Spring section of volume 1 of Wakan rōeishū, immediately before the poem of Ki no Haseo.
130
Part II: Scholars
9. For Yoshika’s story in Hokekyō jurin shūyō shō, see Sonshun110–11.
10. For the text of “Genjō to iu biwa, oni ni toraruru koto,” the twenty-fourth story of
volume 24 of Konjaku monogatarishū, see SNKBZ 37: 308–11. For an English translation, see Ury, Tales of Times Now Past 146–49.
11. For the explanations of oni in English, see Li, Ambiguous Bodies, especially chapters 4 and 5; Kawashima, Writing Margins, especially chapter 5; Reider, Japanese Demon Lore, especially chapter 1.
12. The early thirteenth century is the most accepted time period for when the Hasedera
genki was produced. Yokota Takashi, however, claims the work was completed around the
middle of the thirteenth century. See Yokota, “Hasedera genki no seiritsu nendai” 7.
13. See note 8 of chapter 1 for a brief explanation of setsuwa.
14. For the text of Gōdanshō, see Ōe, “Gōdanshō” 81–82. For the text of Konjaku monogatarishū, see SNKBZ 37: 311–12.
15. For an English text, see Tyler, Japanese Tales 232–33. For the Japanese text, see SNKBZ
38: 228–30.
16. Some famous diviners such as Abe no Seimei (921?–1005), however, could not only
foretell but could also use magic. Like superior scholars, those who excelled in the way of
yin-yang or Onmyōdō were believed to be able to see or predict the behaviors of oni. For
example, the sixteenth story of volume 24 of Konjaku monogatarishū tells that Abe no Seimei saw a parade of oni and hobgoblins his teacher could not see; SNKBZ 37: 283. Onmyōji can create human-looking creatures out of paper or wood, but such artificial humans are
essentially nonhuman. They usually revert to their former substance, such as paper, after
their usefulness is over, though some nonhuman creatures may embark on their own lives
after the onmyōji discard them. Tanaka Takako surmises that those abandoned creatures are the hobgoblins that appear in hyakki yagyō (the night processions of 100 demons); Tanaka, Hyakki yagyō 141.
17. This episode appears in the twenty-fifth story of volume 25 of Konjaku monogatarishū, titled “Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki saishō to Haseo no kōron no koto” (An Argument between
Councilor Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki and Ki no Haseo); SNKBZ 37: 311–12.
18. Both yasha and rasetsu are Buddhist guardian deities. They are said to devour human flesh.
19. For the texts of the Illustrated Legends of Kitano Shrine, see Komatsu, Nakano, and Matsubara 118–37; Sakurai, Hagiwara, and Miyata.
20. Michizane’s story reveals the relationship between kami and oni proposed by Komatsu.
That is, angry spirits turn into kami through people’s worship; Komatsu, Yōkaigaku shinkō 193.
21. This is before Sugawara no Michizane was given the status of Tenjin.
22. For an English text, see Tyler, Japanese Tales 68–70. For the original Japanese text, see Nishio 198–202.
23. Translation is by Tyler unless noted otherwise. Tyler, Japanese Tales 69; Nishio 199.
24. Also known as Tsuchimikado Minister of Right (1008–77).
25. This translation is by the author, since Tyler did not provide one. For the Japanese
text, see Nishio, 201–2.
26. This date is given by Murayama, Nihon onmyōdō 323–24.
27. Jikidanmono include many tales and poetry for easy understanding of Buddhist
teachings.
28. Unlike the ivory statue transforming into a real human being because of Aphrodite’s
(divine) intervention, the oni’s woman is extinguished because of Haseo’s (human) interven-
tion.
A Tale of Lord Haseo
131
29. For the study of setsuwa and bodies, see Li, Ambiguous Bodies, especially chapter 4; Eubanks, especially chapter 3; Kawashima, Writing Margins, especially chapter 5.
30. oni are customarily portrayed with one or more horns protruding from a disheveled
scalp, with skin that varies in color, often red, and a wide mouth with large fangs.
31. Appearing first in Japan in 1997, the manga was so successful that it was made into
a television anime series, and it inspired four feature-length films. For the Japanese manga
texts, see Takahashi, Inuyasha. For the English manga texts, see Takahashi, Inuyasha.
32. The Japanese text is found in Umehara, “Haseo no koi”; an English translation is
found in Umehara, trans. McCarthy, “Haseo’s Love.”
33. This is the pseudonym of Yoneyama Mineo.
34. For the text, see Yumemakura and Amano 61–161.
Part III
Women
5
Tale of Amewakahiko ( Amewakahiko sōshi )
A Demon in the Sky, a Maiden in Search of Her Husband
in MosT culTurEs, dEMons and dragons rEsidE aT the heart of the
supernatural, where their distinct status reflects their various cultural roles.
This is also true of Japanese culture and folklore, where these creatures play
prominent roles. For present-day Japanese, oni typically reside in Buddhist
hell to punish mortal sinners or in deep mountains, but for their medieval
counterparts the oni’s role and the space oni occupied were much more flex-
ible. Perhaps a prime example is Amewakahiko sōshi (Tale of Amewakahiko,
fifteenth century), a fictional story that recounts one legendary origin of
Tanabata (Festival of the Weaver; the Star Festival), the celebration of the
annual meeting of the Weaver Maid and the Cowherd, who represent the
stars Vega and Altair, respectively. In this version of the Tanabata story, that
is, the Tale of Amewakahiko, an oni is standing in the beautiful serene sky.
This oni turns out to be the father of a kairyūō (dragon king of the ocean),
who also lives in the sky. This dragon king calls himself Amewakahiko
(sometimes Amewaka m iko)—hence the title. In search of her husband, the
heroine, Amewakahiko’s mortal wife, travels to the sky where she meets
an intimidating father-in-law, the oni. The Tale of Amewakahiko reveals a
medieval Japanese view of space boundaries (or lack thereof) of under-
ground, earth, and heaven the characters travel; it also suggests that studies
of ancient and classical Japanese literature (645–1185) by medieval Japanese
scholars influenced the choice of the characters’ names and their actions in
this tale.
The plot of Tale of Amewakahiko is similar to that of Cupid and Psyche
by Lucius Apuleius (second century CE). Some scholars in Japan recognize
Cupid and Psyche as the Tale of Amewakahiko’s source, and others read the
dragon king’s tale as indigenous to Japan. While there is no finally per-
suasive evidence that the Japanese tale was influenced by Cupid and Psyche,
DOI: 10.7330/9781607324904.c005
135
136
Part III: Women
it is worthwhile to examine the Apuleian tale’s connection to the Tale of
Amewakahiko and to share these different scholarly perspectives . This chap-
ter thus discusses the various possible origins of the tale.
PLOt summary Of the tale OF aMewakahikO
PiCture sCrOLLs
one day a huge serpent appears in front of a wealthy family’s house. The
serpent demands one of the family’s three daughters for his wife, or he
threatens to destroy the entire family. The two older daughters refuse to
marry him, but the youngest daughter consents. A huge house is built
near a p
ond as part of the wedding preparations requested by the serpent,
and there, alone, she awaits her snake husband. When the gigantic serpent
appears, he asks the girl to cut off his head. As she does so, a handsome
young gentleman appears, and they live happily in their newly built house.
After a while, the husband reveals his true identity as a dragon king of the
ocean and tells the girl that he must go to the sky to do some business. He
tells her how to find him in the sky if he does not come back. He orders her
not to open a certain Chinese-style treasure chest—if the chest is opened,
he warns her, he will not be able to return to earth. While he is away, her
two older sisters visit her and become jealous of her wealth and happiness.
They open the treasure chest, from which only smoke arises. When the girl
learns that her husband cannot return, she goes to Kyoto as instructed by
her husband before he left and buys a gourd whose vine grows to the sky
in one night.
Climbing the vine up to the sky, the girl journeys in search of her
husband, whose name, the reader has learned, is Amewaka h iko (or
Amewaka m iko). With great difficulty, she finally finds him. While they are
happy together, 0Amewakahiko expresses his concern that if his father,
an oni, becomes aware of her, there could be trouble. So whenever his
father visits him, the dragon king changes his wife into a pillow or a fan.
But the secret is finally revealed one day, and the oni-father takes her away
and imposes upon her four difficult tasks. The first task is to look after a
thousand cattle in a field day and night. Amewakahiko helps her by giving
her the sleeves of his robe, which are endowed with magical powers. As she
waves the sleeves saying “Amewakahiko’s sleeves,” the cattle come under
her power, and she succeeds in the task. The oni-father then tells her to
move a million rice grains from one granary to another. Third, he orders
her to stay in a warehouse full of gigantic centipedes and, fourth, to stay in
a storehouse full of snakes. She successfully carries out these tasks, thanks
Tale of Amewakahiko
137
to Amewakahiko’s sleeves. Finally, the oni-father gives her his permission to
live with his son—once a month. But the girl mishears the father’s words as
“once a year,” and since then, the girl and Amewakahiko, as Vega and Altair,
have seen each other only once a year.
the tale OF aMewakahikO PiCture sCrOLLs
The Tale of Amewakahiko, like many other works in this book, belongs to
the otogizōshi genre.1 The two picture scrolls of Amewakahiko sōshi date
back to the fifteenth century: the first scroll is missing or no longer extant,
although, fortunately, a reliable copy dating from the seventeenth cen-
tury exists; the Museum of Asian Art in Dahlem, one of the Berlin State
museums, has the second scroll.2 At the end of this scroll it is written that
the reigning emperor wrote the text and Tosa Hirochika (or Hirokane,
ca. 1439–92), an early painter of the Tosa school, which held the lead-
ing position at the imperial court, produced the illustrations. Scholars
generally agree that Tosa Hirochika executed the paintings. According to
Akiyama Terukazu, the “reigning emperor” could be Emperor GoKomatsu
(reigned 1382–1412), Emperor Shōkō (reigned 1412–28), or Emperor
GoHanazono (reigned 1428–64); Emperor GoHanazono is the most
likely, considering features of the calligraphy and the painter’s active years
(Akiyama 16–17).
The extant second scroll consists of seven sections of written text
and illustrations. What caught my attention is that the oni, who is often
associated with tormenting sinful mortals in hell, is standing with a serene,
beautiful sky as his background. In religious paintings, oni as attendants
of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Devas often appear in a group that follows
the divine beings. Tormenting sinful mortals in hell is one of the oni’s jobs
as attendants; they work as the wardens of hell. An oni can and does visit
human beings, kidnapping them and eating human flesh in the mountains;
but an oni standing on tranquil clouds with a lovely girl as in the Tale of
Amewakahiko, away from the presence of a commanding deity and without
an ominous background, strikes readers today as a little odd.
Certainly, there are many visual examples of an oni appearing by him-
self before a person(s). For example, a story in Tales of Times Now Past
recounts an oni disguised as a woman on a bridge so the oni can assault
a samurai (see Mabuchi, Kunisaki, and Inagaki 38: 46–52; for an English
translation, see Tyler, Japanese Tales 19–22); a red oni is the spirit of mur-
dered Abe no Nakamaro in the Illustrated Story of Minister Kibi’s Adventures
in China (see Komatsu, Kibi daijin nittō emaki 3: 28), and an oni plays
138
Part III: Women
sugoroku (traditional board game played with dice) in the Tale of Haseo (see
Komatsu and Murashige 22, 35, 39). But oni appear on earthly ground.
In Kitano tenjin emaki (Illustrated Legends of Kitano Tenjin Shrine, ca.
early thirteenth century), Sugawara no Michizane (845–903), who became
a horrendously vengeful spirit after his untimely death, is presented as
a red-skinned oni who torments wicked mortals in hell (see Komatsu,
Nakano, and Matsubara 25, 29, 31–35). As an angry spirit, he appears on
dark, not serene, clouds. So why does an oni, most often known as a war-
den of hell, a human-eater, or a mountain-dwelling being, live in the sky?
But it turns out that the father was originally Bontennō (Brahma), whose
abode is located “1,290,000 yojanas 3 above the highest heaven of the realm
of desire” ( Buddhist Cosmology 63).
OriGins Of the tale OF aMewakahikO
the Qian luwei tale and kojiki
Mitani Eiichi, a scholar of Japanese literature, found the tale’s major source,
an almost identical story to the Tale of Amewakahiko, in the annotations
to a poem in Kokinshū chū (annotated text of Kokinshū, A Collection of
Poems Ancient and Modern), written by Fujiwara Tameie (1198–1275) in
the Kamakura period (1185–1333) ( Monogatari bungakushiron 451 and 455,
published in 1965).4 The poem is about Tanabata, a festival that originated in
China5—in which the love story of the Weaver Maid and the Cowherd had
already taken shape by the late Han Dynasty (Kominami, Seiōbo to Tanabata
denshō 29–30).6 When the story was transmitted to Japan, the Weaver Maid
was known in Japanese as Tanabata or Orihime and the Cowherd as Kengyū
or Hikoboshi.
While the plot is almost identical—from the appearance of a huge ser-
pent to a washing woman and the third daughter’s marriage to the serpent,
to the jealous sisters, the youngest sister’s journey to the sky, and her reunion
with her husband, with the ending of their meeting once a year because
of her mishearing—the story in the Kokinshū chū annotation has different
names for the characters. The wealthy household’s master is called Qian
Luwei (hereafter, this story is “Qian Luwei’s Tale”), a Chinese name. The
male pr
otagonist introduces himself as Hikoboshi (Altair) who resides in
Shiōten (Heaven of the Four Guardian Kings),7 and his father is Bontennō,
Brahma. As Bontennō resides in the sky, it is natural that Hikoboshi, a star,
resides in the sky as well.
Hikoboshi tells Qian Luwei’s youngest daughter that he has descended
to the earth to marry her, and he stays there for three years. Hikoboshi is
Tale of Amewakahiko
139
not an ocean dragon king, and the oni appears nowhere. It is Bontennō
who imposes the difficult tasks when he finds out that Hikoboshi is living
with the girl, and he gives tasks to both of them equally: the task for the
girl is to weave a celestial robe, and the one for Hikoboshi is to herd 1,000
cows. She is referred to as a Weaver because she weaves the heavenly
clothing; Hikoboshi (Altair) is called the Cowherd because he herds cows.
This story is without doubt a variant of the story of the Cowherd and
the Weaver Maid. In “Qian Luwei’s Tale” the name Amewakahiko does
not appear anywhere, and the miraculous power to help the girl weave
the heavenly clothing comes from a Buddha who takes pity on her, not
from the husband’s supernatural sleeve (Mitani, Monogatari bungakushiron
454–56).
How, then, did the oni-father and Amewakahiko come to replace
Bontennō and Hikoboshi in the Tale of Amewakahiko? Izumo Asako con-
vincingly claims that the key lies in medieval Japanese studies of ancient and
classical literature (Izumo).
Naming the Character: Amewakahiko or Amewakamiko?
Names are important. In many pre-modern traditions, naming a person,
object, or supernatural being correctly has far-reaching consequences and
implies more than simply being able to address someone or refer to some-
thing correctly; the very act of saying the name correctly provides total
control over or summons a being whose name is usually withheld. Good
examples of this can be found in the European folktale “Rumpelstiltskin”
and the Japanese Daiku to Oniroku (Carpenter and oniroku). In Carpenter
and Oniroku, a carpenter has to build a bridge over a fast-moving river and
is worried as to how to go about constructing it. A demon appears from
Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan Page 21
