by VIKING ADULT
But although Miidera was once so holy,
nothing is left there now. In an instant
the exoteric and esoteric teachings
vanished utterly. The temple is gone:
nowhere now to practice the mysteries,
no ringing of the liturgical bell,
no flowers for the summer retreat,
no sound of ladling holy water.
Learned masters and famous teachers
allow their practice and study to lapse,
and the disciples who await their instruction
desert the sutras and the Buddha’s word.
The temple’s abbot, Cloistered Prince Enkei, was dropped as head monk of Tennji.
Thirteen other high-ranking clerics were dismissed and taken by the police.
Thirty men were banished, including the fighting monk Jmy.
No one mistook such chaos and turmoil for some minor incident.
“It just shows what lies ahead,”
people told one another.
“Soon enough now the Heike
will find that they have had their day.”
123. Hakamagi: a boy’s coming-of-age ceremony.
124. The regalia that confirm the sovereignty of the emperor. They are a major issue in Books Ten and Eleven. “Jewel” probably means the kind of curved bead (magatama) well known from Japanese antiquity, but whether this item of the regalia is one large one or a string of small ones remains unknown.
125. As on Mount Hiei, the Marto Shrine of Itsukushima enshrines “guest” deities—five of them in this case.
126. The takamikura: the broad, circular, curtained dais on which the emperor stood during an essential phase of the accession ritual.
127. The wordplay on “bay”—“bay horse” and “howl,” hence (here) “threaten”—replaces the original’s play on kage (“bay horse” and “shadow”): “Threaten me all you like, this bay horse is my shadow [inseparable from me].”
128. A bugaku dance in which the solo dancer mimes capturing a snake.
129. The protector deity of Miidera, said actually to be Susano-o.
130. The regent, Fujiwara no Motofusa.
131. A cousin who turned against the Buddha Shakyamuni and attempted to destroy him. In Buddhist discourse the type of any evil influence seeking to harm the Buddha’s teaching.
132. A poem by a sixth-century Chinese monk, predicting the future of Japan.
133. One daughter (Kenreimon-in) was the mother of Emperor Antoku, while another was the honorary mother of Emperor Takakura.
134. An abatis (pronounced abatee) is an obstacle made of felled tree branches or entire trees laid side by side, with the branch tips toward the enemy. The word is still a current military term.
135. The “Golden Hall” (kond, the central hall of a typical temple complex) of Miidera. Miroku (Sanskrit: Maitreya), the buddha of the future, waits in the Tosotsu (Sanskrit: Trāyastrimsa) Heaven to descend to earth countless aeons from now. He will then preach beneath a “dragon-flower tree” (ryūgeju).
136. A temple dedicated in 1052 by the regent Fujiwara no Yorimichi, on the site of his villa beside the Uji River. Its Phoenix Hall (H-d), one of Japan’s most famous architectural monuments, was built the following year.
137. Mountain ascetics (yamabushi) from the Yoshino mountains south of Nara and famously fierce fighters.
138. Tight formations of horses and riders all linked together.
139. A “fishing pavilion” (tsuridono) stood over the garden lake of a Heian mansion. This one presumably remained from the villa that preceded the Byd-in.
140. A rider beat his sturdy stirrups, rather than spurs, against his horse’s flanks to urge it to greater speed.
141. A daughter of Emperor Toba.
142. The Tripitaka is the complete collection of the Buddhist scriptures, in this case translated into Chinese.
BOOK FIVE
1. The Capital Moved to Fukuhara
(recitative)
The capital was abuzz: On the third of the sixth month of Jish 4, [1180]
His Majesty was to proceed to Fukuhara.
It had been understood lately that the capital would move there,
but no one imagined that happening today or tomorrow.
People were in turmoil and hardly knew what to think.
And then, to top it off, they brought forward his progress, set for the third,
to the second. First thing that day, at the hour of the hare, [ca. 6 A.M.]
they advanced the palanquin. His Majesty, in his third year,
was so little that he entered it in all innocence.
When an emperor that young boards a palanquin, his mother joins him;
but not this time. No, it was his nurse Sotsu-no-suke,
Grand Counselor Taira no Tokitada’s wife, who rode with him.
Her Majesty, His Cloistered Eminence, and His Eminence went, too.
The regent, chancellor, senior nobles, and privy gentlemen
all rushed to claim their places in the cortege.
(speech)
His Majesty reached Fukuhara on the third. Lord Yorimori’s residence there was now the imperial palace. On the fourth, Yorimori received, in reward, promotion to the upper second rank over the right commander Yoshimichi, the son of Lord Kuj Kanezane. Never before had a commoner’s second son vaulted this way past the son of a regent.
Lord Kiyomori had changed his attitude toward the cloistered emperor,
releasing him from the Toba Mansion and allowing him back to the capital,
but Prince Mochihito’s rebellion infuriated him once more.
He moved His Cloistered Eminence to Fukuhara,
confined him there to a shingle-roofed house—
three bays on a side and surrounded by a high board fence with just one entrance—
and assigned a single man, Harada Tanenao, to guard him.
Gaining admission to see him was not easy.
The local youth called the house the “cage palace.”
(song)
As for His Cloistered Eminence,
“I have not the slightest desire,”
he said, “to run this world of ours.
My only wish is for liberty
to please myself and ease my mind
on pilgrimage hither and yon,
to temples and sacred mountains.”
One might say that the Heike had now committed their greatest outrage yet.
“Ever since back in the Angen years,” people kept saying, [1175–77]
“that man has banished or killed senior nobles and privy gentlemen,
exiled a regent, appointed his own son-in-law regent,
shifted the cloistered emperor to a Seinan Palace,
and murdered his second son, Prince Mochihito.
In short, moving the capital is probably just the last affront he could think of.”
Moving the capital was not without precedent.
Emperor Jinmu, fifth of the earthly rulers
and fourth son of Fukiaezu-no-mikoto,
was born of Tamayori-hime, the sea god’s daughter.
After twelve reigns in the age of gods,
he began the long line of human sovereigns.
In Miyazaki county of the province of Hyūga, he assumed the imperial dignity.
In the fifty-ninth year of his reign, he set out to conquer the east
and halted in his travels in the Central Land of Rich Reed Plains.143
Mount Unebi was the spot he chose,
in Yamato, as we call it now;
at Kashihara he cleared a site
and built his Kashihara Fane:144
for so it is named.
Thereafter generations of sovereigns moved the imperial seat
thirty times and more—indeed, forty in all—elsewhere, even to other provinces.
The twelve emperors from Jinmu to Keik145
established their seats in Yamato
and never went farth
er afield.
But Seimu, in his very first year,
moved all the way to the province of mi
and built his new seat there in Shiga county.
In his second year, Emperor Chūai
moved to the province of Nagato
and erected his own there, in Toyora.
And there it was that this sovereign died;
whereupon his empress, Jingū Kg,
who replaced him, subjugated
Kikai, Koguryŏ, and the Khitans.146
After defeating these foreign lands,
she returned home and, in Chikuzen,
in Mikasa county, bore a male heir;
wherefore we call that dwelling of hers
the Birth Fane. Awesome to tell,
it was none other than Yawata
whom she had borne to the world.
Upon succeeding to the throne, her son came to be known as Emperor jin.147
In due course she moved to the province of Yamato,
to inhabit the fane of Iwane-wakazakura.
Emperor jin dwelled in that province, too, in the fane of Karushima-Akari.
Emperor Nintoku, in the first year of his reign,
moved to the Takatsu Fane at Naniwa,
in the province of Settsu. Emperor Richū,
in his second, removed to Yamato,
where he established his seat in Tchi county.
In his initial year, Emperor Hanzei moved
to Kawachi and his fane of Shibagaki.
Emperor Ingy, forty-two years into his reign,
returned to Yamato and the Tobutori Asuka Fane.
In his twenty-first year, Emperor Yūryaku
moved to reside in the fane of Asakura
at Hatsuse, likewise in Yamato.
In his fifth year, Emperor Keitai moved his seat to Tsuzuki in Yamashiro; [early 6th c.]
then, in the twelfth year of his reign, to Otoguni.
Emperor Senka, in his first year, returned to Yamato province,
to spend his life at his fane of Hinokuma-no-Iruno.
In Taika 1, Emperor Ktoku moved to Nagara in Settsu, [645]
there to inhabit the Toyozaki Fane. Empress Saimei, in her second year,
moved again back to Yamato and lived in the fane of Okamoto.
In his sixth year, Emperor Tenchi removed to mi and the fane of tsu. [r. 668–71]
In his inaugural year, Emperor Tenmu moved back to Yamato, [r. 673–86]
to inhabit thereafter the fane of South Okamoto.
He is known to all as the Kiyomibara Emperor.
Empress Jit and Emperor Monmu passed their two sage reigns [r. 690–97; 697–707]
in the Fujihara Fane, also in Yamato.
Empress Genmei to Emperor Knin: [r. 707–15; 770–81]
These seven sovereigns lived out their reigns
in one capital, Nara.
Then in Enryaku 3, the tenth month and second day, [784]
Emperor Kanmu moved his seat from Kasuga, in the imperial city of Nara,
to Nagaoka in the province of Yamashiro. In the first month of his tenth year,
he sent the grand counselor Fujiwara no Oguromaru,
the consultant and left grand controller Ki no Kosami,
the grand prelate Genkei, and others to inspect Uda in Kadono county,
also in Yamashiro. The two officials reported as follows:
“The lay of the land, Your Majesty,
offers at your left the Blue Dragon,
the White Tiger at your right,
the Red Bird before you,
and behind you the Dark Warrior:148
each of the four gods in his place.
For your capital it is perfect.”
Emperor Kanmu therefore conveyed his desire to the Kamo Deity present in Otagi county and on the twenty-first of the twelfth month of Enryaku 13 [794] moved from his Nagaoka capital to the new one. Since then, through three hundred and eighty years or more of stars and frosts, thirty-two sovereigns have reigned there and watched the seasons turn.
Yes, sovereigns had from the earliest times moved the capital hither and thither,
but Emperor Kanmu, who knew that this site had no rival, could not let it go.
He consulted ministers, senior nobles, men of talent in every line,
to ensure that this new imperial seat should last forever.
To this end he had fashioned a man’s clay likeness, eight feet tall,
wearing iron armor and an iron helmet, bearing an iron bow and iron arrows,
and on a peak of the Eastern Hills he had this figure buried, facing west.
Should there be in ages to come talk of moving the capital,
this warrior was to discharge his duty and shield the established one.
So it is that whenever trouble
comes to pose a threat to the realm,
the barrow over this figure rumbles.
Known as the General’s Barrow,
it is still there.149
Now, it is from Emperor Kanmu that every Taira descends.
And Heian, the name of his capital, is written with characters that mean,
for hei, “peace” and, for an, “ease.” The city merited Taira respect.
Their own imperial ancestor had held it in the highest regard,
and it was appalling of them to move the imperial seat for no reason at all.
It is true that during his reign Emperor Saga had considered doing just that, [r. 809–23]
when Retired Emperor Heizei made such trouble, goaded by his mistress of staff;
but his ministers, his nobles, and the people of every province objected,
until in the end he desisted.
Not even the lord who stands sovereign over the realm could accomplish that move.
How terrifying that Lord Kiyomori, a mere commoner, should have done so!
And the old capital had been so beautiful!
All around the sovereign’s citadel,
divine protectors shed tempered light.150
Miracle-working temples, aloft
on hilltops or in the cleft of valleys,
lifted their expansive tiled roofs,
and the people all lived free of care.
From there the five inner provinces,
the far-flung seven circuits of the realm
lay open to unimpeded access.
But now each and every crossroads
lay dug up, barring carriage traffic.
Those who nonetheless had to travel
went in little carts, took long detours.
Houses that once up and down the streets
jostled eave to eave in their pride
day by day crumbled into ruin.
Others, disassembled, went straight
into the rivers, Katsura or Kamo,
where their timbers, re-formed into rafts
and loaded with building materials,
furniture, and various odds and ends,
were hauled on down to Fukuhara.
Anyone could watch, before his eyes,
a brilliant city once in full flower
dull, alas, to vacant wasteland.
On a pillar of the abandoned palace,
somebody left these poems:
No fewer, by now,
than four times one hundred years
have passed since the days
that saw this city’s founding:
Must it now fall to ruin?
Farewell to flowers
blossoming in Miyako,
and off on the wind
we blow to Fukuhara,
eyes out for peril ahead.
Construction of the new capital was to begin in the sixth month of that year,
on the ninth day. To preside, Lord Tokudaiji Sanesada, the left commander,
received appointment from among the senior nobles,
together with the consultant captain Lord Tsuchimikado Michichika.
Their executive aide was the ch
amberlain and left minor controller Yukitaka,
and with them they brought a group of officials.
The party’s task was to survey the open ground west of Wada-no-matsubara
and portion it into the proper nine sectors, divided by east-west avenues.
They found room for five sectors, but no more,
so back they went again to report the difficulty.
The council of senior nobles met to discuss it,
some suggesting Inamino in Harima, others Koyano in Settsu,
but there was no sign that the matter would go further.
The old capital was breaking up;
the new one was going nowhere.
Everyone felt adrift, like clouds.
Those who had long occupied the land
bewailed its loss, and the new arrivals
grumbled on among themselves
how hard it was to get anything built.
It all made better sense as a dream.
Lord Michichika had this to say:
“Apparently in the Other Realm
they put through three broad avenues
and build twelve gates.
Well then, what is the matter with building a palace
on land broad enough to accommodate up to five avenues?
For the moment the thing to do is to build a provisional one.”
His proposal passed. The grand counselor Kunitsuna received for this purpose
the province of Su and from Lord Kiyomori the order
to proceed and cover the cost from the resulting income.
This Kunitsuna was so rich already
he could have built a palace easily from his own resources.
As it was, how could this venture not burden the realm and distress the people?
Performing the rite of imperial enthronement, as needed, is one thing,
but with all the disorder then plaguing the land,
this was no time to move the capital or build a new palace.
Wise sovereigns in ages past
thatched their palaces with sedge
and did not even square the eaves.
When they saw too little smoke
rising from hearths near and far,
they renounced their modest taxes,
for their hearts went to the people
and they cared about their realm.
In Chu, building the Zhanghua Palace
drove the common people to flee;
