Japanese Tales

by Royall Tyler

After dark they settled down on opposite sides of the altar. In the middle of the night something bashed its way through the wall. The creature stank horribly and wheezed and snorted like an ox, but in the darkness they could not see it. It attacked the younger monk, who, in his fright, recited the Lotus Sutra and fervently prayed to be spared. Suddenly it dropped him, fell on the older monk, and began devouring him. The victim screamed horribly, but no one saved him and the demon ate him up.

  The younger monk was sure the demon would now be back for him. He clambered up on the altar (there being no other refuge), threw his arms round one of the divinities, and begged for help, then went on inwardly reciting the Lotus. When the demon did come after him, he nearly fainted with terror but his concentration never wavered. He heard the demon crash to the floor in front of the altar.

  There was dead silence. The monk assumed the demon was waiting for him to betray himself by some slight noise, so he hardly dared even to breathe. With his arms around the statue, and still mentally reciting the Lotus, he waited for dawn. It seemed like years. When day came at last, he found he had been embracing the divine guardian Bishamon. Before the altar an ox-headed demon lay cut in three, and the blade of Bishamon’s spear was red with blood.

  147.

  A PLEA FROM HELL

  Tateyama, a mountain in Etchū province, has been known since antiquity for its hells. The rugged, sweeping landscape there is desolate, and countless boiling springs gush from deep fissures in the ravines. Even a huge boulder resting on one of these cracks may be set rocking by the water that surges up irresistibly around its base. The heat is terrible, and you come eventually to a column of endless fire. In one valley of this hellish waste there is a waterfall over a hundred feet high that looks like a vast expanse of white cloth.

  One peak of the mountain is named Mount Taishaku because they say that is where Lord Taishaku and the officials of the underworld gather and judge the deeds of sentient beings. People have always believed that most of the sinners in Japan end up falling into the hells of Tateyama.

  Once a monk of Miidera came to Tateyama in the course of a difficult pilgrimage to the holy places of the realm, and while he was walking among the hells he met a young woman. The sight of her frightened him because in a remote spot like that she could only be a demon, and he began to run away. But she called to him, assured him that she was not a demon, and told him that he need not be afraid. She had something to tell him.

  “My home,” she said, “was in Gamō county of Ōmi province, where my parents still live. My father makes his living carving buddha-images out of wood. When I was alive, my food and clothing came from these images, and that’s why after death I fell into a hell where I suffer horrible agony. Please, in your compassion, tell my mother and father what’s happened to me! Have them copy the Lotus Sutra for me and save me from these torments!”

  “You say you’re suffering in hell,” the monk replied, “but apparently you’re still free to appear to me. How is this possible?”

  The young woman explained that this was Kannon’s day, the eighteenth day of the moon. “When I was alive,” she went on, “I meant to serve Kannon and read the Kannon chapter of the Lotus Sutra. And even though I kept putting off actually doing it, just once on an eighteenth day I did purify myself and call on Kannon. That’s why each moon, on the eighteenth day, Kannon comes and suffers in my place for a day and a night. Then I can leave my hell and wander freely.” When she had finished speaking, she vanished.

  The monk went straight to Ōmi to find out whether all this was true. In Gamō county he found the young woman’s parents, and they wept to hear the news he brought them. When he had gone, they lost no time in copying and dedicating the Sutra for their daughter.

  Later the father dreamed that she came to him beautifully dressed, greeted him with her palms pressed together, and told him how she had left the hell on Tateyama by the power of Kannon. Now, she said, she had been born into the Tōri Heaven. The monk had just the same happy dream.

  148.

  THE VOICE FROM THE CAVE

  Having one morning some urgent business to look after at the office, a secretary in the Higo provincial government rode off first thing, all alone. He normally covered the half-mile or so quickly, but this time he got lost and came out on a broad plain. He had no idea where he was.

  By sundown, after crossing the plain all day, he still had not seen a single house where he might spend the night. How he longed for a village! At last he glimpsed, from the top of a rise, the corner of a well-made roof.

  “Is anyone home?” he shouted when he reached the house, for the place seemed awfully quiet. “Please come to the door! What’s the name of this place?”

  “Who are you?” called a woman’s voice from inside. “Come on in!”

  Her voice frightened the secretary. He called back that he was lost, and in too much of a hurry to stop. “I just want to know where I am!” he went on. “Won’t you please tell me?”

  “Wait a minute! I’ll be right out!”

  Terrified, the secretary wheeled his horse round and galloped away as fast as he could.

  “Hey!” shouted the woman as she emerged. “Wait!”

  He glanced back. She was as tall as the roof and her eyes were gleaming. “That’s it!” he thought. “It was a demon’s house!” He frantically whipped his horse on.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she bellowed. “Stop right there!”

  The secretary nearly went mad with fear because she was after him now, ten feet tall and with eyes and a mouth that spouted dazzling flashes of fire. The mouth gaped wide to swallow him. He almost fainted and fell off his horse, but still managed somehow to pray, “Kannon, save me, oh save me now!”

  When his horse stumbled and fell, he was thrown clear. No doubt he would be eaten any second. Without even knowing what he was doing he dashed into a burial cave nearby, and the demon came pounding after him. “Where are you?” it roared. “You were there just a moment ago!” Then it halted and began devouring his horse. Obviously he would be next, unless by any unlikely chance it really did not know where he was. He went on praying to Kannon with all his heart.

  Having finished the horse, the demon came to the mouth of the cave. “All right,” it said, “this man was supposed to be my meal for today. Why have you taken him away from me? You’re always playing me nasty tricks like this and I’ve had enough!” It knew where he was, all right.

  “Oh no, he’s mine and I’m keeping him,” growled a voice from further back in the cave. “You got the horse. What more do you want?”

  It was all over now, the secretary was quite sure of that. Not only was that horrible demon right outside the cave, but an even more horrible one was inside it. All his prayers to Kannon were in vain, and in a moment he would be dead. Well, he probably had nothing to blame but his own awful karma from past lives.

  The demon outside kept pleading and complaining, but to no avail. Finally it left, still grumbling. Now the secretary expected to be dragged into the monster’s lair and eaten.

  “You were going to make a meal for that demon today,” said the voice, “but you prayed so devoutly to Kannon that you’ve been spared. Keep up your faith after this and chant the Lotus Sutra. Do you know who I am?”

  The secretary said no.

  “I’m no demon. A holy man once lived in this cave. On top of the mountain nearby he built a tower and enshrined the Lotus Sutra in it. The tower and the Sutra itself have long since crumbled away and there’s nothing left but myō, or ‘wonderful,’ the first word of the Sutra’s title. I’m that myō. I’ve already saved nine hundred and ninety-nine people from that demon and you’re the one-thousandth. Go home now. Never give up your faith in the Buddha and your devotion to the Lotus!”

  A divine boy came out of the cave to see the secretary home. Weeping, the secretary prostrated himself in gratitude and adoration, then followed the boy to the gate of his own house, where the boy vanished. The secretary pro
strated himself once more before walking in. It was the middle of the night. He told his family everything that had happened to him, and they were very, very glad to have him back!

  149.

  INCORRIGIBLE

  Toshiyuki, a respected poet and calligrapher, had such beautiful handwriting that people were always asking him to copy the Lotus Sutra for them. They took it for granted that Toshiyuki’s elegant rendition of the sacred text would help them toward a better life next time. Toshiyuki had copied the Sutra two hundred times this way when he suddenly died.

  Not realizing what had happened, he only knew that he had been abruptly seized and dragged off. He was outraged and could not understand how anyone, even the emperor, could do such a thing to a man of his standing.

  “What have I done to deserve this?” he asked the officer who he thought had arrested him.

  “Who knows?” the officer replied. “I was ordered to go and get you, and that’s what I’m doing. Come to think of it, have you been making copies of the Lotus Sutra?”

  Toshiyuki said he had.

  “How much of this copying was for yourself?”

  “None. It’s all been for other people. I must have done a couple of hundred Sutras.”

  “That’s it, then. There have been complaints and I suppose the case has come up.”

  That was all Toshiyuki could get out of him. They marched on in silence.

  Soon they met a force of two hundred warriors, wearing grim battle armor and riding strange, terrible horses. The eyes in their ghastly faces flashed like lightning and their mouths were like fire. Toshiyuki almost fainted with fear, but the officer forced him back to his feet and they went on, with the soldiers before them.

  “Who are they?” Toshiyuki managed to stammer.

  “Don’t you know? They’re the people who had you write out the Sutra. They were counting on the merit getting them reborn in heaven or at least giving them another try as humans. But you — you were eating fish and enjoying women all the time you did your copying. You never purified yourself. On the contrary, you had your mind on nothing but the ladies. So they had no merit whatever from your work and were born instead into these fierce, warlike forms. They’re so angry they want revenge, and that’s why they’ve been demanding that you be called in. To tell the truth, it wasn’t actually your time yet, but they insisted.”

  Toshiyuki felt as though a knife had gone through him and his heart froze. “What are they going to do to me?” he asked.

  “Obviously they’re going to cut you up with those swords and daggers of theirs into two hundred little pieces, and each of them is going to keep one. Every piece will be you, fully conscious, so you’ll suffer horribly any time any one of them tortures the piece he’s got. Oh yes, you’ll find it worse than anything you can imagine!”

  “What can I do to be spared?”

  “I’ve no idea,” the officer replied. “I can’t see what would save you.”

  Toshiyuki was nearly out of his mind with terror.

  On they went till they came to a great river running as black as the blackest ink. Toshiyuki asked what these strange, inky waters might be.

  “Don’t you understand?” the officer answered. “This is the ink from all the Lotus Sutra copies you made. A sutra copied with pure heart is accepted instantly into the palace of the Dragon King who guards the Buddha’s Teaching. But copies made like yours, with defiled mind and filthy body, are thrown away in the fields, and the ink washes off in the rain till it makes a river.”

  “Oh please, please,” sobbed Toshiyuki, “is there no help for me, nothing I can do?”

  “I’m sorry, I might possibly be able to do something for you if your sin were a commonplace one, but I’m afraid it’s unspeakable. You’ll get no reprieve.”

  Just then a frightful fiend charged up, growled at the officer that he had been slow bringing the prisoner in, grabbed Toshiyuki by the neck, and marched him off. They came to a great gate through which countless others, dragged like Toshiyuki, or bound, or in irons, were pouring from every direction till it was hardly possible even to pass. Inside the gate, the two hundred warriors whom Toshiyuki recognized all too well were glaring at him with fiery eyes and licking their lips in grim anticipation. Toshiyuki was frantically cudgeling his brains for a way out when the fiend who was dragging him whispered in his ear, “Make a vow to copy the Sutra of Golden Light!” As they went in through the gate, Toshiyuki vowed to copy the Sutra of Golden Light by way of atonement.

  He was hauled in to stand before the court of Emma, the king of hell. “Is this Toshiyuki?” a bailiff growled. Another bailiff demanded to know why, considering the huge number of complaints lodged against him, Toshiyuki had been so slow to appear.

  “I brought him straight here, sir, after I seized him,” said the arresting officer.

  “What was it you did up there in the world?” they asked Toshiyuki.

  “Nothing, really. I just wrote out the Lotus Sutra for people who asked me to. I made two hundred copies.”

  “Actually,” they told him, “your life-span had a little more to run, but you’ve been brought in because of complaints that you copied the Sutra while you were unclean. Our orders are to deliver you to your accusers so they can dispose of you as they see fit.”

  The two hundred soldiers prepared to take charge of their victim.

  “But I made a vow,” protested Toshiyuki, shuddering with fear, “to dedicate to the Buddha a copy of the Sutra of Golden Light, and I was seized before I could fulfill it. It’ll be a terrible sin if I don’t go through with it, one I could never atone for.”

  This brought the bailiffs up short. They declared that if this were true the whole arrest had been a mistake, and they ordered Toshiyuki’s claim checked in the great Register of Deeds. The secretary of the court of hell leafed through the register and read off every last deed of Toshiyuki’s. They were all sins. Only at the last split second, when he had gone through the entire list, did he finally announce, “Yes, it’s true. The entry is here at the very end.”

  “Well, then,” they told Toshiyuki, “we’ll have to set you free. Go accomplish your vow and continue your life as you think best.”

  The grim host of two hundred, that just now had felt their hands nearly on him, suddenly vanished. Toshiyuki returned to life.

  For two days his wife and children had been mourning him when all at once he opened his eyes and was back. Joyfully they gave him something hot to drink, and it was only then that he finally understood he had been dead. In his mind he saw again everything he had just witnessed as though reflected in the clearest of mirrors, and he resolved to copy and dedicate the Sutra of Golden Light, properly purified this time, just as soon as he should be himself again.

  In time he recovered fully and hurried to have a craftsman prepare a scroll of paper to receive the sutra. But at the same time his thoughts began wandering again, and it was not toward the Buddha and the scriptures that they roamed. He was quickly absorbed in romantic visits and fancies, and worried only about how to write the nicest possible verses. So the months and years flew by without his ever copying the sutra until his life reached its allotted term and he passed away.

  A few years later the poet Ki no Tomonori had a dream. There came to him one whom he understood to be Toshiyuki, although fearfully changed from what Toshiyuki had once been and terrifying to look at. “A vow I made to write out and dedicate the Sutra of Golden Light gained me a reprieve,” the apparition said, “and I was returned to life. But my heart stayed as frivolous as before and I finally died without ever copying the sutra. For this I’m now suffering the most horrible tortures. Have pity on me, find the paper I had prepared for the sutra, take it to a certain monk at Miidera, and have him make the copy and the dedication!” Then it screamed.

  Tomonori awoke soaked in sweat. Dawn had barely broken when he hurried off on his errand. He found the paper and soon was knocking at the monk’s door. The monk was glad to see him because, as he explaine
d, he had been on the point of sending a messenger to Tomonori’s house. Tomonori asked why, concealing for the moment his own reason for having come, and the monk related the precise counterpart to Tomonori’s dream. Toshiyuki had appeared to him, told him that Tomonori would be able to find the paper, and asked him to copy and dedicate the sutra. The monk’s dream, like Tomonori’s, had ended with a horrible scream. Tomonori and the monk wept bitterly over Toshiyuki’s awful fate, and Tomonori produced the paper with an explanation of how he had come to bring it.

  The monk did exactly as Toshiyuki had asked. When the two dreamed of Toshiyuki again, he seemed in far better spirits. He told them that the merit they had gained for him had greatly lightened his suffering.

  150.

  THE PIRATE’S STORY

  A very old and pious monk who lived in Settsu province once heard someone mention an encounter with pirates, and this inspired him to tell his own story.

  “When I was young,” he related, “I had a very good life. I had all the food and clothing I could possibly want and every day I sailed the sea. ‘Admiral Rokurō’ they called me. I was a pirate.

  “Once I was out among the islands off the coast of Aki and there wasn’t another vessel in sight, when up rowed a ship. A nice-looking fellow in his mid-twenties seemed to be her master, and all I could see beside him were a couple of sailors. Well, I thought, there must be some pretty women on board too. I could see a bit round the blinds over the cabin windows, and I could make out piles of trunks. Oh, she was certainly loaded, and all but defenseless. A young monk was up on the cabin roof chanting the Lotus Sutra.

  “No matter how I maneuvered, that ship stayed with me. They seemed to have no idea what I was. That made me wonder more than ever, so I hailed her. The master said he was bound for the Capital on urgent business, having put out from the province of Suō. He had attached himself to me because he feared pirates. He must have been a bit soft in the head.