Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan
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“I am most grateful,” Kibi replied, and they talked until dawn, when
the oni left.
The following morning, a guard opened the tower and brought in food.
Having learned that Kibi was still alive, the Chinese officials thought it most
strange.
“This Japanese messenger’s talent is extraordinary. Let us make him
read some difficult and unfamiliar text, and we shall laugh at his mistakes.”
The oni, who was listening to their conversation, returned to the tower and
informed Kibi about their plot.
“What is the nature of this text?” Kibi asked.
“An extremely difficult writing of this country called Monzen in Japanese
and Wenxuan (Chinese Literary Anthology) in Chinese,” the oni replied.
“Is it possible for you to listen to their reading and let me know?”
Kibi asked.
“I cannot do that,” the oni replied. “I could, however, take you to the
place where the Chinese scholars are discussing the text and have you listen
to them yourself,” said the oni. “But you are locked high up in this tower
so far away from the court. How can we escape and make such a journey?”
The Il ustrated Story of Minister Kibi’s Adventures in China
105
The minister simply replied, “I know the art of flying.”24
Thus, they slipped out together through the gap between the door and
the wall and reached the palace where the deliberation over Monzen was
being held. Kibi and the oni listened to thirty scholars reading aloud and
discussing Monzen throughout the night and then returned to the tower.
“Did you hear it well?” the oni asked.
“Yes, I did indeed,” the minister answered. “Can you bring me ten or
so scrolls of an old calendar that are not used anymore?” Kibi asked. The
oni immediately brought the old calendar scrolls. Thus supplied, Kibi wrote
down volume 1 of Monzen onto the margins of three or four scrolls and
scattered them around the room.
After a day or two, a Chinese professor, as an imperial messenger,
came to the tower with thirty volumes of Wenxuan. As the professor was
going to try the minister’s knowledge of the text, he saw the dispersed
scrolls on which Monzen was written. The Chinese thought it strange
and asked, “Where did you find these?” The minister replied, “They are
from Japan. They are called Monzen, very popular among Japanese.” The
Chinese professor was so astonished that he was going to leave with his
Wenxuan. But the minister stopped him by saying, “Let me compare your
Wenxuan with Monzen in Japan,” and he took the Chinese Wenxuan from
the professor.
The Chinese officials again plotted, saying, “Kibi may be intelligent, but
he won’t have any strategic or tactical skill. Let us try him with the game of
go (board game). The Japanese will take the white stones and we will take
the black ones.25 We will kill him with shame this time.” The oni heard this
and again told the minister.
“What is go?” Kibi asked.
“There are 361 stones and 9 principal points,” the oni explained, look-
ing at the crisscrossed ceiling and comparing it to the grid of black lines on
a go board.
The minister thought about the strategy throughout the night. The follow-
ing day, an excellent Chinese chess player was sent to the tower as expected. It
was a well-matched game, and it was hard to tell who was going to win or lose
when Kibi secretly stole a black stone from his opponent and swallowed it.
The result of the game was thus in Kibi’s favor. The Chinese player thought
it strange and counted the number of his stones. one was missing. When
the Chinese player had a diviner look for the stone, the diviner said Kibi had
swallowed it. The minister vehemently denied the allegation, but the Chinese
insisted that Kibi take a purgative. The minister, however, used his own secret
arts to prevent the stone from passing. Thus, the minister won. The Chinese
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The Il ustrated Story of Minister Kibi’s Adventures in China
107
bureaucrats were so infuriated that they stopped feeding the minister. But the
oni brought food every night, and thus several months passed.
Then one day the oni told the minister about the next Chinese conspir-
acy. “This time I won’t be able to help you,” the oni said. “They are having
Priest Bao Zhi,26 a wise and virtuous performer of highly esoteric practice,
make a barrier to prevent informers––spirits and people with supernatural
powers––from entering a place where they will create a writing you have to
read. It is beyond my powers.”
The minister seemed to be at the end of his resources when, as the
oni predicted, he was taken down from the tower and taken to the pal-
ace. In front of the emperor, Kibi was made to read. As he looked at
the writing, he became dizzy and lost focus; he could not see or make
sense of a single character on the paper. Then, drawing on his faith, Kibi
turned to the direction of Japan and appealed to Japan’s patron deity and
Buddha—specifically, the deity of Sumiyoshi Shrine and Bodhisattva of
Hase Temple—whereupon his eyes became clear and he could see the
characters. Still, he could not figure out in what order they should be read
when a spider came down from nowhere, leaving its thread on the paper
to show Kibi how to read the text. Thus, the minister could finish reading.
The emperor and the writer were all the more astounded and made him
return to the tower.
They continued, to no effect, to try to starve Kibi and terminate his life.
“From now on, do not open the tower,” was the command. The oni heard
this and duly told the minister.
“Alas! How sad,” said Kibi who had grown quite tired of the whole
situation. “If there is in this land an old sugoroku’s (Japanese version of
backgammon) tube, dice, and board that have existed for more than 100
years, I want to have them.”
The oni replied “they exist” and brought a tube made from jujube and
a board made from a katsura tree.
As the minister placed a pair of dice on the board and covered them
with the tube, the sun and the moon disappeared entirely from the sky.
Every Chinese, from the emperor to common folks, was astonished, crying
and screaming so loud that they seemed to move heaven and earth in their
fear. of course, the Chinese had this phenomenon divined, and the divi-
nation revealed that it was an esoteric practitioner’s doing, pointing to the
direction of the tower where Kibi was
confined. The frightened Chinese
officials questioned Kibi.
“I know nothing about it,” he said. “However, it could be that as I
have been falsely accused and wrongly put in the tower, I have prayed
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constantly to Japanese deities and Buddhas; perhaps they have responded
to my prayers. If you send me back to Japan, I’m sure the sun and moon
will appear again.” Upon hearing this, the Chinese officials decided to lose
no time in sending Kibi back to Japan.
“open the tower immediately,” they cried, and when they had done so
Kibi lifted the tube from the dice, and the sun and moon reappeared. Kibi
soon returned to his beloved Japan.
nOtes
1. Regarding the translation of Onmyōdō as “the Way of yin-yang” and the spelling
of Onmyōdō without italics and with a capital O, I have followed Hayek and Hayashi 3.
Onmyōdō is an eclectic practice whose roots are found in the theory of the cosmic dual-
ity of yin and yang and the five elements or phases (metal, wood, water, fire, and earth).
With the theory of yin and yang and the five elements formed in ancient China at its core,
Onmyōdō adapted elements from the Buddhist astrology of the Xiuyaojing (Jp. Sukuyōkyō ) and indigenous Japanese kami worship. The appellation Onmyōdō was formed in Japan
between the tenth and eleventh centuries. See Hayek and Hayashi 1–18.
2. Monzen or Wenxuan is one of the earliest anthologies of Chinese poetry and literature: a selection of the best poetry and literature before the Sui-Tang period. It was compiled by
Crown Prince Zhaoming (501–31 CE) of the Liang Dynasty and was extremely popular
during the Tang Dynasty. The book came to Japan in ancient times and was already required
reading during the Nara period. While the popularity continued in the Heian period, it was
considered an extremely difficult classic by the early eleventh century.
3. The game of go was diplomatically important. In Kaifūsō (Fond Recollections of Poetry 751) it is reported that in 702 Bensei, who participated in Japanese missions to Tang
as a student, was so skilled at go that he was favorably treated by Prince Wu Longji (later Emperor Xuanzong). Also, Tomo no okatsuo became a member of Japanese missions to
Tang China in 804 because he was an excellent go player ( Gōdanshō [ SNKBT 32:] 66).
4. Gōdanshō was written by Fujiwara no Sanekane (1085–1112), who heard the stories from
Ōe no Masafusa (1041–1111). “Kibi nittō no kan no koto” is included at the beginning of
volume 3 of Gōdanshō. For the text of “Kibi nittō no kan no koto,” see Ōe, Gōdanshō 63–69.
5. Kanai Hiroko of the Tokyo National Museum agrees with Kuroda’s thesis; see Kanai,
“Umi o watatta nidai emaki” 95.
6. Regarding the university students, Borgen writes, “The students were primarily sons
of the locally recruited district officials who, in turn, were descendants of the virtually independent local magnates of an earlier age. The ritsuryō system had given such men secure
but very minor positions in local governments, and few of them played significant roles on
a national level. Those who did were often men who had first earned reputations for their
scholarship. The best known examples are Kibi no Makibi (695–775) and Haruzumi no
Yoshitada.” Borgen 74.
7. The other scholar is Sugawara no Michizane (845–903). Regarding Sugawara no
Michizane, see the section “Kitano Tenjin: Benevolent and Vengeful Spirit of Sugawara no
Michizane” in chapter 4.
8. For Kibi no Makibi’s biography, see Miyata, Kibi no Makibi; Komatsu, Kibi daijin nittō
emaki 108–19; Murai 13–28.
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9. Izushi Yoshihiko explains that the original character of 鬼 (without ム, which was
added later) is made up of two parts: 由 and 几. 由 presents a dead person, and 几 is the
hieroglyph for a person. So he surmises that the various changing appearances of dead
people or a difference between a living person and a dead person was displayed by 由 (Izushi
416–18. Also see Reider, Japanese Demon Lore 4–10).
10. The story was popularly adapted during the early modern and modern periods. For
example, Koikawa Harumachi (1744–89), a popular fiction writer, wrote Kibi no Nihon jie
(Japanese Kibi’s Ingenuity), and Kawatake Mokuami (1816–93) made a kabuki play titled
Kibidaijin shina tan (Story of Minister Kibi in China).
11. This is often called Shō Chūka (small middle kingdom) or Shō teikoku (small empire).
12. When the 702 Japanese delegation led by Awata no Mahito (d. 719) arrived in China,
its members were initially referred to as emissaries of the “great Wo [small].” Joshua Fogel
explains that the Japanese envoy asked the Chinese empress Wu Zetian (Jp. Busokuten
reigned 685–704) if they would change the state name from “Wo” (Wa) to “Riben” ( Nihon)
because, having unified many small states, they believed Wa was no longer a small state,
and “they wanted a state name with a more explicitly positive ring to it. The transformation
from Wa to Nihon—and especially that recognition by the almighty Tang state—represented
a recognition that Japan (actually, Yamato) was now a state unified by law and regulations
imported from the mainland.” Their request was apparently granted, and thereafter the sub-
sequent Chinese dynastic histories have a treatise on “Riben,” not “Wo” (Fogel 19).
13. Tōno writes that Japanese emperors could consider themselves equal to Chinese
emperors only because of Japan’s geographic location—Far East islands across the ocean.
It would have been impossible if Japan were located in a place where China could exert its
pressure directly (Tōno 35–36). For a discussion of Japanese embassies to Tang China and
Japan’s double-standard diplomacy with China, see Tōno.
14. With that postulation, Kuranishi suggests that the picture scroll was completed by 1180.
15. For instance, Tang Yin (1470–1523), a Chinese literati of the Ming Dynasty better
known by his courtesy name Tang Bohu, “mocks life and worldly matters, lashes out at the
hypocrisy of moralists, and expresses his sympathy for courtesans and prostitutes” through
his paintings, such as Tao Gu Presents a Poem (Yang, “Ming Dynasty” 223).
16. Since the Heian period, there have been two major schools of Onmyōdō: the Abe
school and the Kamo school. In this episode the husband’s name is Kamo no Michiyo,
implying that he belongs to the Kamo school (see Nakamura, Nihon onmyōdō-sho no kenkyū 3).
17. In Fusō ryakki (Brief History of Japan, twelfth century), the author Kōen (d. 1169), priest of the Tendai sect of Buddhism, follows suit and adds that because of his talent, the
Tang court did not allow him to return to Japan. Kōen writes that according to a certain
book, Kibi no Makibi hid the sun and moon in China for ten days, whereupon the amazed
Tang court called for a diviner. When the diviner told them it was Kibi no Makibi’s doing, the
court permitted him to go back to Japan (Kōen 558). This “certain book” must be Gōdanshō.
18. The date, early fourteenth century, is given by Murayama, Nihon onmyōdō 323–24. For
the text of Hokinaiden, see Nakamura, Nihon onmyōdō-sho no kenkyū 237–329. Matthias Hayek explains Hokinaiden as “an esoteric compilation of hem
erological knowledge, including elements from both the curial and the monastic (Buddhist) mantic tradition[s] . . . As a whole,
the Hokinaiden can be characterized as the greatest example of how divinatory knowledge
has been transmitted through the medieval period in a mythological form.” Hayek, “Eight
Trigrams” 346. For the text of Hoki shō, see Mashimo and Yamashita, “Hoki shō” 3: 167–95.
19. Hikohohodemi no Mikoto emaki is an adaptation of a myth from Nihon Shoki in which the younger brother, Hikohohodemi no mikoto, establishes his sovereignty by subjugating his
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elder brother. Hikohohodemi no mikoto’s grandson is the first emperor of Japan, Emperor
Jinmu. Nagai Kumiko postulates that GoShirakawa had Hikohohodemi no Mikoto emaki made
to assert his position as the legitimate successor of the imperial authority, not his elder
brother, Emperor Sutoku, or Sutoku’s son, Prince Shigehito. See Nagai, “Otōto no ōken.”
For the text of Hikohohodemi no Mikoto emaki, see NET 22. For the stories of Hikohohodemi no mikoto in Nihon shoki, see SNKBZ 2: 155–89.
20. Kuroda, “Ban Dainagon emaki kenkyū” 332. “Ban Dainagon emaki” depicts a his-
torical incident called the Ōtenmon Incident, which happened in 866. Ban Dainagon, or
Tomo no Yoshio (811–68), set Ōtenmon, a major gate of the capital, on fire and blamed
his political rival Minamoto no Makoto, minister of the left, for this crime. By blaming
Minamoto no Makoto as the culprit, Ban Dainagon hoped to take his post. But the truth
was revealed through the children’s fight, and the real culprit, Ban Dainagon, was caught.
It is said that Ban Dainagon, who died at Izu, the banished place, became a vengeful spirit
and caused various epidemics. Also see number 11 of volume 27 of Konjaku monogatarishū
titled “Aru tokoro no zenbu Yoshio no Tomo no dainagon no ryō o mirukoto” (A Chef
Meets Yomo no Yoshiko’s Spirit), SNKBZ 38: 42–43. According to Inamoto Mariko, this
scroll is a picturization of the imperial authority to express royal military power through
the detailed depiction of kebiishi (the Imperial Police). See Inamoto, “Ban Dainagon emaki to GoShirakawa” 61.
21. Kibi daijin monogatari is currently housed in Dai Tōkyū kinen bunko in Tokyo.
22. Ushitora (lit. ox-tiger), or the direction northeast, is known to be an ominous direction called kimon 鬼門—oni’s gate 門, where oni enter and exit. Intertwined with this direction