Japanese Tales

by Royall Tyler

  32.

  PRINCESS GLORY

  In the reign of Emperor Yūryaku an old couple lived at the foot of Mount Fuji. Having no child made them sad. Then one day the old man found a beautiful little girl in the bamboo grove behind their house. She seemed to have come from nowhere. He and his wife were very happy, and since she shone with a lovely light they called her Kaguya-hime, Princess Glory.

  Princess Glory grew up to be so beautiful that even the governor of that province courted her, and the two were married. When the old couple finally passed away, she confessed to her husband that she was not really from this earth at all. “I’m actually the Immortal Lady of Mount Fuji,” she explained, “and I only came down in answer to the dear old people’s prayers. Now I’m no longer tied to them, and I must go home to my palace.”

  The governor was distraught, but she did her best to comfort him. “You’ll find me on the top of Mount Fuji,” she said. “Come there when you miss me, or look into this box.” And she gave him a box of the magic incense called Incense to Recall the Soul. Then she vanished.

  Heartbroken now, he missed her so badly that he soon opened the box, but all he could see through the smoke was a shadowy wraith that sometimes faded altogether. In despair he climbed Mount Fuji as she had invited him to do. At the top he found a large pond with an island in the middle. The island seemed to have a palace on it, but through the vapor that rose from the water he could only barely make out Princess Glory’s form. Bitterly disappointed, he pressed the box of incense to his heart, jumped from a precipice, and died.

  The heat of his burning love set the box aflame, and the smoke from this fire is the smoke of Fuji that so many people have put in their poems about love and longing. Later on he and Princess Glory both appeared as the god of the mountain. The god is one, but may be seen as either a man or a woman.

  33.

  THE MURMURING OF THE SEA

  Once an Indian tengu set off to visit China, and on the way heard these lines in the murmuring of the sea:

  All things pass:

  this is the law

  of birth and death.

  Once birth and death

  likewise have passed,

  that peace is bliss.

  The astonished tengu wondered how in the world the sea could be murmuring this deepest expression of the Buddha’s Teaching, and he determined to find out what set the sea talking that way. “And when I do,” he promised himself, “I’ll give it a good dose of trouble!”

  He followed the murmuring all the way to China, but since the sea there was still murmuring he went right by and on to the sea off Japan. The sea was still murmuring. He flew over the port of Hakata in Kyushu, and at the strait between Kyushu and Honshu he listened again. The murmuring was a little louder. More astonished than ever, he flew on over province after province until he reached the mouth of the Yodo River, the river that flows from near the Capital into the Inland Sea. Up the river he flew, and the murmur grew louder still. The Yodo narrowed to the Uji River, and the tengu soared on up to where the Uji empties out of Lake Biwa. Here the rumor of the waters was distinctly loud. He pressed on over the lake to where a brook came tumbling down from Yokawa on Mount Hiei. Here the voice of the waters chanting the sacred verse rose to a roar, and he saw upstream the Four Heavenly Kings and countless other glorious Guardians of the Teaching watching over the brook. Awed and amazed, he dared not go further, but he could not resist hiding awhile to see whether he could find out what this place was.

  When a lesser celestial spirit happened past, the tengu plucked up enough courage to ask, “Why is the water chanting this deepest expression of the noble Teaching?”

  “There are a lot of learned monks up on the mountain,” the spirit replied, “and this brook runs through their privy. That’s why its waters proclaim the noble truth, and why we spirits guard it.”

  The tengu forgot all thought of mischief. “If even the stream that flushes their privy proclaims the deepest truth,” he reflected, “then the monks of this mountain must be more holy than I could ever imagine! I’ll become a monk on Mount Hiei!” And as he made this vow he passed away.

  Next he lodged in the womb of a very great lady, the wife of Prince Ariake who was a son of Emperor Uda, and he was born as the prince’s son. In time he did become a monk on Mount Hiei and acquired a great reputation for learning and sanctity.

  34.

  JAPAN MEANS TROUBLE!

  A powerful Chinese tengu named Chirayōju once came to Japan and met one of our local tengu. “In my country,” he boasted, “there are lots of rough, tough warrior-monks, but now that I’ve got them all eating out of my hand I thought I’d come and have a look around Japan. They say there are some pretty potent ascetics here. Perhaps I might see what I can do with them. What do you think?”

  The Japanese tengu thoroughly approved. “I’ve got all the good, brave monks of this country eating out of my hand,” he answered, “but if you want to give them a bad time, go ahead. One’s just asking for it, in fact. I’ll show you. Come on.”

  Off he went with the Chinese tengu in tow. They flew up to the stone tower on the main peak of Mount Hiei and stood together beside the trail.

  “People here know me,” said the Japanese tengu. “I’d better not show myself. I’ll just hide down the hill a little. Turn yourself into an old monk and wait. Make sure you take care of anyone who comes by!”

  The Japanese tengu hid in a thicket and from there kept an eye on his Chinese colleague, who turned into a perfect, bent old monk. The weird gleam in his eye showed he was planning something good, and the Japanese tengu looked forward with pleasure to what would come next.

  Along came a palanquin from higher up the mountain. Inside it rode Yokyō, a monk of rank and reputation who was on his way down to the Capital. When he reached the tower, the Japanese tengu glanced over to check on the old monk. He was gone. Yokyō and a crowd of disciples passed by in peace.

  Thoroughly puzzled, the Japanese tengu went looking for his Chinese colleague and found him cowering down in the ravine with his behind in the air.

  “Why are you hiding?” asked the Japanese tengu.

  “Who was that monk who went by?”

  “That was Yokyō, a famous wonder-worker. He’s on his way down to the palace for a special rite. He’s so holy I thought you’d show him up a bit, but you just let him go. Too bad.”

  “Right, right, I could see he was very holy and I knew he must be the one you were talking about. Well, that was fine, and I was just going to have at him when he disappeared. Instead there was a column of flame rising from his palanquin. I could see I’d get burned if I got too close, so I thought, well, I’ll just pass on this one. Then I sort of got myself out of sight.”

  The Japanese tengu laughed mockingly. “Here you fly in all the way from China,” he said, “and you can’t even roll a fellow like that over a few times? You just let him by? I’d say you’re pathetic. Next time, stop your man and do something to him!”

  “Absolutely!” said the Chinese tengu. “Just you watch!” He set himself to wait as before by the stone tower while the Japanese tengu crouched in a thicket.

  A noisy band came down the path. It was the great prelate Jinzen heading off to town with acolytes running ahead of his palanquin to clear the way. When the acolytes got to the old tengu monk, they just herded him on ahead with merry whacks of their sticks. The old monk put his arms up to protect his head and cleared out. He obviously was going to get nowhere near the palanquin. Those acolytes had gotten rid of him in no time.

  The Japanese tengu went after him and heaped ridicule on him again. The Chinese tengu protested. “With all due respect,” he complained, “you don’t know what you’re saying! I wasn’t going to get close to those acolytes, not the way they looked, and I thought I’d better get out before they caught me and cracked my skull. So yes, I let that monk by. I can fly here from China in a flash, but those acolytes were too fast for me. No sir, I hid instead!”
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br />   “Well, for pity’s sake do something to the next one at least! You can’t come all the way here and do nothing! Why, you’ll be an embarrassment to your country!” Having tried again to shame his colleague into action, the Japanese tengu went off to hide.

  Soon a babble of voices rose toward them from a party on its way up. A monk with a red stole appeared first, clearing the path, and behind him young monks bore a ceremonial chest containing the illustrious traveler’s monastic robes. The palanquin behind them carried Jie of Yokawa, the abbot of the entire temple complex on the mountain. “Will they get him?” wondered the Japanese tengu, as two dozen boy acolytes passed by on either side of the palanquin. But the old monk was gone. He had hidden again.

  “I noticed a suspicious character around here,” said one of the boys. “Let’s spread out and look!” The fierce boys dispersed on either side of the path, brandishing sticks, and the Japanese tengu prudently stole further down the slope into a deeper thicket.

  “Here he is! Get him!” shouted a boy’s voice.

  “What?” yelled an answering chorus.

  “There’s this old monk hiding here! He doesn’t look right!”

  “Hold him! Don’t let him get away!” The others dashed off to provide reinforcements.

  “How awful!” the Japanese tengu groaned, but he was far too frightened to do anything but burrow deeper into his thicket and flatten himself to the ground. Peering fearfully out, he saw a dozen boys drag the old monk to the stone tower, beat and kick him, and give him a very bad time indeed. The old monk bellowed and roared, but it did him little good.

  “Who are you, you old monk?” the boys shouted, whacking him as they spoke. “Tell us! Tell us!”

  “I’m just a poor tengu from China, young masters! I thought I’d have a look at the monks passing by. But the first was Yokyō, and he was reciting the Mantra of Fire so there was a huge flame in his palanquin; the next was Jinzen, who was doing the Mantra of Fudō so that Fudō’s own minions were guarding him with their iron staffs; and the third, the abbot, was pondering Perfect Meditation. The first two frightened me so I hid, but the abbot didn’t seem frightening at all and I was careless. That’s how I got caught!”

  The boys could not see that he was much of a threat, so they decided just to let him go, but not before each had filed past and given him a swift kick in the behind.

  Once the abbot was by, the Japanese tengu crawled up from the bottom of the ravine and went to find the old monk where he lay all battered and bruised. “How’d it go this time?” he asked. “Did you get him?”

  “Shut up. Just lay off me,” the Chinese tengu growled. “I came here all the way from China, innocently believing I’d get a little cooperation from the likes of you, but you wouldn’t give me any straight help, no, you had to put me up against men like living Buddhas, and all I’ve got for my trouble is a bruised backside and a good beating!” And he burst into tears.

  “I don’t blame you,” the Japanese tengu replied consolingly, “but you see, you’re a tengu from a great big country, and I thought you’d be able to take care of anyone from a small country like mine. I’m sorry you got your behind kicked!” He took the Chinese tengu to a nice place in the mountains where the poor fellow could soak the sore part in a hot bath and make it feel better, and then he packed the visitor back off to China.

  While the two were bathing, a couple of servants from the city came into the mountains to fetch firewood. Passing the bath shed, they noticed smoke rising from the chimney, and decided that as long as someone was already heating water they might as well go in and have a soak themselves. They put down their loads and went in to find two old monks in the big tub. One of them seemed to have some sort of pain in his butt. The monks wanted to know who the two men were, but the men, for their part, noticed that the bath shed stank to high heaven — so horribly, in fact, that they both instantly got a splitting headache. Terrified, they escaped as fast as they could.

  Later on the Japanese tengu possessed someone and told the whole story.

  35.

  THE INVINCIBLE PAIR

  In Sanuki province there still is a large body of water named Mano Pond that Kōbō Daishi made out of kindness toward the people who live nearby. It is so big, and the dikes around it are so high, that it looks more like a lake than a pond. Its deep waters harbor countless fish great and small, and at the bottom there once lived a dragon.

  One day this dragon came out of the water to sun himself, and slithered around on an isolated section of the dike in the shape of a little snake. Just then the tengu of Mount Hira, far off in Ōmi province, flew over in the form of a kite. He dove at the little snake, caught him in his talons, and soared up again into the sky.

  A dragon is, of course, immensely strong, but this one had been taken so suddenly that all he could do was hang in the tengu’s claws. The tengu for his part meant to crush the snake and eat him, but that turned out to be impossible since, after all, it was a mighty dragon he had seized and no weakling serpent. Not knowing quite what else to do, the tengu took the dragon back to his lair on Mount Hira and stuffed him into a hole in the rocks so small that the dragon could hardly move. The poor dragon was miserable. Not having a drop of water he could not fly away, and for several days he lay there waiting to die.

  Meanwhile the tengu was planning a little foray to Mount Hiei to catch himself a nice fat monk. That night he perched in a tall tree and kept his eyes on the dormitory across the valley on the side of the hill. A monk came out on the veranda to relieve himself. When he picked up the water jar to wash his hands, the tengu pounced, seized him, and carried him off to Mount Hira, where he stuffed him into the hole with the dragon. The terrified monk thought he was done for, but the tengu went off again.

  From out of the darkness a voice asked, “Who are you? Where did you come from?” The monk explained what had happened — so suddenly that he still had his water jar — and asked who had spoken. The dragon introduced himself and told his own story. “It’s very tight in this hole, you know,” he groaned, “but I can’t fly away because I haven’t a drop of water!”

  “Maybe there’s some left in this jar,” suggested the monk.

  “Oh, how wonderful! What luck you’re here! If there is, I can save us both. I’ll take you back home!”

  With joyous anticipation the monk turned the jar upside down over the dragon and a drop of water fell out. The dragon was wet.

  “All right,” said the dragon, “don’t be afraid. Just close your eyes and sit on my back. I’ll never forget what I owe you.”

  The dragon turned into a small boy, took the monk on his back, smashed the rock walls of their hole, and burst forth amid thunderclaps and bolts of lightning. Huge clouds gathered in the sky and heavy rain fell. The monk was frightened but trusted the dragon enough to hang on. He was deposited instantly right where he had started, on the veranda of his dormitory on Mount Hiei. The dragon flew off.

  With all the crashing and roaring, the other residents of the dormitory were sure that any second a bolt would destroy them. Then suddenly the thunder stopped and blackness fell. When the sky cleared, they discovered their colleague who had vanished the other night, and he answered their astonished questions by telling them his story.

  The dragon pursued the tengu everywhere in search of revenge. At last when the tengu was cruising the streets of the Capital, disguised as a warrior-monk soliciting donations for his temple, the dragon swooped down and killed him with one blow. Suddenly the tengu was a kestrel with a broken wing, and he was trampled underfoot by the passersby.

  On Mount Hiei the monk repaid his debt by reading the sutras faithfully on behalf of his friend the dragon. Each had saved the other’s life — surely the result of a deep karmic bond between them in lives gone by.

  36.

  RAIN

  In Nara there used to be a temple called Ryūenji, or Temple of the Dragon Garden. The single monk who lived there served the Lotus Sutra, expounding a chapter a day
and chanting its text. A dragon, moved by the chanting, would come in human form every day to listen, and when the monk found out who his visitor was the two became fast friends.

  Then a drought struck. Without rain the crops withered and died, till nobles and commoners alike faced terrible suffering. The emperor got a petition reminding him about the monk and the dragon (for their friendship had become widely known) and suggesting that the monk be commanded to have the dragon make rain.

  The emperor called in the monk and made him a little speech at the end of which he gave his order. “When the dragon comes for your daily sermon,” he said, “you’re going to direct him to make rain. I’ll banish you from Japan forever if you don’t.”

  The monk was very upset. When he got home he explained the situation to the dragon, who said he would gladly give his life for his friend in thanks for all the Sutra had done for him over the years. “But I don’t govern the rain,” he went on. “King Bonden decides these things. If I open the gate of the rains my head will fly. I’ll do it, though. Rain will fall three days from now, and I’ll be killed. Please, pick up my body, bury it, and build a temple over it. You’ll find it in the pond which is up in the hills in the western part of Heguri county. And there are three other places I’ll visit on my way there. Build a temple in each one.”

  Despite his sorrow, the monk could not ignore the imperial order. He agreed to the dragon’s last request, and the two parted in tears.

  On learning what the dragon had said, His Majesty looked forward with relief to rain. Sure enough, on the promised day the sky clouded over, there was thunder and lightning, and heavy rain fell for three days and nights. Now that there was plenty of water again the crops ripened and all was well. The emperor and his people were very happy.