Japanese Tales

by Royall Tyler

  The house was so old that you couldn’t even guess its age, while its garden was full of pines, maples, and cherry trees so ancient that they certainly must have had tree spirits living in them. Vines, now just beginning to redden with fall, clambered everywhere, and the moss that covered the ground had not been swept for years. Kiyoyuki had the shutters raised. The interior partitions were all warped and torn. He had a corner of the floor cleaned up and spread out the mat he had brought. Then he had a lamp lit and lay down on the mat facing south. When his carriage had been put away in the carriage house, he dismissed all his servants and ox-drivers with instructions to come back the next day.

  Kiyoyuki dozed off, still facing south. In the middle of the night he was awakened by a sort of rustling in the latticework ceiling and saw a face sticking out from each crossing of the lattice. All the faces were different. When he calmly went on looking, they disappeared. Next, forty or fifty riders, each a foot tall, clattered across the floor from west to east. Kiyoyuki kept watching.

  A closet door opened and out came a very distinguished though tiny lady all in dark brown, with her hair down over her shoulders. The delicious scent of musk filled the air as she knelt before him. A red fan hid most of her face, but the forehead that peeped above it was white and the eyes elegantly long. The way just the pupils moved as she glanced to either side was both dignified and sinister. Watching her, he assumed that the rest of her face must be very pretty, but as she prepared to go she moved the fan aside a moment. Lo and behold, her nose was bright red, and crossed pairs of long silver fangs protruded from the corners of her mouth! This did give him a bit of a shock, but she meanwhile had vanished into the closet and closed the door.

  It was nearly dawn now, but there was a bright moon. Kiyoyuki was lying there as alert and untroubled as ever when an old man in a light-blue robe came in from the dim garden outside, knelt, bowed very low, and respectfully held a letter forth.

  “What have you got to say to me?” asked Kiyoyuki sharply.

  The old man answered in a little voice, “I’m here to let you know, sir, that we consider it very wrong of you to claim possession of a house which has been ours for many years, and that we wish to register a vigorous protest.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. People often buy houses from one another. It’s perfectly normal. But you insist on disrupting this process by frightening away anyone who wants to live here and by occupying the place yourselves. You should be ashamed. Real demons know right from wrong and are perfectly straight about it. That’s what makes them frightening. But all you do is invite the punishment of heaven. Why, you’re only a tribe of old foxes! Give me a single hawk or dog and I’d have him eat you all. Go tell that to your friends!”

  “You’re perfectly right, sir, perfectly right. But we’ve lived here so long, you see. We wanted you to know how we feel. I’m not in the habit of frightening people. The culprits, I’m afraid, are a couple of youngsters. I try to control them, sir, but they’re always up to their tricks. If you’re going to move in here, though, sir, I really don’t know what we’re to do. We’ve nowhere to go. Or at least, the only place is a vacant lot by the main gate of the Academy. May we have your permission to move there, sir?”

  “That sounds like a very good idea,” Kiyoyuki answered. “You might as well get started.”

  The old man shouted an order and forty or fifty voices shouted assent.

  After daybreak Kiyoyuki’s household came to fetch him home again. He then went about the business of having the house remodeled and made more up-to-date. Nothing special happened while he lived there.

  85.

  INCENSE SMOKE

  Jōkan, a holy monk on Mount Hiei, had spent every night for years chanting an invocation called the Sonshō Darani. Whoever heard him was struck with awe.

  One night an Immortal named Yōshō flew over Jōkan’s dwelling, heard Jōkan’s voice, and came down to the railing outside his room. Startled, Jōkan asked who it was. Yōshō answered in a thin, reedy voice like a mosquito’s buzzing, and Jōkan recognized him as a former disciple. He opened the door and Yōshō flew inside.

  The two talked over old times till the Immortal felt it was time to leave. But the company of a mortal man had weighed him down, and he found he could not rise. “Would you move the incense burner over here?” he asked, and Jōkan did so. Yōshō mounted the smoke and sailed up into the sky.

  Jōkan had always wondered about his student’s disappearance, and now he understood. He wept with emotion that Yōshō should have come to see him again.

  86.

  THE BLESSING

  A devout monk who lived by the Kuzu River, at the foot of Mount Hira, took no grain and ate only wild greens. Once he dreamed a holy being told him, “There’s an Immortal on Mount Hira and he chants the Lotus. Go and get his blessing.”

  Though he climbed Mount Hira right away, it was only after days of hunting that he heard far, far off a chanting voice. He was exhausted, and the day nearly done, when he finally discovered a cave under an overhanging crag. The great pine before it was shaped like a broad, conical hat. Peering in, he saw the Immortal. His bones had no flesh on them and his only robe was moss.

  “Who are you?” the Immortal asked. “No one has ever been here before.”

  “I live by the Kuzu River, and a dream told me to get your blessing.”

  “Then first keep away from me for a while. The smoke of the human world makes my eyes sting and water. Come to me in seven days.”

  The monk retreated twenty yards or so from the cave, while the Immortal chanted the Sutra day and night. His voice was deeply moving, and the monk felt as though all the sins he had committed through beginningless time were melting away. The deer, the bears, the monkeys, and all the other creatures of feather and fur brought the Immortal nuts and seeds, and the Immortal had a monkey give the monk some, too. Seven days later the monk approached the cave.

  “I used to be a monk and a scholar,” the Immortal said, “and I did my best to master the approved doctrines. But I read in the Lotus Sutra, ‘He will regret it, who does not take this Sutra to heart,’ and I believed it. The Sutra said to practice in a place apart, so I did. Then my karma led me to this cave, and I left the human world altogether. With the eye of the One Teaching I see things far off, and with the ear of Compassion I hear all sounds. I’ve been to the heaven where the Future Buddha lives, and I’ve heard the Buddha speak. The pine shelters me from heat and wind. Stay with me, since your own karma has brought you here!”

  The awed monk dearly wanted to say yes, but he knew that a life like that was beyond him. Instead, he prostrated himself and started for home. The Immortal’s power brought him to the Kuzu River in a day.

  87.

  ANOTHER FLYING JAR

  A hermit once built a small hut on the upper Kiyotaki River, not far north of Kyoto. When he was thirsty, he would send his water jar flying down to the stream and it would bring him back all the water he needed. As the years went by, he often thought proudly to himself that there could hardly be a more accomplished hermit anywhere.

  One day he was surprised to see another water jar fly down from upstream, draw water, and leave, and he wondered jealously who else could be performing this feat. When the jar came again, he followed it a few miles upstream to a hut — quite a large one, with a nice little chapel of its own. The place breathed purity, holiness, and peace. Before the hut was an orange tree with a path round it, worn by the inhabitant as he circled the tree chanting his sutras.

  Peering in through the window, the hermit saw a desk strewn with sutra scrolls and a room filled with the smoke of perpetual incense. A saintly-looking monk at least seventy years old was sleeping propped on an armrest, with a five-pronged vajra in his hand.

  To test this venerable old man, the hermit began the Spell of the Fire Realm. Flames instantly sprang up and licked at the hut. Still asleep, the old man picked up a wand and sprinkled the four directions with holy wate
r. The flames went out, but by now the hermit’s own robe was burning fiercely and he howled in terror, at which the old man opened his eyes and sprinkled his visitor as well. The flames vanished.

  “What happened?” the old man asked.

  The hermit explained himself and described his little test. “Please forgive me!” he begged. “I’ll serve you forever as your disciple!” But the old man seemed to have no idea what he was talking about.

  The hermit had become puffed up with pride and the Buddha, displeased, had shown him for his edification a far holier saint — or so at least people say.

  88.

  THE WIZARD OF THE MOUNTAINS

  En no Gyōja founded Japan’s mountain ascetic

  tradition. The Peacock King is an Esoteric Buddhist deity.

  En no Gyōja, or En the Ascetic, lived in Emperor Mommu’s reign. He was from the Katsuragi region of Yamato province.

  He lost his father when he was two and was brought up entirely by his mother at their family home. At the age of thirty-four, he turned the house into a temple and respectfully enshrined there an eight-foot-tall image of Miroku which he himself had made out of earth. Then he gave the temple to the court and went to live in a cave in the Katsuragi Mountains, wearing clothes made of bark and eating pine needles. Though he never went into the world or mixed with people, he practiced nonetheless as a layman rather than as a monk.

  From the Katsuragi Mountains you can look southeast across to the Ōmine range. En no Gyōja roamed there, too. One day in Ōmine he glimpsed Shaka Peak from far off and was struck by its unusual form. The mountain clearly had power. Up close it was even more impressive. En no Gyōja found there, hanging from a tree, a nine-foot-tall skeleton with a bell in its left hand and a single-pronged vajra in its right. The skeleton’s grip on these two implements was like iron, and En no Gyōja was unable to pry them loose.

  So strange a discovery inspired him to vigorous faith. That night he dreamed that the Miroku he so deeply revered (the one he had made for his temple) said to him, “For seven of your past lives you were an ascetic on this mountain. The skeleton you found is your own. If you want the bell and the vajra, chant the Mantra of the Peacock King.”

  En no Gyōja went away to learn the mantra, and acquired superhuman powers as soon as he began chanting it. He could now fly through space wherever he wanted on a five-colored cloud. When he returned to Shaka Peak, he found the bell and vajra on the ground below the tree. The skeleton was gone.

  North of Shaka Peak, in the same range, rises Golden Peak. This sacred mountain is actually the northeast corner of Vulture Peak in India where the Buddha preached the Lotus Sutra. In 552, during the reign of Emperor Kimmei, it broke off and flew thousands of leagues on a white cloud to land here in Japan. When Miroku comes into our world as the next buddha, 5,670,000,000 years from now, the earth will be covered with gold; and all the gold for this purpose is stored in Golden Peak. That is why the mountain’s gravel and rocks are gold, and why the mountain bears that name.

  Seeing how powerful Golden Peak was, En no Gyōja wanted it to have a god who could help sentient beings toward salvation. After he had prayed for a thousand days, Zaō Gongen rose from the earth. Since Zaō Gongen looked rather like the Bodhisattva Jizō, very quiet and kind, En no Gyōja wondered how a god like that could possibly save deluded beings in the sinful ages to come. As the thought crossed his mind, the peaceful, Jizō-like figure disappeared into the sky.

  En no Gyōja prayed anew, and this time Zaō Gongen burst forth in a wrathful form, brandishing a three-pronged vajra in his right hand, and standing in the fierce pose of crushing demons. Finally impressed, En no Gyōja made an image of him and enshrined it on the mountain. In time Zaō Gongen appeared like this on mountains throughout Japan. How great a god En no Gyōja had called forth!

  Next, En no Gyōja went into retreat in a cave in these same mountains, and his magic brought supernatural beings to serve him and bring him water and firewood. He also spent years going round Japan, visiting Mount Fuji, Mount Asama, and all the other sacred mountains. Sometimes he also visited the Palace of the Immortals and roamed the Immortals’ marvelous realm.

  Eventually En no Gyōja decided he wanted a stone bridge from the Katsuragi Mountains to Golden Peak, one that his followers could cross; and he commanded the god Hitokotonushi to build it.

  Some two centuries before, when Emperor Yūryaku came to Katsuragi to hunt, Hitokotonushi had ridden beside him all day in the guise of a lordly man; and when the emperor asked his unknown companion who he was, Hitokotonushi replied simply, “the god of Katsuragi,” then vanished. Normally, though, the god was so ugly that he was embarrassed to be seen in daylight, and as a result would work on the bridge only at night. This made En no Gyōja angry. He insisted that Hitokotonushi work also during the day. When the god refused, the furious Gyōja bound him with a spell and left him at the bottom of a ravine. That is why the rock bridge never was built.

  Soon afterwards, a young attendant of Emperor Mommu began to speak volubly and strangely under the influence of a god who identified himself under questioning as Hitokotonushi of Katsuragi. The god went on to accuse En no Gyōja of using his magic powers to foment rebellion. “If he is not stopped,” warned the god, “there will be war!”

  The astonished emperor immediately sent the Gyōja an order to appear before him, but the Gyōja ignored it. Next, the emperor sent soldiers to arrest him, but the Gyōja simply flew up and disappeared. The soldiers retaliated by capturing his mother and taking her back to the emperor instead. This brought En no Gyōja to the palace right away, and his innocent mother was released and sent home.

  En no Gyōja was exiled to Oshima in the province of Izu, along the coast of Sagami Bay. During the day he behaved himself and stayed where he had been put, but at night he flew through the air and roamed the summit of Mount Fuji. Hitokotonushi got back at him by again possessing the imperial attendant and accusing the Gyōja of wandering wherever he pleased in contempt of the imperial will. Hitokotonushi demanded that the Gyōja be put to death.

  The emperor took this denunciation seriously and sent a soldier to execute the sentence. But when the soldier reached Oshima and drew his bow to shoot the Gyōja, the bow broke; and when he lifted his sword to strike the Gyōja, the sword broke too. Next the Gyōja asked for the sword, and the soldier gave it to him. Before handing it back, the ascetic licked it three times. The soldier now read, engraved on the sword, the name of the god of Mount Fuji. Overcome with awe, he returned to the emperor with his report, and the emperor, finally realizing that En no Gyōja was no ordinary man, pardoned him and recalled him to the Capital.

  By now, though, En no Gyōja no longer knew what would happen next and was fed up with Japan. So instead, he put his mother in a bowl and set off to China across ten thousand leagues of sky, riding on a five-colored cloud. In China, too, he toured every sacred peak and consorted with the Immortals. In fact, a Japanese monk whom the emperor had sent to China to study Buddhism ran into him and spent some time talking to him. The monk reported this meeting when he got back to Japan, much to the astonishment of the court since it was then almost impossible for anyone to travel to China without imperial authorization.

  In the meantime, En no Gyōja’s fight with Hitokotonushi was not quite over. The last episode involved the monk Taichō from Echizen province, a great ascetic whose powers were acknowledged throughout the realm. Taichō was the vessel of the god of Hakusan, or White Mountain, in Kaga province; for the god often possessed Taichō and spoke through him.

  Taichō too set out on a pilgrimage to all the holy mountains of Japan. Having heard that the Katsuragi and Ōmine ranges were particularly powerful, he first climbed Katsuragi and spent the night chanting sutras there for the god.

  When he dozed off, the god took this chance to speak to him. “En no Gyōja has bound me with a spell,” he complained, “and he’s left me at the bottom of the ravine. I’m suffering horribly. Please, Your Grace, use your po
wer to free me and heal my pain!” In his dream Taichō saw that the god was imprisoned in a mossy boulder.

  On waking he went straight down into the ravine and found the boulder. It was tightly imprisoned by wisteria and other vines. Taichō could see how much the god must be suffering, and felt sorry for him. But when he tried a spell to loosen the vines, the Gyōja, whom rumor placed in China, suddenly appeared, roaring and glaring at him in fury. The frightened Taichō gave up and left the mountain immediately.

  Perhaps En no Gyōja stayed on in Katsuragi. At any rate, he was eventually commanded in a dream to go to Mount Minoo in the province of Settsu where, high on the mountain, there is a magnificent waterfall. En no Gyōja was performing his practices by this fall when the legendary Buddhist sage Nagarjuna, whom we in Japan call Ryūju Bosatsu, descended from the heavens, gave him the Water of Pure Knowledge, and sailed up again into the sky again on a cloud. This miracle inspired the Gyōja to build on the spot a temple, which he called Minoodera. He stayed at Minoo a long time, and finally rose into the heavens at the age of 104.

  No one ever tried to free Hitokotonushi again.

  89.

  AN AWFUL FALL

  An ascetic at a mountain temple in Yamato province once decided that from now on he would eat only pine needles. He was quite happy to give up rice and the other grains, and in fact much preferred this austere diet, because he had heard that this was the way others in the past had made themselves into Immortals who could fly.

  After two or three years of nothing but pine needles, the ascetic really did feel very light. He began telling his disciples that he would soon be an Immortal too, and was so sure of success that he secretly prepared to fly up into the sky. When the moment seemed at hand, he announced his coming ascension and gave away his hut and all his belongings.