Among the worker monks in the prince’s party was Jōmyō Meishū of Tsutsui. He was dressed in black-laced armor over a dark blue battle robe, and a five-plate helmet. He carried a sword with black lacquer fittings and, on his back, a quiver containing twenty-four arrows fledged with black eagle-wing feathers. Grasping a lacquered, rattan-wrapped bow and his favorite long, plain-handle spear, he made his way over the bridge, calling out his name in a loud voice.
“You’ve heard of me from times past—now have a look! Everyone in Mii-dera knows me—Jōmyō Meishū of Tsutsui, worker monk, one fighter who’s a match for a thousand! Anyone who thinks he’s up to it, come forward—I’ll take him on!”
From his quiver of twenty-four he drew one arrow after another, fitting them to his bow and sending them winging. Twenty men dropped dead at once, and eleven others suffered wounds, until only one arrow was left in the quiver.
Then he tossed his bow aside with a clatter, undid his quiver, and threw that away too. Throwing off his fur boots, he scampered barefoot over the crossbeams of the bridge. Anyone else would have been too terrified for such a feat, but Jōmyō made his way forward as blithely as though he were sauntering down one of the avenues of the capital.
He used his spear to batter his enemies, mowing down five of them. When he struck at a sixth, his spear broke in the middle. Hurling it aside, he went on fighting with his sword, slashing in every direction at the crowd of attackers, employing the spider-leg thrust, the spiraling stroke, the T-shape attack, the somersault, the waterwheel. In no time he had felled eight men, but as he brought his sword down on the helmet of a ninth, it struck with such force that the blade broke at the hilt, slipped away, and fell with a splash into the river. Left with nothing to wield but the dagger at his waist, he went right on with his frenzied assault.
Among the warrior monks was one named Ichirai, a man of great strength and agility who served the Reverend Master Keishū of the Jōen Cloister. He had followed Jōmyō’s lead and was battling away just behind him. He wanted to push past Jōmyō, but the crossbeam was so narrow he could not get by. Seizing the rear flap of Jōmyō’s helmet, he called out, “By your leave, Jōmyō!” and vaulted deftly over Jōmyō’s shoulder. Then he went on battling.
Although Ichirai died in the fighting, Jōmyō somehow managed to crawl back to the Byōdō-in. There, on the grass in front of the temple gate, he stripped off his battle gear and threw it aside. Examining his helmet, he counted sixty-three marks where arrows had struck, five where the arrow had actually pierced the helmet. He was not badly wounded, however, and so after treating his wounds with moxa to stanch the blood, he wrapped a cloth around his head and put on a white monk’s robe. Then he broke a bow in half to use as a staff, put on plain clogs, and, intoning the name of the Buddha Amida, set off in the direction of Nara.
Followed by Ichirai (right), Jōmyō guards the bridge at the Uji River while Tadatsuna (left) leads the Heike troops across it.
Taking note of how Jōmyō did it, the warrior monks of Mii-dera and the men of the Watanabe League came scrambling over the bridge beams, vying with one another to be the first across. Some seized an enemy head or a battle trophy and then returned to the Byōdō-in side; others, mortally wounded, ripped open their bellies and threw themselves into the river. So the melee at the bridge raged on like a blazing fire.
Observing the situation, one of the Taira samurai commanders, Kazusa Governor Tadakiyo, hurried to the side of the Taira leaders. “Look there!” he said. “See how fierce the fighting on the bridge is! We want to get to the other side. But right now the river is swollen with the Fifth Month rains. If we try to wade across, we’ll lose a lot of men and horses. We’d better go by way of Yodo or Imoarai, or perhaps by Kawachi Road.”3
But Ashikaga no Matatarō Tadatsuna, a native of the eastern province of Shimotsuke, came forward and spoke up. “Yodo, Imoarai, Kawachi—are we going off to India or China to look for allies? We’re the ones who have to do the job! The enemy is right before our eyes—if we don’t attack but let them escape to Nara, reinforcements from Yoshino and Totsugawa will come swarming around to aid them, and then we’ll have a real fight on our hands!
“There’s a big river in the east called the Tone that marks the boundary between Musashi and Kōzuke provinces. In the past the Chichibu and Ashikaga clans had a falling-out and were constantly battling each other at the river. Once the Ashikaga planned to launch a main attack by the ford at Nagai and send rear forces by the Koga and Sugi fords. An ally of the Ashikaga, Priest Nitta of Kōzuke, had prepared boats for their use at Sugi Ford, but the Chichibu managed to destroy them all. When the Ashikaga discovered what had happened, they decided, ‘If we don’t get across the river now, our name as fighting men will be forever disgraced. If we drown, we drown—we’ve got to make a try at it!’ And they got across, probably because they used the horse-raft formation.
“With the enemy in sight and a battle waiting for us across the river, we eastern warriors aren’t in the habit of fussing over the depth of the water. This river can hardly be deeper or swifter than the Tone—so, gentlemen, follow me!” And with these words he rode his horse straight into the water.
Some three hundred or more riders followed him, led by Ōgo, Ōmuro, Fukazu, Yamagami, Naha no Tarō, Sanuki no Hirotsuna, Onodera Zenji Tarō, and Heyako no Shirō, along with the retainers Ubukata no Jirō, Kiriu no Rokurō, and Tanaka no Sōda.
“Put the strong horses on the upstream side and the weaker ones downstream!” shouted Ashikaga in a loud voice. “While the horses still have their footing, ease up on the reins and walk them. Once they start to lose their footing, tighten the reins and let them swim. If it looks like someone’s going to wash away, have him grab the tip of your bow. Grip each other’s hands and go across shoulder to shoulder. Get a firm seat in the saddle and press down on the stirrups. If your horse’s head starts to go under, pull him up, but don’t pull so hard that he goes under again. If the water starts coming over you, slide back until you’re sitting on the horse’s rump. Let the water hold you up, and put as little weight as possible on your horse. Don’t try to use your bows in the middle of the river. Even if the enemy shoots at you, don’t shoot back. Keep your neck guard down at all times, but don’t duck your head so low that an arrow can hit the top of your helmet. Go straight across the river, don’t get washed aside. Don’t fight the water, just cross it! Cross it!”
Thanks to these instructions, the three hundred or more riders were able to cross over and bound up the opposite bank without losing a single man.
Yorimasa’s forces are crushed by the Taira. He commits suicide in the Byōdō-in temple after reciting a poem. Despite the time afforded for his escape, Prince Mochihito is killed by the Taira forces within a few miles of his destination. Although Kiyomori originally ordered all the prince’s sons to be executed, he relents and allows them to become monks instead. Mii-dera temple is burned down by the Taira forces.
1. Mii-dera temple, also known as the Onjō-ji temple, was a center for Tendai school esotericism in Ōmi Province. Mii-dera and Mount Hiei had a long, and often violent, history of disagreements.
2. The Byōdō-in was a large temple complex located next to the Uji River that was built in the mid-eleventh century by Regent Fujiwara no Yorimichi on the site of a villa owned by his father, Michinaga.
3. All these are areas to the southwest, where the river is more shallow.
SHIGEHIRA (Taira): son of Kiyomori; leads punitive expedition against Nara.
YORITOMO (Minamoto): future leader of the Minamoto (Genji).
YOSHITOMO (Minamoto): father of Yoritomo.
Kiyomori moves the capital to Fukuhara, an isolated area west of the capital (near present-day Kobe), causing considerable hardship. The Taira, led by Koremori and Tadanori, gather troops and march against Yoritomo in the east. However, the Taira army, which has been put on edge by stories of the easterners’ martial prowess, scatters in fear when a flock of birds suddenly takes flight a
t Fuji River. Kiyomori moves the capital back to its earlier location, which again causes havoc.
The Burning of Nara (5:14)
In the capital, people were saying, “When Prince Takakura went to Onjō-ji, the monks of Kōfuku-ji in Nara not only expressed sympathy with his cause but even went to Onjō-ji to greet him. In doing so they showed themselves to be enemies of the state. Both Kōfuku-ji and Onjō-ji will surely be attacked!”
When rumors of this kind reached the monks of Kōfuku-ji, they rose up like angry hornets. Regent Fujiwara no Motomichi assured them that “if you have any sentiments you wish to convey to the throne, I will act as your intermediary on whatever number of occasions may be required.” But such assurances had no effect whatsoever.
Motomichi dispatched Tadanori, the superintendent of the Kangaku-in, to act as his emissary, but the monks met him with wild clamor, shouting, “Drag the wretch from his carriage! Cut off his topknot!” Tadanori fled back to the capital, his face white with terror. Motomichi then sent Assistant Gate Guards Commander Chikamasa, but the monks greeted him in similar fashion, yelling, “Cut off his topknot!” He dropped everything and fled back to the capital. On that occasion, two lackeys from the Kangaku-in had their topknots cut off.
In addition, the Nara monks made a big ball, of the kind used in New Year’s games, dubbed it “Prime Minister Kiyomori’s head,” and yelled, “Hit it! Stomp on it!” Easy talk is the midwife of disaster, and incautious action is the highway to ruin, people say.1 This prime minister, Kiyomori, as the maternal grandfather of the reigning emperor, was someone to be spoken of with the utmost respect. It seemed as though only the Devil of the Sixth Heaven could have inspired the Nara monks to use such language in referring to him.
When news of these events reached Prime Minister Kiyomori, he began making plans to deal with the situation. In order to bring an immediate halt to the unruly doings in Nara, he appointed Senoo Kaneyasu as the chief of police of Yamato Province, where Nara is situated, and sent him with a force of five hundred horsemen under his command. “Even if your opponents resort to violence, you must not retaliate in kind!” he warned the men when they set off. “Do not wear armor or helmets, and do not carry bows and arrows!”
But the Nara monks were not, of course, aware of Kiyomori’s private instructions, and, seizing some sixty of Kaneyasu’s men who had become separated from the main force, they cut off their heads and hung them in a row around the border of Sarusawa Pond.
Enraged at this, Kiyomori commanded, “Very well, then, attack Nara!”
He dispatched a force of more than forty thousand horsemen to carry out the attack, with Shigehira as commander in chief and Michimori as second in command. Meanwhile more than seven thousand monks, both old and young, had put on helmets and dug trenches across the road at two places, one at the slope called Narazaka and the other at the Hannya-ji temple, and fortified them with barricades of shields and thorned branches. There they awaited the attackers.
The Heike, their forty thousand men split into two parties, swept down on the two fortified points at Narazaka and Hannya-ji, shouting their battle cries. All the monks were on foot and armed with swords. The government forces, being mounted, could thus charge back and forth among them, chasing some this way, driving others that, showering arrows down on them until countless numbers had been felled. The ceremonial exchange of arrows signaling the start of hostilities took place at six in the morning, and the battle continued throughout the day. By evening, both the fortified points at Narazaka and Hannya-ji had been captured….
The fighting continued into the night. Darkness having fallen, the Heike commander in chief, Shigehira, who was standing in front of the gate of the Hannya-ji temple, called for torches to be lit. A certain Tomokata, a minor overseer of the Fukui estate in Harima, broke his shield in two and, using it as a torch, set fire to one of the commoners’ houses in the area. It was the twenty-eighth night of the Twelfth Month and a strong wind was blowing. Although only one fire had been set, it was blown by the wind this way and that until it had spread to many of the temples in the vicinity.
Monk soldiers and the Heike clash near the Hannya-ji temple in Nara (right). The temples, which have been set on fire by the Heike, burn while the monk soldiers flee (left).
By this time, those monks who were ashamed to be thought cowardly and who cared what kind of name they left behind them had died in the fighting at Narazaka or Hannya-ji. Those who could still use their legs fled in the direction of Mount Yoshino and Totsukawa. The older monks who were unable to walk any great distance, along with the special students in training at the temples, the acolytes, and the women and children all fled as fast as they could to Kōfuku-ji or Tōdai-ji, some thousand or more persons climbing up to the second story of the latter temple’s Hall of the Great Buddha. To prevent any of their pursuers from reaching them, they then threw down the ladders by which they had ascended. When the flames from the fire came roaring down on them, their shrieks and cries could hardly have been surpassed by even those of the sinners being tortured in the Hell of Scorching Heat, the Great Hell of Scorching Heat, or the Hell of Never-Ceasing Torment.
Kōfuku-ji was founded at the behest of Lord Tankai, Fujiwara no Fuhito,2 and thereafter served generation after generation as the temple of the Fujiwara clan. Its Eastern Gold Hall contained an image of Shakyamuni Buddha brought to Japan when Buddhist teachings were first introduced. The Western Gold Hall contained an image of the bodhisattva Kannon that, on its own accord, had risen out of the earth. These, along with the corridors strung like emerald gems surrounding them on four sides, the two-story hall with its vermilion and cinnabar trimmings, the two pagodas with their nine-ring finials shining in the sky, all went up in smoke in the space of an instant.
In Tōdai-ji was enshrined the one-hundred-and-sixty-foot giltbronze image of the Buddha Vairochana—burnished by the hand and person of Emperor Shōmu3 himself—the representation of the Buddha who abides eternally, never passing away, as he manifests his living body in the Land of Actual Reward and the Land of Eternally Tranquil Light. The protuberance on the top of his head towering on high, half-hidden in the clouds; the tuft of white hair between his eyebrows, an object of veneration:4 this hallowed figure was as perfect as the full moon. Now amid the flames, the head fell to the ground, and the body melted and fused into one mountainlike mass. The eighty-four thousand auspicious marks of the Buddha were suddenly obscured like an autumn moon by the clouds of the Five Cardinal Sins; the garlands of jewels adorning the forty-two stages of bodhisattva practice were blown away like stars in the night sky by the winds of the Ten Evil Actions.5 Smoke rose to blanket the sky, flames filled every corner of the empty air. Those who witnessed with their own eyes what was happening turned their gaze aside; those far off who heard reports of the disaster felt their spirits quail. All the doctrines and sacred writings of the Hossō and Sanron schools of Buddhism were lost, with not one scroll remaining.6 Never before in India or China, it seemed, to say nothing of our land of Japan, had the Buddhist law suffered such terrible destruction.
King Udayana fashioned an image of fine gold, and Vishvakarman carved one out of red sandalwood, but these Buddha figures were merely life-size.7 How could they compare with the Buddha of Tōdai-ji, unique and without equal anywhere in the entire continent of Jambudvipa in which we humans live? Yet this Buddha, who no one thought would ever suffer injury or decay whatever ages might pass, had now become mingled with and defiled by worldly dust, leaving behind only a legacy of unending sorrow. Brahma, Indra, the Four Heavenly Kings, the dragons, spirits, and others of the eight kinds of guardian beings, the wardens of the underworld, all those who lend divine protection to Buddhism must have looked on with alarm and consternation. The god Daimyōjin of the nearby Kasuga Shrine, who guards and protects the Hossō sect—what could he have thought? Little wonder, then, that the dew that fell on Kasuga meadow now had a different color, and the storm winds over Mount Mikasa sounded with a vengeful roar.
On the twenty-ninth day of the month that the commander in chief, Taira no Shigehira, having destroyed the Southern Capital of Nara, returned to the Northern Capital of Heian, only Prime Minister Kiyomori, his anger now appeased, delighted in the outcome. But the empress, Retired Emperor GoShirakawa, Retired Emperor Takakura, Regent Motomichi, and the others below them in station all deplored what had happened, declaring, “It was one thing to punish the evil monks, but what need was there to destroy the temples?”
The heads of the monks killed in battle were originally intended to be paraded through the main streets of the capital and then hung on the tree in front of the prison, but those in charge were so shocked at the destruction of Tōdai-ji and Kōfuku-ji that these orders were never issued. Instead, the heads were simply discarded here and there in the moats and drainage ditches.
In a document written in his own hand, Emperor Shōmu had declared, “When these temples prosper, the entire realm shall prosper. When these temples fall to ruin, the realm, too, shall fall into ruin.” It thus appeared that without doubt these events must presage the downfall and ruin of the nation.
The Tales of the Heike Page 7
