Japanese Tales

by Royall Tyler

  The monk found the pond in the hills where he had been told to look. The fragments of the dragon’s dismembered body floated in its reddened waters. Weeping, the monk buried them and built over them a temple called Ryūkaiji, or Temple of the Dragon Lake; and he expounded the Lotus Sutra there daily for his friend. With the emperor’s help he built three other temples too, as he had promised to do. These were Ryūshinji, Temple of the Dragon Mind; Ryūtenji, Temple of the Dragon Heaven; and Ryūōji, Temple of the Dragon King. And all his life the monk chanted the Sutra for the dragon’s final enlightenment.

  37.

  NO DRAGON

  Ein, a monk in Nara, had a big, red nose. At first people called him “Ein the Red-Nosed Cleric,” but shortened it later to “Ein Red-Nose” and finally to just “The Nose.”

  Legend has it that a dragon lives in Sarusawa Pond, by Kōfukuji’s Great South Gate right on the edge of Nara. In his youth The Nose posted a notice beside the pond, announcing that on such-and-such a date the dragon would rise from the pond in broad daylight. The passersby who read it were intrigued, and the word began to get around. The resulting rumor greatly tickled The Nose, who after all had started it himself, and he was amused at people’s foolishness. Resolving to see the joke through, he went on pretending he knew nothing about the notice.

  As the day drew near, the rumor about the dragon attracted crowds not only from nearby but even from the neighboring provinces. The Nose was impressed. “What are they all here for?” he wondered. “How very strange! Perhaps something really will happen!” But he went on looking as innocent as ever.

  On the day, the streets were so jammed that even The Nose began to take the story seriously. Since apparently the dragon was going to rise, he wanted to go and watch. Of course it was impossible to get anywhere near the pond, so instead he climbed up on the foundations of the Great South Gate, which stands on a high embankment. Gazing out over the pond and the whole enormous throng, he waited eagerly for the dragon to appear.

  The very idea! By sunset there was still no dragon. When night fell, The Nose had to give up. He was crossing a little bridge on the way home when he nearly bumped into a blind man. “Goodness,” he exclaimed, “you shouldn’t be out in the dark like this! Why, you can’t see the hand in front of your face!”

  “The nose,” the blind man corrected him, “You mean you can’t see the nose.”

  It had not been The Nose’s day.

  38.

  THINGS AS THEY ARE

  The Venerable Shōkū of Mount Shosha had founded a great temple and inspired countless people to faith. He was in fact a saint, and by chanting the Lotus Sutra had gained a wonderful freedom from the tyranny of the senses. But the thought of the Bodhisattva Fugen, who plays in the Sutra so grand a role, still filled his mind, and he knew he would have no peace until his own eyes had seen Fugen in the flesh.

  After seven days spent praying for this boon, he finally saw, at dawn on the last day, a divine boy who told him, “Look at the chief harlot of Muro. She is the true Fugen.”

  This news astonished Shōkū, but he hurried to the little port which, as he well knew, was famous for its whores. It would be odd, though, for a monk in his black robe to enter a brothel, so he changed into a plain white garment. In Muro he found the house, and the harlot came out to greet him. Then she poured him wine and danced to a singing-girl’s song:

  Down in Suō

  among the marshes

  of Mitarashi

  the swift winds blow

  she sang, and her girls took up the refrain,

  and waves are dancing,

  look!

  the pretty waves!

  “So this is the living Fugen!” thought Shōkū. Closing his eyes to contemplate quietly the presence of his beloved bodhisattva, he now saw Fugen perfectly real before him, exquisitely adorned, radiating wisdom and kindness, and mounted on his customary white elephant. Fugen was singing:

  On the great dea of truth unsullied,

  how brightly the moon of pure insight shines!

  When he opened his eyes again, there was the harlot singing about waves dancing in the wind; when he closed them, there was Fugen. Deeply awed, he finally took his leave.

  He had not gone more than a hundred yards when the harlot died.

  39.

  THE PORTRAIT

  Retired Emperor Kazan thought so much of the Venerable Shōkū that he once took a painter with him to Mount Shosha. The painter was supposed to hide where he could get a good look at the holy man, then paint his portrait while he and Kazan talked. As the painter worked, the mountain rumbled and shook — in response, as the astonished Kazan immediately realized. Kazan confessed his plan to Shōkū and revered him even more after that.

  Now, the painter had neglected to put in a few moles on Shōkū’s face. One tremor, which almost made him drop his brush, shook several drops of ink off onto the portrait. To everyone’s amazement they corresponded precisely to the moles.

  The portrait is still in Mount Shosha’s treasure hall.

  40.

  WHAT THE BEANS WERE SAYING

  Shōkū, the holy man of Mount Shosha, had achieved the highest sanctity by continually chanting the Lotus Sutra, and he took in through all his senses things that ordinary people never perceive. Once in his travels he heard a pot of beans bubbling over a fire of bean husks. “Brutes, brutes,” the beans in the pot were saying, “you’re brutes to boil us, for we’re beans too!” But the husks were crackling back, “We hate to do it but we must! It hurts us so! Oh, don’t blame us!”

  41.

  MERCY

  Once a quite ordinary monk, tired of life in the Capital, vowed to make a hundred pilgrimages (one each day) from Kyoto to the Hie Shrine and back. On his way home on the eightieth day, he passed a young woman sobbing as though her heart would break. Her violent sorrow moved him to ask her what was the matter.

  “No, no, I can see you’re a pilgrim!” she cried. “I can’t tell you, I really can’t!”

  He insisted so kindly that she spoke at last. “My mother was sick for so long,” she said, “and this morning she finally died. That’s bad enough, but the worst is that I’ve no idea what I’m going to do with her body. I’m a widow, you see, and I’ve no one to ask for help. Being a woman, I’m not strong enough to manage it alone. My neighbors talk about how sorry they are, but they’re so busy now with festivals for the gods that I’m sure they won’t really do anything. I just don’t know where to turn!” She burst into fresh weeping.

  The monk understood, and felt so much for her that he too had tears in his eyes. He knew the gods enter this dingy world of ours only because they take pity on us, and he did not see how he could simply ignore her plight. “I’ve never done much in the way of good deeds,” he reflected. “Look upon me, O buddhas! O you gods, forgive me now!” And to the girl he continued aloud, “Don’t be so sad. I’ll help you as best I can. We should go inside, people may wonder about us.” Through her tears the young woman smiled assent.

  That night, in the dark, they took the body where it had to go. But when the deed was done, the monk could not get to sleep. He kept thinking about the eighty days of pilgrimage he had thrown away, and about what a pity it was to have to stop now. Well, he had never meant to gain anything special by his hundred days anyway, so he might as well go back to the shrine and see how the god felt about it. The pollution of birth or death was superficial enough, after all, and not much connected with one’s real state of mind. So the next morning he washed and set out for the shrine. All the way there his heart beat fast because actually he was afraid.

  A large crowd before the shrine was listening to a medium deliver oracles from the god. Not daring to go near, the polluted monk hid instead some distance away to pray on his own. He was glad at least to have come and not missed a day.

  The medium spotted him leaving. “You monk there, come here!” she called.

  It was an awful shock, but there was no escape for him now. Shiv
ering with dread he obeyed, under the suspicious gaze of the whole crowd. The medium brought him very close. “I saw what you did last night!” she whispered.

  The hair stood on end all over his body and he thought he was going to faint.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she went on. “I thought it was wonderful! I’m not really only a god, you know. It’s compassion that brought me here. I want people to believe the Teaching. Taboos are just a way of going about it, as anyone enlightened knows. Don’t tell anyone else, though. People are so foolish. They won’t understand that you really acted from deep mercy, they’ll think they too can break the taboo whenever they want, which means that they’ll just get all mixed up and ruin the tiny bit of faith they have. It’s not the rules that really count, it’s the person.”

  The monk was moved to tears, and after that was often inspired to acts of special kindness.

  42.

  AMONG THE FLOWERS

  Saigyō, a monk and a wonderful poet, was roaming the East when one night in brilliant moonlight he crossed Musashino Plain. The carpet of flowers he trod was sparkling with dew, and insect murmurs mingled with the sighing of the wind. Far out on the moor he heard a chanting voice.

  Heading that way, he came to a hut hedged with pink, nodding hagi and yellow valerian, and charmingly thatched with pampas grass, plume grass, and reeds. Inside a hoarse-voiced old man was chanting the Lotus Sutra.

  Saigyō asked him who he was.

  “I used to serve Emperor Shirakawa’s youngest daughter,” the old man replied. “She was only twenty when she died, and after that I felt I wanted no more of the world. I took up a life of religion. Longing to live where no one would find me, I wandered off without any goal till I came here, and the flowers were so beautiful that I stayed. That was many years ago. The flowers of fall, my favorites, linger in my mind when all the flowers are gone. Yes, I love the flowers so much that I’d say I have no cares!”

  Tears sprang to Saigyō’s eyes. “But how do you live?” he asked.

  “Oh, I don’t waste my time going round the villages begging. People bring me food if they want to. Sometimes I go without for days at a time. I wouldn’t want to make a fire here among the flowers, so you couldn’t call what I eat proper meals at all.”

  Was ever a man’s heart more wonderfully pure?

  43.

  FOR LOVE OF SONG

  On a festival day at Tennōji around 1202, when the temple’s famous relics of the Buddha were to be brought out as usual for the pilgrims, the divine powers refused to let the doors of the reliquary open. Apparently someone in the crowd was unclean. The priests had the people step back a little, but still the doors could not be budged.

  “Is anyone here a good singer or dancer?” cried an old priest. “If so, now’s the time to show off your art!”

  Middle Captain Morimichi came forward and sang a kagura song, the kind so often offered to the gods. The reliquary doors opened immediately. It was so like the time when the Sun Goddess pushed open the door of her Heavenly Rock Cave, and light again burst upon the world!

  44.

  THREE ANGELS

  The versatile Makoto, a son of Emperor Saga and the Minister of the Left, was an especially fine musician. On the long, mellow-sounding zither called the koto, no one could compare with him. One evening he became so absorbed in his playing that he went on all night, never even closing the latticework shutters that swung up horizontally to open onto the garden. Finally, near dawn, he began a rare and difficult piece. His own heart swelled with the wonder and beauty of the music. Noticing a light over one of the shutters he stole out, mystified, for a look. Three angels, each a foot tall, were dancing on the shutter and the light was their shining presence. They had come down to hear him! He was filled with a tender awe.

  What a lovely thing to have happen!

  45.

  GIVE ME MUSIC!

  The monk Rin’e lived in Nara in Emperor Ichijō’s time. The god who protected his temple, Kōfukuji, was at the Kasuga Shrine nearby.

  One day, after presiding over an especially solemn rite, Rin’e came to the shrine and meditated awhile. He reviewed in his mind as he did so the full range of his sacred learning and offered it all to the god who, he was sure, could only be pleased.

  Suddenly the shrine attendants began making music for the god with drums and bells. Rin’e frowned. “This is all very well,” he thought, “but I can’t have them making such a racket while I’m offering the god the Buddha’s own wisdom. If I ever get to be abbot, I’ll see that this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.”

  When Rin’e did become abbot he silenced the music, and the shrine became so cold and lifeless that people were afraid to come near it. No one complained because Rin’e was so powerful.

  Having reached the pinnacle of glory in this life, Rin’e finally began a seven-day retreat at the shrine to pray, with many a heartfelt tear, for the god’s protection on the path to enlightenment in the life to come. When the god gave no answering sign, he stayed on another seven days.

  At dawn on the last day he dozed off a moment and saw a gentleman in formal court dress emerge from the sanctuary. Tears of gratitude sprang to Rin’e’s eyes because this was surely the god coming to grant him his prayer. But when the gentleman had come far enough down the sanctuary steps for Rin’e to see his face, his expression turned out to be an angry scowl. Afraid now, Rin’e hurriedly reminded the god of his blameless life and his countless merits, and he protested bewilderment at this display of divine wrath.

  For some time the god just glared at him. Then he said:

  The drums’ lively beat resounds in the palace of truth.

  In wisdom’s mirror may be seen the lightly shaken bells.

  And he vanished.

  The horrified Rin’e rued his folly. Before leaving, he carefully ordered that the drums and bells should never again be silenced for any reason whatsoever.

  46.

  THE WEIGHT OF TRADITION

  Harutō, a dancer from Nara, belonged to a family that had specialized generation after generation in performing the noble dance Genjōraku. Unfortunately, he fell ill and died before he could teach the dance to his successor.

  Since it was late summer and still hot, his coffin was hung in a tree in Hahaso Wood. Two or three days later, a woodcutter passing that way heard groans from the tree and reported this disturbing incident to the priests of the nearby temple.

  Finding that he had come back to life, Harutō’s family took him home and looked after him. This is what he told them when he regained his senses.

  “I went to King Emma’s palace in hell, and while I was being judged one of the king’s officials observed, ‘The dancer Harutō, from Japan, has been called here before he could pass on Genjōraku. That means that the dance will now die out in his country. We should send him back and call him in again when he’s been able to teach it to his successor.’ The other officials agreed, and I realized I was to be sent home. Then I came to.”

  Once Harutō had taught the dance to his successor, Suetaka, he died again.

  The founder of Harutō’s line originally got the mask for Genjōraku directly from heaven. The mask’s name is Iburi, and they say it’s now one of the treasures of Nara. Iburi too, like the dance itself, is passed on from generation to generation. How wonderful that Harutō’s tradition should also be prized at King Emma’s royal palace in hell!

  47.

  THE GOD OF GOOD FORTUNE

  The biwa is the East Asian cousin of the lute.

  Lord Tadazane wanted so desperately to be appointed regent that he sent for a monk, a wonder-worker, to do the Dakini rite, hoping its magic would get him the prize. He told the monk he needed results by a certain date.

  “Don’t worry, Your Excellency,” replied the monk, “the rite has never failed me yet. I’ll have results for you within seven days, and if I don’t I’ll go on another seven. If it hasn’t worked by then, Your Excellency, you can send me straight into exile.”


  Lord Tadazane provided all the offerings and other necessities, and the monk began. After seven days nothing had happened, and he let the monk know he was worried.

  “Send someone to observe the rite, Your Excellency!” the monk answered. “I think your man will find there’s good reason to be optimistic.” Lord Tadazane’s representative saw a fox, completely unafraid of the people present, come and eat all the offerings. Since the Dakini rite involved fox magic, this was indeed a hopeful sign.

  The monk started another seven-day period, as he had promised to do. On the closing day Tadazane dozed off for a moment and saw a woman walk by him with three feet of her magnificently long hair trailing behind her along the floor. She was so beautiful that without thinking he reached out and grabbed her hair.

  “Don’t do that!” she cried, turning back to look at him. “What do you want with me?” Her face and voice might just as well have been an angel’s, and the enthralled Tadazane only held on harder. With a sharp toss of her head she freed herself and passed on. Tadazane was horrified to find that he still had her hair. Then he woke up. His hand was gripping a fox’s tail.

  Astonished, he called the monk and described what had happened.

  “I told you, Your Excellency, I told you!” the monk burbled. “Oh, I never doubted the rite would work, but I must say, in all my years of experience it’s never worked quite like this! You’ll have what you want at midday tomorrow. Perhaps you won’t have to exile me after all!” Tadazane lost no time in making him the handsome present of a woman’s robe.

  The next day at noon Lord Tadazane’s appointment was announced. He made it his first official act as regent to name the monk to a distinguished ecclesiastical post. As for the fox’s tail, he carefully put it away. Then he set about learning the Dakini rite himself and performed it whenever he had a special wish. They say it worked beautifully for him.