Japan monster history essay

Konjaku monogatari sh -

39. ABOUT TWO MEN IN IZUMO PROVINCE, R CITERS OF THE WREATH AND LOTUS SUT 1\S

E NOW PAST, in Izumo Province, there wer two holy men. On recited the Wreath Sutra and was ca ed Hogon, "Dharma reath." The other recited the Lotus tra, and his name was R nzo, "Lotus Storehouse." The pa· had formerly been monks o e Daianji, but each, through so e circumstance, had left his tern le and had come to this pr ince to live. Both were pure in body nd upright in mind.

Now Hogon had een reciting the W eath Sutra for twenty years, but all the whil e was obliged t orry continually about obtaining his daily foo . A Dharm protecting deity assumed human form, came to hi and sai , "I shall be your patron and make you a daily offering. ubl ourself about food no longer. Devote yourself single-mind 1 to the sacred teachings." The holy man was overjoyed. Rec · ing his daily offering, he ceased his complaining. After some ays e said to the deity, "Tomorrow morning please bring a me 1 fort o. I should like to invite the Lotus Sutra chanter to eat ith me." he deity assented. The next morning, Hogon invite enzo, and R nzo hurried to him. They waited for the food, b t nothing at all ppeared. The time that scripture appoints f eating passed, an at sundown Renzo re- turned home.

It was then th the deity brought the foo . He said to Hogon, "I tried to com this morning as you told m to yesterday; but when I arrive rahma, Indra, the Four Deva Ki gs, and the Holy Throng of B hisattvas who guard the Lotus Su tr were crowding about the L tus Sutra chanter from every quarter. I ould scarcely get near et alone make my way through! I've o en waiting with my ffering since morning. When the Lotus Sutr holy man went a ay, the deities went with him. I came the ment I could 'Hearing this, Hogon knew that he had witnesse a mar- vel d was filled with awe. He himself prepared an offer g of foo , took it to Renzo, and presented it with reverent salutat ns.

hereafter Hogon 1 realizing the supreme excellence of e tus Sutra, added it to his recitations and acknowledged himse

enzo's disciple. So the tale's been told 1 and so it's been handed down.

3. HOW A MONK OF THE DOJOJI IN THE PROVINCE OF KII COPIED THE LOTUS SUTRA

AND BROUGHT SALVATION TO SERPENTS

AT A TIME NOW PAST, there were two monks on pilgrimage to Kumano. One was well along in years; the other was young and extraordinarily good-looking. When they came to Muro District, the two of them rented lodgings and settled down for the night. The owner of the house was a widow and young, with two or three maids her only companions. When this woman saw the handsome young monk who had taken lodgings with her, her lustful desires were deeply aroused. She tended assiduously to his comfort. Night fell, and the monks went to bed. At midnight she secretly crept to where the young monk was sleeping, covered him with her dress, and lay down beside him. She nudged him awake; he opened his eyes in fright and confusion. "I never give lodging to travelers," said the woman, "but I let you stay here tonight because from the time I first saw you, this afternoon, I have longed to make you my spouse. I thought that by taking you in for the night I would achieve my aim, and now I have come to you. My husband is dead and I am a widow. Take pity on me!" Hearing her, the monk got up, terrified. He replied, "I have a long-standing vow; in accordance with it, in recent days I have purified myself in mind and body and set out on the distant journey to present myself before the deity of Kumano. 1 Should I carelessly break my vow here, the consequences would be dread- ful for both of us. Abandon all such thoughts at once." He refused with all the strength at his command. The woman was greatly vexed, and all night long she kept embracing him and teasing and fondling him. The monk tried this argument and that argument to soothe her. "It is not that I refuse, my lady.'But just now I'm on a pilgrimage to Kumano. I'll spend a few days there offering lamps and paper strips. Then, when I've turned homeward, I will do as you ask," he promised. The woman believed him and went back to her own bed. At daybreak the monks left the house and set out for Kumano.

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The woman reckoned up the day of his promised return. She could think of nothing but her love for the monk and made all sorts of preparations in anticipation. But turning homeward, he stayed away for fear of her; he took a road she did not expect him to take and thus slipped past. She waited until she was weary, but he did not come; and she went to the side of the road and ques- tioned passing travelers. Among them was a monk who had set out from Kumano. "There was a young monk and an old one, dressed in robes of such-and-such a color" -and she described them. "Have they started homeward?" "It is three days now since those two went home," said the monk. Hearing this, she struck her hands together. "He's taken another road and fled!" she thought. In great rage she returned to her house and shut herself into her bedroom. She stayed there a little while without making a sound; and then she died. Her maidservants, who witnessed this, were weeping and wailing, when a poisonous snake forty feet long suddenly issued from her bedroom. It went out of the house and toward the road; then it slithered rapidly down the road by which pilgrims return from Kumano. People saw it and were filled with terror.

The two monks had had a head start, but someone came up to them unasked and said, "Behind you a strange thing is happen- ing. A serpent has appeared that is forty feet long. It crosses mountains and fields and is coming rapidly closer." At this the two monks thought, "Undoubtedly, because the promise to her was broken, the mistress of that house let evil passions arise within her heart and became a poisonous snake and pursues us." Taking to their heels, they ran as fast as they could to a temple called Dojoji and went in through the gate. "Why have you run here?" asked the monks of the temple. The two told them the story in detail and begged to be saved. The monks of the temple took counsel together; then they lowered a bell, concealed the young monk inside it, and shut the gate. The old monk hid himself in company with the monks of the temple.

After a little while, the serpent came to the temple. The gates were shut - no matter 1 she crossed over them and entered the compound. She went all around the halls once, twice; and when she came to the door of the bell-hall where the monk was shelter- ing, she rapped on it a hundred times with her tail. In the end, she smashed the leaves of the door and entered. She encircled the bell

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and beat upon the dragon head at its top with her tail; this lasted five or six hours. For all their fear, the monks were so amazed that they opened the doors on all four sides and gathered to watch. Tears of blood flowed from her eyes; raising her head, she licked her lips and slithered rapidly away whence she had come. Before the eyes of the monks, the great bell of the temple blazed and was burned in the poisonous hot breath of the serpent. It was too hot to come near. But they threw water on it to cool it, and when they lifted it away to look at the monk, they saw that fire had con- sumed him utterly. Not even his skeleton remained. All that there was, was a little ash. Upon seeing this, the old monk re- turned home amidst his tears.

Later, an aged monk, who was a senior monk of the temple, had a dream in which a serpent even larger than the one before came straight to him and addressed him face to face, "Do you know who I am~ I am the monk who was hidden inside the bell. The evil woman became a poisonous snake; in the end, I was made her captive and became her husband. I have been reborn in this vile, filthy body and suffer measureless torment. I now hope to free myself of this pain, but my own powers are insufficient-and even though I honored the Lotus Sutra while I was alive. I thought that if only you, holy sir, would bestow on us the vast- ness of your mercy, I might escape this pain. I beseech you, on our account let limitless compassion arise within your heart; in pu- rity copy the chapter of the Lotus Sutra called 'The Limitless Life of the Tathagata.' Dedicate its merit to us two serpents and free us thereby from our torments. Except by the power of the Lotus Sutra, how are we to escape them?" Thus he spoke, and departed. The monk awoke from his dream.

When the monk pondered this afterwards, his piety was at once aroused. He himself copied out the chapter; and discarding his robe and bowl,2 he invited a great many monks to celebrate a full day's Dharma assembly and dedicated its merit that the two serpents might be freed of their torments. Later, he dreamed that a monk and a woman, their happy faces wreathed in smiles, came to the Dojoji and saluted him reverently. "Because you have cultivated the roots of enlightenment, we two were instantly rid of our snakes' bodies and set on the path of felicitous rebirth. The woman was reborn in the Trayastrirhsa heaven, and the monk has ascended to the Tu$ita heaven." Having spoken, they departed

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separately, ascending into the sky. The monk awoke from his dream.

The aged monk rejoiced deeply, and he revered all the more the miraculous power of the Lotus Sutra. In truth, the Sutra's wonder-working powers are uncanny. That the serpents cast off their serpents' bodies and were reborn afresh in the heavens is due solely to the Lotus Sutra. Everyone who witnessed this affair or heard of it was moved to belief in the Lotus Sutra and copied and chanted it. Rare, too, was the heart of the aged monk. To have done such a compassionate deed, he must in a previous life have been their wise and good friend. Now think, that evil woman's passion for the young monk must also have come from a bond formed in a previous life.

You see, therefore, the strength of the evil in the female heart. It is for this reason that the Buddha strictly forbids approaching women. Know this, and avoid them. So the tale's been told, and so it's been handed down.

Nqtes to Story 3

I. Deity of Kumano, literally, "provisional manifestation of Kumano." The deity in question is a Shinto deity, and "provisional manifesta- tion" (gongen) refers to the idea, widespread in the middle ages, that the Shinto kami are manifestations of the Buddhas. Pilgrimages to Kumano, in the Kii peninsula (modern Wakayama prefecture), had been popular among all classes of society since the early tenth century. To have sexual relations with the woman would be not only a violation of the monk's Buddhist vows but a defilement, and thus highly offen- sive, in the eyes of the Shinto deity. The paper strips (mitegura, long strips of paper attached to either side of a pole) and lamps, in the passage below, are characteristic offerings at Shinto shrines.

2. In other words, at the cost of his last earthly possessions.

5. ABOUT A MAN WHO COPIED THE LOTUS SUTRA TOSAVETHESOULOFAFOX

AT A TIME NOW PAST, there was a fine-looking young man. Who he was, I do not know, but he must have been some nobleman's

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attendant. On his way back from somewhere or o er, he was · ng past the place where Shujaku Road runs in Second Ave-

nue As he crossed in front of Shujaku gate 1 he aw standing in the~ enue a woman of seventeen or eighteen, flawlessly beauti- ful, we ring layer upon layer of fine robes. It/was impossible to pass her y, and he went up to her and took er hand.

He dre her aside to a secluded spot with'n the gate, and there they sat, th two of them, chatting idly an intimately. He said to her, "That e should meet in this w must have been pre- destined. I wa t you to love me as I ve you. Dearest, do as I desire. I ask bee use I love you so."

"I should like t do as you ask," s d the woman. "I should like to yield to your des es; but if I do, ithout a doubt I shall lose my life.' 1

The man did not un erstand hat she was trying to say. "She's just making excuses," e tho ght and tried forcibly to embrace her. The woman wept p e usly and said, "You're a respectable man, with a position; I s ose you've a house and a wife and children. For you this is oth g but a fleeting affair, while I will have to die in your ste -and 11 for a few moments' pleasure." In such terms she pro ested, but '{l the end she yielded.

The sun set, ands on it was nig\t. He rented a small house in the neighborhood nd took her the._re. They lay together, and afterwards thew le night through tfi~y exchanged eternal vows of love. At day reak, as she was about to go, the woman said, "Without a d ubt I shall lose my life in your stead. Therefore

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copy the Lot s Sutra and dedicate it to me, t:~ ease me in the life to come." Th man said, "Men and women inake love every day. Why sho d you die of it? If you do die, of \ourse I'll copy the Lotus Su a for you." \

The oman said, "Dearest, if you want to see\~hether I speak the tr h, tomorrow morning go look by the Buto'kuden. 2 And as a sig " She took the fan he had been carrying a~ parted from him n tears. The man went home; he believed non'~f it.

e next day he began to wonder if there might n t be some tr th in her words and decided to take a look. He we "t to the

tokuden, and as he walked around it a white-haired old~oman arne out, tears streaming down her face. "Who are you~~' he ked, "and why are you weeping so?" The crone replied, "Sir, I

am the mother of the person whom you saw last night at the