A child in the company then said: “I can see how some women who have led others to enlightenment might indeed have been Avalokiteśvara incarnate—such as Queen Vimaladatta, who led the King before the Buddha and persuaded him to reform his wicked ways;303 or Queen Shrimala, whose praise of the Buddha, inspired by her parents’ epistles, will transmit the Doctrine to generations yet unborn.304 But The Tale of Genji is such an assemblage of amorous intrigues, all set forth as the very truth, that it corrupts people’s minds and excites their passion. How are we to regard this as the sacred and holy Doctrine?”
“Yes,” the old woman said, “there is some truth in what you say. Yet when you consider what an extraordinary and marvelous work the Genji is; that she has written not just a scroll or two, but a book of sixty chapters;305 that nowhere is it flawed by frivolity; that in the past as in the present it has brought pleasure even to emperors and empresses, who have made magnificent copies of it, and have prized it above all their treasures—when you consider all these things, I say, what in fact strikes one as odd is that anyone could consider its author sinful. By showing the deeply sinful, it inspires one to chant the holy name of the Buddha, and thus can serve as a first step toward the enlightenment of those for whose deliverance we pray; by revealing to us the workings of a feeling heart, it wins over to the path of righteousness those mired in the miseries of this world; in demonstrating the evanescence of this world, it is by no means without effect as an exhortation to the Way of the Buddha. When you further consider that it depicts one who, though grieved at having to leave behind his loved ones, yet keeps the precepts of the Lay Disciple,306 and a woman who guards her chastity until death in obedience to her father’s dying injunctions,307 it is plain to see that the tale was intended as an object lesson. When readers see how Genji, who enjoyed the boundless favor of the emperor, and was blessed with the best of all possible karmas, yet dies as though all this had been but a dream or an illusion, they cannot but realize how ephemeral are the things of this world. And then there is the emperor who relinquishes his throne to his younger brother and retires to a hermitage in the western hills308—here is another example of one that calls to mind that emperor of old in the Doctrine—one indeed that calls to mind that emperor of old in the Devadatta Chapter of the Lotus Sutra.309 Vasubandhu has written at the beginning of his treatise310 that naught but the wisdom to distinguish right from wrong can rescue the heart lost in darkness; for so deep are the depths of delusion that the ignorant only drift on as though upon a bottomless sea. And so the Buddha in his benevolence has given us this means to discern the true nature of things and turn us in the way of enlightenment, this seed of the propagation of his Doctrine—that even coarse and insinuating language can lead the way to the Truth of the Absolute. To be sure, The Tale of Genji is not the untainted holy word of the Doctrine. Yet under the pure morning light of the Doctrine, surely anyone possessed of such great compassion as to pray for the deliverance of Murasaki Shikibu—whether because he found comfort in her book or was deeply touched by it—surely such a person must form a very deep bond of good karma.”
As she spoke, the pilgrims, in their eagerness to hear more, lost all thought of their destination. Yet loath though they were to part from her, the sun had begun to set, and they went their separate ways.
“Perhaps one day we shall all meet again,” she said, “for I hope in some future life to become a buddha and preach the Doctrine as I have done here today under the Tree of Enlightenment.”
These words convinced the pilgrims she could be no ordinary mortal. But when they later sought her at the place where she had said she lived, she was not to be found. Filled with regret that they had not sent one of their number to follow her, they proceeded on their way.
[Introduction and translation by Thomas J. Harper]
COLLECTION OF TALES OF TIMES NOW PAST (KONJAKU MONOGATARI SHŪ, CA. 1120)
The Collection of Tales of Times Now Past, a monolithic collection of 1039 setsuwa, or anecdotes, was compiled in the late Heian period, in the early twelfth century. Of the thirty-one volumes, three (8, 18, 21) are missing. The collection is divided into three parts: the first five volumes are on India (Tenjiku); the next five volumes, on China (Shintan); and the remaining twenty-one volumes, on Japan (Honchō).
It is not clear whether the compiler was a Buddhist monk or an aristocrat, a single author or a group of writers. Traditionally, the compiler has been thought to be Minamoto no Takakuni (1004–1077), but the inclusion of stories dated after Takakuni died makes this improbable.
The anthology is the first world history of Buddhism to be written in Japanese; two-thirds of the anecdotes are Buddhist stories and the rest, secular stories. Volumes 1 through 4 describe the history of Buddhism in India, from the birth of Shakyamuni to the spread of Buddhism after Shakyamuni’s death. Volumes 6 through 9 (with 8 missing) describe the transmission of Buddhism from India to China and relate various stories of miracles and karmic causality. Volumes 11 through 20 (with 18 missing) outline the history of Buddhism in Japan, beginning with the transmission of Buddhism from China.
The remaining volumes (5, 10, 21–32) depict secular life in India, China, and Japan. Volumes 5 and 10, which open the India and China sections, respectively, begin with stories about the emperor and the imperial court, followed by stories of ministers and then of warriors. Volume 21, the first of the secular-Japan section, is missing, but volume 22 provides biographies of powerful Fujiwara ministers; volume 23 depicts stories of military leaders; and volume 24 offers stories of doctors, diviners, and artists. The secular parts, in other words, are constructed with the imperial court and the emperor as the source of authority and the main sociopolitical axis. The secular volumes also reach beyond court society to include the samurai (vol. 25), who, though subservient to the nobility, rebel and commit violent acts. Volume 29, which focuses on those who commit evil acts (akugyō), takes this external perspective even further. Volumes 26 through 31 center on the themes of karmic retribution and reward, demons and spirits, humor, and love, depicting a diverse social world that contrasts with the aristocratic world of Heian monogatari and literary diaries.
The setsuwa in the Konjaku monogatari shū have two large purposes: religious (in leading the audience to a deeper understanding of Buddhism) and secular (for entertainment and practical purposes). In its religious aims, the Konjaku monogatari shū tries to appeal to commoners and the masses by presenting Buddhism in a simplified form. The rewards for faith are immediate, and the punishment for sin is direct and immediate. Stories about the Lotus Sutra, for example, make no or little attempt to explain the content of the sutra; instead, they focus on the efficacy and merit acquired by reciting the sutra or having faith in it. Indeed, the worldly efficacy—the belief in the power of Buddhism to protect human beings from disasters—is usually stressed. The Buddhist stories were probably compiled by Buddhist preachers as a means of instruction for illiterate audiences. These are not sermons but stories that could be used in sermons. The moral at the end usually applies to only part of the story, reflecting the multiple functions of these narratives. (Indeed, the same story often appears elsewhere in another setsuwa collection for a completely different purpose.)
The focus of the Buddhist stories generally is on the strange and the miraculous rather than on doctrinal matters. The same interest in the strange and mysterious marks the secular chapters, particularly volume 16 (karmic retribution/reward), volume 27 (demons and spirits), volume 28 (humor), volume 29 (evil and criminals), volume 30 (love stories), and volume 31 (stories of the strange). The setting of the setsuwa ranges from the ninth to the twelfth century, encompassing the same historical period in which the monogatari flourished but with a much broader social and environmental range.
The Collection of Tales of Times Now Past is written in a mixed Chinese–Japanese style (wakan konkō bun), which reflects a strong movement toward vernacular Japanese. The stories are presented not as words directly spoken by the narrat
or or editor but as transmissions of stories that have been heard and recorded.
Tales from India
Volume 5 contains stories about the birth of Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, as well as many stories that took place before Shakyamuni achieved enlightenment. The story of Ikkaku sennin (One-Horned Immortal) had considerable impact on Japan and also appears in the Taiheiki (vol. 37) and in numerous setsuwa collections. The story became a nō play under the same name and in the mid-eighteenth century provided inspiration for the famous kabuki play Narukami.
HOW THE ONE-HORNED IMMORTAL CARRIED A WOMAN FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE PALACE (5:4)
This story is derived from an early-fifth-century Chinese translation from Sanskrit known as Dazhidu lun (J. Daichido-ron).
The time is now long past when a certain immortal lived in the mountains of India.311 He was called the One-Horned Immortal. A single horn protruded from his forehead. People called him the One-Horned Immortal because of the horn, you see. He had passed years and years in the depths of the mountains, devoting himself to various ascetic practices. He would hop on clouds and soar through the sky, and he moved giant mountains, and he caused the birds and beasts to do his bidding.
Then one day a great rain gushed from the sky and all the mountain paths were utterly ruined. Now as it happened, for reasons somewhat difficult to fathom—yes indeed, you really have to wonder what he was thinking!—the One-Horned Immortal was sauntering about on foot that day, not flying, and the slope was so steep that his feet slipped out from under him, and he fell. To think of an old immortal tumbling down a mountain like this! It made him furious. Then something occurred to him. It’s because of all this rain! When rain falls, the paths get all messy—that’s how it is in this world. How disgusting it feels having these drenched robes against my skin. And of course those dragon kings are responsible—they’re the ones who make the rain fall! It was the work of an instant for the One-Horned Immortal to round up the various dragon kings and shut them up in his flask. Now that they were trapped in the flask, the various dragon kings started wailing and sobbed an infinity of tears.
Now since the One-Horned Immortal had taken all these giant dragon kings and stuffed them into such a small container, it had gotten intolerably cramped inside. It was quite impossible to move, and the pain was dreadful. But alas, the holy man had such marvelous powers that they couldn’t do a thing against him. So that’s how it was. Twelve years passed without so much as a tiny sprinkling of rain. And as a consequence all the land was parched, and everyone in all five of India’s regions went about wailing and moaning.312 The kings of the Sixteen Great Kingdoms313 performed various rituals of supplication begging for rain, but none of these had any effect at all. None of the kings had any idea why things were like this.
And then a certain soothsayer spoke. Travel from here in the direction of the Cow and the Tiger and you will come to a forbiddingly large mountain.314 There is an immortal who lives on this mountain. He has taken the various dragon kings that make the rain fall and bottled them up—that’s why no rain falls anywhere in the land. Your majesties can order the venerable saints to pray all you like, their powers will never be able to compete with those of the other saint. That was what he said.
When the people of the various lands heard this, they let their minds circle the problem, considered it from all angles, wondering what they ought to do, but they were utterly unable to discover a solution. Then a certain minister spoke up. I don’t care how venerable a saint this man is, there’s no way he could be immune to physical allure or deaf to the charms of a lovely voice. That old mountain immortal people used to talk about way back when, Udraka-Ramaputra—would anyone even think of calling him a fraud?315 I’d wager he was even greater than this current fellow. And yet Udraka-Ramaputra sank himself in the pleasures of the flesh, and no sooner had he done so than he lost his marvelous powers. So here’s what I think we ought to do. We’ll command all the elegant beauties with lovely voices to assemble here, and then we’ll send them off to that mountain, and whenever they come to a particularly high peak or an especially deep valley—to places, I mean to say, where it seems a mountain immortal would make his abode or where a saint would live—when they find such a place they’ll perform a heartrending, scintillating rendition of some song. Hearing that, even this exalted saint of ours is bound to melt. As soon as the minister had finished speaking, it was decided. See that it is done right away, said the king. And so they selected the most elegant and beautiful women with the loveliest voices, five hundred in all, and decked them out in the most exquisite clothing, covered them in sandalwood oil, sprinkled them with aloe, loaded them all into five hundred exquisitely decorated carriages, and sent them on their way.
The sight of all these women getting down out of their carriages way up there in the mountains and then gathering together in a crowd was so splendid there is simply no way to describe it. They wandered off this way and that way in groups of ten or twenty and went to stand in front of caves and under trees and between the peaks of mountains and in all sorts of places, and in these places they sang their heartrending songs. The mountains echoed and the valleys reverberated, and it was so wonderful you almost expected heavenly beings and dragon gods to come look and listen.
While all this was going on, a saint dressed in rustic robes stood by a cave so deep you could barely see into it. He was haggard and emaciated, totally without flesh. Nothing but skin and bones, that’s all there was to him, so that looking at him you wondered where his soul could possibly be hiding. A single horn protruded from his forehead. His appearance was infinitely frightening. He hobbled out like a shadow hunched over his stick, a flask in his hand and a misshapen grin on his face.
Here’s what the immortal said. Who are you, you who come here and sing such amazing songs? I’ve been living here on this same mountain for a thousand years, but never in my life have I heard anything like this. Are you beings descended from heaven? Or demons from below?
A woman replied. We are neither beings from heaven nor demons from below, but five hundred kekara-women—that’s what we’re called—who spend all our time traveling across India in a big group like this.316 We’d heard that these mountains are magnificent beyond compare, that all sorts of flowers bloom here, that the streams are thrilling to behold, and that in the midst of all this there lives a most venerable saint. So we thought to ourselves, why don’t we go sing our songs for this sainted man? Living up there in the depths of those mountains, he’s unlikely ever to have heard anything similar. If we do this, we’ll be able to forge a connection with him that may prove helpful in the future.317 So you see, that’s why we’ve come.
Then the woman sang a song, and the holy man listened, and since her form was truly unlike anything he had ever seen, either in the distant past or in more recent times, and since she sang with such heartrending grace it would be futile to try and describe it, he felt as if his eyes were swimming in light, and his heart was profoundly moved, and his spirit didn’t know which way to turn.
The holy man spoke. Listen, will you please do what I say? The woman decided that he seemed to have softened, and made up her mind to ruin him with her cunning. Oh, yes, whatever you say! How could I possibly refuse? she said. Well then, said the holy man, I think perhaps I’ll just touch you a little here and there, if that’s all right with you. And with that he started galumphing awkwardly toward her, his motions terribly stiff and utterly inappropriate, so that the woman found herself struggling not to make this terrifying creature lose his temper, even as she shuddered at the horn on his head. But since this was precisely what the king of the land had told them to do when he sent them off, she finally fought down her fear and managed to do the things the holy man told her to.
And when that moment came, the various dragon kings were filled with joy, and they smashed their way out of the flask and ascended to the heavens. And no sooner had they done so than a layer of cloud swelled to fill the entire vast expanse of the sky
, and bolts of lightning rained down amid crashes of thunder, and a tremendous deluge began. There was nowhere for the woman to hide herself, but then she had no means of getting back home either, and so despite her fear she remained with the holy man for a few days. During this time, his heart became deeply steeped in thoughts of the woman. Then on the fifth day the rain let up a little and the sky cleared, and the woman informed the holy man that she was leaving. Things can’t go on like this, she said. I’m going to leave. The holy man was very sad that they would have to part. Well, he said, with a pained look on his face, if you must go you must go. The woman replied, I’ve never been out like this before and walking around on these rocks has caused my feet to swell up terribly. What’s more, I don’t know the way back. If that’s the case, said the holy man, allow me to serve as your guide on the paths that cross the mountains. He started walking on ahead, and the woman gazed at him and saw how white his hair was, like a cap of snow on his head. His face was wrinkled like the surface of the sea, and a single horn protruded from his forehead. His back was so crooked he was folded in two, and he wore the most rustic of clothing. As she watched him hobble along, swaying from side to side as he leaned on his holy man’s stick, she found him both ridiculous and, at the same time, terrifying.
Traditional Japanese Literature Page 36