The Demon at Agi Bridge and Other Japanese Tales (Translations from the Asian Classics) Read online

  The man was about to strike him with the rod, but the thunder said, “Please don’t harm me! I will repay you for your kindness!”

  “How will you repay me?” the man asked.

  “I will repay you by seeing that a son is born to you,” the thunder replied. “So you must make me a boat of camphor wood, fill it with water, and float bamboo leaves in it.”

  When the man had done as the thunder had asked, the thunder said, “Don’t come any closer!” and withdrew to a great distance, rising to the sky in a cloud of mist. Later, a child was born who had a snake twined twice around his neck, born with the head and tail of the snake hanging down behind.

  When the boy had grown to be ten years and more, reports spread of a man at the imperial court who was very strong. Thinking that he would like to try to challenge him, the boy made his way to the emperor’s palace. At this time, there was a prince of the royal family who excelled in strength and was living in separate quarters by the northeastern corner of the imperial palace. At the northeastern corner of his quarters was a stone that measured eight feet around. The strong-man prince came out of his quarters, picked up the stone, and threw it some distance. Then he returned to his quarters, shut the gate, and did not admit anyone.

  The boy, observing this, thought to himself, “This must be the strong man I’ve heard about!” That night, when no one was looking, he picked up the stone and threw it one foot farther than the prince had done. The prince, seeing this, rubbed his hands together, picked up the stone, and threw it, but he was unable to throw it any farther than before. The boy then threw the stone two feet farther than the prince’s throw. The prince, seeing this and hoping for greater success, threw it again, but did no better than before. When the boy picked up the stone and threw it again, his heels dug three inches into the ground and the stone went three feet farther. The prince, seeing the marks where the boy had stood, thought, “This must be where the boy is!” and ran after him, but the boy ducked through the hedge and fled. The prince leaped over the hedge in pursuit, but the boy turned and fled back to the other side of the hedge. The prince was never able to catch him, and realizing that the boy surpassed him in strength, he gave up the chase.

  Later the boy became an apprentice at Gangō-ji temple.2 At this time, the boys who rang the bell in the bell tower were being killed night after night. The boy, learning of this, said to the monks, “I will catch the ogre, kill him, and put a stop to this plague of death!”

  When the monks agreed to this, he had four men stationed with lamps at the four corners of the bell tower and told them, “When I seize the ogre, remove the shades from your lamps!” Then he took his stand by the door of the bell tower.

  In the middle of the night, a huge ogre appeared but, spying the boy, withdrew. Later in the night, it came again. The boy seized hold of the ogre’s hair and began to pull; the ogre pulled to get away, but the boy pulled toward the inside of the bell tower. The four men who had been stationed in the tower were so terrified that they could not lift the shades from the lamps. The boy then pulled the ogre to each of the four corners of the tower and thus was able to uncover the lamps. When dawn came, it was found that the boy had pulled the ogre’s hair out by the roots and the ogre had fled. The next day, they followed the trail of the ogre’s blood to see where it would lead. It led to a crossroads where a wicked servant of the temple had been buried. Thus they knew that the ogre was the ghost of the wicked servant.3 The hair from the ogre’s head is preserved to this day in Gangō-ji and is looked on as a treasure of the temple.

  The boy later became an upāsaka, or lay believer, and continued to live at Gangō-ji. The temple was preparing its rice fields and getting ready to flood them with water. But some princes of the royal family cut off the water supply to the fields, so they became parched. The upāsaka said, “I’ll see that the water gets into these fields,” and the monks agreed to leave things to him.

  The upāsaka then had a plow handle made so large that it required more then ten men to carry it. Then he picked it up like a staff, carried it to the sluice gate, and stuck it there. But the princes pulled out the plow handle and threw it away, so the sluice gate was once more blocked and no water flowed into the temple fields. The upāsaka then brought a stone so big that it would take more than a hundred men to carry it and propped the sluice gate open, allowing the water to flow into the temple fields. The princes, awed by his strength, no longer attempted to stop him, and as a result the temple fields did not dry up but produced an excellent crop.

  Because of this, the monks agreed to let the upāsaka become an ordained monk with the name Dharma Master Dōjō. When people of later times tell of Dharma Master Dōjō of Gangō-ji and his many feats of strength, this is who they mean, and it is right that they should speak so. No doubt he had performed many good and powerful acts of karma in his previous lives and thus was able to acquire this kind of strength. This was a wonderful event that occurred in the land of Japan.

  On the Evil Death Visited Immediately on an Evil and Perverse Son Who, Out of Love for His Wife, Plotted to Kill His Mother (2:3)

  Kishi no Homaro was from the village of Kamo in the district of Tama in Musashi Province. Homaro’s mother was Kusakabe no Matoji. Homaro was appointed by Ōtomo (exact name unknown) to serve for three years as a frontier guard in Tsukushi.4 His mother accompanied him to see to his needs, while his wife remained in Musashi to look after the house.

  At that time, Homaro, separated from his wife, was filled with unbearable longing for her and hit on a perverse scheme, thinking, “If I murder my mother, I will be obliged to tend to her funeral and will be excused from duty and can go home. Then I can be with my wife!”

  His mother by nature thought only of doing good deeds, and so the son said to her, “In the hills east of here there is to be a meeting devoted to seven days of lectures on the Lotus Sutra. Why don’t you go listen to them?” Deceived by these words, the mother set her mind on listening to the sutra. Having bathed in hot water and purified herself, she set off for the mountains in company with her son.

  The son, glaring at his mother with ox-like eyes, said to her, “Kneel down on the ground!” Gazing at her son’s face, the mother said, “Why do you speak to me like that? Has some demon taken possession of you?” But the son unsheathed a long sword and prepared to cut off his mother’s head.

  Kneeling before her son, the mother said, “We plant trees in hopes of gathering the fruit and resting in the shade they give. And we raise children in hopes of gaining their help and in time being taken care of by them. But now the tree I have counted on lets the rain leak through! Why has my child turned from his usual thoughts and now wants to do me harm?”

  The son, however, paid no heed to her. Then the mother, giving up all hope, took off the clothes she was wearing and put them in three piles. Kneeling before her son, she made this dying request: “Wrap these up as a memento of me. One pile of clothes goes to you, my eldest son. One pile please give to my second son, and one pile to my youngest son.”

  But when the perverse son stepped forward, preparing to cut off his mother’s head, the ground opened and he fell into it. The mother leaped up, ran forward, and seized hold of her son’s hair as he fell. Looking up at the heavens, she cried out this plea: “My son is a victim of possession. He does not really mean to do this! Please pardon his offense!” But though she clung to his hair, struggling to save him, in the end he sank into the ground.

  The loving mother returned home with the son’s hair. Holding a Buddhist service in his memory, she put the hair in a box and placed it before an image of the Buddha, reverently requesting monks to recite scriptures before it.

  Because the mother felt profound compassion, she was moved to take pity on her evil and perverse son and to do good on his behalf. Truly one should understand that sins of unfilial conduct meet with immediate requital and that evil and perverse offenses never go unpunished.

  On Ransoming Some Crabs and a Frog and Setting Them F
ree, She Was Immediately Rewarded by Being Saved by the Crabs (2:12)

  In Yamashiro Province, in a community in the district of Kii, there was a young woman whose family and personal name are unknown. Tender-hearted by nature, she believed firmly in the law of karma, observed the five precepts and the ten good deeds, and never deprived any living thing of life.5 In the reign of Emperor Shōmu [r. 724–749], some of the cowherds in the village where she lived caught eight crabs in a mountain stream and were about to roast and eat them. The young woman, seeing this, pleaded with the herd boys, saying, “Please be so kind as to give me the crabs!” But the boys refused to heed her, replying, “We’re going to roast them and eat them!” Earnestly she begged and entreated, taking off her cloak and offering it in payment, and finally the boys handed over the crabs to her. She then requested the Meditation Master Gi to perform prayers asking for merit and set the crabs free.

  Sometime later, the young woman went into the mountains and came upon a huge snake about to swallow a large frog. She said to the snake imploringly, “If you will only give me that frog, I will present you with numerous offerings of woven goods!” When the snake ignored her and refused to listen, she promised to gather even more woven goods and pray to the snake, saying, “I will worship you like a god if you will heed my pleas and release the frog!” The snake paid no attention, however, and went on swallowing the frog. Then she said to the snake, “If you will give me the frog, I will agree to be your wife, so please let it go!” With this, the snake at last took notice of her, lifting up its head, stretching out its neck, and peering into the young woman’s face. Then it spat out the frog and let it go. The woman thereupon arranged an assignation with the snake, saying, “Come to me when seven days have passed.”

  Later, she told her father and mother all about the incident with the snake. They were distraught and said, “You are our only child! How could you have been so insane as to make impossible promises like that?”

  At this time, the Eminent Monk Gyōki6 was in residence at Jinchō-ji temple in the district of Kii, and so the woman went and reported to him what had happened. When he had listened to her, he said, “Ah, what an astounding story! The only thing to do is to have faith in the Three Treasures.”

  Having received his instructions, she returned home, and when the night for the assignation arrived, she shut the house up tight and prepared to defend herself, making various religious vows and placing her trust in the Three Treasures. The snake circled the house, slithering this way and that on its belly and pounding against the wall with its tail. Then it climbed onto the roof, chewed a hole through the thatch, and dropped down in front of the young woman. But before it could approach her, there was a sudden outburst of noise, with sounds of scrambling, biting, and chewing. The next morning when the young woman looked to see what had happened, she found eight large crabs gathered there, and a snake that had been hacked and slashed into pieces.

  If even such lowly and unenlightened creatures know how to repay a debt of gratitude when they have incurred it, how can it be right for human beings to forget the debts they owe? From this time on in Yamashiro Province, great honor was paid to the large crabs that live in the mountain streams, and it was considered an act of goodness to set them free.

  On Receiving the Immediate Penalty of an Evil Death for Collecting Debts in an Unreasonable Manner and with High Interest (3:26)

  Tanaka no mahito Hiromushime was the wife of Oya no agatanushi Miyate of Outer Junior Sixth Rank, Upper Grade, the chief of the district of Miki in Sanuki Province. She gave birth to eight children. She was very rich, possessing many valuables, horses and cattle, male and female slaves, stores of rice and cash, and paddies and dry fields. But by nature she had no sense of rightness; mean and greedy, she never gave anything away. In the case of rice wine, she added lots of water so she could make a greater profit selling it. Days when she was lending, she used a little measuring cup, but a big cup on days when she was collecting debts. She used a small scale in dispensing goods but a large one in exacting repayment. She was utterly unreasonable in matters of interest, sometimes charging ten times the original loan, sometimes a hundred times. She turned a deaf ear to debtors and showed no pity in her heart. As a result, many people, overcome by worries, abandoned their homes and fled to other provinces. No one could match the meanness of her ways.

  In the seventh year of the Hōki era [776], the first day of the Sixth Month, Hiromushime, stricken with illness, took to her bed. A number of days passed, and then, on the twentieth day of the Seventh Month, she called her husband and her eight sons to her side and told them what had been revealed to her in dreams.

  “I was summoned to the palace of King Yama and shown these dreams. The first represented the crime of making use of many things belonging to the Three Treasures of Buddhism and offering nothing in return. The second represented the crime of adding a lot of water to the wine in order to make a greater profit. The third represented the practice of using two sets of measuring cups and scales, handing out seven-tenths the proper amount when lending but demanding twelve-tenths when receiving repayment. ‘You have been summoned here because of these three crimes,’ said the king. ‘You will receive immediate punishment, as I will now show you!’” Having described what the dreams had told her, she died the very same day.

  The family delayed her cremation for seven days, meanwhile inviting meditation masters and lay Buddhist believers, thirty-two persons in all, to come together and, for the next nine days, to pray for her good fortune.

  On the evening of the seventh day, she came back to life, the lid of her coffin opening of its own accord. Peering into the coffin, the observers were confronted by an unbearable stench. From the waist up, she had already turned into an ox, with horns four inches long growing out of her forehead. Her arms had become the forefeet of an ox; the nails on her hands had split and turned into an ox’s hooves. From the waist down, she remained in human form. She had no use for rice but fed on grass, and after she had eaten she chewed her cud. She was naked and without clothes and lay in her filth.

  People came running from east and west, gathering around in endless numbers to gaze in wonder at her. Her husband, the chief of the district, and his children, filled with shame and pity, flung themselves to the ground, uttering countless pleas for mercy. To atone for her offenses, they presented various valuable articles from their home as offerings to Miki-ji temple. They also presented seventy cattle, thirty horses, twenty acres of cultivated fields, and four thousand bundles of rice to Tōdai-ji temple, and canceled all debts owed to her. The provincial and district officials were preparing to send a report on her to the authorities when, after five days, she finally died. From all the people of the province and district who had seen her or heard of her came sighs of pity and mourning.

  She was blind to the law of cause and effect, unreasonable and lacking in rightness. So we know for certain that unreasonable action invites immediate punishment and lack of rightness calls forth evil results. That she received immediate punishment is only to be expected, to say nothing of penalties to be suffered in her next existence.

  As the sutra says, “Those who fail to repay debts that they owe will atone for this by becoming a horse or an ox.”7 The borrower is like a slave; the lender of the goods is like a lord. The borrower is like a pheasant; the lender is like a falcon. But although one may borrow goods, if the lender is excessive in the return he demands, it is he rather than the debtor who will become a horse or an ox and end up serving the borrower. So one should never demand excessive returns.

  1.The metal rod presumably is some kind of farm implement.

  2.Located at this time in Asuka, Gangō-ji later moved to Nara and became one of the seven great temples of Nara.

  3.Persons who had died unfortunate deaths were buried in a roadway, so the feet of people traveling the road could prevent the spirits of the deceased from moving around and causing harm.

  4.In Kyūshū, Tsukushi was where forces were
stationed to guard against possible attacks from China or Korea.

  5.The law of karma states that those who create good karma—that is, perform good acts of body, mouth, and mind—will in future existences enjoy favorable circumstances. Conversely, those who do evil will fare badly in future existences. The five precepts for lay believers are prohibitions against killing, stealing, engaging in sexual misconduct, lying, and drinking alcoholic beverages. The ten good deeds are the observance of these five precepts plus that of the precepts against slandering believers, praising oneself and disparaging others, succumbing to greed, expressing anger, and speaking ill of Buddhism.

  6.Gyōki (668–749) was a Buddhist priest who was renowned for founding temples, preaching, and devoting himself to bettering the lot of the people.

  7.This appears to be a condensation of a passage from the Treatise on the Establishment of Truth (Ch. Chengshilun, Jp. Jōjitsuron, 412), a Chinese translation of an Indian work (Satyasiddhi śāstra) on Buddhist doctrine.

  TALES OF TIMES NOW PAST

  KONJAKU MONOGATARI SHŪ

  Tales of Times Now Past (Konjaku monogatari shū, ca. 1120), a monolithic collection of 1039 setsuwa, was compiled in the late Heian period (794–1185). Of the thirty-one books, three (8, 18, and 21) are missing. The collection is divided into three parts: the first five books are on India (Tenjiku); the next five books, on China (Shintan); and the remaining twenty-one books, on Japan (Honchō).