Tales of Moonlight and Rain

by Ueda, Akinari

  Raising his head from the pillow, Kōgi thanked his visitor for coming, and the officer congratulated Kōgi on his recovery. Then Kōgi said, “Listen to what I have to say. Have you ever bought fish from that fisherman named Bunshi?” Startled, the officer replied, “Yes, I have indeed. How did you know?” Kōgi said, “The fisherman entered your gate with a basket containing a fish more than three feet long. You were in the south wing, playing go with your younger brother. Kamori was sitting beside you, eating a large peach and watching the game. Delighted by the big fish that the man had brought, you gave him a tray of peaches and shared your saké with him. The cook proudly took out the fish and cut it into thin slices. Am I right so far?” Hearing this, the officer and his men, suspicious and confused, pressed him to explain how he knew these things in such detail. Kōgi told them.

  “The suffering caused by my illness became unbearable. Unaware that I had stopped breathing, I leaned on my staff and went out through the gate, hoping to relieve the feverishness a little, whereupon my illness began to ease and I felt like a caged bird returning to the land of clouds. Making my way through mountains and villages, I arrived again at the edge of the lake. When I saw the pale-jade water, I felt reality slip away and thought that I would have a swim, and so, shedding my robe, I threw myself in, plunged to the depths, and swam here and there, frolicking as I pleased, even though I am not one who grew accustomed to the water as a child. I realize now that it was all a foolish dream. But a man cannot float in the water with the ease of a fish. I began to wish that I could disport myself like a fish. Nearby was a large fish, who said, ‘The master’s wish is easily granted. Please wait here.’ He disappeared into the depths, but soon a man wearing a crown and robes ascended toward me, sitting astride the same large fish and leading many other fish behind him. He said to me, ‘I bear a message from the Lake God: “You, old monk, have acquired much merit by releasing creatures that were captured by men. Now you have entered the water and wish to swim about like a fish. For a time, we will give you the garb of a golden carp and let you enjoy the pleasures of the water world. But you must be careful not to be tempted by the fragrance of bait, get caught on a line, and lose your life.”’ Having said this much, he disappeared. Astonished, I looked at myself, and found that I had acquired glowing, golden scales and turned into a carp.

  “Not thinking this particularly strange, I swished my tail, moved my fins, and rambled about as I pleased.8 First I rode the waves that were raised by the wind blowing down from Mount Nagara, and then, wandering along the edge of the Great Bay of Shiga, I was startled by people strolling back and forth, so close to the water that their skirts got wet, and so I tried to dive in the depths where high Mount Hira casts its reflection, but I found it hard to hide myself when the fishing flares of Katada at night drew me as though I were dreaming. The moon resting on the waters of the berry-black night shone clear on the peak of Mount Kagami and drove the shadows from the eighty corners of the eighty ports to cast a lovely scene.9 Okino Isle, Chikubu Isle—the vermillion fence reflected in the waves startled me. Soon I was awakened from my dreams among the reeds as the Asazuma Boat rowed out in the wind from Mount Ibuki; I dodged the practiced oar of the Yabase ferryman and many times was driven away by the bridge-guard of Seta. When the sun grew warm, I rose to the surface; when the wind was strong, I swam in the depths.

  “Suddenly feeling hungry, I searched here and there for something to eat. I swam around frantically, unable to find anything, until I came upon the line that Bunshi was dangling in the water. His bait was wonderfully fragrant. Then I remembered the Lake God’s warning. I am a disciple of the Buddha. How should I stoop to eating fish bait, just because I have been unable to find food for a while? I swam away. With time, the hunger grew steadily worse, and I reconsidered, thinking: I can hardly bear it any longer. Even if I swallowed the bait, would I be so reckless as to get caught? I have known Bunshi for a long time; why should I hold back? I took the bait. Bunshi promptly hauled in the line and caught me. ‘Hey! What are you doing?’ I cried, but, pretending not to hear me, he passed a cord through my chin, tied up his boat in the reeds, placed me in a basket, and went in through your gate. You were in the south room, playing go with your younger brother. Kamori sat nearby, eating fruit. Seeing the large fish that Bunshi had brought, everyone was delighted and congratulated him. At that point, I spoke to all of you. ‘Have you forgotten Kōgi? Release me, please! Let me go back to the temple,’ I cried, again and again, but you pretended not to hear and just clapped your hands in delight. The cook pressed both of my eyes hard with the fingers of his left hand, took up a well-sharpened knife in his right hand, placed me on the chopping block, and was about to cut, when I screamed in agony. ‘Is there any precedent for hurting a disciple of the Buddha this way? Help me, help me!’ I cried, but no one listened. When I felt that I was about to be cut, I awakened from my dream.”

  “When I felt that I was about to be cut, I awakened from my dream.”

  Everyone was deeply moved and amazed. “Thinking about the master’s story,” said the officer, “I remember seeing the fish’s mouth move each time, but there was no voice at all. It is marvelous to have seen such a thing with my own eyes.” Sending a messenger running to his house, he had the remaining slices of fish thrown into the lake.

  After this, Kōgi recovered completely and lived for many years before he died of old age. As his end approached, he took the many carp that he had painted and released them into the lake, where the fish left the paper and silk to swim about in the water. For this reason, none of Kōgi’s paintings survived. A disciple named Narimitsu inherited Kōgi’s divine skill and became famous in his time. It is recorded in an old tale that he painted a chicken on a sliding door at the Kan’in Palace, and when a live chicken saw the painting, he kicked it10.

  NOTES

  1. The Tang story on which the former is based has been translated by Lin Yutang as “The Man Who Became a Fish,” in Famous Chinese Short Stories (New York: Day, 1948), pp. 273–278. On Chinese vernacular fiction, see, for example, Feng Meng-Lung, ed., Stories from a Ming Collection: Translations of Chinese Short Stories Published in the Seventeenth Century, trans. Cyril Birch (New York: Grove, 1958); and Patrick Hanan, The Chinese Vernacular Story (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981).

  2. Uzuki Hiroshi, Ugetsu monogatari hyōshaku, Nihon koten hyōshaku zenchūshaku sōsho (Tokyo: Kadokawa, 1969), pp. 298–299.

  3. Burton Watson, trans., Chuang Tzu: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 45.

  4. Watson, trans., Chuang Tzu, p. 110.

  5. Mishima Yukio, “Ugetsu monogatari ni tsuite,” in Mishima Yukio zenshū (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 1975), vol. 25, p. 273.

  6. In Buddhist teachings, releasing captured creatures is meritorious.

  7. Taking life is the first of the five proscribed actions in Buddhism. The others are stealing, licentiousness, lying, and consuming alcohol. These bad karma (actions) impede one’s gradual progress toward enlightenment and buddhahood.

  8. The michiyuki follows, studded with utamakura, as carp-Kōgi swims clockwise around Lake Biwa and evokes famous sights from the point of view of a fish.

  9. “berry-black night” (nubatama no yoru): nubatama, the seed of the blackberry lily (Belamcanda chinensis), also called leopard lily, is a pillow-word conventionally used to modify the terms “night,” “black,” “darkness,” “evening,” “hair,” and, by extension, “dream” and “moon.”

  “eighty corners of the eighty ports” (yaso no minato no yasokuma): yaso (eighty) here means “many”; yaso no minato could be a place-name (Yaso Port), but I take it here to mean “many ports.”

  10. “old tale”: story 11:16 in Narisue, Stories Heard from Writers Old and New. Narimitsu probably lived in the middle of the tenth century. The Kan’in Palace, originally the mansion of Fujiwara Fuyutsugu (775–826), in Kyoto, served as an imperial palace in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

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  dānapati (J. dan’otsu): the Sanskrit word for a lay believer who supports the monastic community with donations.

  BOOK THREE

  THE OWL OF THE THREE JEWELS

  TITLE

  The title, “Buppōsō,” refers to two different birds: buppōsō, a broad-billed roller (Eurystomus orientalis), and konohazuku, the Japanese scops owl (Otsu scops japonicus). The call of the owl is thought to sound like buppan (Buddhist dharma) or buppōsō—Buddha, dharma, saṅgha (the Buddha, his teachings, and the community of monks, nuns, and laity), which constitute the “Three Jewels” of Buddhism. Accordingly, this owl is sometimes called buppōsō or sambōchō (three-jewel bird).

  CHARACTERS

  The number of characters in “The Owl of the Three Jewels” expands beyond the one or two in the previous stories to include the fictional merchants Muzen and his son, the ghost of the famous poet Satomura Jōha, the ghosts of Toyotomi Hidetsugu and his retainers, and Kōbō Daishi, whose spirit hovers over the story, constantly in the minds of the characters and readers.

  Kōbō Daishi, or Kūkai (774–835), the founder of the Shingon (True Word) sect of Buddhism, is perhaps the greatest figure in the history of Japanese religion. In the story, he is referred to as the “Great Teacher.” The honorific title Kōbō Daishi (Great Teacher Who Spread the Dharma) was conferred on him posthumously by Emperor Daigo in 921.

  Toyotomi Hidetsugu (1568–1595) was the nephew and adopted son of the national unifier Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598). Although Hidetsugu succeeded Hideyoshi as regent (kampaku) in 1592, he fell out of favor after the birth of Hideyoshi’s natural son, Hideyori, in 1593; two years later, he was ordered to commit suicide at Mount Kōya with sixteen of his retainers. Hidetsugu had a deep interest in no, poetry, and other classics, but also was so bloodthirsty that he earned the nickname Sasshō Kampaku (Killer Regent), a pun on sesshō kampaku, in which the word sesshō is the title of a regent who serves a child emperor. The Portuguese Jesuit missionary Luis Frois (1532–1597) reported that Hidetsugu “had one weakness, namely a passionate delight in killing.“1

  Satomura Jōha (1524–1602) was the leading poet of his time and the last major renga master. The title by which he identifies himself, Bridge of the Dharma (Hokkyō), was applied to holy men, especially those who were also writers, painters, or physicians who served as a “bridge” for ordinary people who sought to understand the dharma. Jōha is known to have been invited to compose renga with Hidetsugu.

  PLACES

  “The Owl of the Three Jewels” begins in Ōka, now the town of Taki, located to the west of the Ise Shrines in Mie Prefecture. Muzen and his son travel to Kyoto and then to Mount Kōya (Kōyasan), where most of the story takes place.

  Like “Shiramine” and “The Blue Hood,” “The Owl of the Three Jewels” includes a michiyuki:

  Nijō: district just to the south of the imperial palace in Kyoto. Having a second house at this location is a sign of Muzen’s wealth.

  Yoshino: mountainous area of Nara Prefecture, south of Kyoto, celebrated since ancient times for its magnificent cherry blossoms. Part of “A Serpent’s Lust” also takes place in Yoshino.

  Mount Kōya: mountain with a vast complex of monasteries, the headquarters of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, about sixty-two miles southwest of Kyoto, in Wakayama Prefecture (formerly, Kii Province).

  Tennokawa: village through which pilgrims coming from the east passed on the road to Mount Kōya.

  Mani: “holy mountain of Mani” (mani no miyama) sometimes refers to the whole of Mount Kōya, but here may refer specifically to the mountain called Mani, east of the Mount Kōya temple complex. Mani is originally a Sanskrit word meaning “pure” or “jewel.”

  TIME

  Early summer in a year after 1616, early in the Tokugawa period: “more than eight hundred years” after the founding of Kōyasan.

  BACKGROUND

  In 804, as a student monk, Kūkai sailed to China, where he met with great success in his studies of esoteric Buddhism. Legend has it that, just before his return to Japan in 806, he threw a three-pronged vajra (J. sanko) toward Japan. It landed in a pine tree—the Vajra Pine (Sanko no matsu), which stands in the center of the main compound on Mount Kōya. (The vajra [Sanskrit for “diamond”], originally an Indian weapon resembling a two-headed mallet with three blades on each end, evolved in tantric and esoteric Buddhism into a ceremonial implement.) Kūkai established the monastic complex at Mount Kōya in 816. Most of the story takes place at the Lantern Hall (Tōrōdō) in front of Kōbō Daishi’s mausoleum at Mount Kōya, where his followers believe he lies in a state of animated suspension. Pilgrims to the Mausoleum recite the chant Namu Daishi Henjō Kongō: “I put my faith in the great teacher who brings light to all the people, Universal Adamantine Illuminator.“2

  The Lantern Hall and Mausoleum are at some remove from the central compound at Kōya, which is called the Platform (Danjō). About 5 acres in area, the Platform contains the Great Pagoda, the Golden Hall, other important buildings, and the Vajra Pine. A 1¼-mile path lined with thousands of gravestones, including those of some of the most famous figures of Japanese history, leads east from the Platform through giant cedars to the Mausoleum. The path, the Lantern Hall, the Mausoleum, and other buildings together are referred to as the Inner Sanctuary (Oku-no-in). The flames in the Lantern Hall are said to have burned continuously since 1016. A narrow stream called the Tamagawa (Jewel River) flows in front of the Lantern Hall, where it is spanned by a short bridge.

  Poetry in both Chinese and Japanese plays an important role in “The Owl of the Three Jewels.” Muzen is an amateur poet in the “haikai style,” which refers to a style of renga in which links of seventeen (5–7–5) and fourteen (7–7) syllables alternate. Muzen’s verse, given in the story, could stand alone as a haiku or serve as the hokku (first link) of a linked-verse sequence. It was presumably composed by Akinari, who began writing and publishing haikai in his youth. The other poet in the tale is Jōha. The prominence of poetry in the story, especially Jōha’s explication of Kōbō Daishi’s waka, reflects Akinari’s kokugaku interests.

  AFFINITIES

  Several sources of inspiration for “The Owl of the Three Jewels” have been identified: two stories in Qu You’s Jiandeng xinhua (New Tales After Trimming the Lamp, 1378); Asai Ryōi’s adaptation of one of them, “Yūrei shoshō o hyōsu” (Ghosts Evaluate Various Generals), in Otogibōko (Talisman Dolls, 1666); “Fushimi Momoyama bōrei no gyōretsu no koto” (A Procession of Ghosts at Fushimi Momoyama), in Kaidan tonoibukuro (Ghost Stories: A Sack of Courtly Bedclothes, 1768), edited by Ōe Bunpa; Taiheiki (Record of Great Peace, fourteenth century); Oze Hoan’s Taikōki (Chronicle of the Taikō [Hideyoshi], 1617); and Hayashi Razan’s Honchō jinja kō (Studies of Japanese Shrines).

  OTHER OBSERVATIONS

  For an analysis of “The Owl of the Three Jewels,” see “Structure of the Stories,” in the introduction.

  The story echoes the indirect praise for the Tokugawa regime that appears in the Preface: “the ancient Tranquil Land” alludes, with an elegant old epithet for Japan (urayasu no kuni), to the tranquillity of the period and, with “ancient” (hisashiku), refers both to the unbroken line of emperors and to the long rule of the Tokugawa family, which had continued peacefully for more than 150 years by the time the story was written. The indirect praise continues, as the first paragraph refers to the popularity and relative safety of domestic travel, which before the Tokugawa regime had been fraught with danger, as depicted in “The Reed-Choked House.” In a broader sense, the entire story pays tribute to the Tokugawa, who brought peace and stability to the country after the turbulent Toyotomi era, of which the story is such a vivid reminder. The praise is echoed again in the last story, “On Poverty and Wealth.”

  In the ancient Tranquil Land, people toil and enjoy their tasks and in their leisure hours relax under blossoms in the spring, visit brocade forests in the fall, and, thinking they must know Tsukushi of the unknown fires, rest thei
r heads on rudders, and then turn eager thoughts to the peaks of Fuji and Tsukuba.3

  In a village called Ōka, in Ise, a man of the Hayashi clan transferred his affairs to his heir, shaved his head (though he had suffered no particular misfortune), changed his name to Muzen, and, being robust and free of any disease, looked forward to traveling here and there in his old age. Lamenting that his youngest son, Sakunoji, was boorish and inflexible by nature, he took the boy to stay for more than a month at his second house, in the Nijō district, thinking that he would show him how people of the capital behaved; then, late in the Third Month, they viewed the blossoms in the depths of Yoshino, where they rested for seven days at a temple he knew; and, being nearby, he thought that they would go also to Mount Kōya, which they had never seen, and so they pushed their way through the lush green leaves of early summer, crossed the mountains from a place called Tennokawa, and arrived at the holy mountain of Mani. Exhausted from the steep path, they were surprised to see the sun beginning to set.

  After worshipping at the Platform and all the various halls and mausoleums, they asked for lodging, but no one responded. When they questioned a passerby about the rules of the place, they were told, “People with no connection to a temple or to a monks’ residence go down to the foot of the mountain to spend the night. No one puts up travelers for the night on this mountain.” What would they do? Although he was healthy, Muzen was an old man who had just toiled up a steep path, and now, hearing this, he felt completely spent. Sakunoji said, “It is growing dark, our legs are sore—how can we go back down that long road? A young person does not mind lying down on the grass, but I worry that you would take sick.” Muzen said, “The poignancy of travel lies in just this sort of thing. Even if we went down the mountain tonight, dejected, exhausted, and injuring our legs, we would not be back at home. There is no telling what awaits us on the road tomorrow, either. This mountain is the holiest place in Japan. There are no words to describe the boundless virtue of the Great Teacher. Having come this far, we must pass the night in prayer at a temple, asking for an easy rebirth in the next life, and now is the perfect opportunity—we shall spend the night praying at the Mausoleum.” Passing through the shadows on the path beneath the cedars, they ascended to the veranda of the Lantern Hall, which stands before the Mausoleum; spread out their rain gear to make a place to sit; and chanted calmly while the night gradually deepened, making them feel lonesome and desolate.