by Ueda Akinari
5 Historical Background
Much of the fascination with travel and the lyric beauty of place names in the tales comes from Akinari's sense of history and the passage of time. For over a thousand years the nation had endured, and as a student of its traditions, Akinari knew what changes had taken place in customs, manners, and institutions. Each of his tales was set in times past, mostly during the middle ages, between the twelfth and the late sixteenth century, as the following list shows:
1 ‘White Peak’: late twelfth century.
2 ‘Chrysanthemum Tryst’: late fifteenth century.
3 ‘The House Amid the Thickets’: mid-fifteenth century.
4 ‘The Carp That Came to My Dream’: early tenth century.
5 ‘Bird of Paradise’: seventeenth or eighteenth century.
6 ‘The Caldron of Kibitsu’: early sixteenth century.
7 ‘The Lust of the White Serpent’: unspecified, but apparently the Heian period.
8 ‘The Blue Hood’: late fifteenth century.
9 ‘Wealth and Poverty’: late sixteenth century.
Although the tales were written in an age of peace, a number of them involve warfare and the conflict between an early system of central government and the new feudal institutions that dominated national life after the middle of the twelfth century. The first story, for instance, is set in the days when rule by code of law was yielding to feudal privilege. The clash between old and new, the role of foreign ideas, and the question of sovereignty figures against a background of cataclysmic change. As a twelfth-century historian wrote, ‘When the Emperor Toba died, the Japanese nation was plunged into disorder, and subsequently the age of the warrior began.’15 Court nobles had never before asked provincial warriors for help to settle by force of arms in the capital itself a dispute over succession to the imperial throne. ‘White Peak’ reflects the collapse of an entire society. It describes the end of an epoch in terms that suggest scattering cherry-blossoms, the waning moon, and nostalgia for bygone days.
Before becoming a Buddhist priest, Saigyō, the narrator, had served Toba. Only one year older than Sutoku, Saigyō knew how vexed the emperor felt at being a mere figurehead while his father remained the power behind the throne. He understood how Sutoku had been forced to abdicate in favour of his younger half-brother, Konoe, and how when the latter died, Sutoku wanted his own son, Prince Shigehito, to be emperor, so that in time he himself might hold power as a retired monarch. But Sutoku's wishes were thwarted. His brother, Go-Shirakawa, was placed on the throne, and after the father passed away, the son rebelled. His forces were defeated and he was banished, but according to popular belief he left a curse that led to a series of national calamities, all of which is described in the first tale from Saigyo's point of view.
Along with other early modern scholars and writers, Akinari wondered why disaster struck the imperial house and what form legitimate government should take. In ‘White Peak’ he presents this issue as a conflict between the Chinese Confucian point of view and native Japanese ways. Ironically, Sutoku, a descendant of the ‘eight hundred myriad gods’ supports a foreign institution, while Saigyō, a follower of an alien religion, defends Japanese customs. Political thought and historical fact are combined with fiction in such a manner that Akinari could claim for his tale the respectability long associated with orthodox scholarship. In Japan, as in China, history was thought of as a mirror of truth. The past reflects an image that might help in making decisions for the future. By contrast, fiction was normally scorned as a web of lies. But Akinari's work helped to establish prose fiction as a means of expressing historical criticism and cultural values.
While the background for ‘White Peak’ and much of Akinari's interpretation of events may be traced to an early military chronicle, the Hōgen monogatari (Tales of the Hōgen Era),16 a similar record17 also figures in ‘Chrysanthemum Tryst,’ which is set three centuries later. At this time, during the confused period after the outbreak of the Ōnin Wars, contending forces brought renewed violence and civil discord to the nation, and the ideal of peace and order seemed doomed. Amako Tsunehisa's rise to leadership and his storming of Tomita Castle on the eve of the Japanese New Year typify an age when strong local leaders challenged the authority of distant lords. Just as Tsunehisa went on to become the ruler of many provinces, warriors elsewhere also tried to extend their influence.
Behind Akinari's fascination for this process of change and his nostalgia for what had been lost lies the belief that history has a moral significance and that the past forms a continuous pattern stretching back to antiquity. Men assumed that something had gone wrong, and they believed that by examining certain crucial turning points they might discover why this happened. Then by adjusting national policy one might restore society to normal. Accordingly, the middle ages were thought to be bad, because military authority had been glorified and the strong trampled the weak. Powerful houses had split into rival factions, and it seemed unlikely that a united nation could ever emerge from the chaos. Innocent people, such as Katsushirō and Miyagi, in ‘The House Amid the Thickets,’ all too often bore the brunt of the misery and suffering of war.
For this tale, as well as for the previous ones, Akinari turns to the military chronicles.18 When Uesugi Noritada drove Ashi-kaga Shigeuji from Kamakura, forcing him to take refuge in Shimōsa, life in eastern Japan was upset, much as described in the tale and in Akinari's historical sources. Similarly, the dispute over succession to the leadership of the Hatakeyama house was an actual occurrence.19 ‘The House Amid the Thickets’ reminds one how simple people were torn from their roots and forced to endure sorrow and bitterness, owing to the evils of a military system that they themselves had in no way created. Around villages that had once prospered weeds grew tall, and in the words of the Chinese poet, Tu Fu, ‘New ghosts are wailing there now with the old,/Loudest in the dark sky of a stormy day.’20
To some extent the historical significance of the setting for ‘The Carp That Came to My Dream,’ around Lake Biwa and the Mii Temple, has already been discussed, but several additional points deserve mention. A priest and painter by the name of Kōgi is said to have lived at the temple in the early ninth century. Also, Shinto places of worship existed here from very early times, associating the place with supernatural powers. The area calls to mind the tragic events of the late seventh century, when the Emperor Tenchi's son was deposed by his uncle, the Emperor Temmu. During the Heian period many court nobles and ladies would visit the famous temples around the southern part of the lake, and according to legend, here Lady Murasaki, inspired by the moon over Ishiyama Temple, wrote The Tale of Genji. Awareness of these details adds considerably to the reader's appreciation of Akinari's account of Kōgi's mysterious dream.
Toward the end of the middle ages great barons vied for control of the nation's economic resources, and fierce battles raged between competing leaders. The war cries of massive armies signalled the close of the period. Oda Nobunaga (1534-82) intelligently used new techniques and weapons to bring half of Japan under his rule. Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-98), a man of humble birth, skillfully completed the work of unification. After he died, however, his vassals fell to quarrelling, and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616) emerged as victor. Ieyasu's successors governed Japan peacefully and without serious challenge during the early modern period, and urban centres such as Osaka and Edo prospered and grew. Still, memory of the past lingered on, and the events of the late sixteenth century continued to evoke shock and horror.
These times figure in ‘Bird of Paradise,’ which is set when ‘the land of Peace and Calm had long been true to its name,’ in the seventeenth or eighteenth century. Spending a night on Mt Kōya, Muzen and his son are reminded of earlier days. ‘The Mound of Beasts,’ in Kyoto, which is mentioned at the end of the tale, stands for the way in which the grotesque conflict between Hideyoshi and his nephew, Hidetsugu, still gripped people's imagination.
Hideyoshi, one of the most remarkable autocrats of the time, l
ike Henry VIII, failed not on the battlefield but in the bedroom. He fathered only two children, both born late in life. The first died in infancy, and because there seemed little chance of his having another, he appointed his nephew, Hidetsugu, as heir. To Hideyoshi's chagrin, the young man led a wanton life and killed men for sport, earning a reputation as ‘the murdering regent.’ When a second son was born, however, Hideyoshi wished him to be his successor, and relations with his nephew quickly deteriorated. In 1595 Hideyoshi ordered his nephew, together with a small retinue of his followers, to retire to Mt Kōya, and he commanded that they die by ritual suicide. Hidetsugu and his young companions disembowelled themselves, with one of their number beheading the others, and Hideyoshi's emissary performed the same service for the last of the condemned men. The nephew's family was then cruelly slain. His wife, ladies-in-waiting, and small children were dressed in their best clothes and dragged through Kyoto to the common execution ground. Here, on a gibbet, Hidetsugu's head was exposed, and the children were killed in front of their mothers’ eyes. All were buried at Sanjō in a common grave marked as ‘The Mound of Beasts.’21 Such were the events that Muzen mulled over following his confrontation on Mt Kōya with Hidetsugu's ghostly entourage. In handling this material, moreover, Akinari had to be very circumspect, because it could be regarded as treasonous to write frivolously about events in which the Toku-gawa family or other prominent military houses of that time played a part.
Long before Hideyoshi's rise to power, during the period of the fifth Ashikaga shogun, the Akamatsu family of the province of Kibi became embroiled in one of the many succession disputes of the middle ages. This family was descended from a noble line of warriors who had fought with distinction and found great favour with Ashikaga leaders. When the fifth shogun decided in favour of one claimant, he was assassinated by the other-Akamatsu Mitsusuke-who then fled to his home castle. The deceased shogun's supporters besieged him, and seeing that his cause was hopeless, he committed suicide. Izawa Shōtarō, in ‘The Caldron of Kibitsu,’ though a fictional character, is said to have been descended from a samurai who had survived this siege and escaped to a village, where he lived as a peasant. The story itself has little to do with actual events, but significantly enough, Akinari places it against the background of one of the incidents that undermined the authority of the Ashikaga shogun and led to a century of internecine war, thus paving the way eventually for the rise of the Tokugawa family.
Many famous places figure in ‘The Lust of the White Serpent,’ making it one of the richest of all the tales in terms of historical geography. The cape of Sano is mentioned in the Man'yōshū, as are the mountains of Yoshino. The names of the emperors Jimmu and Nintoku are associated with the Kumano area, to the holy spots of which court nobles and members of the imperial family often made pilgrimage. The Tsuba Market and Hase Temple appear frequently in Heian literature. The Dōjōji Temple, of Komatsubara, is immortalised in the nō and on the kabuki stage.22 Although no date is given, internal evidence shows that the tale was set in the Heian period. In spite of the dearth of names of actual persons and events, ‘The Lust of the White Serpent’ thus reveals Akinari's sense of history and the passage of time.
Similarly, no specific date is mentioned in ‘The Blue Hood.’ But the Zen priest, Kaian, was an actual person who lived in the fifteenth century, and the Daichūji Temple is a real place. The Oyamas were descended from the Fujiwara line and had settled on a manor in the vicinity of Tonda, flourishing as one of the strong local families. Such use of historical detail heightens interest in the priest who is fatally attracted to a beautiful boy, his erotic lust for corpses, and the mysterious change that Kaian witnesses.
Oka Sanai, the principal character of ‘Wealth and Poverty,’ is also a historical personage. His master, Gamō Ujisato, served as one of Hideyoshi's comrades in arms. Both men fought with distinction for Nobunaga, and as a reward Ujisato received one of Nobunaga's daughters in marriage; furthermore, he was baptised as a Christian. Later, Hideyoshi assigned him to Aizu, in the east, and it is recorded that he feared Ujisato and eventually had him poisoned. Historical anecdotes tell how Ujisato's famous retainer, Sanai, loved to display his great wealth, how people criticised him for this, and how he rewarded his follower's frugality in a way that suggests Akinari's treatment in the tale.
But more generally speaking, gold is the main subject of the tale. This metal in ancient Japan was valued chiefly for its decorative qualities. During the middle ages it took on a religious meaning, symbolising the Western Paradise to believers of the Pure Land sect of Buddhism or Zen enlightenment to adherents of this school. Not until the Momoyama period and the introduction of new mining techniques from China did it acquire economic significance as a basis for financial transactions. Even then, gold coins such as those minted at the end of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, which Sanai gave to his follower, were not very practical as currency and were used primarily as rewards or prizes.23 In the final passage Akinari cautiously touches upon the political situation of the time and mentions the famous generals of the day. Hideyoshi's period of ascendancy, it is said, would be short, and an auspicious prophecy tells that the Tokugawa family would bring both peace and prosperity to the realm, in a passage perhaps designed to mollify would-be censors.
6 Philosophy and Religion
Philosophy and religion deal basically with the three questions of where man comes from, where he goes, and how he should spend his life on earth. Traditionally, in Japan Shinto thought and beliefs suggested for the first that the gods gave man life. Buddhism taught regarding the second that when a person died he might attain salvation in paradise. Confucian doctrine, pertaining to the third, urged everyone in moral and ethical terms to live in harmony with his brothers and with the universe. As expressed in a phrase popular in Akinari's day, ‘The three teachings are one.’ Besides these three main systems of philosophy and religion, the role of Taoism and Shingaku deserves mention. Akinari's tales were written for a society in which people felt close to the world of nature and to the gods of the nation. Prayer, music, ritual, and the spiritual life were still valued more highly than the practice of business. Increasingly, however, emphasis on commerce and wealth tended to weaken old traditions, and in a large degree Akinari wished to counteract such developments and strengthen the spiritual quality in national life.
First of all, the vital and emotive side of the tales involved Shinto beliefs. Many able men wished to break away from the constraints of orthodox Confucian teachings. They put renewed faith in native gods, who were chiefly semi-divine and often benevolent local deities and existed in a hierarchy leading up to the imperial family's ancestral spirit. In an unbroken chain, each individual was linked to the rest of society, and time continued from the original creation as if ripples of water from a primordial splash. Life welled and surged without need or plan, in an abundance of forms held together by a throbbing, vital impulse.
The school of national learning served as the scholarly and philosophical arm of Shinto beliefs, and one of the momentous questions of the time involved the matter of sovereignty. Without the crown there would be no England, and without the emperor there would be no Japan. In ‘White Peak,’ where Akinari deals with the role of the emperor and state, he reaffirms the Japanese idea of ‘one line forever,’ and he emphasises the divine right of the imperial family. As noted earlier, Sutoku takes the Confucian point of view that government rests on public opinion, whereas Saigyō argues in favour of national customs and traditions that began in the dawn of history and carry magical significance. The unique character of Japan consists in having a sovereign who traces his lineage to divine origins. According to Akinari's belief, the imperial family must be venerated, Shinto ceremonies observed, and the sacred shrines supported. Indeed, after Akinari's time, partly owing to the influence of ‘White Peak,’ Sutoku's spirit was enshrined in Kyoto in an effort to atone for the suffering that he had endured.
Elsewhere, Akinari touches on S
hinto shrines and rituals. In ‘The Caldron of Kibitsu,’ for instance, he mentions rites involving fire and water. Boiling water was stirred with a wand of dwarf bamboo leaves, and the drops of moisture that rose from the swirling mass were thought to contain the essence of divinity. The singing sound of the caldron was used to prophesy future events. Such caldrons are mentioned in early reports of trial by ordeal, and in shamanistic terms these rituals symbolise a sacred marriage between the god of fire and the goddess of water. Bands of mountain cenobites, known asyamabushi, associated the boiling caldron with the mother's womb. To enter it denoted purification by undergoing the pains of hell and achieving rebirth to a higher life. The shrine of the Yamato clan deities figures incidentally in ‘The Lust of the White Serpent.’
In contrast to the Shinto aspect of the tales, the Confucian side deals primarily with morality and ethics. Despite his association with the Shinto movement, which was gaining in power and influence, Akinari shunned the excesses of the school of national learning, thinking of himself as an independent scholar. He upheld the basic virtues of the Confucian classics-loyalty, honour, duty-much in the samurai tradition of his father. He stressed such values as stability and frugality. He respected life and felt deep concern for future generations. He criticised all forms of selfishness and personal indulgence. But his Confucian beliefs were tempered by the conviction that the gods and spirits still flourished and that a man who lacked faith and piety risked madness or death. To him the Confucian calling entailed not sterile didacticism but moral intensity, as exemplified by the ideals that Samon and Soemon share in ‘Chrysanthemum Tryst.’ Similarly, the desire to turn over a new leaf, which Katsushirō, Toyoo, and the aberrant monk of ‘The Blue Hood'possess in common, suggest that a person who resists the forces of decline and restores his innate purity and goodness might contribute to the general welfare and help to arrest social decay. This Confucian quality helped bring about the Meiji Restoration and the modernisation of Japan. One might reshape an individual or a civilisation without annihilating it.
