In Ghostly Japan by Lafcadio Hearn
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Lafcadio Hearn >> In Ghostly Japan
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"But most women," I observed, "would like to be reborn as men;
and the accomplishment of that wish would scarcely be in the
nature of a penalty."
"Why not?" he returned. "The happiness or unhappiness of the new
existence would not be decided by sex alone: it would of
necessity depend upon many conditions in combination."
"Your theory is interesting," I said;--"but I do not know how far
it could be made to accord with accepted doctrine.... And what of
the person able, through knowledge and practice of the higher
law, to remain superior to all weaknesses of sex?"
"Such a one," he replied, "would be reborn neither as man nor as
woman,--providing there were no pre-existent karma powerful
enough to check or to weaken the results of the self-conquest."
"Reborn in some one of the heavens?" I queried,--"by the
Apparitional Birth?"
"Not necessarily," he said. "Such a one might be reborn in a
world of desire,--like this,--but neither as man only, nor as
woman only."
"Reborn, then, in what form?" I asked.
"In that of a perfect being," he responded. "A man or a woman is
scarcely more than half-a-being,--because in our present
imperfect state either sex can be evolved only at the cost of the
other. In the mental and the physical composition of every man,
there is undeveloped woman; and in the composition of every woman
there is undeveloped man. But a being complete would be both
perfect man and perfect woman, possessing the highest faculties
of both sexes, with the weaknesses of neither. Some humanity
higher than our own,--in other worlds,--might be thus evolved."
"But you know," I observed, "that there are Buddhist texts,--in
the Saddharma Pundarika, for example, and in the Vinayas,--which
forbid...."
"Those texts," he interrupted, "refer to imperfect beings--less
than man and less than woman: they could not refer to the
condition that I have been supposing.... But, remember, I am not
preaching a doctrine;--I am only hazarding a theory."
"May I put your theory some day into print?" I asked.
"Why, yes," he made answer,--"if you believe it worth thinking
about."
And long afterwards I wrote it down thus, as fairly as I was
able, from memory.
Ingwa-banashi(1)
The daimyo's wife was dying, and knew that she was dying. She had
not been able to leave her bed since the early autumn of the
tenth Bunsei. It was now the fourth month of the twelfth Bunsei,
--the year 1829 by Western counting; and the cherry-trees were
blossoming. She thought of the cherry-trees in her garden, and of
the gladness of spring. She thought of her children. She thought
of her husband's various concubines,--especially the Lady Yukiko,
nineteen years old.
"My dear wife," said the daimyo, "you have suffered very much for
three long years. We have done all that we could to get you
well,--watching beside you night and day, praying for you, and
often fasting for your sake, But in spite of our loving care, and
in spite of the skill of our best physicians, it would now seen
that the end of your life is not far off. Probably we shall
sorrow more than you will sorrow because of your having to leave
what the Buddha so truly termed 'this burning-house of the world.
I shall order to be performed--no matter what the cost--every
religious rite that can serve you in regard to your next rebirth;
and all of us will pray without ceasing for you, that you may not
have to wander in the Black Space, but nay quickly enter
Paradise, and attain to Buddha-hood."
He spoke with the utmost tenderness, pressing her the while.
Then, with eyelids closed, she answered him in a voice thin as
the voice of in insect:--
"I am grateful--most grateful--for your kind words.... Yes, it is
true, as you say, that I have been sick for three long years, and
that I have been treated with all possible care and affection....
Why, indeed, should I turn away from the one true Path at the
very moment of my death?... Perhaps to think of worldly matters
at such a time is not right;--but I have one last request to
make,--only one.... Call here to me the Lady Yukiko;--you know
that I love her like a sister. I want to speak to her about the
affairs of this household."
Yukiko came at the summons of the lord, and, in obedience to a
sign from him, knelt down beside the couch. The daimyo's wife
opened her eyes, and looked at Yukiko, and spoke:--"Ah, here is
Yukiko!... I am so pleased to see you, Yukiko!... Come a little
closer,--so that you can hear me well: I am not able to speak
loud.... Yukiko, I am going to die. I hope that you will be
faithful in all things to our dear lord;--for I want you to take
my place when I am gone.... I hope that you will always be loved
by him,--yes, even a hundred times more than I have been,--and
that you will very soon be promoted to a higher rank, and become
his honored wife.... And I beg of you always to cherish our dear
lord: never allow another woman to rob you of his affection....
This is what I wanted to say to you, dear Yukiko.... Have you
been able to understand?"
"Oh, my dear Lady," protested Yukiko, "do not, I entreat you, say
such strange things to me! You well know that I am of poor and
mean condition:--how could I ever dare to aspire to become the
wife of our lord!"
"Nay, nay!" returned the wife, huskily,--"this is not a time for
words of ceremony: let us speak only the truth to each other.
After my death, you will certainly be promoted to a higher place;
and I now assure you again that I wish you to become the wife of
our lord--yes, I wish this, Yukiko, even more than I wish to
become a Buddha!... Ah, I had almost forgotten!--I want you to do
something for me, Yukiko. You know that in the garden there is a
yae-zakura,(2) which was brought here, the year before last, from
Mount Yoshino in Yamato. I have been told that it is now in full
bloom;--and I wanted so much to see it in flower! In a little
while I shall be dead;--I must see that tree before I die. Now I
wish you to carry me into the garden--at once, Yukiko,--so that I
can see it.... Yes, upon your back, Yukiko;--take me upon your
back...."
While thus asking, her voice had gradually become clear and
strong,--as if the intensity of the wish had given her new force:
then she suddenly burst into tears. Yukiko knelt motionless, not
knowing what to do; but the lord nodded assent.
"It is her last wish in this world," he said. "She always loved
cherry-flowers; and I know that she wanted very much to see that
Yamato-tree in blossom. Come, my dear Yukiko, let her have her
will."
As a nurse turns her back to a child, that the child may cling to
it, Yukiko offered her shoulders to the wife, and said:--
"Lady, I am ready: please tell me how I best can help you."
"Why, this way!"--responded the dying woman, lifting herself with
an almost superhuman effort by clinging to Yukiko's shoulders.
But as she stood erect, she quickly slipped her thin hands down
over the shoulders, under the robe, and clutched the breasts of
the girl,, and burst into a wicked laugh.
"I have my wish!" she cried-"I have my wish for the cherry-
bloom,(3)--but not the cherry-bloom of the garden!... I could not
die before I got my wish. Now I have it!--oh, what a delight!"
And with these words she fell forward upon the crouching girl,
and died.
The attendants at once attempted to lift the body from Yukiko's
shoulders, and to lay it upon the bed. But--strange to say!--this
seemingly easy thing could not be done. The cold hands had
attached themselves in some unaccountable way to the breasts of
the girl,--appeared to have grown into the quick flesh. Yukiko
became senseless with fear and pain.
Physicians were called. They could not understand what had taken
place. By no ordinary methods could the hands of the dead woman
be unfastened from the body of her victim;--they so clung that
any effort to remove them brought blood. This was not because the
fingers held: it was because the flesh of the palms had united
itself in some inexplicable manner to the flesh of the breasts!
At that time the most skilful physician in Yedo was a foreigner,
--a Dutch surgeon. It was decided to summon him. After a careful
examination he said that he could not understand the case, and
that for the immediate relief of Yukiko there was nothing to be
done except to cut the hands from the corpse. He declared that it
would be dangerous to attempt to detach them from the breasts.
His advice was accepted; and the hands' were amputated at the
wrists. But they remained clinging to the breasts; and there they
soon darkened and dried up,--like the hands of a person long
dead.
Yet this was only the beginning of the horror.
Withered and bloodless though they seemed, those hands were not
dead. At intervals they would stir--stealthily, like great grey
spiders. And nightly thereafter,--beginning always at the Hour of
the Ox,(4)--they would clutch and compress and torture. Only at
the Hour of the Tiger the pain would cease.
Yukiko cut off her hair, and became a mendicant-nun,--taking the
religious name of Dassetsu. She had an ibai (mortuary tablet)
made, bearing the kaimyo of her dead mistress,--"Myo-Ko-In-Den
Chizan-Ryo-Fu Daishi";--and this she carried about with her in
all her wanderings; and every day before it she humbly besought
the dead for pardon, and performed a Buddhist service in order
that the jealous spirit might find rest. But the evil karma that
had rendered such an affliction possible could not soon be
exhausted. Every night at the Hour of the Ox, the hands never
failed to torture her, during more than seventeen years,--
according to the testimony of those persons to whom she last told
her story, when she stopped for one evening at the house of
Noguchi Dengozayemon, in the village of Tanaka in the district of
Kawachi in the province of Shimotsuke. This was in the third year
of Kokwa (1846). Thereafter nothing more was ever heard of her.
1 Lit., "a tale of ingwa." Ingwa is a Japanese Buddhist term for
evil karma, or the evil consequence of faults committed in a
former state of existence. Perhaps the curious title of the
narrative is best explained by the Buddhist teaching that the
dead have power to injure the living only in consequence of evil
actions committed by their victims in some former life. Both
title and narrative may be found in the collection of weird
stories entitled Hyaku-Monogatari.
2 Yae-zakura, yae-no-sakura, a variety of Japanese cherry-tree
that bears double-blossoms.
3 In Japanese poetry and proverbial phraseology, the physical
beauty of a woman is compared to the cherry-flower; while
feminine moral beauty is compared to the plum-flower.
4 In ancient Japanese time, the Hour of the Ox was the special
hour of ghosts. It began at 2 A.M., and lasted until 4 A.M.--for
the old Japanese hour was double the length of the modern hour.
The Hour of the Tiger began at 4 A.M.
Story of a Tengu (1)
In the days of the Emperor Go-Reizei, there was a holy priest
living in the temple of Saito, on the mountain called Hiyei-Zan,
near Kyoto. One summer day this good priest, after a visit to the
city, was returning to his temple by way of Kita-no-Oji, when he
saw some boys ill-treating a kite. They had caught the bird in a
snare, and were beating it with sticks. "Oh, the, poor creature!"
compassionately exclaimed the priest;--"why do you torment it so,
children?" One of the boys made answer:--"We want to kill it to
get the feathers." Moved by pity, the priest persuaded the boys
to let him have the kite in exchange for a fan that he was
carrying; and he set the bird free. It had not been seriously
hurt, and was able to fly away.
Happy at having performed this Buddhist act of merit, the priest
then resumed his walk. He had not proceeded very far when he saw
a strange monk come out of a bamboo-grove by the road-side, and
hasten towards him. The monk respectfully saluted him, and said:
--"Sir, through your compassionate kindness my life has been
saved; and I now desire to express my gratitude in a fitting
manner." Astonished at hearing himself thus addressed, the priest
replied:--"Really, I cannot remember to have ever seen you
before: please tell me who you are." "It is not wonderful that
you cannot recognize me in this form," returned the monk: "I am
the kite that those cruel boys were tormenting at Kita-no-Oji.
You saved my life; and there is nothing in this world more
precious than life. So I now wish to return your kindness in some
way or other. If there be anything that you would like to have,
or to know, or to see,--anything that I can do for you, in
short,--please to tell me; for as I happen to possess, in a small
degree, the Six Supernatural Powers, I am able to gratify almost
any wish that you can express." On hearing these words, the
priest knew that he was speaking with a Tengu; and he frankly
made answer:--"My friend, I have long ceased to care for the
things of this world: I am now seventy years of age; neither fame
nor pleasure has any attraction for me. I feel anxious only about
my future birth; but as that is a matter in which no one can help
me, it were useless to ask about it. Really, I can think of but
one thing worth wishing for. It has been my life-long regret that
I was not in India in the time of the Lord Buddha, and could not
attend the great assembly on the holy mountain Gridhrakuta. Never
a day passes in which this regret does not come to me, in the
hour of morning or of evening prayer. Ah, my friend! if it were
possible to conquer Time and Space, like the Bodhisattvas, so
that I could look upon that marvellous assembly, how happy should
I be!"
"Why," the Tengu exclaimed, "that pious wish of yours can easily
be satisfied. I perfectly well remember the assembly on the
Vulture Peak; and I can cause everything that happened there to
reappear before you, exactly as it occurred. It is our greatest
delight to represent such holy matters.... Come this way with
me!"
And the priest suffered himself to be led to a place among pines,
on the slope of a hill. "Now," said the Tengu, "you have only to
wait here for awhile, with your eyes shut. Do not open them
until you hear the voice of the Buddha preaching the Law. Then
you can look. But when you see the appearance of the Buddha, you
must not allow your devout feelings to influence you in any way;
--you must not bow down, nor pray, nor utter any such exclamation
as, 'Even so, Lord!' or 'O thou Blessed One!' You must not speak
at all. Should you make even the least sign of reverence,
something very unfortunate might happen to me." The priest gladly
promised to follow these injunctions; and the Tengu hurried away
as if to prepare the spectacle.
The day waned and passed, and the darkness came; but the old
priest waited patiently beneath a tree, keeping his eyes closed.
At last a voice suddenly resounded above him,--a wonderful voice,
deep and clear like the pealing of a mighty bell,--the voice of
the Buddha Sakyamuni proclaiming the Perfect Way. Then the
priest, opening his eyes in a great radiance, perceived that all
things had been changed: the place was indeed the Vulture Peak,--
the holy Indian mountain Gridhrakuta; and the time was the time
of the Sutra of the Lotos of the Good Law. Now there were no
pines about him, but strange shining trees made of the Seven
Precious Substances, with foliage and fruit of gems;--and the
ground was covered with Mandarava and Manjushaka flowers showered
from heaven;--and the night was filled with fragrance and
splendour and the sweetness of the great Voice. And in mid-air,
shining as a moon above the world, the priest beheld the Blessed
One seated upon the Lion-throne, with Samantabhadra at his right
hand, and Manjusri at his left,--and before them assembled--
immeasurably spreading into Space, like a flood Of stars--the
hosts of the Mahasattvas and the Bodhisattvas with their
countless following: "gods, demons, Nagas, goblins, men, and
beings not human." Sariputra he saw, and Kasyapa, and Ananda,
with all the disciples of the Tathagata,--and the Kings of the
Devas,--and the Kings of the Four Directions, like pillars of
fire,--and the great Dragon-Kings,--and the Gandharvas and
Garudas,--and the Gods of the Sun and the Moon and the Wind,--and
the shining myriads of Brahma's heaven. And incomparably further
than even the measureless circling of the glory of these, he saw
--made visible by a single ray of light that shot from the
forehead of the Blessed One to pierce beyond uttermost Time--the
eighteen hundred thousand Buddha-fields of the Eastern Quarter
with all their habitants,--and the beings in each of the Six
States of Existence,--and even the shapes of the Buddhas extinct,
that had entered into Nirvana. These, and all the gods, and all
the demons, he saw bow down before the Lion-throne; and he heard
that multitude incalculable of beings praising the Sutra of the
Lotos of the Good Law,--like the roar of a sea before the Lord.
Then forgetting utterly his pledge,--foolishly dreaming that he
stood in the very presence of the very Buddha,--he cast himself
down in worship with tears of love and thanksgiving; crying out
with a loud voice, "O thou Blessed One!"...
Instantly with a shock as of earthquake the stupendous spectacle
disappeared; and the priest found himself alone in the dark,
kneeling upon the grass of the mountain-side. Then a sadness
unspeakable fell upon him, because of the loss of the vision, and
because of the thoughtlessness that had caused him to break his
word. As he sorrowfully turned his steps homeward, the goblin-
monk once more appeared before him, and said to him in tones of
reproach and pain:--"Because you did not keep the promise which
you made to me, and heedlessly allowed your feelings to overcome
you, the Gohotendo, who is the Guardian of the Doctrine, swooped
down suddenly from heaven upon us, and smote us in great anger,
crying out, 'How do ye dare thus to deceive a pious person?' Then
the other monks, whom I had assembled, all fled in fear. As for
myself, one of my wings has been broken,--so that now I cannot
fly." And with these words the Tengu vanished forever.
1 This story may be found in the curious old Japanese book called
Jikkun-Sho. The same legend has furnished the subject of an
interesting No-play, called Dai-E ("The Great Assembly").
In Japanese popular art, the Tengu are commonly represented
either as winged men with beak-shaped noses, or as birds of prey.
There are different kinds of Tengu; but all are supposed to be
mountain-haunting spirits, capable of assuming many forms, and
occasionally appearing as crows, vultures, or eagles. Buddhism
appears to class the Tengu among the Marakayikas.
At Yaidzu
I
Under a bright sun the old fishing-town of Yaidzu has a
particular charm of neutral color. Lizard-like it takes the grey
tints of the rude grey coast on which it rests,--curving along a
little bay. It is sheltered from heavy seas by an extraordinary
rampart of boulders. This rampart, on the water-side, is built in
the form of terrace-steps;--the rounded stones of which it is
composed being kept in position by a sort of basket-work woven
between rows of stakes driven deeply into the ground,--a separate
row of stakes sustaining each of the grades. Looking landward
from the top of the structure, your gaze ranges over the whole
town,--a broad space of grey-tiled roofs and weather-worn grey
timbers, with here and there a pine-grove marking the place of a
temple-court. Seaward, over leagues of water, there is a grand
view,--a jagged blue range of peaks crowding sharply into the
horizon, like prodigious amethysts,--and beyond them, to the
left, the glorious spectre of Fuji, towering enormously above
everything. Between sea-wall and sea there is no sand,--only a
grey slope of stones, chiefly boulders; and these roll with the
surf so that it is ugly work trying to pass the breakers on a
rough day. If you once get struck by a stone-wave,--as I did
several times,--you will not soon forget the experience.
At certain hours the greater part of this rough slope is occupied
by ranks of strange-looking craft,--fishing-boats of a form
peculiar to the locality. They are very large,--capable of
carrying forty or fifty men each;--and they have queer high
prows, to which Buddhist or Shinto charms (mamori or shugo) are
usually attached. A common form of Shinto written charm (shugo)
is furnished for this purpose from the temple of the Goddess of
Fuji: the text reads:--Fuji-san chojo Sengen-gu dai-gyo manzoku,
--meaning that the owner of the boat pledges himself, in case of
good-fortune at fishing, to perform great austerities in honor of
the divinity whose shrine is upon the summit of Fuji.
In every coast-province of Japan,--and even at different fishing-
settlements of the same province,--the forms of boats and
fishing-implements are peculiar to the district or settlement.
Indeed it will sometimes be found that settlements, within a few
miles of each other, respectively manufacture nets or boats as
dissimilar in type as might be the inventions of races living
thousands of miles apart. This amazing variety may be in some
degree due to respect for local tradition,--to the pious
conservatism that preserves ancestral teaching and custom
unchanged through hundreds of years: but it is better explained
by the fact that different communities practise different kinds
of fishing; and the shapes of the nets or the boats made, at any
one place, are likely to prove, on investigation, the inventions
of a special experience. The big Yaidzu boats illustrate this
fact. They were devised according to the particular requirements
of the Yaidzu-fishing-industry, which supplies dried katsuo
(bonito) to all parts of the Empire; and it was necessary that
they should be able to ride a very rough sea. To get them in or
out of the water is a heavy job; but the whole village helps. A
kind of slipway is improvised in a moment by laying flat wooden
frames on the slope in a line; and over these frames the flat-
bottomed vessels are hauled up or down by means of long ropes.
You will see a hundred or more persons thus engaged in moving a
single boat,--men, women, and children pulling together, in time
to a curious melancholy chant. At the coming of a typhoon, the
boats are moved far back into the streets. There is plenty of fun
in helping at such work; and if you are a stranger, the fisher-
folk will perhaps reward your pains by showing you the wonders of
their sea: crabs with legs of astonishing length, balloon-fish
that blow themselves up in the most absurd manner, and various
other creatures of shapes so extraordinary that you can scarcely
believe them natural without touching them.
The big boats with holy texts at their prows are not the
strangest objects on the beach. Even more remarkable are the
bait-baskets of split bamboo,--baskets six feet high and eighteen
feet round, with one small hole in the dome-shaped top. Ranged
along the sea-wall to dry, they might at some distance be
mistaken for habitations or huts of some sort. Then you see great
wooden anchors, shaped like ploughshares, and shod with metal;
iron anchors, with four flukes; prodigious wooden mallets, used
for driving stakes; and various other implements, still more
unfamiliar, of which you cannot even imagine the purpose. The
indescribable antique queerness of everything gives you that
weird sensation of remoteness,--of the far away in time and
place,--which makes one doubt the reality of the visible. And the
life of Yaidzu is certainly the life of many centuries ago. The
people, too, are the people of Old Japan: frank and kindly as
children--good children,--honest to a fault, innocent of the
further world, loyal to the ancient traditions and the ancient
gods.
II
I happened to be at Yaidzu during the three days of the Bon or
Festival of the Dead; and I hoped to see the beautiful farewell
ceremony of the third and last day. In many parts of Japan, the
ghosts are furnished with miniature ships for their voyage,--
little models of junks or fishing-craft, each containing
offerings of food and water and kindled incense; also a tiny
lantern or lamp, if the ghost-ship be despatched at night. But at
Yaidzu lanterns only are set afloat; and I was told that they
would be launched after dark. Midnight being the customary hour
elsewhere, I supposed that it was the hour of farewell at Yaidzu
also, and I rashly indulged in a nap after supper, expecting to
wake up in time for the spectacle. But by ten o'clock, when I
went to the beach again, all was over, and everybody had gone
home. Over the water I saw something like a long swarm of fire-
flies,--the lanterns drifting out to sea in procession; but they
were already too far to be distinguished except as points of
colored light. I was much disappointed: I felt that I had lazily
missed an opportunity which might never again return,--for these
old Bon-customs are dying rapidly. But in another moment it
occurred to me that I could very well venture to swim out to the
lights. They were moving slowly. I dropped my robe on the beach,
and plunged in. The sea was calm, and beautifully phosphorescent.
Every stroke kindled a stream of yellow fire. I swam fast, and
overtook the last of the lantern-fleet much sooner than I had
hoped. I felt that it would be unkind to interfere with the
little embarcations, or to divert them from their silent course:
so I contented myself with keeping close to one of them, and
studying its details.
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