Japanese Tales

by Royall Tyler

  He was coming home one day from hunting deer in the mountains with some of his band when he noticed a crowd in front of a building and asked what the people were doing. His men told him the place was a temple and that a monk was preaching there. “Preaching,” they explained, “means offering the buddhas a sermon on the holy sutras, for the benefit of all beings.”

  “Oh yes, I’ve heard about that,” said Gendayū, “but I’ve never actually seen it. I’ll go and hear what he’s got to say. You wait here.”

  He and his men dismounted. The men hated to imagine what their master was up to and were afraid he was going to torment the preacher.

  When Gendayū came into the temple, some of the congregation simply fled. He shoved his way through the rest, with the people parting before him like grasses in a gale, till he came to the preacher and glared into his eyes.

  “Preacher,” he said, “I want to know what you’ve been saying. And talk sense. If you don’t, you’ll wish you had.” He brandished his dagger.

  The frightened preacher thought he was lost and his mind went blank, but he was wise enough to call on the Buddha for help before he answered.

  “Westward from here,” he answered, “beyond many other worlds, is the place where a buddha lives. This buddha’s name is Amida. His kindness is wide and deep. You may have been the worst of sinners, but if you repent and call his Name just once he’ll come to fetch you and you’ll be reborn into his Land of Bliss where you’ll be a buddha too.”

  “If this buddha of yours is as kind as all that, then I suppose he wouldn’t turn me away either.”

  “Of course not.”

  “So if I call his Name he’ll answer?”

  “Yes, if you call him sincerely.”

  “What people does this buddha like best?”

  “He doesn’t reject anyone, but parents can’t help loving their own children most and so he does slightly prefer his own disciples.”

  “What’s a disciple?”

  “Any monk who’s shaved his head like me. Laymen and laywomen can be his disciples too, but it’s even better if you’re a monk or a nun.”

  “Then shave my head,” commanded Gendayū.

  “Oh dear!” the preacher exclaimed. “It’s wonderful to hear you say that, but you see, I can’t just do it all of a sudden. If you’re serious you should first go home, talk it over with your family, and put your affairs in order.”

  “You call yourself a disciple of this buddha and you claim he tells only the truth,” Gendayū growled. “You say he loves his disciples. What do you mean by turning around now and telling me to do it later? You don’t seem to understand, do you?” Gendayū drew his dagger and cut off his own topknot at the roots.

  The preacher was speechless and a clamor burst from the congregation. Gendayū’s men heard it. Obviously their master had done something, and they rushed to the temple ready to fight. Gendayū stopped them with a roar.

  “How dare you come between me and paradise!” he bellowed. “This morning as usual I was wanting more men, but now, as far as I’m concerned, you can all get out and go wherever you please. I’m not keeping any of you!”

  The men decided their master had gone mad. Some spirit must have possessed him. They sobbed and howled and rolled on the floor, but Gendayū quickly put a stop to their noise. Then he offered his topknot to the Buddha, heated water as fast as he could, washed his head, and came to the preacher again.

  “Shave me properly!” he ordered. “You’ll be sorry if you don’t.”

  “Since you insist,” the preacher replied, “I’m sure I’d be wrong not to shave you. Yes, it’d certainly be a sin.” Though still afraid, he came down from his seat, shaved Gendayū’s head, and administered the appropriate vows. Gendayū’s men shed unrestrained tears of grief.

  Having put on a monk’s stole, Gendayū traded his quiver and bow for the devotee’s little gong, which he hung around his neck. “Now I’m going to go west,” he said. “I’ll keep calling Amida and beating this gong till he answers. No moor, no mountain, river, or sea will turn me back.” And off he went shouting, “Hey, Amida Buddha! Hey, hey!” When his men moved to follow him, he accused them of getting in his way and kept beating his gong till they gave up.

  Gendayū did just what he said he would: he went straight west, calling Amida and beating the gong. When he came to a river he did not look for a ford, and he did not try to find a way round when a mountain rose in front of him. Stumbling, falling, he pushed straight ahead till at sundown he reached a temple, where he explained to the priest what he was doing. “Now I’m going over those mountains to the west,” he continued. “Come and find me in seven days. I’ll tie the grasses together as I go to mark the way. Do you have anything to eat? If you do, just give me a little.”

  The priest gave him plenty of parched rice, but Gendayū, protesting that it was too much, took only a tiny amount, which he wrapped in paper and put in the fold of his robe. Then he started off. “But the sun is down!” the priest called after him. “Stop here for the night, at least!” Gendayū seemed not to have heard.

  Seven days later the priest set out. The trail was marked and led over the mountains, beyond which rose still another range. Looking westward from a peak, the priest saw the sea.

  At last the priest came to a forked tree overlooking the ocean. Gendayū was sitting up in the fork, beating his gong and calling, “Hey, Amida! Hey, hey!” He told the priest that he had meant to go on west to the sea. “But Amida answers me here,” he explained, “so I stayed and now I just keep calling to him.”

  “What do you mean, he answers you?” asked the priest, who could make nothing of this.

  “Well, I’ll call. You’ll hear him for yourself.” And Gendayū shouted, “Hey, Amida! Where are you?”

  “Here I am!” replied an awesome voice from the depths of the sea.

  “Did you hear that?”

  The priest had heard it and dissolved, overcome, in tears of joy and awe. Gendayū wept too. “Hurry home now,” he said, “and come back in seven days to see what’s happened to me.”

  “Don’t you want anything? I brought you some parched rice.”

  “No, no, thank you, I still have the rice you gave me.” The priest could in fact see the little packet of rice, wrapped just as it had been when Gendayū left his temple. He went away.

  When he came again, Gendayū was still in the tree facing the west, but this time he was dead. A beautiful lotus flower had bloomed from his mouth, and the weeping priest picked it. It occurred to him that he should bury Gendayū, but he decided after all to leave him since Gendayū probably would have preferred simply to feed the birds and beasts.

  Gendayū had certainly gone to paradise.

  116.

  THE FAILURE

  Once a holy man decided to trade his body for paradise by plunging into the waters of the Katsura River near Kyoto. He prepared himself for this by doing the Lotus Confession rite for a hundred days at Gidarinji, a temple in the city. Pilgrims flocked from far and near to worship him, and a constant stream of gentlewomen’s carriages rolled toward the temple past an equally constant stream leaving.

  The holy man, a slight fellow of about thirty, would not look anyone in the eye. Instead, he kept his eyes half-closed as though falling asleep. Now and again he would call Amida’s Name aloud, but otherwise only his lips moved. Apparently he was repeating the Name then, too. Sometimes he would heave a sudden sigh and sweep his gaze over the faces around him. Having come precisely in the hope of looking into his eyes, the pilgrims at such moments would push and shove ruthlessly so as not to miss any chance of doing so.

  Early in the morning on the appointed day the holy man, wearing a paper robe and stole, entered the temple’s main hall. All the monks, who were already inside, filed out ahead of him. He got into a waiting cart and the procession moved off. Though his lips were moving, it was impossible to make out what he was saying. He would not look anyone in the eye, and from time to time he wo
uld heave a big sigh.

  The crowd along his way kept showering him with good-luck rice, which made him cry out now and again, “Ow! It’s getting in my eyes and nose! If you want to be kind, put your rice in a bag and send it to my temple!” At this the most ignorant onlookers would rub their hands in pious worship, but those with a little more wit would mutter, “What’s he talking about? He’s about to give up his body and go to paradise, and he’s complaining about rice getting in his eyes and nose? Isn’t there something funny about that?”

  Finally the cart reached the Katsura River. More people had gathered to witness the holy man’s passing, and to share its blessing, than there were stones on the riverbed. The cart drew up to the water and stopped.

  “What time is it?” the holy man asked. The monks with him told him it was nearly six. “Then it’s a bit early for going to paradise,” the holy man replied. “I’ll wait till sundown.”

  Those of the spectators who had come from the farthest off could not wait and left. The crowd thinned out. But some were determined to watch to the end. One of them, a monk, remarked what a strange idea it was that there should be any proper time for going to paradise.

  Finally the holy man, naked except for a loincloth, turned to the west and walked into the river. He instantly tripped on a mooring rope and floundered about without even being able to plunge all the way in. When a disciple disentangled him, he tumbled in head first, making desperate glub-glub noises. A man standing in the river himself, to get a better view, seized his hand and pulled him up.

  The holy man just stood there, wiping his face and spitting out all the water he had swallowed. Then he turned to his savior and wrung his hands abjectly. “How can I ever thank you?” he murmured. “I’ll sing your praises in paradise!”

  When he climbed back up onto the bank, the crowd and all the young scamps who had joined it picked up the stones that lay so thickly under their feet and began pelting him with them. Still naked, he fled downstream, but the crowd poured after him and stoned him till his head was all bleeding.

  117.

  LETTERS FROM PARADISE

  A holy man in Tango province desired rebirth into the Land of Bliss. Not that he was alone in this wish, but he aspired so fiercely to paradise that others’ piety paled in comparison.

  On the last day of the year he would write on a piece of paper: “Come to me before the day is over. Do not fail!” Then he would have an acolyte deliver the letter to him the following dawn, before he got up for the early morning litany.

  “Knock on my door,” he would tell the acolyte. “I’ll ask who’s there, and you’ll say, ‘A messenger from Amida Buddha in the Land of Perfect Bliss, with a letter for you!’ ” Then he would go to bed.

  At dawn the obedient acolyte would knock at the door of his hut. “Who’s there?” the holy man would call.

  “A messenger from Amida Buddha in the Land of Bliss, with a letter for you!”

  The holy man would stumble forth, weeping with joy. “What does it say?” he would cry, and reverently inspect the writing. Next he would collapse, overcome with devout emotion.

  This happened every year. The acolyte who played the messenger got quite good at the part.

  Eventually a new governor was posted to the province and came to revere the holy man deeply. One day the holy man visited him to enlist his help in a new and worthy project: a pageant of Amida’s welcome to the soul. There would be musicians, and dancers costumed and masked as Amida, the bodhisattvas, and all the saints. The governor gladly pledged his support, gained the cooperation of other locally influential people, and set about getting musicians and dancers from the Capital. His enthusiasm pleased the holy man very much. “At the pageant I’ll really believe Lord Amida is coming for me,” he declared, “and I’ll die!”

  “Well, well, perhaps you will, who knows?” murmured the governor, who did not quite know what to say.

  The day came and the beautiful pageant began. The holy man himself lit the incense. The two bodhisattvas Kannon and Seishi came forth, with a drummer behind them leading the joyous host of celestial musicians, and approached the holy man: Kannon to offer his soul a golden throne to ride to paradise on, and Seishi to shelter the soul with a jeweled canopy on the way there. Heavenly music filled the air.

  The holy man was seen to weep and call Amida’s holy Name while they came on, but when Kannon held forth the golden throne he did not respond. He seemed too overcome to move. Actually, though, he had just died. Of course the cast did not realize this, what with the music and the excitement, and they went on vainly offering him the canopy and the throne in the hope that he would say or do something. When they finally went away, the holy man stayed as motionless as ever. His alarmed disciples shook him and found he was already stiff.

  At last everyone understood that he had actually gone to rebirth in the Land of Bliss, and they wept.

  118.

  NOT EXACTLY THE LAND OF BLISS

  A hermit whose only practice was calling Amida’s Name had lived for years in the Ibuki Mountains of Mino province. He was calling the Name one night when he heard a voice from the heavens saying, “You have devoutly trusted me and have called my Name countless times. Early tomorrow afternoon, at the hour of the Sheep, I promise I will come and welcome you into my Western Paradise. Do not stop calling upon me!”

  The hermit redoubled his devotions. He washed, lit incense, scattered flowers, and sat down with his disciples facing the west so they could all call out the Name together.

  When the time came, there was a gleam in the west. Amida appeared in glory like the full autumn moon breaking through clouds, and the hermit was bathed in the sublime rays that streamed from between his eyebrows. Flowers floated down from the sky. The hermit prostrated himself with such fervor that when his forehead touched the ground his behind rose high in the air. The cord of his rosary all but snapped with the vigor of his invocations. Then Kannon advanced among downy purple clouds to offer him a lotus throne. The hermit crept reverently forward, mounted the throne, and sailed away westward. His disciples wept with joy and awe as they watched him go.

  A week or so later, the servants at the hermitage decided it was time to make the monks a bath and went into the mountains to cut firewood. When they came to a great cryptomeria growing over a waterfall, they heard cries from high in the tree. A monk was up there, tied naked to a branch. One particularly good climber discovered that the monk was their master who had sailed away to paradise. He was tied to the tree with vines.

  “Master!” the horrified servant cried as he began working on the vines. “What happened?”

  “He promised he’d be back for me any minute,” the hermit babbled, “and he told me to stay right here! Don’t you go untying me!” The servant untied him anyway. “Amida Buddha!” his master screamed, “this man is killing me!”

  In the end they got him down and took him back to the hermitage. It was a tragedy. He had completely lost his mind, and two or three days later he died. Simple as he was, a tengu had tricked him.

  119.

  ONE LAST SHOWER OF PETALS

  In Emperor Daigo’s reign, long ago, there was a big persimmon tree near the shrine on Fifth Avenue. When a buddha appeared in the tree, shining and scattering the loveliest flowers, all Kyoto crowded round for a look and a reverent bow. You could not get in one horse, carriage, or spectator more.

  After a week or so, it occurred to the Minister of the Right that no genuine buddha would appear in these latter, degenerate days. He decided this must be some sort of tengu mischief and thought he would have a look for himself.

  He got himself up in full court dress and went in a ceremonial carriage with a whole train of attendants. The crowd parted at his approach. He had the ox unhitched and the carriage shafts propped up for a long stay, then sat there staring at the buddha’s branch. He never blinked or glanced aside. After a couple of hours the buddha let go a little shower of flower petals and a burst of light, but in the end the m
inister’s relentless gaze was too much. Suddenly a big kestrel with a broken wing fell off the branch and lay helplessly flapping on the ground. Some boys dashed up and killed it.

  “Sure enough!” said the minister to himself as he left. The people were deeply impressed.

  120.

  INSPIRING, UNFORTUNATELY

  The people of Emperor Reizei’s reign were buzzing over a spate of tengu mischief when a monk from Mount Hiei started home after a little trip down to the city. Walking back toward the mountain along Kitaōji Avenue, he came to a pack of boys beating a fierce-looking old kite they had caught. He scolded them sharply. “Why do you want to hurt the poor bird?” he asked. They said they were killing it for its feathers.

  The monk felt so sorry for the kite that he traded his fan for it to the boys and let it go. The good deed made him rather pleased with himself.

  A bit farther on, where the path started up the mountain, a funny, monkish-looking old fellow popped out of the bushes and came panting after the monk. Though the monk did his best to avoid him, the old fellow insisted on accosting him and thanking him effusively for having saved his life.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the monk answered cautiously. “Who are you?”

  “You remember me, of course you do! I’m the one the boys were busy murdering on Kitaōji Avenue! How can I ever thank you? If there’s any wish of yours I can make come true, any little wish at all, just tell me. I’ve got a few magic powers, you see, and I’m sure I can do something nice for you!”

  Confused by this astonishing offer, the monk hesitated, but the old fellow insisted till he finally replied, “Well, I don’t really have any special wishes any more, you know. I’m seventy now, after all, and I’ve lost any interest in fame or fortune. I hate to think where I’ll be born next time, yes, but I don’t suppose there’s anything you can do about that. So I don’t quite know what to say. Still, I often imagine how wonderful it must have been when the Buddha preached the Lotus Sutra on Vulture Peak, and I wish I could have been there too. Could you perhaps give me a vision of the scene?”