by Rohan Kōda
If the raison d'etre of art is to enlighten and save mankind, as Rohan believed, art as a structured microcosm is superior to nature or even religion in its power to inspire and educate ordinary people. The effective use of literary art is exemplified by the Abbot's tale in "The Five-Storied Pagoda" and by Tae's story in "Encounter with a Skull." In Rohan's view, moreover, art is man's sublime achievement, for art is immortal. Art can be the best exemplar of collective accomplishment through the concerted effort of mankind: Jūbei's pagoda is not possible without the dedicated labor of his entire crew and the proud tradition kept alive through artisans of both past and future, as typified by Genta and Jūbei's young son, who is already building little pagodas. More importantly, even nonconcrete art is immortal because, for Rohan, artistic creation is not an idle fantasy in the static, conceptual, linear dimension, but a dynamic, self-perpetuating, omnipresent, vital cosmos that embraces time, space, self, others—all opposites and antitheses as well. It is not mere gothic touch or grandiloquent metaphor when a bleached skull and demons come to life and interact with humans in his works.
Jūbei's total confidence in his own ability is by no means the hubris of the Greek hero. It was Rohan's belief that what separates man from animal is ambition—ambition on the grandest scale and of the most sublime order, neither political nor personal. The supreme ambition of the Confucian scholar-gentleman (kunshi) was to become a sage, a man who perfected himself morally and spiritually to be harmonious with the absolute. But a sage would be considered worthless unless his knowledge and virtue contributed actively to the betterment of society. He had only his own inner values to rely on, for compromise and conformity to lesser or external values would jeopardize the salvation of all others. Thus, self-confidence and willpower were indispensable virtues in a person with aspiration and a sense of mission in Rohan's moral cosmos.
The conspicuous absence of villains in Rohan's works is regarded as a literary failing by some critics, but it is no surprise when viewed in the light of Rohan's moral optimism. If, as Confucianism affirms, human nature is basically good, man can never be totally evil, any more than a sage can turn into a megalomaniac. So when conflict and confrontation do occur in Rohan's stories, they arise not from the classic fight between Good and Evil over the possession of an eternal soul or a clash between two antagonists, but rather from an agonizing struggle of a soul trying to be a sage and still live among, and for, fellow men. Despite the pervading Buddhist ambience in his mystical visions, Rohan was an orthodox Confucian in his primary concern with man's life in the here and now of human society.
Profoundly influenced by the social- and moral-activist aspects of Confucianism in general, and by the action-oriented theory of Wang Yang-ming in particular, Rohan advocated that every person ought to aspire to the highest goal in his or her own field to the benefit of society at large. He found an ideal character type in his artist-artisan heroes—"real people with real work to perform" who "would be just as viable outside of the artificial world of fiction." The Neo-Confucians in Ming China (1368-1644) saw the fundamental characteristic of the universe as creativity, and they considered man as similarly creative in his essence. In this vein, Rohan's artisan, poet, or novelist heroes can become sages in their own respective ways by creating an artistic or literary work that is a self-contained organic universe.
Rohan had every reason to believe that his heroes, embodying lofty ideals, were realistic representations of the real world. Without creative energy, uncompromising dedication, and a grand vision far beyond conventional values, such as that championed by Jūbei and demonstrated by Rohan's real-life contemporaries, the Meiji Restoration would have had no chance to grace the pages of history, and Japan's modernization would have been much slower in coming and would have taken drastically different forms. The mainstream of modern Japanese literature to this day portrays predominantly negative or introverted views of the times through superfluous heroes and antiheroes—self-doubters, losers, escapists, self-absorbed dilettantes, misfits, and masochists. Rohan's activist heroes are unique literary creations, reflecting the constructive forces in Japanese personality and society that made Japan what it is—with all its strengths and weaknesses.
"Encounter with a Skull" not only echoes Buddhist views and the eerie atmosphere and rich allusions characteristic of the fourteenth-century Noh theater, but also mirrors the structure of the typical Noh ghost play. A traveler (the secondary character, or waki) meets a mysterious person in humble guise (protagonist in Act One, or maejite); solicited by an interested waki, the protagonist reveals her real or former identity as a person of noble birth (the protagonist in Act Two, or atojite) and recounts the anguish of her life on earth. In the Noh play, the atojite may continue to relive her moments of humiliation or frustration in eternal torment of regret, or else attain release by virtue of the waki's prayers or by her own self-awakening, before vanishing from sight at the end. In "Encounter with a Skull," the protagonist's metamorphosis is more complex: she changes from a charming hostess to an attractive maiden, a desolated woman, a crazed sick beggar, a bleached skull, to an enlightened spirit. Born a cherished heiress, she spends a happy childhood. In her adolescence, she learns the pathos of life through the death of her father, and the sinfulness of human nature from storybooks. Her mother's last letter teaches her the meaninglessness of the flesh. When the noble suitor (whose love for the unseen lady can only be Platonic and spiritual) dies, he inspires true compassion (tears for unknown causes—for all suffering) in order to prepare her for a pilgrimage. And after her body is stripped of flesh by a degenerative disease, she attains a state of perfect contentment.
Since her spirit is already free of attachment, it is not a vengeful or tormented soul (as in most Noh plays), but an enlightened being on a bodhisattva mission, awaiting a receptive wayfarer in order to transmit visions of the other world. After his spiritual preparation by the ordeal of mountain climbing, the young Rohan of the story is purified in the bath. Protected from the harm of lust by women's clothes (or by shedding his male identity to be restored to the undifferentiated state of quintessential human being), he shares a Buddhist-Shinto vegetarian meal with a priestess (her freshly washed hair flows straight down rather than being piled high into the mundane coiffure). Now he is ready to learn the meaning of life and true compassion through vicarious suffering. At last his soul awakens to the mystery of the mind that makes it possible to communicate and empathize with all other minds beyond time and space, regardless of surface distinctions.
In Buddhism, suffering serves as a means to the attainment of salvation by causing a person to "forsake the sinful world and aspire toward the Pure Land." All who wish to be saved can be saved, but even Buddhas and bodhisatt-vas, potential Buddhas on the mission of universal salvation, cannot save an individual who is unwilling to be saved. The beautiful young girl's longing to join her dead mother is a first step toward her salvation, just as the rejected suitor's loathing of himself and his wish to depart from this world qualify him to be a guiding spirit. The girl who helped his enlightenment by teaching him sorrow and anguish is in turn guided by his phantom (this is the essence of Mahayana Buddhism, the doctrine of universal salvation attainable only through the mutual efforts of mankind). The spirit of the skull, which had lingered in this world in order to impart the gospel, is finally released as Rohan assumes the responsibility of propagating the message through his novel. Thus, in "Encounter with a Skull," Rohan affirms the power of literature as ardently as he does the power of concrete art, such as architecture, in "The Five-Storied Pagoda."
As for the mysterious disease that helps release the heroine's soul from the flesh, Rohan never identifies it by name. Consensus among Japanese scholars has diagnosed it as leprosy, which was traditionally believed hereditary as well as contagious until Rohan's time. Once at a party, Rohan was physically assaulted by an acquaintance who mistakenly thought that Tae had been modeled on his own sister, who was stricken with leprosy. Rohan's descriptio
n of the beggar woman, nonetheless, would apply just as well to the symptoms of congenital syphilis. Emperor Wen's Chinese poem, "Elimination of Desires," also seems to sound an ominous warning about sexual contagion in this story. In any case, Tae's condition is a visible reminder of the lethal danger inherent in the illusion of physical beauty and indulgence in carnal pleasure. At the same time, such a disease provides a realistic cause for the mad scene, in the course of which a typical Noh play protagonist deranged by anguish would vanish into thin air. As attested by Noh plays, in which an unavenged or unsublimated soul forever agonizes in regret and resentment, death in itself does not guarantee the release of a soul from emotional attachment originating in the flesh. From this Buddhist tradition stems the necessity for a motif such as a degenerative disease that would rid the living body of its corporeal substance as a step toward enlightenment.
There is, furthermore, a metaphysical reason why the heroine cannot attain the ultimate goal of Buddhism in her own physical form. Recent years have witnessed some egalitarian attempts to redefine the Judeo-Christian God as "she" or "it." Even the most militant feminists, however, would be hard put to find a metaphysical or religio-symbolic justification for pressing for equal rights or non-sexist terminology for the Buddha. To summarize at the risk of over-simplification, the Buddha can be construed as an abstract cosmic principle that from time to time manifests itself as human-shaped beings representing its various aspects, such as function (Healing Buddha), cosmological element (Sun Buddha), space (Amida Buddha of the Western Pure Land), and time (Future Buddha). By virtue of the "buddha nature" believed to be innate in every sentient being, theoretically anyone can become a Buddha. Actually, the Indian prince (c. 556-485 b.c.) who came to be known as Gautama Buddha is the only historical person to have done so. (He is in fact the founder of Buddhism as a religion, but what concerns us here is the Buddhist ontology and cosmology predicating the infinite past.)
According to the Buddhist scriptures, all Buddhas are unequivocally male. This is not because the historical Buddha was a man, nor because women allegedly lack in virtue and determination. To begin with, how can one tell if and when someone attains Buddhahood? Christ failed to convince the Romans that he was the son of God, but in Buddha's case, no one can mistake him, for he is supposed to manifest the "Thirty-two Physical Signs of the Buddha-hood." Iconography displays some of these signs: a curl of white hair on the forehead, pendant earlobes, hands long enough to reach below the knee, golden skin color, a prominent cranium. Some signs are olfactory (heavenly body odor) or auditory (musical voice). Unfortunately for women, one of the thirty-two describes the male anatomy. Inasmuch as a woman by definition is unable to manifest all of the Signs, she can never hope to be a Buddha—in her present body, that is.
In the Lotus Sutra, Gautama Buddha proves that women can indeed become Buddha. He summons the daughter of the Dragon King and preaches the Law to her in person. However, not only is she eight years old but, upon achieving enlightenment then and there, she instantly turns into a male, perfect with all the Thirty-two Signs. In "Encounter with a Skull," Tae as a grown human female cannot be expected to execute a spontaneous change of sexual identity. Her loss of human shape is Rohan's metaphor for metaphysical transformation.
In addition to his speculations on the battle of Nagashino in "The Bearded Samurai," Rohan poses a cogent question: What role might the various samurai attitudes toward death have played in this historical drama? The Takeda generals uphold the feudal view that even if the lord proves to be an unworthy lord, the vassal should still behave as an ideal vassal; and Kotarō acts out the common belief that the way of the samurai culminates in the manner of dying. Dairoku, on the other hand, seems to reflect (as evinced by Ieyasu's admiration for him) the pragmatic attitude of his real-life contemporaries such as Ieyasu and Nobunaga, who, after all, managed to survive and thrive in the power struggle by means of underhanded, if innovative, strategies.
Rohan presents the battle primarily as a conflict of personalities and moral principles rather than as a technical exercise in military science. This approach is favored in Japan, as illustrated by a well-known fictitious episode illuminating the contrasting personalities of three historical heroes: Nobunaga was felled on the brink of unifying Japan by the mutiny of a tormented general in his own command; Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98) promptly avenged his master and cunningly seized hegemony to attain Nobunaga's goal himself; and Ieyasu bided his time until he was able to reap the full benefit of both men's accomplishments and founded the Tokugawa shogunate, which was to rule Japan for two and a half centuries. When told of a little cuckoo (hototogisu) that would not sing, each is supposed to have composed a haiku.
NOBUANGA:
Nakazumba If it would not sing,
Koroshite shimae Kill it and be done with it—
Hototogisu
The little cuckoo.
HIDEYOSHI:
Nakazumba If it would not sing,
Nakasete mishō I can make it sing—
Hototogisu
The little cuckoo.
IEYASU:
Nakazumba If it would not sing,
Nakumade matō I will wait till it does—
Hototogisu
The little cuckoo.
One additional point may warrant an explanation. If tough warriors such as Dairoku and Sakai Tadatsugu (1527-96) seem to describe the young Kotarō in affectionate, even somewhat sensuous, terms, it is in all likelihood intentional on Rohan's part. Through the ages, fiction, plays, and professional story-chanters (kōdanshi, naniwabushi-gatari) have conditioned Japanese imagination until it is now difficult to picture Nobunaga (tall, lean, intense, handsome) without the attendant image of Mori Rammaru (1565-82). Popular legend glamorized this striking young man to the point of conferring upon him the dubious distinction of being the single major cause for Nobunaga's untimely demise (cf. Seikichi's reference to them in "The Five-Storied Pagoda"). Rammaru was a son of Nobunaga's trusted commander who had died in 1570 defending a castle in his lord's behalf. The most famous of Nobunaga's many young samurai lovers, Rammaru is commonly believed to have been extremely intelligent, quick-witted, loyal, and competent. His legend is filled with episodes illustrating his ability in discharging his successive duties as page, messenger, magistrate, and ultimately lord of a sixty-thousand-koku fief.
Popular accounts have it that as a reward for some trifling service, Nobunaga promised Rammaru a fief in Ōmi Province, but the fief happened to belong at the time to Akechi Mitsuhide (1526-82). It was the last straw for General Akechi—ponderously prudent, intellectually oriented, and humorless—who had suffered much abuse and humiliation at the hand of the mercurial, intolerant Nobunaga. Trapped in a Kyoto temple by Akechi's insurgent troops, Nobunaga committed seppuku after claiming many enemy lives. Aside from the more serious political and personal circumstances behind Akechi's mutiny, vivid in the mind of Japanese public is the vision of Rammaru—the beautiful, graceful, valiant seventeen-year-old samurai holding off waves of attackers together with his two younger brothers, setting fire to the temple to safeguard Nobunaga's head from falling into enemy hands, and finally rushing into the blaze to die beside his beloved lord. In "The Bearded Samurai," Kotarō is presumably also about seventeen years of age, judging from the fact that he has an adult name assumed at the coming-of-age ceremony, usually held no later than a boy's seventeenth year. Like Rammaru, Kotarō is the heir of a valiant commander who died in his lord's service.
Homosexual attachments between warriors have been far from uncommon in Japanese history and fiction. Buddhism is generally believed to view woman as a defiling agent and an impediment to man's salvation. In an age and a society infused with fatalistic Buddhist pessimism, a samurai would be considered the more masculine and self-controlled for his love of men and for his emotional detachment from women. In most cases, homosexual love relationships did not preclude both parties from marrying and fathering children indispensable for the perpetuation of the family
line. (According to most sources, Nobunaga sired twelve sons and eleven daughters by a number of consorts, though some of the daughters seem to have been adopted for political reasons.) Far from being effeminate or effete, moreover, younger men were expected to be no less endowed with masculine virtues than their mature partners. In practice, the relationship often resembled apprenticeship or a tutoring of boys in the facts of life and the ways of the samurai. Many a famous man who left his mark on history as a hero in war or a high-ranking administrator in peacetime gained his training, opportunity, and recognition through such personal contact with older men, usually high in social status.
A case in point is Takeda's famed general Kōsaka Masa-nobu (1527-78), who is mentioned in "The Bearded Samurai" as Dairoku's commander. He had been a boy lover of his lord, Takeda Shingen (1521-73), and their relationship is indisputably established by an extant letter in Shingen's own hand pledging his unchanging love and loyalty. Kosaka was later assigned the formidable task of guarding Takeda's northern border against their archenemy, Uesugi Kenshin (1530-78). Successfully fulfilling that responsibility for many years, Kōsaka earned well-deserved acclaim as well as a seventy-five-thousand-koku fief. He is the author of the original sources for the Kōyō Gunkan (Military record of Kōshō), which is one of the most popular volumes among the canon of bushido, the way of the warrior, even today.