Japanese Tales

by Royall Tyler

  Suddenly the ascetic hurtled out through his curtains and crashed to the floor, where he lay sprawled on his back. “Help!” he shrieked. “Good sirs, save me, please! All these years on Kōzen I’ve worshipped the tengu and prayed to them to make me famous. And it worked, you know, because I was called here to the palace! But what an awful mistake it was! I’ve learned my lesson now, yes I have! Please save me, oh please!”

  The five monks were quite satisfied. As for the emperor, his first thought was to arrest the man and throw him in jail, but he changed his mind and only ordered him banished from the Capital. The ascetic was glad enough to make himself scarce. Some laughed to watch him go, while some just wished they could get their hands on him. He had been treated like a Buddha in person when he cured the emperor, but he made a very sorry sight as he fled.

  127.

  THE MASTER

  Though expert in scholarship and in the mysteries of the faith, the monk Yōshin from Mount Hiei found himself passed over for promotion year after year in favor of younger and less experienced monks, and became so disappointed that he eventually left the mountain and wandered off toward Iyo province. On the way he stopped at Akashi, a harbor in Harima.

  An epidemic had affected every household around Akashi. Yōshin found the villagers scurrying about. They told him about the sickness, and explained that a monk and strolling diviner had come by and promised them he could stop it. They were now hurrying around, on his instructions, to distribute the things everyone would need to take part in the rite.

  Yōshin was shocked that such a charlatan should prey on these poor gullible people, but he decided to join them to see what would happen.

  The rite was to be the next morning. At dawn Yōshin dressed in his servant’s clothes (for no monk of his station would travel alone) and helped the villagers carry the supplies to the beach. These included half a dozen new buckets, white and glutinous rice, soybeans, cowpeas, fruit and nuts, ginger, small and large earthenware bowls, clean straw mats, handwoven cloth, stout cryptomeria poles, fine paper, oil, and many other things. When all the supplies were at hand, the diviner prepared the ritual site on a fine broad stretch of sand.

  He sewed several widths of cloth into a curtain, which he hung on the poles so as to screen off a fairly large space, then planted shikimi branches (which are always offered to spirits) around the inside of the curtain. Next, he laid out four mats in a square so that they faced in the four directions, leaving a smaller square of sand in the middle. After carefully smoothing this square he drew on it, with a long thin stick, a beautiful picture of the complicated Womb-Realm Mandala. The earthenware bowls were lined up on the mats, filled with holy water or heaped with fruit, nuts, and rice. He ended by lighting lamps at the four corners of the enclosure, cutting paper streamers, and attaching eight of them to each of the enclosure’s four sides. Finally he and his assistants put on pure white ritual robes.

  With everything now ready the diviner began the dedication rite for the Womb-Realm. He was very precise. Assuming that no one present would understand what he was doing, he did not bother to conceal the officiant’s normally secret hand gestures, and Yōshin could tell he knew exactly what he was doing.

  For Yōshin, the very existence of such a man was a revelation. Every detail was perfect. Each of the hundred villagers attending was properly bathed and purified. Even the children had their rosaries and were completely absorbed in invoking the buddhas. Yōshin had witnessed many such rites on Mount Hiei, but he had never seen one so meticulously done. He was so fascinated that he decided to become the diviner’s disciple.

  When the Womb-Realm dedication was over, the diviner gathered up everything in the enclosure and put it aside, including even the paper streamers and the shikimi, then took a new set of the same things and made exactly the same preparations as before. On the smoothed central square of sand he drew another mandala, this time the Vajra-Realm, and dedicated it just as carefully. At the end he dismantled everything including the curtain, heaped it all on the first pile, and set the pile on fire. Soon even the buckets and water dippers were ashes. There was nothing left except the white garments the diviner and his assistants had on. The awed villagers saw clearly that the diviner wanted nothing for himself.

  Yōshin was determined to meet the man and waited after everyone had gone for the right moment to approach him.

  Having finished tidying up, the diviner put on a straw cloak and started off, for he was not staying in the village. Yōshin chose that moment to accost him and ask him who he was.

  “I’m not a peasant,” the diviner replied, “though out here in the country they all assume I’m one!” A disturbed expression came over his face as he spoke, and he suddenly turned and fled. In his hurry he even left his baggage behind.

  Yōshin was very sorry. Back in the village he found out that as soon as the rite was over, everyone lying sick in the houses had shaken off the fever and recovered. The villagers were running around excitedly with the news. In fact, the epidemic disappeared that day not only from the village but from the whole province. The diviner had worked a miracle. Yōshin hunted for him everywhere, but never found him again.

  128.

  A SIMPLE CURE

  Lord Kinsue was still relatively junior at court (though later he became chancellor) when he was stricken with malaria. Having heard of a Lotus Sutra ascetic named Eijitsu who lived near Kyoto and was said to be expert at curing such fevers, Kinsue agreed to go and seek his help. Alas, he had not quite reached Eijitsu’s temple when his fever returned, earlier than expected. It was too late for him to turn back. He struggled on, brought up his carriage under the temple eaves, and asked to see the ascetic.

  Through an acolyte Eijitsu protested that he had been eating a lot of garlic lately, but Kinsue answered that he wanted to see the acolyte’s master, garlic or no garlic, and that he was in no condition to go home. Eijitsu had his shutters opened and new mats spread on the floor, and Kinsue was led inside.

  Meanwhile Eijitsu cleansed himself and soon came forth, tall, gaunt, and distinguished, to meet his guest. He explained that having caught a bad cold he was eating garlic on a doctor’s advice. “But the Lotus Sutra is above considerations of purity or impurity,” he added, “so my breath won’t matter. I’ll chant the Sutra for you. You’ll be all right.”

  Kinsue was lying down. Eijitsu rubbed the beads of his rosary together as he approached him, and his whole manner inspired confidence. Then he took Kinsue’s head in his hands, laid it on his lap, and began chanting. Kinsue was awed. He had never known so holy a feeling. Eijitsu’s resonant, slightly hoarse voice was deeply moving, and as he chanted great tears streamed from his eyes. Kinsue’s fever vanished and he felt renewed. Before he left he pledged Eijitsu enduring gratitude and devotion, and after that Eijitsu’s healing powers acquired widespread fame.

  129.

  A BELOVED WIFE, A BOW, A WHITE BIRD

  Once a man had a kind and beautiful wife whom he loved very much. One night they were sleeping side by side when he dreamed his dear wife said to him, “After all this time we’ve been together, I’m going far away and won’t see you any more. But I’ll leave you something to remember me by. Love it instead of me!”

  When he woke up, he was very upset. His wife was gone, really gone. It was a catastrophe. By his pillow lay a bow which had certainly not been there before. It must be the memento she had spoken of. Would she ever come back? He waited, but no, she never appeared. How he missed her! And the bow — it might well be some demon in disguise and he was afraid of it. But in the end he decided he had nothing to lose and began keeping it by him, stroking it as his memory lingered on his wife.

  Months passed. One day the bow, which was by him as usual, suddenly turned into a white bird, which flew away toward the south. Astonished, he set out to follow it as it skimmed the clouds. When he reached the province of Kii, the bird turned into a human.

  “Just as I thought!” said the man to himself. “That wa
s no ordinary bow, it was a magic form of something else!”

  Then he went home again, with on his lips a song about the strangeness of it all.

  130.

  THE UNKNOWN THIRD

  Tsunezumi no Yasunaga, who served Prince Koretaka, was once sent up north to Kōzuke province to collect taxes from an estate the prince owned there. Months later, on his way back to Kyoto, he stopped at the Fuwa barrier in the province of Mino.

  Yasunaga had left his young wife at home and had missed her all the time he was gone. Now he suddenly yearned for her more sharply than ever and wondered whether something might have happened to her. Resolving to hurry on first thing the next morning, he lay down in the shelter provided at the barrier and went to sleep.

  He dreamed he saw a man of the servant class coming from the direction of Kyoto, carrying a torch. He had a woman with him. When the pair reached the shelter, he saw the woman was his wife. What a shock! There she was on the other side of the wall.

  Peering through a hole in the wall, he saw them bring over a kettle, cook rice, and eat. His wife had apparently taken up with this man in his absence. Yasunaga’s stomach churned, his heart pounded, and his mind went into turmoil, but he kept watching. After their meal they lay down in each other’s arms and began making love. The sight drove him wild and he rushed out. There was no fire. There was no one there at all. He woke up.

  It had been a dream, then. Really worried now about his wife, Yasunaga set off at dawn with all possible speed. To his great relief he found his wife safe and sound at home.

  She greeted him with joy. “You know,” she said, “last night I dreamed a man I’d never seen before came and talked me into going off with him. I don’t know where it was we went, but anyway, at nightfall we lit a fire and cooked rice. After dinner we went into some sort of cabin and lay down together. Then suddenly you burst in, and he and I both panicked.

  That was when I woke up. I’ve been wondering about that dream ever since, and now here you are!”

  Yasunaga told her about his dream and what it had done to him. “You wouldn’t believe how fast I got here!” he said.

  How extraordinary that they should have dreamed, simultaneously, complementary dreams!

  131.

  AN IMAGE IN A FLAME

  Kochūjō, a young lady who served the empress, was very pretty and graceful, and so nice too that all the other ladies loved her dearly. Though she had no regular gentleman friend, Fujiwara no Takatsune, the governor of Mino, did visit her a good deal.

  Once while Kochūjō was looking after the empress, dressed in pale violet over a pink underrobe, a precise image of her appeared in the flame of a lamp nearby. Her costume, her hair, her face, her look as she held her hand before her mouth — each detail was perfect. The other young ladies were amazed at the resemblance and clustered round to chatter and stare. Not one of them was experienced enough to know what needed to be done.

  Kochūjō took it badly when she was told. “Ugh!” she cried. “You didn’t put it out? You just kept staring at it? How embarrassing!” But when the older ladies of the household found out, they were worried. Those girls should have let someone responsible know right away! Instead, they had just trimmed the lamp as usual and left it at that.

  Three weeks or so later, for no apparent reason, Kochūjō began to run a fever. For a day or two she kept to her room, then felt so ill that she went home.

  When Lord Takatsune came by to let her know that he would be going away briefly, a little kitchenmaid told him where she had gone. He went straight to her house. The moon was sinking toward the west. When Kochūjō came out to him, he found her curiously pathetic, while she too seemed constrained and acted a little distant. Takatsune went in and lay down with her, but actually he felt like leaving.

  They talked all night. By dawn Takatsune found it hard to say good-bye, and he worried about her all the way home. As soon as he got there, he sent her a note to tell her how concerned he was and promised he would be back to see her soon. Then he lingered to wait for her answer.

  Her reply consisted of one word, “Toribeno.” Why, that was the name of the burning ground where the dead were taken! Deeply troubled, Takatsune slipped the note in under his clothing, against his heart. Then he started off. He kept taking out the note all the way along to examine it. What beautiful writing she had! After being detained at his destination for some time, he got away as soon as he could and hurried back, thinking of her constantly. On reaching the Capital, he went directly to her house.

  She had died the previous night and they had take her to Toribeno. Lord Takatsune’s feelings can easily be imagined.

  Yes, when someone’s image appears in a flame, the thing to do is to trim off that part of the burned wick and have the person swallow it. And it’s a good thing to pray hard, too. The young ladies hadn’t known how dangerous a sight they had seen, and their ignorance caused Kochūjō’s death.

  132.

  THE FORSAKEN LADY

  Fujiwara no Moroie was involved with the meekest and sweetest of ladies. No reproach he might have deserved ever passed her lips. Though he did his best to avoid hurting her, official duties sometimes kept him busy, and then there were those inevitable evenings when a passing affection would detain him. In the end he did not actually spend many nights with her, and she came in her innocence to assume that he did not really love her. She began keeping her distance, and the more she did so the more they drifted apart. Not that they disliked each other, but the gulf between them kept widening until Moroie stopped visiting her altogether.

  Six months later Moroie happened to pass her house. One of her women, on her way back from an errand, noticed him and told the lady he had just gone by. “Ah, when was it that he used to visit us?” the woman went on to muse. “It brought back so many memories to see him!”

  The lady sent a messenger after Moroie. “Ask him to come in for a moment,” she said. “I have something to tell him.”

  When he got the message, Moroie realized with a start where he was. He alighted from his carriage and entered the house.

  The lady was seated before a box of sutra scrolls, chanting the Lotus Sutra. She was too beautifully dressed to have just tidied herself up in a hurry to receive him. Moroie saw her with new eyes and could not imagine why he had dropped her. Oh, to make her stop chanting and whisk her off to bed! But the months of separation had made him a little shy, and he tried instead to engage her in conversation. She did not respond, though her looks suggested she would talk with him as much as he liked when she had finished. Her face was simply entrancing. If only he could bring back the past, he thought, he would certainly do so.

  Hopelessly in love now, and swearing to himself a thousand times over that he would never neglect her again, Moroie waited. He kept assuring her that he had never wanted to lose her, but she still would not answer. When she got to the seventh scroll, she began repeating the Medicine King chapter until she had been through it almost three times.

  Moroie lost patience. “What’s the meaning of this?” he complained. “Be done with it! I have so much to tell you!”

  As he spoke she came to the passage that promises salvation to women, even in these latter, unhappy days: “She will go, when her life is over, to the Land of Bliss where Amida reigns among his saints, and she will dwell in a blue lotus, upon a jeweled throne.” Tears were streaming from her eyes.

  “What is this?” Moroie cried. “Have you gone pious or something, like a nun?”

  She turned her brimming gaze to his, as though dew had touched her frost, yet a shadow seemed to fall between them. How cruel she must have thought him all these months! Moroie too broke down. What if he should never see her again! Could he live without her? The question would not leave him, and he shivered with foreboding.

  Her sutra done, the lady began fingering an aloeswood rosary trimmed with amber, and lost herself in prayer. When she lifted her head again, so strange a look came over her face that Moroie flinched. “I
asked you in,” she began, “because I wanted to see you one more time. Now my anger and hurt …” Her voice stopped. She was dead.

  Moroie could not believe it. The first time he called, nobody heard him. Finally a maid looked in and asked what was the matter. Moroie simply sat there. The maid quickly lost her composure too, and no wonder. As a single strand of hair breaks, the lady was gone. Moroie could not very well stay on because if he were to do so the pollution of death would oblige him to go into seclusion afterwards. As he left, her face was all he could see.

  It was not long before Moroie sickened and died. Some supposed it was the lady’s ghost that took him. In fact, those close to Moroie may even have had reason to be sure.

  Other people assumed that since the lady had all but died with the Lotus Sutra on her lips, she must have gone on to paradise. But it’s also true that she died with deep resentment against Moroie in her heart, and while looking straight at him. Surely the sin of both was very grave.

  133.

  SHE DIED LONG AGO

  A Kyoto man, too poor to make ends meet, learned one day with surprise that a gentleman he knew had been appointed governor of a distant province. He went straight to the new governor’s residence, explained his situation, and offered his services in any capacity whatever. The gentleman was pleased to engage his old acquaintance on the spot.

  The man and his lovely young wife had always been inseparable, despite the hardships of poverty; but now that he was going so far away he left his wife for another, richer one, who not only provided for his journey but came with him and took very good care of him in his province.

  In time, however, he began to miss his first wife badly. He could hardly stop himself from rushing back to the Capital, and he tormented himself endlessly with speculation about how things might go if he did. Meanwhile his master’s term of office ended, and he set out with his master for Kyoto.