Traditional Japanese Literature

by Haruo Shirane

  One of the striking characteristics of the emergence of Japanese vernacular literature was the central role played by women writers who were either at or closely associated with the imperial court in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, such as Murasaki Shikibu, Sei Shōnagon, Mother of Michitsuna, Izumi Shikibu, and Daughter of Takasue. One reason for the prominent role of aristocratic women at this time is the writing system. Kana, the vernacular syllabary, became prominent in the early tenth century, enabling the Japanese to write more easily in their own language. Until then, writing had been in Chinese (as in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki) or had used Chinese characters to transcribe the native Japanese language (as in the Man’yōshū). Despite the emergence of a native syllabary, the male nobility continued to write in Chinese, which remained the more prestigious language and the language of government, scholarship, and religion. By contrast, aristocratic women, who were generally relegated to a nonpublic sphere, adopted the native syllabary as their first language and used it to write diaries, memoirs, poetry, and fiction. One consequence was that women’s writing had an internal, psychological dimension that was rarely found even in men’s kana writing, which, in any case, remained secondary to their work in Chinese.

  The second reason for the development of women’s writing was the political, social, and cultural importance of the ladies-in-waiting at the imperial court. The leading Fujiwara families poured their resources into the residences, cultural activities, and entourages of their daughters, who competed for the attention of the emperor. Indeed, the ladies-in-waiting to these Fujiwara daughters wrote much of the vernacular literature of the mid-Heian period. They were the daughters of provincial governors, the mid-level aristocrats, who were frequently in unstable political and economic positions. Having failed to rise in the court hierarchy, many of these provincial governors went to the provinces to make a living and so had an outsider’s perspective on court life. One consequence was that the literature written by women at court paid homage to the powerful Fujiwara patrons (as in The Pillow Book and Murasaki Shikibu’s Diary) while also expressing deep disillusionment with court life (as in the Sarashina Diary) and with the marital customs that supported this sociopolitical system (as in the Kagerō Diary). Part of the complexity of The Tale of Genji, in fact, comes from this conflicting view of court culture and power.

  The thirty-one-syllable classical poem (waka) emerged as the most important vernacular (kana) genre. Occasions and topics for these poems ranged from the seasons to love to miscellaneous topics such as celebration, mourning, separation, and travel, which form separate chapters in the Kokinshū. Poems were composed for public functions, at poetry contests (uta-awase) and poetry parties, and for illustrated screens (byōbu uta), which were commissioned by the royalty and the powerful Fujiwara families. Waka functioned privately as a social medium for greetings, courtship, and farewell, as well as a means of self-reflection. Poets also edited private collections, of either their own poetry or that of a poet like Ariwara no Narihira or Ono no Komachi. These private poetry collections could take the form of a travel diary, as in the Tosa Diary, one of the first diaries written in kana. Private poetry collections could also lead to confessional autobiographies like the Kagerō Diary, which probably began as a private collection of poems by Mother of Michitsuna. Private collections of poetry also gave rise to the poem tale, which contained anecdotes about poems that were compiled to create a biographical narrative like The Tales of Ise, itself based on the poems and legends surrounding Ariwara no Narihira.

  In Murasaki Shikibu’s day, as in previous centuries, men wrote prose in Chinese, the official language of religion and government. In the tenth century, therefore, vernacular prose, particularly literary diaries, belonged to women to the extent that, in the Tosa Diary, the leading male poet of the day, Ki no Tsurayuki, assumes the persona of a woman in writing a literary diary in Japanese. Male scholars, however, were the first to write vernacular tales, or monogatari, although they did so anonymously, for such writing was considered a lowly activity directed only at women and children. These early vernacular tales, which began with The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (ca. 909), tend to be highly romantic, fantastical, and dominated by folkloric elements. Women, by contrast, tended to write highly personal, confessional literature based on their private lives and centered on their own poetry. The author of the Kagerō Diary, the first major literary diary by a woman, wrote out of a profound dissatisfaction with contemporary monogatari, which, in her view, were “just so much fantasy.” Murasaki Shikibu was able to combine both traditions. The Tale of Genji carries on the earlier monogatari tradition in its larger plot and in its amorous hero, who echoes the earlier Narihira in The Tales of Ise. But in its style, details, psychological insight, and portrayal of the dilemmas faced by women in aristocratic society, The Tale of Genji remains firmly rooted in the women’s writing tradition.

  LATE HEIAN KANA HISTORIES AND ANECDOTAL LITERATURE

  With the decline of the northern branch of the Fujiwara lineage and the Fujiwara regency in the late eleventh century, a new historical literature in kana emerged. The first major example is A Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Eiga monogatari, ca. 1092), a historical tale attributed to a woman, which looks back at Fujiwara no Michinaga (966–1027), who brought the Fujiwara regency to its peak. A Tale of Flowering Fortunes was quickly followed by the “mirror pieces” (kagami mono), a series of historical chronicles written in Japanese, beginning with The Great Mirror (Ōkagami, late eleventh century), which also recounts Michinaga’s achievements.

  The late Heian period was also marked by the emergence of anecdote (setsuwa) collections, the first of which was the massive Collection of Tales of Times Now Past (Konjaku monogatari shū, ca. 1120), that reflect the heavy influence of Pure Land Buddhism, incorporate stories of rebirth in the Pure Land, and depict the life of commoners in the provinces. Tales of Times Now Past, which continues the tradition of the Nihon ryōiki, looks forward to the many setsuwa collections of the medieval period and reveals the widening social and religious interest of the aristocracy and priesthood. In contrast to the Nihon ryōiki, which was written in Chinese, Tales of Times Now Past was written in a mixed style that merged kana with the kanbun kundoku (a Japanese style of reading Chinese prose) style. This new wakan (Japanese–Chinese) mixed style, with its rhythmical base, eventually produced military narratives (gunki-mono) like The Tales of the Heike, which became a hallmark of early medieval literature. Another product of the late Heian period was the Treasured Selections of Superb Songs (Ryōjin hishō, ca. 1179), a collection of folk songs (kayō), which might be considered the poetic equivalent of Tales of Times Now Past in reflecting Pure Land Buddhism and commoner life.

  KEIKAI

  Keikai (otherwise known as Kyokai, late eighth–early ninth century), the compiler of the Record of Miraculous Events in Japan (Nihon ryōiki), was a shidosō, or private priest, as opposed to a publicly recognized and certified priest ordained by the ritsuryō state. (The ritsuryō state attempted to keep a tight control on the priesthood and cracked down on private priests, who took vows without official permission, often as a way to avoid taxation and service.) Keikai’s own accounts of himself in the Nihon ryōiki state that in 787 he realized that his current poverty and secular life were the result of evil deeds in a previous life and so he decided to become a priest. Keikai was probably born in the latter half of the Nara period, around 757 to 764, and lived into the early Heian period.

  RECORD OF MIRACULOUS EVENTS IN JAPAN (NIHON RYŌIKI, CA. 822)

  During Keikai’s time, during the reigns of Emperor Kanmu and his son Emperor Saga (r. 809–823), the country was rocked by considerable social disorder, famine, and plagues. It was a particularly hard time for the farmers, many of whom fled from their home villages. Some of these refugees were absorbed into local temples and private estates, and others became private priests. Unlike the official priests in the capital who had aristocratic origins, these private priests attracted a more
plebian constituency, and for them the Record of Miraculous Events in Japan functioned as a kind of handbook of sermons. In this regard, the Nihon ryōiki differs significantly from the elite literature being produced at this time, such as Kaifūsō (751) and Bunka shūreishū (818), two noted collections of Chinese poetry and refined Chinese prose written by aristocrats. Instead, the Nihon ryōiki is written in a rough unorthodox style of Chinese-style prose that depicts the underside of society and the reality of everyday commoner life.

  The Nihon ryōiki, often considered to be Japan’s first setsuwa (anecdote or folk story) collection, bears the signs of earlier oral storytelling. Although 80 percent of the stories take place in the Yamato area, the place-names come from almost every part of the country, from Michinoku (northeast Honshu) to Higo (in Kyushu), strongly suggesting that the private priest would preach at a certain village, gather stories, and then use them at another village, as a storyteller would. In the process, local folk stories and anecdotes became Buddhist parables. Whereas the Nihon shoki and Kojiki combined many of the local and provincial myths and legends into a larger state mythology, Buddhism similarly began to absorb local folk stories, converting them to its own use and producing the kinds of Buddhist anecdotes found in the Nihon ryōiki. As a consequence, the interest of a number of the stories in the Nihon ryōiki is not in the Buddhistic message, which is usually found at the end, but in the story itself, which often was erotic or violent.

  As he notes in the introduction, Keikai arranged these stories in such a way as to demonstrate the Buddhist principle of karmic causality, in which the rewards and retribution for past actions are directly manifested in this world. This principle is embodied in the full title, Record of Miraculous Cases of Manifest Rewards and Retribution for Good and Evil in Japan (Nihonkoku genpō zen’aku ryōi-ki). The stories generally are one of two types: those in which good deeds are rewarded and those in which evil deeds are punished. Other stories demonstrate the miraculous powers of Buddha, the bodhisattvas, sutras, and Buddhist icons.

  In the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, the underworld (Yomi) is a place marked by pollution where bodies decompose. By contrast, in the Nihon ryōiki, we suddenly are confronted with a terrifying Buddhist hell where past actions are severely punished. In the ancient period, sin was often the result of transgressing the communal order, usually agricultural violations or pollutions, but in the Nihon ryōiki, sin takes on new meaning as a moral and social violation, with the individual responsible for his or her own actions. In the early chronicles, disease was something cured by communal means, by purification and cleansing, but later, disease, which figures prominently in the Nihon ryōiki, became the punishment for sin, the result of previous karma.

  On the Death Penalty in This Life for an Evil Son Who Tried to Kill His Mother out of Love for His Wife (2:3)

  Killing a parent was one of the eight crimes under ritsuryō codes. In Buddhism it was considered one of the five heinous sins, for which one would go to hell. Similar stories appear in the Collection of Tales of Times Now Past (20:33) and in volume 7 of the Collection of Treasures of the Buddhist Law (Hōbutsushū).

  Kishi no Ōmaro came from the village of Kamo, Tama District, Musashi Province.1 Ōmaro’s mother was Kusakabe no Matoji.2 During the reign of Emperor Shōmu, Ōmaro was appointed a frontier soldier3 at Tsukushi by Ōtomo4 (name unknown) and had to spend three years there. His mother accompanied him and lived with him while his wife stayed behind to take care of the house.

  Out of love for his wife who had been left behind, Ōmaro came up with the wicked idea of killing his mother and returning home to his wife, claiming exemption from duty on the pretext of mourning.5 Because his mother’s mind was set on doing good, he said to her, “In the eastern mountain, there will be a great meeting for a week of lectures on the Lotus Sutra. Would you like to go to hear them?”

  His mother, deceived, was eager to go, and, devoutly purifying herself in a hot bath, accompanied her son to the mountain. Then he looked at her fiercely, as though with the eyes of a bull, and commanded, “You, kneel down on the ground!” Gazing at his face, she said, “Why are you talking like that? Have you been possessed by a fiend?” But her son drew a sword to kill her. Kneeling down in front of her son, she said to him, “We plant a tree in order to get its fruit and to take shelter in its shade.6 We bring up children in order to get their help and to depend on them. What on earth has driven you so crazy? I feel as though the tree I have been depending on has suddenly ceased to protect me from the rain.” But he would not listen to her, so she sorrowfully took off her clothes, put them in three piles, knelt down, and told him her last wish: “Will you wrap up these clothes for me? One pile goes to you, my eldest son, one to my second son, and one to my third son.”

  When the wicked son stepped forward to cut off his mother’s head, the earth opened up to swallow him. At that moment his mother grabbed her falling son by the hair and appealed to heaven, wailing, “My child has been possessed by a spirit and has been driven to commit such an evil deed. He is out of his mind. I beg you to forgive his sin.” Despite all her efforts to pull him up by the hair, he fell. The merciful mother brought his hair back home to hold funeral rites and put it in a box in front of an image of Buddha and asked monks to chant scriptures.

  How great was the mother’s compassion! So great that she loved an evil son and did good on his behalf. Indeed, we know that an unfilial sin is punished immediately and that an evil deed never avoids a penalty.

  On the Immediate Reward of Being Saved by Crabs for Saving the Lives of Crabs and a Frog (2:12)

  A similar story appears in the Record of Miraculous Powers of the Lotus Sutra in Japan (Honchō hokke genki), but without Gyōki’s name, at a different place (Kuse), and ending with a reference to the Kanimata-dera (Crab Temple), indicating that it was an engi, or story, about the origins of a temple. A similar story also is found in the Collection of Tales of Times Now Past (16:16) and the Collection of Things Written and Heard in Past and Present (Kokon chomonju) (20:682).

  In Kii District, Yamashiro Province,7 there lived a woman whose name is unknown. She was born with a compassionate heart and believed in the law of karmic causation, so she never took a life, observing the five precepts8 and the ten virtues.9

  During the reign of Emperor Shōmu, some young cowherders in her village caught eight crabs in a mountain brook and were about to roast and eat them. She saw this and begged them, “Will you please be good enough to give them to me?” They would not listen to her, insisting, “We will roast and eat them.” Repeating her earnest request, she removed her robe to pay for the crabs. Eventually they gave them to her. She invited a Buddhist master to give a blessing and released them.

  Later, she was in the mountain and saw a large snake swallowing a big toad. She implored the large snake, “Please set this frog free for my sake, and I will give you many offerings.” The snake did not respond. Then she collected more offerings and prayed, “I will consecrate you as a god. Please give the frog to me.” Without answering, the snake continued to swallow the toad. Again she pleaded, “I will become your wife in exchange for this toad. I beg you to release it to me.” Raising its head high, the snake listened, staring at her, and disgorged the toad. The woman made a promise to the snake, saying, “Come to me in seven days.”

  She told her parents in detail about the whole episode. They despaired, asking, “Why on earth did you, our only child, make a promise you cannot fulfill?”

  At that time the most venerable Gyōki was staying at Fukaosa Temple in Kii District. She went and told him what had happened. When he heard her story, he said, “What an incredible story! Just keep believing in the Three Treasures.”10 With these instructions she went home, and on the evening of the appointed day, she closed up the house, prepared herself for the ordeal, and made various vows with renewed faith in the Three Treasures. The snake came, crawled around and around the house, knocked on the walls with its tail, climbed onto the top of the roof, tore a hole i
n the thatch of the roof with its fangs, and dropped in front of her. She heard only the noise of scuffling, jumping, and biting. The next morning she found that the eight crabs had assembled and had cut the snake into shreds. She then learned that the released crabs had come to repay her kindness to them.

  Even an insect that has no means of attaining enlightenment returns a favor. How can a man ever forget a kindness he has received? From this time on, people in Yamashiro Province have honored big crabs in the mountain streams and, if they are caught, set them free in order to do good.

  On Receiving the Immediate Penalty of Violent Death for Collecting Debts by Force and with High Interest (3:26)

  Several stories in the Nihon ryōiki (for example, 1:10) are about people stealing from others and, after dying, turning into a cow to be used for labor. This story differs in that the sinner becomes a cow in this life.

  Mahito Hiromushime of the Tanaka lineage was the wife of Agatanushi Miyate of the Oya lineage, who was of the junior sixth rank, upper grade, and a governor of Miki District, Sanuki Province.11 She gave birth to eight children and was very rich. Among her possessions were cattle, slaves, money and rice,12 and fields. But she lacked faith and was so greedy that she would never give anything away. She used to make a great profit by selling rice wine diluted with water. On the day when she made loans, she used a small measuring cup, whereas on the day she collected, she used a big measuring cup. When she lent rice, she used a lightweight scale, but when she collected it, she used a heavyweight scale. She showed no mercy in forcibly collecting interest, which was sometimes ten times and sometimes a hundred times as much as the original loan. She was strict in collecting debts, never being generous. Because of this, many people worried a great deal and abandoned their homes to escape from her, going to other provinces. Never was there anyone so greedy.