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52. Saich (767–822), the great monk who brought Tendai Buddhism to Japan from China and founded Mount Hiei.
53. All these, like the Konpira just mentioned, are protectors of the Buddhist faith.
54. Near the Central Hall on Mount Hiei, it enshrined the bodhisattva Monju (Sanskrit: Manjushrī).
55. A key principle of Tendai Buddhism: simultaneous grasp of emptiness, transience, and the nonduality of the two.
56. A vaguely conceived ancient kingdom, possibly in the northwest of India. The apparently Chinese names below (“Rinchi road,” etc.) are given in Japanese form because the proper characters for them—if any—are unknown.
57. An esoteric mandala that depicts the Nine Luminaries (sun, moon, and seven other major celestial bodies) as deities.
58. On the basis of limited historical evidence, it is plausible to imagine the “real” figure in this case, as in all others below in the tale, as very roughly 10 percent of the one cited.
59. The mirror held up to the soul newly arrived before Enma, the king of the underworld and judge of the dead.
60. Jiz visits sinners in hell, to offer them hope and relief.
61. The scholar and statesman Sugawara no Michizane (845–903) died in unjust exile at Dazaifu, in Kyushu. When his angry spirit began causing vengeful havoc in the capital, the court appeased him by declaring him a deity under the name Tenjin and enshrining him in the city (Kitano Tenmangū). As Tenman Tenjin he was enshrined also in Dazaifu. The tale alludes to him repeatedly.
62. The brilliant Minamoto no Takaakira (914–82), another victim of unjust exile to Kyushu, has been cited for centuries as a possible model for the hero of The Tale of Genji.
63. These somewhat complicated developments are discussed in the introduction under “;‘Hgen and Heiji’: History and Angry Spirits.”
64. The five precepts prohibit killing, stealing, licentiousness, lying, and drinking alcohol. Shigemori names the five virtues in his speech, below.
65. Prince Shtoku (574–622) exerted a seminal influence on Japanese culture, both politically and religiously. His Seventeen-Article Constitution (604) defines the principles of good government.
66. Lines from the Chinese History of the Later Han Dynasty.
67. The island of Kojima, mentioned several times in the tale and especially prominent in 10:14, no longer exists, because the sea between it and the mainland has been filled in. It is now the Kojima Peninsula in present Okayama Prefecture.
68. Probably Ishima, about thirty-five miles south of Kagoshima.
69. From an often-quoted poem found in Kokinshū and in Ise monogatari (episode 119): “These keepsakes of his / now are enemies of mine: / if they were elsewhere, / I might have at least some hope / one day of forgetting him.” Translation from Mostow and Tyler, The Ise Stories, pp. 239–40.
70. Tennji, built circa 623 by Prince Shtoku, is in Osaka. Destroyed during World War II, then rebuilt, it preserves an important tradition of early music and dance (bugaku). Tennji musicians figure in 12:8, in connection with the execution of Yukiie.
71. The highest initiation in esoteric Buddhism.
72. Twelve monks dedicated to chanting the sutras day and night in the Sanmai-d, a hall in the West Pagoda area of Mount Hiei.
73. Emptiness, transience, and the nonduality of the two.
74. India, China, Japan.
75. Tengu are supernatural mischief makers and shape changers who haunt deserted areas, especially around Buddhist temples.
76. “Yakushi” is translated elsewhere as “Medicine King.” He is the buddha of healing.
77. The Sann Deity’s main festival took place in the fourth month.
78. A rice-straw rope that demarcates a shrine or a plot of ground as sacred space.
79. A major Tendai temple in the province of Shinano, now Nagano-ken.
80. In Japanese, Enbudai, the southern continent of the Buddhist world that surrounds Mount Sumeru and the one inhabited by humans. The Dragon Palace is the undersea palace of the sea god. Maudgalyāyana (Japanese: Mokuren Sonja) was a major disciple of the Buddha Shakyamuni.
81. “Hiryū” means “flying dragon,” while “Gongen” (“provisional manifestation”) is a sacred title. Hiryū Gongen (also, below, Hiryū Daisatta [Sanskrit: mahāsattva, “great being”]) is associated with waterfalls. By staring for a time at the high, narrow waterfall, any visitor to Nachi can witness the optical illusion of a vigorous rising movement—one easily taken for a visible manifestation of Hiryū Gongen.
82. The protector deity of Kumano. At Dan-no-ura (11:7), Tanz’s ship flies the banner of Kong Dji.
83. A river on the route between the capital and Kumano. Koremori crosses it in 10:11.
84. The main gate (now gone) to Kumano Hongū, the senior Kumano shrine.
85. The divinity of the first sanctuary of Kumano Hongū and a manifestation of Amida.
86. The jruri (lapis lazuli blue) paradise of the Medicine King (I, Yakushi) lies in the east. Fudaraku, in the south, is the paradise of Kannon. The “sahā world” is the profane world ruled by desire. The Kumano deity Nyakuji manifests buddha countenances on his head because his Buddhist counterpart is Eleven-Headed Kannon.
87. Japanese: sotoba. In principle a monument of any size enshrining a relic of the Buddha. These sotoba, as the illustration shows, are simply flat strips of wood inscribed with sacred letters (Siddham is an ancient Indian script) and the messages mentioned.
88. Brahma (Japanese: Bonten) and Indra (Japanese: Taishakuten), Indian gods absorbed into the Buddhist pantheon, appear frequently in medieval Japanese writing. Each has his own heaven, Indra’s being the Tushita (Japanese: Tosotsu) Heaven at the summit of Mount Sumeru. From the slopes of Mount Sumeru, the Four Heavenly Kings (Jikoku-ten, Zch-ten, Kmoku-ten, Tamon-ten) protect the four directions.
89. The basic expression of the principle that the eternal, universal buddhas manifest themselves in the sensible, local forms of the Japanese divinities.
90. This daughter of Sagara, known as Tagori-hime, is one of the Eight Dragon Kings of Buddhist mythology and one of the three female deities (or triple female deity) of the Itsukushima Shrine. Her buddha counterpart is the Dainichi (Sanskrit: Mahāvairochana) of the Womb (Taizkai) Mandala—with the Diamond (Kongkai) Mandala, one of the two fundamental mandalas of esoteric Buddhism.
91. Two widely known poems by two major Man’yshū (eighth-century) poets. The Sumiyoshi and Miwa deities, below, expressed themselves in poems included in early, imperially commissioned anthologies.
92. This poem by Susano-o (-no-mikoto is an honorific title), the brother of the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, is translated in 11:12.
BOOK THREE
1. The Pardon
(recitative)
On the first day of Jish 2, at the cloistered emperor’s residence, [1178]
the new year received its formal welcome, and on the fourth
the emperor made his prescribed progress to visit his father.
All this went forward in much the same manner as usual,
but His Cloistered Eminence was still indignant over the death, that summer,
of Narichika and everyone in his close circle.
The duties of government weighed upon him, and his mood was black.
For his part, Lord Kiyomori had suspected the cloistered emperor
the moment the chamberlain Yukitsuna informed him of the plot.
Outwardly the same, he remained on alert within, and bitterness showed in his smile.
On the seventh of the first month, a comet appeared in the east,
the kind called “Chi You Banner,” or “Red Essence.” It brightened on the eighteenth.
Meanwhile Lord Kiyomori’s daughter Kenreimon-in, then still empress,
felt unwell, to the distress of every courtier and of the realm at large.
Sutra reading began in the great temples, and imperial envoys
set off with offerings to the great shrines.
Physicians tr
ied every remedy, yin-yang masters all their skill.
No major or secret temple rite went unperformed.
(speech)
But Kenreimon-in’s was no ordinary indisposition. Apparently she was pregnant. The emperor was in his eighteenth year. She, in her twenty-second, had not yet given him a child. Now the exulting Heike imagined how wonderful it would be if she had a boy.
“The Heike have really struck it rich this time,” people of other families kept saying among themselves. “It will be a prince, I know it will.”
Once pregnancy was confirmed, great healers and holy monks were set to performing the most powerful and secret rituals, while impassioned prayers for the birth of a prince went up to the stars, the constellations, the buddhas, and the bodhisattvas.
On the first day of the sixth month, the empress donned the pregnancy band.
Cloistered Prince Shukaku, the abbot of Ninnaji, came to the palace,
where he performed the Peacock Sutra Rite and prayed for divine protection.
Cloistered Prince Kakukai, the abbot of Mount Hiei, came as well.
He performed the rite to change a girl in the womb into a boy.
(song)
Meanwhile month followed upon month,
and the empress’s indisposition grew.
Just so, surely, Lady Li of Han,
whose smile flashed a hundred charms,
suffered, ill in the Zhaoyang Palace.
Her Majesty’s plight inspired pity
beyond that given Yang Guifei of Tang,
who, dissolved in tears, called to mind
rain-drenched pear blossoms on the bough,
lotus flowers wilting in the wind,
maiden flowers weighed down by dew.
Alert to her weakness, stubborn spirits
seized upon this chance to invade her.
Once Fud’s rope had bound the medium,
these spirits then revealed themselves.93
Chief among them were the powers who declared their names:
the soul of that emperor banished to Sanuki,94
the undying wrath of the Haughty Left Minister from Uji,
the wraith of Grand Counselor Narichika,
the baleful phantom of the monk Saik,
the living spirits of the men banished to Kikai-ga-shima.
So Lord Kiyomori acted to mollify the living and the dead.
The banished sovereign swiftly received a laudatory posthumous title.
The Haughty Left Minister rose to chancellor at the first rank, top grade.
The imperial envoy to him was, they say, the clerk Koremoto.
The grave of the Haughty Left Minister
lay in the province of Yamato,
by the Hannya-no burning ground
in the village of Kawakami,
in Snokami county.
That autumn in the Hgen years,
they had exhumed his remains
and scattered them by the roadside,
where they mingled with the soil,
amid the new growth each spring.
When the envoy appeared at last,
to read out the imperial decree,
how glad the departed must have been!
Yes, the angry dead inspire fear.
Therefore Prince Sawara, dismissed
as heir apparent, came in time
to be known as Emperor Sud,
and the Igami Princess, too,
stripped of her station, in due course
reclaimed her old title of empress.95
The madness of Retired Emperor Reizei, [r. 967–69] Cloistered Emperor Kazan’s [r. 984–86] renunciation of sovereign authority over the realm—they say that the spirit of Motokata, lord of Civil Affairs, was responsible for both. They also say that the spirit of Palace Chaplain Kanzan caused Emperor Sanj to go blind.
When Norimori learned of all this, he said to Lord Shigemori,
“I gather that prayers of every kind are being offered for the empress’s confinement.
Say what you like, though, I know of nothing more effective than a special amnesty.
The Kikai-ga-shima exiles, especially—what could yield greater merit than recalling them?”
Lord Shigemori went to his father.
“Poor Norimori,” he said, “seems extremely anxious about Naritsune.
If the empress’s indisposition is as serious as report has it,
then the late Narichika’s spirit must indeed be involved.
If your wish is to pacify the dead, then you must recall the living Naritsune.
Allay the concerns of others
and you will have your desire;
grant other people what they wish
and your own prayers will be fulfilled.
The empress will, without delay,
bear the emperor a son,
and our house will prosper greatly.”
So he admonished his father.
Lord Kiyomori was in an unusually accommodating mood.
“Very well,” he said, “but what about those monks, Shunkan and Yasuyori?”
“Recall them, too. It would only mean bad karma to leave a single one there.”
“Yasuyori is all very well,” Shigemori’s father replied, “but Shunkan—
I was forever putting in a word for him. He owes me everything.
But no, he had to go and turn that Shishi-no-tani villa of his, of all places, into a fort
and indulge his whims with the strange things that apparently went on there.
No, I cannot imagine pardoning Shunkan.” So spoke Lord Kiyomori.
Shigemori returned home and called in Lord Norimori, his uncle.
“Naritsune is to be pardoned,” he said. “You may set your mind at rest.”
Norimori pressed his palms together in gratitude and delight.
“When Naritsune was leaving,”
he said, “he seemed to me perplexed
that I had not taken charge of him,
and every time he looked at me,
I saw tears in his eyes.
I feel very sorry for him.”
To this, Shigemori replied,
“Far be it from me to blame you.
Anyone would feel for a child.
I will have a good talk with my father.”
With these words he withdrew.
So the decision was to call the Kikai-ga-shima exiles home.
Lord Kiyomori issued the writ of pardon.
His envoy left the capital.
Norimori was so happy
he sent likewise a man of his own.
“Keep going, hurry, day and night”:
So the messengers were ordered.
They were to travel by sea, though,
and that way is not always smooth.
Lashed by wind and wave, they journeyed,
from late in the seventh month
to the twentieth of the ninth,
when they reached Kikai-ga-shima.
2. Stamping in Frenzy
Lord Kiyomori’s envoy was one Motoyasu, a junior officer in the Left Gate Watch.
He disembarked and shouted over and over again, “Exiles from the capital,
Tanba Lieutenant Naritsune, Hosshji Superintendent Shunkan,
Taira Police Lieutenant and Novice Yasuyori: Are you here?”
Naritsune and Yasuyori were off on their regular Kumano pilgrimage.
Only Shunkan was nearby to hear him.
“I’m so desperate, I must be dreaming,” he said to himself.
“Either that or the demons from the realm of desire have driven me mad.
No, this can’t be real!” In blind haste, half running, half falling,
he raced to present himself before the envoy.
“What do you want?” he cried. “Yes, I am Shunkan, in exile here from the capital!”
An assistant, who carried Lord Kiyomori’s writ of pardon in a purse around his neck,
took the document out and gave it to him. S
hunkan unfolded it. He read:
“Exile has redeemed your great crime.
Hasten now, dispose yourselves
to return to the capital.
In connection with solemn prayers
for the empress’s coming birth,
a special amnesty is proclaimed.
The Kikai-ga-shima exiles,
Naritsune and Yasuyori,
are therefore pardoned.” That was all.
The document said nothing else:
Of the name Shunkan not a trace.
It must be on the wrapper, then!
He looked: But no, it was not there.
He read backward, from the end,
he read forward, from the beginning,
but the writ bore only two names.
It said nothing about a third.
Soon Naritsune and Yasuyori arrived.
Naritsune went over the writ himself,
then Yasuyori did the same;
and still it listed just two names,
with never a sign of the third.
In dream, yes, this might happen,
but this was no dream. It was real.
In the way of reality, though,
it made a more convincing dream.
Not only that, but many letters
had arrived from the capital
addressed to the two gentlemen named;
for Shunkan, though, nary a one
to inquire how he was getting on.
So, he reflected, everyone
I might have counted as family
has left the capital for good!
The thought was utter agony.
“Why, all three of us,” he cried,
“share guilt for a single crime! All three
suffered banishment together.
Why is it, then, that amnesty
calls back only two of us
and leaves one behind, alone?
Have the Heike forgotten me?
Was it a mere slip of the brush?
What can possibly have happened?”
He cast his gaze to the heavens,
lay prostrate on the earth,
weeping, wailing, all in vain.
Seizing Naritsune’s sleeve, he cried,