have the quality of Heian monogatari in trying to re-create the interior life of the participants. The perspective of Shōmonki and Mutsuwaki was of those at the center looking out at the rebels in the provinces, whereas the military narratives in the second period (such as The Tales of the Heike) were written or recited from the perspective of those who had sometimes experienced the war at first hand or who sympathized with the fate of the defeated warriors. These texts were written in the so-called mixed Japanese–Chinese style, which combines Japanese prose and Chinese compounds and phrases, including allusions to Chinese classics and history.

The Rise and Fall of the Genji and the Heike (Genpei seisuiki or Genpei jōsuiki) describes Hōgen monogatari and Heiji monogatari as “diaries [nikki] of the Hōgen and Heiji periods,” revealing that in the Kamakura period they were still considered to be reliable records of events, despite their monogatari character. Like other military narratives, Hōgen monogatari and Heiji monogatari include setsuwa, following a tradition that goes back to the late Heian Collection of Tales of Times Now Past (Konjaku monogatari shū), which devotes one volume to warrior stories. Most of the military narratives have three parts, describing the causes of the military conflict, the conflict itself, and the aftermath, a structure apparent in The Tales of Hōgen and The Tales of Heiji.

The second period climaxed with the Record of the Jōkyū Disturbance (Jōkyūki), which describes the failed attempt in 1221 (Jōkyū 3) by the retired emperor GoToba (r. 1183–1198) to seize power from the Kamakura bakufu, and the Taiheiki (Chronicle of Great Peace, 1340s–1371), which describes the collapse of the Kamakura bakufu in 1333 and the subsequent rule by the Ashikaga clan.

The military narratives in the second period were heavily influenced by the Heian monogatari but differed in that they reveal the impact of various forms of recitation or oral performance practices (katari). These practices had an important ritual function: to celebrate (shūgen) the preservation or restoration of order and to pacify the souls (chinkon) of those warriors who had died terrible deaths on the battlefield. In the former capacity, the warrior tales affirmed those who had established or preserved order and peace, and in the latter capacity, they tried to console the spirits of the defeated, hoping to calm their angry and sometimes vengeful spirits, and to offer them salvation, thereby incorporating them into the new social order.

During the third period, in the late medieval period, were written such works as The Record of the Meitoku Disturbance (Meitokuki), on the Meitoku disturbance (1390–1394); The Record of the Ōnin War (Ōnin-ki), about the Ōnin war (1467–1477); and The Tale of Mikawa (Mikawa monogatari, 1622). The third period also produced texts that, though about war, focused on the fate of a single warrior or small group. The Story of Yoshitsune (Gikeiki, early fifteenth century?) describes Yoshitsune’s flight to the Tōhoku region and Yoshitsune himself, his family, and his retainers. The Tales of the Soga Brothers (Soga monogatari, mid-fourteenth century), which was recited by goze (blind female singer-musicians), likewise is centered on the life of the Soga brothers as they avenge their father’s death. In contrast to The Story of Yoshitsune, which reflects the interests of Kyoto urban audiences, The Tales of the Soga Brothers reflects the interests of those who lived in the east.

Many of these warrior chronicles have no identifiable authors and actually were written by several people. For example, The Tales of the Heike draws on numerous setsuwa and has many variants. The Taiheiki also is the product of many writers, who did not know how the events would end, resulting in an open and unfinished work. The author(s) of these military tales did not, however, write the narratives from beginning to end; instead, they edited and rewrote the transmitted texts, much as the editors of the setsuwa collections did, to suit their own ends.

Another notable characteristic of warrior chronicles like The Tales of the Heike and the Taiheiki is that they often allude to Chinese history and Chinese texts, comparing the disorder and dangers of the present with those in the past and drawing lessons from this comparison or pointing to similarities. In this regard, they belong to a larger tradition of historical narrative.

The military narratives were transmitted in two ways: as read text (yomi-mono), which could be used for sermons and other functions, and as orally recited material (katari-mono) performed by biwa hōshi (blind lute minstrels) or storytelling monks (monogatari sō) attached to armies. Hōgen monogatari, Heiji monogatari, and Heike monogatari were recited by biwa hōshi, and the Taiheiki and the Meitokuki were recited by monogatari sō.

These warrior tales, which belonged to performative traditions, later were heavily used and absorbed by other genres such as nō, kōwakamai, otogi-zōshi (Muromachi tales), jōruri, kabuki, Tokugawa fiction, and modern novels.

Chronology of Major Incidents in Warrior Tales

Jōhei–Tengyō disturbance (935–941)	Shōmonki
Hōgen disturbance (1156)	Hōgen monogatari
Heiji disturbance (1159)	Heiji monogatari
Struggle between Heike and Genji lineages (1180), with Heike destroyed at Dan-no-ura (1185)	Heike monogatari
Jōkyū disturbance (1221)	Jōkyūki
Kenmu restoration (1334), with Ashikaga Takauji as Seii taishogun (barbarian-subduing generalissimo) (1338)	Taiheiki

THE TALES OF THE HEIKE (HEIKE MONOGATARI, MID-THIRTEENTH CENTURY)

The Tales of the Heike is about the Genpei war (1180–1185), fought between the Heike (Taira) lineage, led by Taira no Kiyomori, and the Genji (Minamoto) lineage, whose head became Minamoto no Yoritomo. The Taira’s initial, rapid ascent to power was followed by a series of defeats, including their abandonment of the capital in 1183 (taking with them Antoku, the child emperor). By 1183 Yoritomo had gained control of the Kantō, or eastern, region; Kiso no Yoshinaka, another Minamoto leader, had brought Kyoto under his power; and the Taira had fallen back to the Inland Sea. In an interlude of fighting among the Minamoto, Yoritomo and his half brother (Minamoto) Yoshitsune defeated Yoshinaka in 1184. In a decisive battle at Ichi-no-tani in 1184, near the present-day city of Kobe, Yoshitsune, leading the Minamoto forces, decisively turned back the Taira, driving them into the Inland Sea. Finally, in 1185, the last of the Taira forces were crushed at Dan-no-ura, in a sea battle at the western end of the Inland Sea. In the same year, Rokudai, the last potential heir of the Taira clan, was captured and eventually executed.

This war between the Taira and the Minamoto marked the beginning of the medieval period and also became the basis for The Tales of the Heike, which focuses on the lives of various warriors from both military houses, particularly those of the defeated. The narrative also includes numerous non-samurai stories drawn from anecdotes (setsuwa), many of which deal with women and priests, that were frequently transformed by the composers of the Heike into Buddhist narratives, much like the anecdotes in Buddhist setsuwa collections. Therefore, even though The Tales of the Heike is a military epic, it has strong Buddhist overtones, which are especially evident in the opening passage on impermanence, in many of the stories of Buddhistic disillusionment and awakening (such as those about Giō or Koremori), and in the final “Initiates’ Book” (Kanjō no maki) leading to the salvation of Kenreimon’in, the daughter of Kiyomori, who has a vision of the fall of her clan.

The first variants of The Tales of the Heike were probably recorded by writers and priests associated with Buddhist temples who may have incorporated Buddhist readings and other folk material into an earlier chronological, historically oriented narrative. These texts, in turn, were recited from memory, accompanied by a lute (biwa) played by blind minstrels (referred to as biwa hōshi), who entertained a broad commoner audience and had an impact on subsequent variants of The Tales of the Heike, which combined both literary texts and orally transmitted material. The many variants of The Tales of the Heike differ significantly in content and style, but the most famous today is the Kakuichi text, part of which is translated here. This variant was recorded in 1371 by a man named Kakuichi, a biwa hōshi who created a twelve-book narrative shaped around the decline of the Heike (Taira) clan. At some point “The Initiates’ Book,” which unifies the long work and gives it closure as a Buddhist text, was added, as well as sections that were inspired by Heian monogatari and centered on women and the private life of the court.

Thanks largely to Kakuichi, the oral biwa performance of The Tales of the Heike eventually won upper-class acceptance and became a major performing art, reaching its height in the mid-fifteenth century. After the Ōnin war (1467–1477), the biwa performance declined in popularity and was replaced by other performance arts, such as nō and kyōgen (comic drama), but The Tales of the Heike continued to serve as a rich source for countless dramas and prose narratives. Indeed, most of the sixteen warrior pieces (shuramono) in today’s nō drama repertoire are from The Tales of the Heike. Heike heroes began appearing in the ballad dramas (kōwakamai) in the sixteenth century, and in the Tokugawa period, stories from The Tales of the Heike became the foundation for a number of important kabuki and jōruri (puppet) plays, thus making it one of the most influential works of premodern Japanese culture.

The first half of the Heike, books one through six, relates the history of Kiyomori, the head of the Taira (Heike) clan, who comes into conflict with the retired emperor GoShirakawa and then with various members of the Minamoto (Genji) clan. The second half, books seven through twelve, is about three important Minamoto (Genji) leaders: Yoritomo, the head of the Genji in the east; Yoshinaka, who becomes a Genji leader farther to the west; and Yoshitsune, Yoritomo’s brother. However, the real focus of the narrative is not on the Genji victors—in fact, Yoritomo, the ultimate victor, plays almost a peripheral role—but on a series of defeated Taira figures: Shigemori, Shigehira, Koremori, Munemori, and Kenreimon’in—all descendants of Kiyomori—who, bearing the sins of the forefather, suffer different fates on their way to death. In short, in the first half, The Tales of the Heike centers on the Taira, on Kiyomori, the clan leader, and, in the second half, on the various defeated Taira, almost all of whom die or are executed. (Also important in the second half is the fall of the former Genji leader, Kiso Yoshinaka, who is defeated by Yoritomo.) It is not until “The Initiates’ Book” that the tragedy of the Taira becomes an opportunity for reconciliation, between Kenreimon’in, Kiyomori’s daughter, and the retired emperor GoShirakawa, who had been victimized by Kiyomori.

Key Figures

Imperial Family

ANTOKU (r. 1180–1185): emperor and son of Emperor Takakura and Kenreimon’in; is held by the Taira clan and drowns at Dan-no-ura.

GOSHIRAKAWA (1127–1192, r. 1155–1158): retired emperor, head of the imperial clan, and son of Retired Emperor Toba.

KENREIMON’IN (1155–1213): daughter of Kiyomori and Tokiko (Nun of the Second Rank), consort of Emperor Takakura, mother of Emperor Antoku, and full sister of Munemori, Tomomori, and Shigehira; is taken prisoner at Dan-no-ura and dies a nun.

MOCHIHITO, PRINCE (1151–1180): second son of Retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa and leader of an anti-Taira revolt in 1180; also called Prince Takakura.

NUN OF THE SECOND RANK: principal wife of Kiyomori and mother of Munemori, Shigehira, and Kenreimon’in; dies at Dan-no-ura.

TAKAKURA: emperor and son of Retired Emperor GoShirakawa.

TOBA: retired emperor and father of Retired Emperor GoShirakawa.

Taira (Heike)

ATSUMORI: nephew of Kiyomori; dies at Ichi-no-tani.

KIYOMORI: son of Tadamori and, after his father’s death, Taira clan head; dominates the court even after taking vows.

KOREMORI: eldest son of Shigemori; commits suicide after taking vows.

MUNEMORI: son of Kiyomori and Nun of the Second Rank and, after Shigemori’s death, Taira clan head.

ROKUDAI: son of Koremori, grandson of Shigemori, and presumptive Taira clan head after the Genpei war.

SHIGEHIRA: son of Kiyomori and Nun of the Second Rank; a Taira leader largely responsible for the burning of Nara; captured at Ichi-no-tani and later executed.

SHIGEMORI: eldest son of Kiyomori and, until his early death, a restraining influence on Kiyomori.

TADAMORI: father of Kiyomori and a former Taira clan head.

TADANORI: younger brother of Kiyomori.

Genealogy of key figures in The Tales of the Heike.

Minamoto (Genji)

YORITOMO: leader of the Minamoto in the east and founder of the Kamakura shogunate after the Genpei war.

YOSHINAKA: cousin of Yoritomo and leader of the Minamoto in the north; captures Kyoto and later is killed by Yoritomo’s forces; also called Lord Kiso.

YOSHITSUNE: younger half brother of Yoritomo and one of Yoritomo’s chief commanders; defeats the Heike at Dan-no-ura.

Priests

MONGAKU: monk; incites Yoritomo to rebel against the Taira.

SHUNKAN: bishop and Shishi-no-tani conspirator.

Book One

THE BELLS OF GION MONASTERY (1:1)

The bells of the Gion monastery in India echo with the warning that all things are impermanent.¹²⁶ The blossoms of the sala trees teach us through their hues that what flourishes must fade.¹²⁷ The proud do not prevail for long, but vanish like a spring night’s dream. The mighty too in time succumb: all are dust before the wind.

Long ago in a different land, Zhao Gao of the Qin dynasty in China, Wang Mang of the Han, Zhu Yi of the Liang, and An Lushan of the Tang all refused to be governed by former sovereigns. Pursuing every pleasure, deaf to admonitions, unaware of the chaos overtaking the realm, ignorant of the sufferings of the common people, before long they all alike met their downfall.

More recently in our own country there have been men like Masakado, Sumitomo, Gishin, and Nobuyori, each of them proud and fierce to the extreme. The tales told of the most recent of such men, Taira no Kiyomori, the lay priest of Rokuhara and at one time the prime minister, are beyond the power of words to describe or the mind to imagine.

Kiyomori was the oldest son and heir of Taira no Tadamori, the minister of punishments, and the grandson of Masamori, the governor of Sanuki. Masamori was a ninth-generation descendant of Prince Kazurahara, a first-rank prince and the minister of ceremonies, the fifth son of Emperor Kanmu.

KIYOMORI’S FLOWERING FORTUNES (1:5)

Not only did Kiyomori himself climb to the pinnacle of success, but all the members of his family enjoyed great good fortune as well. Kiyomori’s eldest son, Shigemori, became a palace minister and a major captain of the left; his second son, Munemori, became a junior counselor and a major captain of the right; his third son, Tomomori, rose to the level of middle captain of the third court rank; and his grandson, Shigemori’s heir Koremori, rose to that of lesser captain of the fourth court rank. In all, sixteen members of the family became high-ranking officials; more than thirty were courtiers; and a total of more than sixty held posts as provincial governors, guards officers, or officials in the central bureaucracy. It seemed as though there were no other family in the world but this one….

In addition, Kiyomori had eight daughters, all of whom fared well in life…. One of them was made the consort of Emperor Takakura and bore him a son who became crown prince and then emperor, at which time she received the title of Kenreimon’in. Daughter of the lay priest and the prime minister, mother of the ruler of the realm, nothing further need be said about her good fortune….

GIŌ (1:6)

As prime minister, Kiyomori now held the entire realm within the four seas in the palm of his hand. Thus ignoring the carpings of the age and turning a deaf ear to censure, he indulged in one caprice after another. An example was the case of Giō and Ginyo, sisters renowned in the capital at that time for their skillful performance as shirabyōshi dancers. They were the daughters of a shirabyōshi dancer named Toji. Giō, the older sister, had succeeded in winning extraordinary favor with Kiyomori. Thus the younger sister, Ginyo, also enjoyed wide repute among the people of that time. Kiyomori built a fine house for their mother, Toji, providing her with a monthly stipend of a hundred piculs of rice and a hundred strings of coins, so that the entire family prospered and lived a life of ease.

The first shirabyōshi dancers in our country were two women, named Shima-no-senzai and Waka-no-mai, who introduced this type of dancing during the time of the retired emperor Toba. Such dancers originally wore white jackets of the kind called suikan and tall black hats and carried silver-hilted daggers, pretending to be male dancers. Later they dropped the black hat and dagger and simply retained the suikan jacket, at which time they became known as shirabyōshi, or “white tempo,” dancers.

As Giō became renowned among the shirabyōshi of the capital for the extraordinary favor she enjoyed, some people envied her and others spoke spitefully of her. Those who envied her would say, “What splendid good fortune this Lady Giō enjoys! Any woman entertainer would be delighted to be in her place. Her good fortune doubtless derives from the Gi element that makes up the first part of her name. We should have a try at that too!” Giichi, Gini, Gifuku, and Gitoku were some of the names that resulted.

The scorners took a different view. “How could fortune come from a name alone?” they asked. “It is due solely to good karma acquired in a previous existence!” and for the most part they declined to change their names.

After some three years had passed, another highly skilled shirabyōshi dancer appeared in the capital, a native of the province of Kaga named Hotoke, or “Buddha.” She was said to be only sixteen. Everyone in the capital, high and low alike, exclaimed over her, declaring that among all the shirabyōshi dancers of the past, none could rival her.

Lady Hotoke thought to herself, “I have won fame throughout the realm, but I have yet to realize my true ambition, to be summoned by this prime minister of the Taira clan who is now at the height of power. Since it is the practice among entertainers, why should I hold back? I will go and present myself!” Accordingly she went and presented herself at Kiyomori’s Nishihachijō mansion.

When Kiyomori was informed that the Lady Hotoke who enjoyed such renown in the capital at that time had come to call, he retorted, “What does this mean? Entertainers of that type should wait for a summons—they simply do not take it upon themselves to appear! I don’t care whether she’s a god or a buddha—I already have Giō in my service! Send her away!”

Refused admission in this summary manner, Hotoke was preparing to take her leave when Giō spoke to the prime minister. “It is quite customary for entertainers to present themselves in this way. Moreover, the girl still is young and just has happened to hit on this idea; it would be a shame to dismiss her so coldly. I, for one, would be greatly distressed. Because we are devotees of the same art, I cannot help feeling sympathy for her. Even if you do not let her dance or listen to her singing, at least admit her into your presence before you send her away. That would be the kind thing to do. Bend your principles a bit and call her in.”

“If you insist,” replied Kiyomori, “I will see her,” and he sent word to have her admitted.

Having been rudely dismissed, Lady Hotoke was about to get into her carriage and leave, but at the summons she returned and presented herself.

“I had no intention of admitting you,” Kiyomori announced when they met. “But for some reason Giō was so adamant that, as you see, I agreed to the meeting. And since you are here, I suppose I should find out what sort of voice you have. Try singing an imayō for me.”

“As you wish,” replied Lady Hotoke, and she obliged with the following song in the imayō style:

Since I met you,

I’m like the little pine destined for a thousand years!

On turtle-shape isles of your pond,

how many the cranes that flock there!¹²⁸

She repeated the song, singing it over three times while all the persons present listened and looked on in wonder at her skill.

Kiyomori was obviously much impressed. “You are very good at imayō,” he said, “and I have no doubt that your dancing is of the same order. Let’s have a look. Call in the musicians!”

When the musicians appeared, Hotoke performed a dance to their accompaniment. Everything about her was captivating, from her hairdo and costume to her appearance as a whole, and her voice was pleasing and artfully employed, so her dancing could not fail to make an impression. In fact, it far exceeded Kiyomori’s expectations, and he was so moved by her performance that he immediately fell in love with her.

“This is somewhat troubling,” said Hotoke. “Originally I was not to be admitted but was sent away at once. But through the kind offices of Lady Giō, I was allowed to present myself. Having done so, I would be most reluctant to do anything that would counter Lady Giō’s intentions. I beg to be excused as soon as possible so that I may be on my way.”

“There is no reason for that!” replied Kiyomori. “But if you feel uneasy in Giō’s presence, I will see that she leaves.”

“But how would that look?” objected Hotoke. “I was uneasy enough to find that the two of us had been summoned here together. If now, after all her kindness, she were dismissed and I were to remain behind, think how dreadful I would feel! If by chance you happen to remember me, perhaps you might summon me again at some future time. But for today I beg to take my leave.”

Kiyomori, however, would not hear of this. “Nonsense!” he said. “You will do no such thing. Have Giō leave at once!”

Three times he sent an attendant with these instructions.

Giō had long been aware that something like this might happen, but she was not expecting it “this very day.”¹²⁹ But faced with repeated orders to leave the house at once, she resigned herself to doing so and set about sweeping and tidying her room and clearing it of anything unsightly.

Even those who have only sought shelter under the same tree for a night or have merely dipped water from the same stream will feel sorrow on parting. How sorrowful, then, Giō’s departure must have been from the place where she had lived these three years. Her tears, futile though they were, fell quickly. Since there was nothing she could do, however, she prepared to depart. But perhaps wanting to leave behind some reminder of herself, she inscribed the following poem on the sliding panel of the room, weeping as she did so:

Those that put out new shoots, those that wither are the same

grasses of the field—come autumn, is there one that will not fade?

Getting into her carriage, she returned to her home and there, sinking down within the panels of the room, began weeping.

“What has happened? What is wrong?” her mother and sister asked, but she did not reply. It was only when they questioned the maid who had accompanied her that they learned the truth.

Before long, the monthly stipend of a hundred piculs of rice and a hundred strings of coins ended, and for the first time Hotoke’s friends and relations learned the meaning of happiness and prosperity. Among high and low, word spread throughout the capital. “They say that Giō has been dismissed from the prime minister’s service,” people said. “We must go call on her and keep her company!” Some sent letters, others dispatched their servants to make inquiries. But faced with such a situation, Giō could not bring herself to receive visitors. The letters she refused to accept; the messengers she sent off without a meeting. Such gestures served only to deepen her mood of melancholy, and she passed all her time weeping. In this way the year came to an end.

The following spring Kiyomori sent a servant to Giō’s house with this message: “How have you been since we parted? Lady Hotoke appears to be so hopelessly bored that I wish you would come and perform one of your imayō songs or your dances to cheer her up.”

Giō declined to give any answer.

Kiyomori tried again. “Why no answer from you, Giō? Won’t you come for a visit? Tell me if you won’t come! I have ways of dealing with the matter!”

When Giō’s mother, Toji, learned about this, she was very upset and, having no idea what to do, could only plead tearfully with her daughter. “Giō, at least send an answer,” she begged. “Anything is better than being threatened!”

But Giō replied, “If I had any intention of going, I would have answered long ago. It is because I have no such intention that I’m at a loss as to how to reply. He says that if I do not respond, he has ways of dealing with the matter. Does this mean I will be banished from the capital? Or that I will be put to death? Even if I were expelled from the capital, I would have no great regrets. And if he wants to deprive me of my life, what of that? He once sent me away a despised person—I have no heart to face him again.” She thus refused to send an answer.

But the mother continued begging. “As long as you continue to live in this realm, you cannot hope to defy the prime minister’s wishes! The ties that bind man and woman are decreed from a past existence—they do not originate in this life alone. Those who vow to be faithful for a thousand or ten thousand years often end by parting, whereas those who think of this as merely an affair of the moment find themselves spending their whole lives together. In this world of ours there’s no predicting how things will turn out between a man and a woman.

“For three whole years you enjoyed favor with the prime minister. That was a stroke of fortune hardly to be matched. Now if you refuse to answer his summons, it is scarcely likely you will be put to death. Probably you will merely be banished from the capital. And even if you are banished, you and your sister are young and can manage to live even in the wildest and most out-of-the-way spot. But what about your mother? I am a feeble old woman—suppose I am banished too? Just the thought of living in some strange place in the countryside fills me with despair. Let me live out the rest of my days here in the capital. Think of it as being filial in this world and the next.”

Much as it pained her, Giō did not feel that she could disobey these pleas from her mother, and so weeping all the while, she set out for the prime minister’s mansion. But her heart was filled with foreboding. It would be too difficult to make the trip alone, Giō felt, and therefore she took her younger sister, Ginyo, with her, as well as two other shirabyōshi dancers, the four of them going in one carriage to Nishi-hachijō.

Upon her arrival, Giō was not shown to the seat she had previously been accustomed to occupy, but instead to a far inferior place where makeshift arrangements had been made. “How can this be?” she exclaimed. “Although I was guilty of no fault, I was driven out of the house. And now I find that even the seat I had occupied has been demoted! This is too heartless! What am I to do?” In an effort to hide her confusion, she covered her face with her sleeve, but the trickle of tears gave her away.

Moved to pity by the sight, Lady Hotoke appealed to Kiyomori. “What is the meaning of this?” she asked. “If this were someone who had never been summoned before, it might be different. But surely she should be seated here with us. If not, I beg your permission to go where she is.”

“That will not be necessary!” replied Kiyomori, and Hotoke was thus helpless to move.

Later, Kiyomori, apparently quite unaware of Giō’s feelings, asked how she had been faring since they met last. “Lady Hotoke seems so terribly bored,” he remarked. “You must sing us an imayō.”

Having come this far, Giō did not feel that she could disregard the prime minister’s wishes. And so holding back her tears, she sang the following song in the imayō style:

Buddha was once a common mortal,

and we too one day will become buddhas.

All alike endowed with the Buddha nature,

how sad this gulf that divides us!

Weeping all the while, she sang the song two more times. All the members of the Taira clan who were present, from the ministers of state, lords, and high-ranking courtiers down to the lowly samurai, were moved to tears. Kiyomori himself listened with keen interest. “A song admirably suited to the occasion,” he commented. “I wish we could watch you dance, but unfortunately today there are other things to be attended to. In the future you must not wait to be summoned but come any time you like and perform your imayō songs and dances for Hotoke’s amusement.”

Giō made no answer but, suppressing her tears, withdrew.

Reluctant to disobey her mother’s command, Giō had made the trip to the prime minister’s mansion, painful as it was, and exposed herself a second time to callous treatment. Saddened by the experience and mindful that as long as she remained in this world similar sorrows likely awaited her, she turned her thoughts to suicide.

“If you do away with yourself,” said her sister, Ginyo, “I will do likewise!”

Ordered by Kiyomori to return to his residence, Giō (left) appears and performs for Kiyomori and Lady Hotoke (right). (A 1656 Meireki woodblock edition, by permission of Shogakukan)

Learning of their intentions, their mother, alarmed, had no choice but to plead with Giō in tears. “You have every reason to be resentful,” she said. “I forced you to go and thereby inflicted this pain, though I could hardly have known what would happen. But now, if you do away with yourself, your sister will follow your example, and if I lose both my daughters, then old and feeble as I am, I would do better to commit suicide myself rather than live alone. But by inducing a parent to carry out such an act before the destined time for death has come, you will be committing one of the Five Deadly Sins.¹³⁰ We are mere sojourners in this life and must suffer one humiliation after another, but these are nothing compared with the long night of suffering that may await us hereafter. Whatever this life may entail, think how frightful it would be if you should condemn yourself to rebirth in one of the evil paths of existence!”

Faced with these fervent entreaties, Giō, wiping back her tears, replied, “You are right. I would be guilty of one of the Five Deadly Sins. I will abandon any thought of self-destruction. But as long as I remain in the capital, I am likely to encounter further grief. My thought now is simply to leave the capital.”

Thus at the age of twenty-two, Giō became a nun and, erecting a simple thatched retreat in a mountain village in the recesses of the Saga region,¹³¹ she devoted herself to reciting the Buddha’s name.

“I vowed that if you committed suicide, I would do likewise,” said her sister, Ginyo. “If your plan now is to withdraw from the world, who would hesitate to follow your example?” Accordingly, at the age of nineteen she put on nun’s attire and joined Giō in her retreat, devoting all her thoughts to the life to come.

Moved by the sight of them, their mother, Toji, observed, “In a world where my daughters, young as they are, have taken the tonsure, how could I, old woman that I am, cling to these gray hairs of mine?” Thus at the age of forty-five she shaved her head and, along with her two daughters, gave herself wholly to the recitation of Amida Buddha’s name, mindful only of the life hereafter.

And so spring and the heat of summer passed, and as the autumn winds began to blow, the time came for the two star lovers to meet, the Herd Boy poling his boat across the River of Heaven, and people gazed up into the sky and wrote down their requests to them on leaves of the paper mulberry.¹³²

As the nuns watched the evening sun sinking below the hills to the west, they thought to themselves that there, where the sun went down, was the Western Paradise of Amida. “One day we, too, will be reborn there and will no longer know these cares and sorrows,” they said. Giving themselves up to melancholy thoughts of this kind, their tears never ceased flowing.

When the twilight hour had passed, they closed their door of plaited bamboo, lit the dim lamp, and all three, mother and daughters, began their invocation of the Buddha’s name.

But just then they heard someone tap-tapping at the bamboo door. The nuns started up in alarm. “Has some meddling demon come to interrupt our devotions, ineffectual as they are?” they wondered. “Even in the daytime, no one calls on us in our thatched hut here in the remote hills. Who would come so late at night? Whoever it is can easily batter down the door without waiting for it to be opened, so we may as well open it. And if it should be some heartless creature come to take our lives, we must be firm in our faith in Amida’s vow to save us and unceasingly call his holy name. He is certain to heed our call and come with his sacred host to greet us. And then surely he will guide us to his Western Paradise. Come, let us take heart and not delay pronouncing his name!”

When they had thus reassured one another and mustered the courage to open the bamboo door, they discovered that it was no demon at all but Lady Hotoke who stood before them.

“What do I see?” said Giō. “Lady Hotoke! Am I dreaming or awake?”

“If I tell you what has happened, I may seem merely to be making excuses,” said Lady Hotoke, straining to hold back her tears. “But it would be too unkind to remain silent, and so I will start from the beginning. As you know, I was not originally summoned to the prime minister’s house but went of my own accord, and if it had not been for your kind intervention, I would never have been admitted. We women are frail beings and cannot always do as we wish. I was far from happy when the prime minister detained me at his mansion, and then when you were summoned again and sang your imayō song, I felt more than ever the impossibility of my position. I could take no delight in it because I knew that sooner or later my turn would come to fall from favor. I felt it even more when I saw the poem you wrote on the sliding panel with its warning that ‘come autumn, all alike must fade!’

“After that, I lost track of your whereabouts. But when I heard that you and your mother and sister all had entered religious life, I was overcome with envy. Again and again I asked the prime minister to release me from service, but he would not hear of it.

“What joy and delight we have in this world is no more than a dream within a dream, I told myself—what could such happiness mean to me? It is a rare thing to be born a human being and rarer still to discover the teachings of the Buddha. If because of my actions now I were to be reborn in hell or to spend endless aeons transmigrating through the other realms of existence, when would I ever find salvation? My youth could not be counted on, that I knew, for neither young nor old can tell when death may overtake them. One may breathe one instant and then not live to breathe the next: life is as fleeting as the shimmering heat of summer or a flash of lightning. To revel in a moment’s happiness and not be heedful of the life to come would be a pitiful course of action indeed! So this morning I stole away from the prime minister’s mansion and have come here.”

With these words she threw off the cloak that she had around her. She had assumed a nun’s tonsure and habit.

“I have come dressed in this fashion,” she told them, “because I wish to ask pardon for my past offenses. If you say you can forgive me, I would like to join you in your devotions, and perhaps we may be reborn on a single lotus leaf in the Western Paradise. But if you cannot bring yourself to forgive me, I will make my way elsewhere. Wherever I may settle, on a bed of moss or by the roots of a pine tree, I will devote what life is left to me to reciting the Buddha’s name, hoping, as I have done for so long, for rebirth in his paradise.”

Near tears, Giō replied, “I never dreamed you felt this way. In a world of sadness, we all are, no doubt, fated to endure such trials. And yet I could not help envying you, and it seemed that such feelings of envy would prevent me from ever achieving the salvation I yearned for. I was in a mean and merely half-resolved frame of mind, one suitable for neither this life nor the life to come.

“But now that I see you dressed in this manner, these past failings of mine fall away like so much dust, and at last I am certain of gaining salvation. Hereafter, all my joy will be to strive for that long-cherished goal. The whole world was puzzled when my mother and sister and I became nuns, deeming it an unprecedented step, and we too wondered in a way, and yet we had good reasons for doing what we did. But what we did was nothing compared with what you have done! Barely turned seventeen, with neither hatred nor despair to spur you on, you have chosen to cast aside the world of defilement and turn all your thoughts toward the Pure Land. How fortunate we are to meet such a fine guide and teacher! Come, we will work toward our goal together!”

So the four women, sharing the same hut, morning and evening offered flowers and incense to the Buddha, all their thoughts on their devotions. And sooner or later, it is said, each of the four nuns attained what she had so long sought, rebirth in the Western Paradise.

Thus, on the curtain that lists the departed in the Eternal Lecture Hall founded by the retired emperor GoShirakawa are found, inscribed in one place, the names of the four: “The honored dead, Giō, Ginyo, Hotoke, Toji.”

Theirs was a moving story.

The stability in the capital gradually breaks down. Disagreements erupt within the imperial family as well as among temple-shrine complexes. In addition, tensions between Kiyomori, head of the now ascendant Taira clan, and the imperial court, led by the retired emperor GoShirakawa, peak in the Shishi-no-tani incident, in which Narichika, a Fujiwara courtier favored by GoShirakawa, becomes the principal conspirator in a plot to eliminate Kiyomori. He is joined by Shunkan, Yasuyori, and Saikō, a member of GoShirakawa’s staff. A conflict breaks out between the court and Mount Hiei, a key Buddhist center, over a delayed court decision in which the warrior monks of Mount Hiei are routed. In 1177 a great conflagration consumes much of Kyoto and its cultural treasures.

Book Five

SHIGEHIRA (Taira): son of Kiyomori; leads punitive expedition against Nara.

YORITOMO (Minamoto): future leader of the Minamoto (Genji).

YOSHITOMO (Minamoto): father of Yoritomo.

Kiyomori moves the capital to Fukuhara, an isolated area west of the capital (near present-day Kobe), causing considerable hardship. The Taira, led by Koremori and Tadanori, gather troops and march against Yoritomo in the east. However, the Taira army, which has been put on edge by stories of the easterners’ martial prowess, scatters in fear when a flock of birds suddenly takes flight at Fuji River. Kiyomori moves the capital back to its earlier location, which again causes havoc.

THE BURNING OF NARA (5:14)

In the capital, people were saying, “When Prince Takakura went to Onjō-ji, the monks of Kōfuku-ji in Nara not only expressed sympathy with his cause but even went to Onjō-ji to greet him. In doing so they showed themselves to be enemies of the state. Both Kōfuku-ji and Onjō-ji will surely be attacked!”

When rumors of this kind reached the monks of Kōfuku-ji, they rose up like angry hornets. Regent Fujiwara no Motomichi assured them that “if you have any sentiments you wish to convey to the throne, I will act as your intermediary on whatever number of occasions may be required.” But such assurances had no effect whatsoever.

Motomichi dispatched Tadanori, the superintendent of the Kangaku-in, to act as his emissary, but the monks met him with wild clamor, shouting, “Drag the wretch from his carriage! Cut off his topknot!” Tadanori fled back to the capital, his face white with terror. Motomichi then sent Assistant Gate Guards Commander Chikamasa, but the monks greeted him in similar fashion, yelling, “Cut off his topknot!” He dropped everything and fled back to the capital. On that occasion, two lackeys from the Kangaku-in had their topknots cut off.

In addition, the Nara monks made a big ball, of the kind used in New Year’s games, dubbed it “Prime Minister Kiyomori’s head,” and yelled, “Hit it! Stomp on it!” Easy talk is the midwife of disaster, and incautious action is the highway to ruin, people say.¹³³ This prime minister, Kiyomori, as the maternal grandfather of the reigning emperor, was someone to be spoken of with the utmost respect. It seemed as though only the Devil of the Sixth Heaven¹³⁴ could have inspired the Nara monks to use such language in referring to him.

When news of these events reached Prime Minister Kiyomori, he began making plans to deal with the situation. In order to bring an immediate halt to the unruly doings in Nara, he appointed Senoo Kaneyasu as the chief of police of Yamato Province, where Nara is situated, and sent him with a force of five hundred horsemen under his command. “Even if your opponents resort to violence, you must not retaliate in kind!” he warned the men when they set off. “Do not wear armor or helmets, and do not carry bows and arrows!”

But the Nara monks were not, of course, aware of Kiyomori’s private instructions, and, seizing some sixty of Kaneyasu’s men who had become separated from the main force, they cut off their heads and hung them in a row around the border of Sarusawa Pond.

Enraged at this, Kiyomori commanded, “Very well, then, attack Nara!”

He dispatched a force of more than forty thousand horsemen to carry out the attack, with Shigehira as commander in chief and Michimori as second in command. Meanwhile more than seven thousand monks, both old and young, had put on helmets and dug trenches across the road at two places, one at the slope called Narazaka and the other at Hannya-ji temple, and fortified them with barricades of shields and thorned branches. There they awaited the attackers.

The Heike, their forty thousand men split into two parties, swept down on the two fortified points at Narazaka and Hannya-ji, shouting their battle cries. All the monks were on foot and armed with swords. The government forces, being mounted, could thus charge back and forth among them, chasing some this way, driving others that, showering arrows down on them until countless numbers had been felled. The ceremonial exchange of arrows signaling the start of hostilities took place at six in the morning, and the battle continued throughout the day. By evening, both the fortified points at Narazaka and Hannya-ji had been captured….

The fighting continued into the night. Darkness having fallen, the Heike commander in chief, Shigehira, who was standing in front of the gate of Hannya-ji temple, called for torches to be lit. A certain Tomokata, a minor overseer of the Fukui estate in Harima, broke his shield in two and, using it as a torch, set fire to one of the commoners’ houses in the area. It was the twenty-eighth night of the Twelfth Month and a strong wind was blowing. Although only one fire had been set, it was blown by the wind this way and that until it had spread to many of the temples in the vicinity.

Monk soldiers and the Heike clash near Hannya-ji temple in Nara (right). The temples, which have been set on fire by the Heike, burn while the monk soldiers flee (left). (A 1656 Meireki woodblock edition, by permission of Shogakukan

By this time, those monks who were ashamed to be thought cowardly and who cared what kind of name they left behind them had died in the fighting at Narazaka or Hannya-ji. Those who could still use their legs fled in the direction of Mount Yoshino and Totsukawa. The older monks who were unable to walk any great distance, along with the special students in training at the temples, the acolytes, and the women and children all fled as fast as they could to Kōfuku-ji or Tōdai-ji, some thousand or more persons climbing up to the second story of the latter temple’s Hall of the Great Buddha. To prevent any of their pursuers from reaching them, they then threw down the ladders by which they had ascended. When the flames from the fire came roaring down on them, their shrieks and cries could hardly have been surpassed by even those of the sinners being tortured in the Hell of Scorching Heat, the Great Hell of Scorching Heat, or the Hell of Never-Ceasing Torment.

Kōfuku-ji was founded at the behest of Lord Tankai, Fujiwara no Fuhito,¹³⁵ and thereafter served generation after generation as the temple of the Fujiwara clan. Its Eastern Gold Hall contained an image of Shakyamuni Buddha brought to Japan when Buddhist teachings were first introduced. The Western Gold Hall contained an image of the bodhisattva Kannon that, on its own accord, had risen out of the earth. These, along with the corridors strung like emerald gems surrounding them on four sides, the two-story hall with its vermilion and cinnabar trimmings, the two pagodas with their nine-ring finials shining in the sky, all went up in smoke in the space of an instant.

In Tōdai-ji was enshrined the one-hundred-and-sixty-foot gilt-bronze image of the Buddha Vairochana—burnished by the hand and person of Emperor Shōmu¹³⁶ himself—the representation of the Buddha who abides eternally, never passing away, as he manifests his living body in the Land of Actual Reward and the Land of Eternally Tranquil Light. The protuberance on the top of his head towering on high, half-hidden in the clouds; the tuft of white hair between his eyebrows, an object of veneration:¹³⁷ this hallowed figure was as perfect as the full moon. Now amid the flames, the head fell to the ground, and the body melted and fused into one mountainlike mass. The eighty-four thousand auspicious marks of the Buddha were suddenly obscured like an autumn moon by the clouds of the Five Cardinal Sins; the garlands of jewels adorning the forty-two stages of bodhisattva practice were blown away like stars in the night sky by the winds of the Ten Evil Actions.¹³⁸ Smoke rose to blanket the sky, flames filled every corner of the empty air. Those who witnessed with their own eyes what was happening turned their gaze aside; those far off who heard reports of the disaster felt their spirits quail. All the doctrines and sacred writings of the Hossō and Sanron schools of Buddhism were lost, with not one scroll remaining.¹³⁹ Never before in India or China, it seemed, to say nothing of our land of Japan, had the Buddhist law suffered such terrible destruction.

King Udayana fashioned an image of fine gold, and Vishvakarman carved one out of red sandalwood, but these Buddha figures were merely life-size.¹⁴⁰ How could they compare with the Buddha of Tōdai-ji, unique and without equal anywhere in the entire continent of Jambudvipa in which we humans live? Yet this Buddha, who no one thought would ever suffer injury or decay whatever ages might pass, had now become mingled with and defiled by worldly dust, leaving behind only a legacy of unending sorrow. Brahma, Indra, the Four Heavenly Kings, the dragons, spirits, and others of the eight kinds of guardian beings, the wardens of the underworld, all those who lend divine protection to Buddhism must have looked on with alarm and consternation. The god Daimyōjin of the nearby Kasuga Shrine, who guards and protects the Hossō sect—what could he have thought? Little wonder, then, that the dew that fell on Kasuga meadow now had a different color, and the storm winds over Mount Mikasa sounded with a vengeful roar.

When the number of persons who perished in the flames was tallied up, it was found that more than seventeen hundred had died in the second story of the Hall of the Great Buddha, more than eight hundred at Kōfuku-ji, more than five hundred at this hall, more than three hundred at that hall—a total, in fact, of more than three thousand, five hundred persons. Of the thousand or more monks who died in the fighting, some had their heads cut off and exposed by the gate of Hannya-ji, while the heads of others were carried back to the capital.

On the twenty-ninth day of the month that the commander in chief, Taira no Shigehira, having destroyed the Southern Capital of Nara, returned to the Northern Capital of Heian, only Prime Minister Kiyomori, his anger now appeased, delighted in the outcome. But the empress, Retired Emperor GoShirakawa, Retired Emperor Takakura, Regent Motomichi, and the others below them in station all deplored what had happened, declaring, “It was one thing to punish the evil monks, but what need was there to destroy the temples?”

The heads of the monks killed in battle were originally intended to be paraded through the main streets of the capital and then hung on the tree in front of the prison, but those in charge were so shocked at the destruction of Tōdaiji and Kōfuku-ji that these orders were never issued. Instead, the heads were simply discarded here and there in the moats and drainage ditches.

In a document written in his own hand, Emperor Shōmu had declared, “When these temples prosper, the entire realm shall prosper. When these temples fall to ruin, the realm, too, shall fall into ruin.” It thus appeared that without doubt these events must presage the downfall and ruin of the nation.

Thus this terrible year [1180] came to an end, and the fifth year of the Jishō era began.

Book Six

GOSHIRAKAWA: retired emperor and head of the imperial clan.

KIYOMORI (Taira): lay priest, prime minister, and retired Taira clan head.

MUNEMORI (Taira): son of Kiyomori and Taira clan head.

NUN OF THE SECOND RANK (Taira): wife of Kiyomori.

YORITOMO (Minamoto): leader of the anti-Taira forces in the east.

YOSHINAKA (Minamoto): cousin of Yoritomo and leader of the anti-Taira forces in the north; also called Lord Kiso.

The New Year’s ceremonies are shortened and do not have their normal luster owing to the burning of Nara. The gloom is deepened by the death of Retired Emperor Takakura. Yoshinaka of Kiso, working to overthrow the Taira, begins to gather allies in the north. The Taira’s rule continues to weaken, and rebellions break out in Kyushu, Shikoku, and elsewhere.