by Ueda Akinari
Traces of Taoist thought and attitudes also appear in the tales, serving to impart an element of mystery and romance. Oftentimes, however, it is virtually impossible to distinguish Taoist ideas from those of Shinto.24 Akinari extolled the spontaneous man's innate desire to follow nature and transcend the illusory and unreal distinctions on which all human systems of morality were based. Travelling as a free spirit, living simply, acting naturally, and taking things easy combined with a belief in the irony of life. All living creatures were assumed to be equal. For instance, part of the basic idea in ‘The Carp That Came to My Dream’ may be traced to an anecdote in the Chinese Taoist classic, Lieh tzu, involving a man who was fond of seagulls and every morning went into the ocean and swam about with them. Another anecdote from the same text, which tells of a man who carved a mulberry leaf out of jade and imitated nature so exquisitely that no one could distinguish his artifice from the real object, resembles Akinari's idea at the end of his carp tale.25 The ‘innocent heart,’ a term used to describe Katsushirō, in the third tale, is related to the Taoist ideal of simplicity (as well as that of Shintoism), and conveys a sense of uprightness and scrupulous honesty combined with an easy-going nature. All manner of pretence is equally to be shunned. Akinari's disgust for Shōtarō, the deceitful wretch in the sixth tale, and his ambivalence toward Manago, the serpent spirit of the seventh tale, remind the reader that passion throws out a myriad tentacles. It destroys peace and reduces the mind to a state of turmoil. It has to be quelled in order to maintain one's self-control. Whereas Shōtarō fails to curb his natural appetites, Toyoo succeeds, though only at enormous cost.
Akinari's values and standards were also influenced by Shingaku, or ‘Heart-learning.’ This doctrine began among merchants in Osaka and later spread to other areas, gaining adherents among all classes of people.26 Although basically Confucian in its emphasis on how man ought to live in the present, it embraced Shinto and Buddhist ideas, as well. Virtues such as hard work, thrift, and ambition were emphasised, though men were enjoined to avoid the extremes of greed and avarice. Warfare, however, held little romantic attraction. As Akinari writes in ‘Wealth and Poverty,’ ‘Brave men whose business is with bows and arrows have forgotten that wealth forms the cornerstone of the nation, and they have followed a disgusting policy.’ His spirit of gold shows startling resemblance to the God of Wealth, a curious and grotesque folk-deity who holds sheaves of rice, as if to indicate that worldly riches need not be evil. Obviously, then, Akinari's concept of morality, despite its basically Confucian orientation, has little connection with narrowly orthodox views but rather displayed a broad, eclectic spirit.
Buddhist philosophy imparts a universal quality to the tales and contributes much to their subtlety. Akinari's concept of reality shows features of the teachings of the Tendai sect, or T'ien-t'ai, as this distinctively Chinese school that may be related to Taoism was called in the country of its origin. Akinari accepts the Buddhist belief (though to be sure it is shared by the Taoists) that life is but a dream and a shadow. Because people are trapped in the wheel of life and death and endure manifold afflictions, men practice spiritual cultivation-as Priest Kaian in ‘The Blue Hood’ forces the aberrant monk to do-in order to gain religious salvation and destroy the illusions that cause suffering. Such meditation was based on the doctrine of ‘concentration and insight’ (shikan, or in Chinese, chih kuan), and it required one to silence his active thoughts and to reflect on the true nature of matter and phenomena. Mind was thought to dominate over matter. Man might control his destiny by meditation and monastic discipline, as taught in the Chinese commentaries on the Lotus Sutra.27
This philosophy permeates Heian literature,28 medieval poetry, the no theatre, and haiku, as well as Akinari's tales. Indeed, at times the Tendai teachings and those of Christianity seem quite parallel. Milton's lines, ‘The Mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven,’ and his idea that ‘real and substantial liberty’ comes from within rather than from without man's heart,29 resemble Akinari's assertion that, ‘A slothful mind creates a monster, a rigorous one enjoys the fruit of the Buddha.’ Akinari believed that without religious discipline, however individualistic a form it might take, man could not survive spiritual crisis, and he accepted the idea that sorrow was inherent in human life, a point of view hardly foreign to the Puritan or Calvinist mind. Although by Akinari's time these ideas were interpreted in Shinto terms and figured prominently in Motoori's writings on classical Japanese literature, they stemmed originally from Buddhist doctrines.
Akinari and other learned men of the eighteenth century agreed that Buddhism as a religion was useless and that the clergy was degenerate. Nevertheless, the underlying themes and imagery of the tales suggest that this faith still dominated the popular imagination. Recurring Buddhist images, such as bells, drums, cymbals, and conch shells, tell of the resonant quality of the universe and indicate auditory and musical harmony. When these reassuring sounds are far away, as in the first, fifth, and eighth tales, one feels an eerie sense of foreboding. The bird of paradise, whose song is Buddha's law, in the fifth tale conveys an apocalyptic sense of miracle. In Akinari's day temples remained powerful landowners and enjoyed political patronage. Those that had been burned at the end of the middle ages, such as the Mii Temple, were rebuilt, and they continued to attract devout pilgrims.
Just as the heavenly bodies revolved, so too might dead souls return to the world of the living, though understandably their form would be altered. The past is never forgotten; the future cannot be ignored. The cosmos itself is constantly changing, and even the soul is subject to metamorphosis. In a Buddhist sense, Miyagi, of ‘The House Amid the Thickets,’ is both a reincarnation of the legendary Tegona of old and also a separate individual. Owing to the many changes in Japanese society, faith may have been reduced to a vestige of former days, but Buddhism, together with Shinto, Confucian, and other beliefs, still played a role scarcely less impressive than that of the Church in the Western world. Once having separately discerned the main philosophical and religious elements of the tales, however, the reader must let them commingle and re-emerge in a harmonious union of these beliefs, which the tales represented for an age when myth still had magical power over poets and ordinary people.
7 The Art of Fiction
In the preface to the tales Akinari briefly expresses his views on the art of fiction. Praising Water Margin and The Tale of Genji-the most widely known works of Chinese and Japanese narrative prose-as monuments of creative imagination, he suggests that they are true to life because they embody deep feeling and evoke an intimate sense of the past. Without being explicit, he compares his own tales to these older masterpieces, inviting readers to enjoy what he has created. He points out that although his tales are somewhat fanciful in subject matter, they show a degree of unity, and he hopes that people will not be misled into thinking that his stories are literally true, so that he need not fear being punished, as Lo Kuan-chung and Lady Murasaki had supposedly been, for deceiving people.
The remarks in his preface reveal an interest in the theory of literature and the uses of fiction, one which lasted for the rest of his life. He first wrote of his views on this subject in the 1770s in an essay that does not survive. Later on, in 1793, when editing Kamo Mabuchi's work on the Ise monogatari (The Tales of Ise),30 he told how the art of fiction had flourished in China and Japan. He explained that the objectives were the same both in Chinese narrative prose and in Japanese tales and romances. Writers wishing to lament their personal unhappiness about the world they lived in showed their feelings in the form of nostalgia for times past. In his own words, ‘When an author sees the nation flourishing, he knows that it must eventually decay, like the bloom of a fragrant flower. When he considers what happens in the end to leaders of state, he privately laughs at their folly. He points out to people who might seek longevity what finally became of Urashima Tarō’s bejewelled box. He makes foolish men who struggle to collect rare trea
sures feel ashamed of themselves. He tries to avoid the desire for fame, composing his innocent tales about events of the past for which there are no sources.’31 Akinari believed that literature is a vehicle by which to express in a highly sublimated form one's discontent with society, and his views remind the Western reader of such works as Shelley's ‘Defence of Poetry,’ Wordsworth's Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, and James's Art of Fiction.
Nevertheless, no conflict arose between the demands of art for art's sake and art intended primarily as a means of communicating truth. For Akinari the two were inseparable, and he embraced both, believing that Lady Murasaki and Lo Kuan-chung had done likewise. Fiction heightened one's consciousness and carried the soul to a spiritual union with higher reality. In Buddhist terms art was ecstasy, and suggested a mind or heart wonderful and profound beyond human thought. As in Tendai and Zen philosophy, the human heart became its own creator, intuitively forming a mental vision of reality. Accordingly, art did not merely imitate nature; rather, the poet shaped it, as the sculptor did his material or the painter his forms. Artistic excellence depended on the quality of the poet's vision and the level of his spiritual development or awareness. One cut away what was gross, straightened what was crooked, and lightened what was heavy. In the act of literary expression one encompassed truth and knowledge and communicated it concisely and accurately within the limits of one's understanding. Beauty was not subordinate to truth but was an intrinsic part of it. Art was not the handmaiden of religion: the two were as if the wings of a single bird, both of which were needed to fly.
Where did such views come from? On the one hand, Akinari knew of Lady Murasaki's famous passage about the art of fiction, and on the other hand he was familiar with the remarks of the ancient Chinese historian, Ssu-ma Ch'ien. Lady Murasaki herself combined the idea of art for its own sake and art as a medium for conveying truth While stressing the practical value of literature, she wrote of how fiction might deeply move the reader and how the author himself might be stirred by ‘an emotion so passionate that he can no longer keep it shut up in his heart.’32 Behind Lady Murasaki's views on fiction lay Buddhist and Chinese philosophy, as well as earlier Japanese essays such as the kana preface to the Kokinshū.33 Just as the lotus flower grows above the turbid waters, so does purity and truth rise above evil. Fiction might deal with ‘lies’ or describe evil as well as good, but its ultimate aim is to express truth and help people in their spiritual development.
Actually, as Akinari realised, Lady Murasaki's theory of literature does not contradict Ssu-ma Ch'ien’s. According to both views art involves morality, and literature has a social function, though to be sure, in practice Lady Murasaki shows an unsurpassed aesthetic awareness. Utilitarian concerns are as important as strong emotions deeply felt. In Ssu-ma Ch'ien’s words, authors of great literary works are aggrieved men who, ‘Poured forth their anger and dissatisfaction,’ because they feel ‘a rankling in their hearts.’ Being unable to accomplish what they wished, they write about ancient matters ‘in order to pass on their thoughts to future generations.’34 The reader is immediately reminded of Lady Murasaki's understanding of literature as the outcry of the passionate heart.
In addition to being directly familiar with Ssu-ma Ch'ien and Lady Murasaki's ideas, Akinari admired a famous preface to the Water Margin, which was written by a late-Ming Chinese scholar named Li Cho-wu (1527-1602). Like Akinari, he too stressed the importance of profound feeling and asserted that good authors are always motivated by ‘anger and dissatisfaction.’ ‘To write without deep emotion,’ he said ‘was the equivalent to shivering without suffering from the cold or groaning without feeling sick.’35 In a flowery passage at the end of his preface, Li explains that a romance should be a serious work, which men must read in order to understand the true significance of life. When vexed and aggrieved, the writer turns to romance and criticises injustice by means of creating an idealised universe. One recalls Dickens's view that the creative faculty must have complete possession of the author or poet and master his whole life.
Deeply influenced by earlier Chinese and Japanese writers, Akinari embodies in almost every tale a typically Confucian moral, a Buddhist concept of fate, and a Shinto belief in the power of the impassioned heart. Virtue must be rewarded and vice punished, in the present as in ages past. If a man is greedy, lustful, or overly ambitious, he might lose what he loves most, suffer great hardship, and experience deep emotional pain. Avarice brings only sorrow and misfortune. Man must also beware of woman's spell, for she might use her charms to destroy him.
Akinari's basic ideas about the art of fiction contrast somewhat with those of Motoori. Whereas Motoori taught that the purpose of the novel, tale, or romance was, ‘Not to preach morality but to evoke a certain pattern of emotional sensibility,’36 Akinari tried to balance artistic and utilitarian ends. He believed that the suffering previous authors endured for their art was worthwhile, and he implied that his tales might stand comparison with the best work of his illustrious predecessors. Combining bold assertiveness and defensive humility, Akinari's views on fiction contribute to the moral integrity and the sense of beauty that distinguish his tales from lesser works.
8 World of the Supernatural
‘The music of Heaven. . . . Wordless, it delights the mind,’ wrote the Taoist sage, Chuang-tzu.37 On the one hand Akinari's tales deal with reality and reflect the natural world, but on the other they soar to a loftier realm, where ghosts and spirits freely appear and men encounter inscrutable forces. Out of a precarious balance between the sensory world and the realm of the unknown ‘the music of heaven’ emerges. To the travelling priest, distraught scholar, wayward husband, artist, pilgrim, or impressionable youth the shadows of the imagination may arise in music and dance. They may be heard and understood, Akinari suggests, by a simple and spontaneous man in a situation highly charged with emotion.
Before all else, the supernatural side of the tales was intended to attract the reader. The original subtitle carried the words Kinko kaidan, or ‘New and Old Tales of Wonder,’ inviting the public to enter a world charged with spectral activity and haunted by gods and spirits. Far from the reassuring notes of bells and trumpets, where Buddhist chants and ringing staves could not be heard, magical sounds fill the air. Matter and energy become fused in a miraculous union of man and shade. Whatever the mind might imagine becomes real, and man gains a sense of mystic vision and illumination, as if the soul suddenly takes light from a supreme being. Like all mystics, Saigyō and the other men in Ugetsu monogatari vividly remember their confrontation with spirits that are at once dead and alive. In each tale the climatic action takes place at night, the favourite time for ghosts and apparitions, when the past is turning into the future. The role of the supernatural underscores the belief that Japan was a country rich in gods and spirits.
Although Akinari's ghosts and other worldly creatures show an animal nature that defied control and mastery, they have neither the bleeding skulls nor luminous hands of the spirits of Gothic novels; nor are they headless apparitions clad in armour or eerie forms extending phosphorescent claws toward the victim's throat. Rather, they are at once more primitive and more modern-to curb their power one needs prayer, meditation, and purity of heart. In spite of certain gloomy or even terrifying details, they leave on one an impression not of ugliness but of beauty. Above all, Akinari believed in his spirits and wished to convince his readers that the gods still lived and that the earth was charged with their elemental force. By evoking the gods and spirits he might illumine what was dark within himself and also within the reader.
Stories of ghosts, genies, demons, miracles, and animals that influence human events have always held universal appeal. In China, despite Confucian exhortation that the spiritual world is not a proper topic for human inquiry, tales and anecdotes about supernatural beings are as old as recorded literature. Indeed, the ch'i lin, or ‘unicorn,’ a benevolent spiritual animal, is said to have appeared as an omen to the mother of Confucius
before her son's birth. According to legend, a charioteer later wounded a similar beast, foretelling the sage's death. Marvellous creatures appear freely in Taoist writings. Notices of occult beings occur in early dynastic histories. The oldest separate collection of supernatural tales was compiled around the end of the third century AD. In T'ang times the literary tale of the marvellous attained maturity, and from early times Chinese examples inspired Japanese writers.
Myth and legend in Japan expressed belief in the existence of spirits. Fairies and semi-celestial beings were thought to roam about the woods, mountains, seaside, waterfalls, and lakes, appearing in the spring haze or autumn mist. Great deities might journey in search of a loved one's soul or visit palaces under the sea in quest of a lost talisman. Various powers were attributed to the benevolent gods of heaven and earth and also to malicious spirits. Other mysterious forces were felt too vaguely to be personified. One worshipped the forces of good and used various spells to exorcise those of evil. Omens, divination, dreams, and oracles taught people how to live in a world filled with magical power. A verse in The Tales of Ise, which suggested several incidents in Akinari's tales, describes how evil spirits had an affinity for abandoned dwellings: