Japanese Tales

by Royall Tyler

  RELICS AND IMAGES

  Faith in the miraculous powers of relics and of specific holy images was common in Japan. “Relics” were not the bones of saints, however, as in the Christian world, but were certain hard bone fragments or mineral particles (perhaps gallstones) that survived cremation and that were believed to come from the Buddha Shaka. The relics mentioned in no. 43 are of this kind, and so are the dreamed ones in no. 209. Relics were thought to be filled with divine power.

  Boons, miracles, or spiritual power did not always come from a divinity generally conceived, but were sometimes granted by specific icons (statues or paintings). No. 27, which relates the miraculous origin of a particular image of Eleven-Headed Kannon, shows how special a person’s relationship with such an image could be. Appeals to the Kannon of Hasedera (nos. 76, 173, 174) were addressed not to Kannon in general but to the image of Eleven-Headed Kannon enshrined at that temple. The Fudō who takes a monk up to the Tosotsu Heaven (no. 73) is “the one [the monk] himself had made, life-size, and enshrined in his temple”; and the wizard in no. 88 receives an important dream message from the Miroku that he himself had made and enshrined.

  BUDDHIST TEXTS

  Sutras are of course full of philosophy, and Buddhist philosophy is fascinating. But it can be said too that not all sutras convey their philosophical message ecomomically; that the point of some sutras is not philosophical; and that some do not even make sense unless you are an advanced initiate. In any case, the Chinese versions used in Japan are difficult for the poorly educated to understand; and being Chinese rather than Japanese, they are unintelligible as language when spoken aloud or chanted. An important aspect of the sutras has always been outside their meaning, for their sound alone, when they are chanted, carries power. Examples here include the monk who has dedicated himself to chanting the Sutra of Diamond Wisdom (no. 151), and the monk who heals the chancellor by chanting the Sutra of Golden Light (no. 149). However, the issue would be a minor one without the Lotus Sutra, which figures in twenty-nine tales and is the supreme power text in the world of these stories.

  The Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra is probably the single most important sutra in Japanese Buddhism. Its impressive parables, its awesome vision, and its fervently put message of universal salvation give it endless appeal. The Sutra’s full title is “Sutra of the Lotus of the Wonderful Teaching,” and in Chinese, “Wonderful” is the title’s first word. This “Wonderful,” written on the only scrap of paper left from an ancient copy of the Sutra, saves a man from a demon in no. 148: such was the Lotus Sutra’s power. In one branch of Japanese Buddhism, chanting the title alone became a fundamental observance that many people still do today.

  The Lotus Sutra states that it was preached by the Buddha Shaka on Vulture Peak, a real mountain in India. The mountain’s Chinese name was applied to a good many hills and mountains in Japan, and the image of the Buddha preaching the Lotus Sutra on Vulture Peak became in Japan an image of paradise (no. 120).

  At the time of these stories, study of the Lotus Sutra was basic for a great many monks, especially those on Mount Hiei (no. 177). Temples might sponsor lectures on it for the laity (no. 138), and lay patrons often had monks lecture on it in order to gain spiritual merit for themselves or others (no. 139). In fact, the Sutra itself describes the enormous merit to be gained from honoring it. Another way to acquire this merit was to copy out the text. No one here copies the Sutra for himself, although people certainly did so; but the hero of no. 149 copies it, like a sort of scribe, for patrons who think his beautiful writing will bring them still more merit than if they copied it on their own. Often people copied the Sutra intentionally for the benefit of someone else, especially for the dead (nos. 81, 216, and others).

  Chanting the Sutra worked much the same way as copying it. You could chant it as a regular practice on your own behalf. A holy man could also heal someone by chanting it (no. 128), and a saint (no. 66) gets himself thrown in jail so that he can chant the Sutra for the benefit of the prisoners. The dead particularly valued hearing the Sutra chanted for them because it helped to dissolve their lingering attachment to the earth. In no. 159 a god goes to paradise thanks to a monk’s chanting of the Lotus, and in no. 216 the flames of hell dim at the sound.

  The Lotus Sutra’s saving power did not take the spirit to any one paradise, the way devotion to Amida always meant rebirth in the Land of Bliss. But it was often linked to rebirth in the Tosotsu Heaven, where Miroku, the Future Buddha, waits to be born into our world (no. 111). For women, though, there was a catch. Apparently the Tosotsu Heaven was too lofty for them. In these stories, all the women are reborn into the Tōri Heaven, a lower realm presided over by the deity Taishaku (nos. 81, 111, 147). Standard Buddhist teaching defined women as spritually inferior to men. In the Lotus Sutra a young girl dramatically attains enlightenment, thus giving hope to all women; but she has to pass through a male incarnation, however briefly, in order to do so.

  Many monks chanted the Sutra in order to purify themselves spiritually. The most successful of them memorized it, as the monk in no. 177 finally manages to do. Singleminded chanting of the Lotus, a common ascetic practice, could endow one with miraculous powers (no. 151), the greatest of which was simply endless life (nos. 85, 86, 100). With his power of flight, the Immortal of no. 85 closely resembles the Chinese-style Immortals discussed earlier.

  As with the Amida and Kannon cults, devotion to the Lotus Sutra could lead to renunciation of the body. The Sutra itself contains a clear model of such action: a bodhisattva who burns his own body as an offering to the Buddha. Self-immolation in the Lotus tradition was done by fire (no. 157). In no. 22 the emperor himself follows this example on a small scale by lighting a flame on his own finger (no doubt dipped in perfumed oil) and then cutting off the finger as an offering. The Lotus ascetic of no. 158 chooses another, but no less distressing way.

  Mantras and Daranis. Besides the sutra texts there were much shorter formulas which carried concentrated power. Some were called mantras and others daranis. For “mantra” I use the Sanskrit word because it is relatively familiar in English. “Darani” is the Japanese version of the Sanskrit word properly written “dharani” in our alphabet.

  Many mantras invoke specific divinities. The Name of Amida, already explained, is a kind of mantra; so is the title of the Lotus Sutra. But the Mantra of Fudō and the Mantra of Fire (no. 34) are better examples. Both illustrate a peculiarity of most mantras: they are not even in Chinese but in hopelessly distorted Sanskrit. In other words, they are unintelligible not only as spoken but also as written text. The unusual Chinese characters used to write them convey only sound, not meaning. Buddhist mantras in Japan are “mystical” indeed.

  The same is true of the generally longer formulas known as daranis. Some sutras give daranis that are described as summing up the deep meaning of the whole text, however long. The Sonshō Darani, a greatly revered example of the genre, occurs three times in these stories as an extraordinarily powerful protective spell (nos. 85, 108, 168).

  SACRED MOUNTAINS

  For reasons connected as much with Chinese, Buddhist, and pre-Buddhist ideas as with Japan’s nebulous “love of nature,” landscape figured prominently in medieval Japanese religion. “Landscape” means mountains, for in Japan most landscape is mountains and valleys. There was a tendency in Japanese Buddhism to affirm that mountains, valleys, rivers, etc. (in other words, all of nature) did not just symbolize but were enlightenment (no. 38).

  Buddhist ideas of paradise and hell were projected onto countless mountains. In standard Japanese Buddhist cosmology, a great mountain named Shumisen stands at the center of the universe. Above its summit, which is the Tōri Heaven, rise level after level of increasingly ethereal heavens, while on the earth beneath it are multiple levels of hells. Japanese mountains could easily support several paradises. The Kasuga Mountain (no. 31) was associated with Kannon’s Fudaraku paradise, Vulture Peak where the Buddha preached the Lotus Sutra, and others. It also had
a hell. So did Mount Hiei. Mount Fuji (no. 32) was crowned with all sorts of paradises, and its hell became famous after the thirteenth century. The volcanic hells of Tateyama are vividly described in nos. 147 and 216.

  Most prominent of all, in these stories, are the mountains of the Ōmine range south of Nara. They have been revered since the earliest times, and their sacred character still lingers on today. Golden Peak (now Sanjō-ga-take on Japanese maps) is the chief peak of the range. No. 101 describes both its paradise and its hell. No. 88 passes on the shamelessly tall tale that Golden Peak was originally a corner of Vulture Peak in India and flew to Japan in A.D. 552, which means that the mountain is nothing less than the Buddhist Teaching itself. Nos. 23 and 102 both involve the legend that Golden Peak is full of gold, although there actually is no gold in the Ōmine Mountains. Small gold buddhas recently discovered at the temple site on Golden Peak may have been offered there by Emperor Uda (nos. 190, 191) in 900; and Lord Michinaga (no. 63) made a grand pilgrimage there in 1007.

  Apart from being Buddhist paradises or hells, sacred mountains in Japan also had local gods of their own. Zaō Gongen, the god of the Ōmine Mountains, was especially famous: the wizard En no Gyōja called him into existence as a sort of guide for the people of Japan (no. 88). Zaō Gongen is closely related to wrathful Buddhist divinities like Fudō and looks very fierce indeed. He became the patron god of the mountain ascetic tradition, founded by En no Gyōja, and images of him can now be found on many Japanese mountains.

  SUPERNATURAL MONSTERS AND BEASTS

  The supernatural monsters and beasts in these stories include demons, tengu, foxes, badgers, dragons, turtles, snakes, and a boar. All can be found in recently collected Japanese folktales, but not as deeply colored by Buddhism as they are here.

  Demons are a motley crew. As no. 169 puts it, “some were red dressed in green, some were black with a red loincloth, some had one eye or no mouth, and most were just indescribable.” They are also terrifying. In no. 14 a rider sees behind him “a red face with one amber-yellow eye as huge and round as a cushion. The thing was greenish and nine feet tall. The three fingers on each hand had five-inch, knifelike nails, and the hair was like a snarl of weeds.” Since they are called oni in Japanese, I have consistently translated them as “demons,” with two exceptions: in no. 92

  they are “devils” and in no. 169 they are “monsters.” (Actually, the oni of no. 92 seem to be exotic humans.)

  Demons frequent abandoned storehouses or isolated chapels, the upper stories of city gates, mountain clearings, bridges, and other obviously twilight-zone places. A human who detects one nearby expects to be eaten, and with good reason, for some people do get eaten (nos. 11, 12, 146). Fortunately, though, demons are not always so murderous. They like parties (no. 169), and some seem to like playing music (nos. 64, 167). At times they cannot be bothered to harm a human seriously (nos. 74, 170), though the least their mere presence will do is frighten someone half to death.

  A recurring motif is that of the “demons’ night procession.” One night each month (clearly indicated on your calendar, as long as you took the trouble to consult it) the demons would parade through the streets of Kyoto, and you risked your life if you went out of doors. Having other things on his mind, one young man runs straight into them and is lucky to get off with nothing worse than a few days of fever (no. 168). In no. 74 the demons spit on a man they find cowering under a bridge, and he discovers to his horror that they have made him invisible.

  In so Buddhist a land as medieval Japan, even demons were bound sometimes to be religious. In most demon stories, demons simply exist; there is no speculation about how they got that way. No. 97, however, presents a Buddhist morality demon: he used to be a human being, but singleminded hate turned him into a demon and got him stuck in that form forever. Some demons actually serve Buddhist divinities or are Buddhist divinities in disguise (nos. 98, 172). Still others are pious devotees, hungry only for the mystic sound of the Lotus Sutra (no. 100).

  Tengu, another kind of troublesome creature, play tricks on humans. They are shape-changers. Tengu live in the mountains — not in the wholly deserted mountain wilderness, but closer to where people, for instance monks, live or pass by. Many sacred mountains had their tengu, including Mount Ibuki (no. 118) and Mount Hira (no. 35). Mount Hiei (nos. 34, 120) seems to have teemed with them. Several stories even have them visiting the Capital (nos. 35, 119, 120).

  In these stories tengu appear as a kite (nos. 35, 120), a kestrel (no. 119), a warrior-monk (no. 35), a decrepit old monk (nos. 34, 120), a cheerful, well-fed monk (no. 123), the Buddha Shaka (no. 120), and the Buddha Amida (no. 118). In effect, they often parody the solemn Buddhist world. Unfortunately, the form most familiar in art and illustration (that of a long-nosed, winged mountain ascetic) does not appear here, perhaps because the image developed relatively late. As birds of prey, they are natural enemies of snakes (no. 35) and may even carry off a monk (nos. 35, 118). They also are known to carry off children.

  A tengu’s greatest pleasure seems to be tormenting pious monks (nos. 33, 34). No doubt anyone leading a life of religious practice, in any tradition, has to distinguish at times between true inspirations and those that “come from the devil.” Japanese monks had to look out not only for tengu talons but for tengu visions, since tengu could create outrageously convincing hallucinations. One unhappy ascetic is done in by a fake Amida with all his saints (no. 118), while in no. 120 a tengu’s Lotus Sutra show works all too well, even though the tengu himself has warned his spectator not to believe it.

  The badger and the boar too can conjure up deceptive visions, however much they may sound like “real” animals. One badger puts on a wonderful show as the Bodhisattva Fugen (no. 121) and another haunts a chapel in the form of an absurdly tall monk (no. 122). The one boar in this book stages a fake funeral for the benefit of a lonely traveler (no. 52). However, all these tricks end in the trickster’s death, whereas tengu do not get killed.

  A far greater trickster is the fox. In these stories foxes leave monks alone, instead pestering laymen with confusing visions and illusions (no. 208). Perhaps the foxes’ lack of interest in monks has to do with their relatively more familiar presence in the everyday human world. It was a commonplace that an abandoned mansion, like the one in no. 84, soon became a foxes’ lair; and even an inhabited mansion could be infested with foxes (no. 80). Apparently foxes could move into a house just the way raccoons and even skunks do in the United States, but I wonder whether a raccoon family has ever carried on the way these foxes do.

  Some fox tricks are simple mischief. Whereas tengu and their colleagues like to play on religious feelings, foxes play especially on sexual desire. The fox counterpart to the tengu vision of Amida and his saints (no. 118) is the dream-marriage of the fox-enchanted hero in no. 82. Foxes are famous in Japan for masquerading as beautiful women — so much so that if a man runs across a pretty girl alone, especially at twilight or in the evening, he is a fool if he does not suspect her of being a fox. In other words, enchantresses are, literally, foxy ladies. The stunning fox-woman of no. 47 is another example. She does not exactly mislead the regent who sees her, but she certainly plays on his maleness.

  Foxes do not appear to women as handsome men, but possess them instead as spirits. Not that a fox speaking through a woman’s mouth talks about anything romantic. Often, all the fox wants is food (nos. 124, 206). In the end, though, something else seems to be going on — something that has as much to do with the woman as the fox-bewitched man’s infatuation has to do with himself. No. 125 seems to support this impression. At the beginning of the story, the empress is possessed by a fox which the healer manages to transfer to a medium and then capture. Next, the empress is overwhelmed to the point of insanity by the healer’s own lust. It is hard to believe that the original fox had nothing to do with her susceptibility.

  The Dakini rite of no. 47 involves foxes in some sort of messenger role. “Dakini” refers to a triad of demonic figures
who were absorbed into Esoteric Buddhism, and who became associated in Japan with the god Inari, who grants abundance and whose messenger is the fox. The story’s God of Good Fortune, a by-product of the Dakini rite, is so foxy that he even smells like a fox.

  The fox in no. 209 is probably a messenger too, signifying that a magic channel of communication between the dreamer and the higher divinities stands open. (The appearance of the golden relics seems to confirm this.) Although I do not know just why the white fox should have asked the dreamer to wear red, the image is fascinating.

  Dragons and snakes constitute an entirely different class of creatures. Both are closely associated, in all Japanese folklore, art, and literature (including these stories), with water. Related associations are with thunder and lightning on the one hand and with lust on the other — in other words, with primordial manifestations of energy and vitality. The boundary between dragons and snakes is often vague, but on the whole dragons are nobler and are more likely to be thunder-beings than snakes, while snakes are more likely than dragons to stand plainly for lust. Neither is given to gratuitous mischief, but snakes can sometimes be destructive.

  Japanese dragons have distinguished continental ancestors. In the Buddhist sutras they appear as spirits of the cosmic waters who honor and protect the Teaching, while imperial imagery in the Sino-Japanese tradition is full of dragons. For instance, the emperor’s face is “the dragon visage,” and an angry emperor has “ruffled scales.”

  Perhaps the dragon is best thought of as the energy of the water cycle: rain, river, sea, vapor, and rain again. The image of a dragon sporting among the clouds, obviously representing rain and the blessing its brings, is so common in East Asian painting that it is familiar to many in the West. The dragon of no. 36, a Lotus Sutra devotee, makes rain, and dragon gods were normally invoked in rainmaking rites (no. 183). The emperor, who blesses his people from high atop a metaphorical mountain, is dragonlike because it is from mountains that the life-giving waters flow down to the plain. Dragon (or snake) shrines are common on watershed summits and ridges for this reason.