Japanese Tales

by Royall Tyler

  67.

  AUTHORITY

  The seasoned warrior Fujiwara no Chikataka lived in Kōzuke province. Once a robber got caught in Chikataka’s house and was clapped in irons on the spot. Then he slipped free somehow, and since escape was impossible, he took Chikataka’s little son hostage, dashed into a room, pinned the boy to the floor, and waited with his dagger poised at the child’s stomach.

  Chikataka was at home at the time. “He’s taken the young master hostage, sir!” cried the retainer who rushed to him with the report.

  When Chikataka saw with his own eyes how true this was, his sight dimmed and he thought all was lost. If only he could get the dagger away from the man! But the robber had the glittering blade pressed to his son’s skin. “You get any closer and I’ll run him through!” he snarled. It was not worth the risk, no indeed!

  “Stay away!” Chikataka ordered his retainers. “Just keep an eye on him from a distance! I’ll go and inform the governor.”

  The governor was Minamoto no Yorinobu, a very old friend indeed since Chikataka’s mother had been Yorinobu’s wet nurse. He lived nearby. Chikataka burst in on him in a panic, blurted out the story, and wept.

  Yorinobu smiled. “I understand how you feel,” he said, “but this is no time for tears. You should be standing up to this fellow, never mind whether he’s a man, a god, or a demon. Don’t you realize you look an awful fool, carrying on this way like a baby? He’s only a little boy, you know! Let him be killed! That’s the way a warrior thinks. All this tender love for wife and children just drags a man down. Being fearless means not caring about your own life or your family’s. But anyway, I’ll go and have a look.”

  With his sword at his side, Yorinobu strode off toward Chikataka’s house. The robber recognized him when he looked into the room. Far from threatening him as he had Chikataka, the robber simply glowered toward the floor, poked his dagger at the boy a little harder, and made it plain that if the governor came any closer the boy (who was bawling lustily) would die.

  “Well? Did you take him hostage to keep yourself alive, or do you plan to kill him?” Yorinobu asked. “Answer me!”

  “How could I possibly mean to kill him, sir?” replied the robber gloomily. “But I don’t want to die myself. I thought taking him might help me stay alive.”

  “I see. Then get rid of that dagger! You’ll do that for me, won’t you? I don’t want to see you have to kill a child. You know the kind of man I am, I’m sure. Now, drop it!”

  The robber thought for a moment. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I really have no choice, do I?” He threw the dagger across the room, lifted the boy to his feet, and let him go. The boy ran off.

  Yorinobu stepped back into the garden while one of his men dragged the robber out by the collar. Chikataka assumed the governor would execute the fellow on the spot and let the dogs have his body.

  “Fine,” said Yorinobu. “He let his hostage go very nicely. Poverty made him steal, and he took a hostage only to survive. We needn’t hold any of that against him. When I told him to release his hostage, he did. He’s no fool. Let him go.”

  “Now then,” he went on to the robber, “tell me what you need.” The robber was too dissolved in tears to answer.

  “Give him some food,” Yorinobu ordered. “He’s already committed crimes, and he may end up killing someone after all. Get a good strong work horse out of the stables, put a cheap saddle on it, and bring it here.” Someone went for the horse while Yorinobu sent someone else for an old bow and quiver. When the things arrived, Yorinobu put the quiver on the man’s back and set him on the horse, with ten days’ worth of parched rice in a bag slung from his waist.

  “Now get out of here!” he commanded. The man galloped away at top speed.

  68.

  THE WRESTLER’S SISTER

  Oi Mitsutō, a wrestler who lived in the province of Kai, was stocky and fierce, immensely strong, and wonderfully swift of foot. In character and physique he was a model for his profession.

  Mitsutō’s younger sister, a slender, pretty woman in her late twenties, lived a short way from her brother. Once a fleeing robber stormed into her house, drew his dagger, and took her hostage.

  A servant ran with the news to Mitsutō, who remained untroubled. “He must be a real champion to have taken her hostage,” was all he would say. The puzzled servant ran back to the house and peered in through a crack. There lay his mistress dressed in a thin mauve robe and a pink trouser-skirt lined with green. The man, huge and terrible, had her clamped between his legs from behind and was holding the point of his great dagger to her stomach. Her left hand was over her face and she was crying. Her right hand was toying with some arrow shafts which lay scattered on the floor. When she picked up a tough bamboo shaft and ran its end along the boards, the shaft would break like rotten wood. The robber doubted that Mitsutō himself could break an arrow shaft like that, even if he bashed at it with an iron hammer. Afraid he might be torn to pieces too, he timed his move as best he could and fled, only to be caught, bound, and hauled off to Mitsutō.

  Mitsutō asked him why he had run and laughed when he heard the story. “You’d never have gotten your dagger into her,” he said. “She’d have torn your arm off. You were lucky she didn’t. Even I could handle you with ease, but she’s as strong as two of me. She looks like a pretty slip of a thing, yes, but I’ll never beat her. It’s a shame she’s a woman, it really is. If she were a man, nobody would stand a chance against her.”

  The robber almost died. He had picked quite a hostage.

  “I suppose I ought to kill you,” Mitsutō went on, “and I would if you’d ever been a real danger to my sister. How right you were to get out! She can break a stag’s antlers over her knee, you know, like a dead twig.” Mitsutō brusquely threw the robber out the door.

  69.

  TO SOOTHE THE SAVAGE BREAST

  A hichiriki is a small but surprisingly loud reed instrument made of bamboo.

  A musician named Mochimitsu was on his way home from a trip to Tosa province when, at a harbor in Aki, he was attacked by pirates. Having no skill at arms, he was quite unable to defend himself and was sure he was going to be killed.

  He had taken refuge on top of his ship’s cabin. At the last moment he took out his hichiriki and shouted, “You pirates, listen to me! I’m defenseless, as you can see. Help yourselves to anything you want! But I’d just like you to hear this piece on the hichiriki. I’ve been working on it for years. It’ll be something for you to remember today by!”

  “All right, men!” shouted the pirates’ leader. “Hold it! We’re going to listen to some music!”

  When the pirates had quieted down, the weeping Mochimitsu began to play. This was the last time he would ever make music, and he poured his whole soul into the piece. The beautiful sound of his instrument floated far out over the waves and filled the bay where the ship was moored. It was just like a scene in an old tale.

  The pirates listened in perfect silence. When the music was over, their leader loudly declared, “I came because I wanted your ship, but your playing has brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t possibly harm you now!”

  The pirates rowed away.

  70.

  THE BUDDHA WITH LOTS OF HANDS

  In the summer of 1278 an epidemic struck the East and many people died. A boy I knew well caught the sickness. As he lay there he cried out that some children were tormenting him, and complained that he felt awful. Several monks then chanted the Darani of Thousand-Armed Kannon for him. They had only repeated it twenty-one times when he exclaimed, “A buddha with lots of hands came out of the temple and hit those children on the head! They ran away to the north, and they were angry and crying. The buddha chased them away!” Then he was well again.

  I saw this with my own eyes.

  71.

  THE PROTECTOR SPIRIT

  Lord Mototsune, the chancellor, once caught an illness that was going round and had healing rites done for himself. All the best-kn
own monks crowded into his mansion, which rang with the din of their chanting.

  No monk from Gokurakuji was called, though his lordship had founded the temple himself; but one Gokurakuji monk who knew how much he owed Mototsune, and what a fix he would be in should Mototsune die, went to the mansion anyway with the Sutra of the Benevolent King. Finding the place crowded and noisy, he sat off in a distant corridor and began chanting the sacred text. No one paid any attention to him.

  Four hours later His Lordship asked for the monk by name and was told yes, he had been seen out by the middle gate. When Mototsune actually sent for him, his attendants wondered what he could possibly want with such a nobody.

  The Gokurakuji monk came in and sat at the edge of the room, behind the rows of prelates, but Mototsune was not content till he had the Gokurakuji monk by him. Since so far he had been too weak even to speak, his attendants were amazed to see him go to so much trouble.

  “I dreamed that fiends were after me,” Mototsune told the monk, “till a young boy came from the middle gate and beat them off with his staff. They all fled. The boy said he was a protector spirit who served you, and he told me you’d been chanting the Sutra of the Benevolent King for me. I woke up feeling much better and I wanted to thank you personally.” Mototsune bowed to the monk, called for a robe from a rack nearby, and put it over the monk’s shoulders with his own hands. “Be sure you keep praying for me when you get home!” he begged.

  The monk, whom no one had noticed while he chanted so devotedly in his remote corridor, withdrew from the mansion covered with glory.

  72.

  THE FLYING STOREHOUSE

  Once a monk from a remote part of Japan went to get properly ordained at Tōdaiji in Nara. Afterwards he decided to stay on, rather than return to his primitive hinterland, and prayed to the Great Buddha of Tōdaiji to help him choose where to live. At that moment he noticed Mount Shigi looming in the distance toward the southwest. He settled there, built a little chapel, and took up the ascetic life. Soon a fine little image of Bishamon materialized for his modest altar.

  The monk’s begging bowl would fly down every day for alms to a rich man who lived below the mountain, and every day the rich man would fill it. But one day the rich man happened to be working in his big storehouse when the begging bowl arrived. “Bother that greedy bowl!” he muttered, and instead of filling it, tossed it into a corner. The bowl waited patiently, but eventually the man tidied up and left, locking the storehouse door behind him. He had forgotten all about the bowl.

  The storehouse began to tremble and shake, much to the household’s amazement, till it shook itself loose and hovered, vibrating, a foot off the ground. “Of course!” the rich man realized. “Of course! It must be that bowl! I left it in there!” Meanwhile the bowl squeezed its way out, got under the storehouse, and carried it off a hundred feet up in the air.

  There was an uproar below. The rich man could only follow to see where his storehouse would go, and everyone else trooped in confusion after him. The storehouse flew to the top of the mountain and came down with a thud next to the monk’s hut.

  The rich man was certainly awed, but he still felt he should say something. He reminded the monk how faithfully he normally filled the bowl and explained how today he just happened to have shut it thoughtlessly in the storehouse. He ended with a plea for the return of his property.

  “This is all very strange,” the monk replied, “but now the storehouse is here I don’t see how I can give it back. I have nothing like it myself and I can certainly use it. But you’re welcome to the contents.”

  “How am I going to get all that rice back down the mountain? There are a thousand sacks in there!”

  “That’s easy. I’ll do it for you.”

  The monk had a sack loaded onto the bowl, then sent the bowl flying into the air. All the other sacks followed after it like a flock of geese. “Wait!” cried the rich man. “Don’t return them all! Keep a couple of hundred for yourself!”

  The monk refused on the grounds that he would not know what to do with so much rice.

  “Then keep a couple of dozen sacks anyway,” the rich man pleaded, “as much as you can use! They’re yours!”

  The monk said this was still far too much and refused again. Every single sack arrived in good order back at the rich man’s house. The monk’s fame spread far and wide.

  About that time Emperor Daigo happened to become very ill. All sorts of prayers and rites tried on his behalf brought him no relief. Finally an official thought of the holy man of Mount Shigi. “He never comes down from his mountain at all,” the official reported. “He has such extraordinary powers, you see, that he can have his begging bowl fly down by itself to get him food, so he has what he needs without going anywhere. If you summon him, Your Majesty, I think you will find that he can cure you.” The emperor agreed and sent for the holy man.

  The messenger was awed, too, when he delivered the imperial summons. The monk just asked what His Majesty wanted him for and gave no sign of moving. The messenger explained that the emperor was ill and that his prayers were required.

  “I don’t have to go to him,” the monk said. “I can heal him perfectly well from here!”

  “But if you do, how will he know you’re the one he has to thank?”

  “What difference does it make whether or not he knows who cured him? As long as he’s cured, that’s all that matters.”

  “Still,” the messenger insisted, “there are a lot of people praying for him and it would be better to be clear about whose prayers worked.”

  “All right, then,” the monk conceded. “I’ll send my spirit-helper, the Sword Guardian. If His Majesty sees the spirit in a dream or vision, he’ll know that he comes from me. The Sword Guardian wears a cloak woven of swords. As for me, I’m staying here.”

  The messenger returned to the Capital and reported what the holy man had said. Three days later the emperor was napping in broad daylight when he saw something glitter. He realized it must be the holy man’s guardian spirit. Instantly he felt perfectly well. The court was immensely relieved and impressed with the evidence of the monk’s powers.

  Once again an imperial messenger made his way to Mount Shigi, this time with the offer of rich rewards. “Would you like to be a bishop or an archbishop?” the emperor’s message ran. “Would you like an estate to provide income for your temple?” But the monk said he had no use for titles and protested that an estate would be far more trouble than it was worth. “I’ll just stay as I am,” he declared, till the messenger gave up and went away.

  All that was many years ago. The holy man’s flying storehouse is still on the mountain, with relics of him still inside, though now it is crumbling with age. Those who are blessed to obtain the smallest fragment of its wood make it into a buddha like the monk’s own, and are sure to enjoy good fortune, peace, and ease. The monk’s Bishamon, too, is still on the mountain, and countless pilgrims pay homage to it there.

  73.

  NO RESPECT

  Sōō, of Mudōji on Mount Hiei, used to practice regularly at a triple waterfall just north of the mountain, invoking there the fiery Fudō. Once he prayed to Lord Fudō: “Put me on your back, take me to the Tosotsu Heaven where Miroku, the Future Buddha, lives! Bring me to the Inner Sanctum from where, in the fullness of time, Miroku will be born into this world to save us!”

  “That’s not easy,” Fudō answered, “but I’ll take you there if you insist. First, wash your butt.”

  Sōō ducked under the waterfall, made sure his butt was clean, got up on Fudō’s head, and flew off to the Tosotsu Heaven. When they reached the gate to the Inner Sanctum, he saw above it the words, “Lotus of the Wonderful Teaching.”

  “People go in chanting the Sutra,” Fudō reminded him. “The Lotus Sutra, you know, the Sutra of the Lotus of the Wonderful Teaching. You can’t get in if you’re not chanting it.”

  Sōō lifted his eyes to the boundless heavens. “Drat!” he exclaimed. “I read the
Sutra, of course, but I can’t chant it now because I still don’t know it by heart!”

  “Oh. That’s too bad. Then I suppose you can’t go in. I’ll just have to take you home again. We’ll come back when you have the Sutra down.” Lord Fudō dropped Sōō off again by the waterfall.

  Sōō was terribly disappointed, but they say he did master the Sutra in the end and got into the Inner Sanctum. The Fudō who took him was, to be precise, the one he himself had made, life-sized, and enshrined in his temple.

  Sōō was known for his miracles. One day the Somedono Empress fell ill, tormented by an evil spirit. When someone suggested Sōō as an outstanding healer (“a disciple of the great Ennin, you know — he lives on Mount Hiei”), the empress sent a messenger to fetch him.

  When Sōō arrived, he waited at the middle gate of the mansion: a tall monk more like a demon than a man, wearing rough clogs and a bark-fiber habit and carrying a rosary of big seeds. The empress’s attendants found him there. “Goodness!” they whispered to each other. “What a tramp! We can’t possibly let him into Her Majesty’s presence!” They told him he would have to pray from the veranda outside the empress’s room, and word directly from Her Majesty immediately confirmed the order.

  Since the empress was some distance away, all Sōō actually had of her was the groaning that came through her curtains. On hearing her, he began loudly working his rites. Lord Fudō himself seemed present, and a shiver of awe gave the attendants gooseflesh. Suddenly the empress shot through her curtains, all wrapped up as she was in two pink robes, and came rolling out to Sōō on the veranda.