Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories (35 page)

—I don't have the strength to keep writing this. To go on living with this feeling is painful beyond description. Isn't there someone kind enough to strangle me in my sleep?

(1927: Posthumous manuscript)

ARSJ
Sekiguchi Yasuyoshi,
Akutagawa Ry
Å«
nosuke to sono jidai
(Tokyo: Chikuma shob
ō
, 1999)

CARZ
Yoshida Seiichi et al. (eds.),
Akutagawa Ry
Å«
nosuke zensh
Å«
, 8 vols. (Tokyo: Chikuma shob
ō
, 1964–5)

IARZ
K
ō
no Toshir
ō
et al. (eds.),
Akutagawa Ry
Å«
nosuke zensh
Å«
, 24 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1995–8)

NKBT
Yoshida Seiichi et al. (eds.),
Akutagawa Ry
Å«
nosuke sh
Å«
, in
Nihon kindai bungaku taikei
, 60vols. (Tokyo: Kadokawa shoten, 1968–74), vol. 38(1970)

“Mon” means “gate.” The Rash
ō
mon (originally, Raj
ō
mon: outer castle gate) was the great southern main entrance to Kyoto during the golden age of the imperial court, the Heian Period. Massive pillars supported a cavernous chamber topped by a sloping tile roof, with stone steps leading into and out of its towering archway. In its heyday, all its wooden surfaces wore a coat of vermilion lacquer. The broad Suzaku Avenue running north from the Rash
ō
mon led straight to the gate of the Imperial Palace, where lived the tiny, aesthetically refined fraction of the populace depicted in the country's greatest literary monument, Murasaki Shikibu's
The Tale of Genji
.

1
.
To borrow a phrase from a writer of old
: Akutagawa's narrator uses an expression found in the twelfth-century
Konjaku monogatari
(
Tales of Times Now Past
) for the sensation of the hair standing on end. For an English translation, see Translator's Note,
note 2
.

Kurosawa's
Rash
ō
mon
is based primarily on this story, set in the late Heian Period. Akutagawa's “Rash
ō
mon” contributed little more to the film than the frame (see that story's headnote). While this story is based on a twelfth-century tale (for an English translation, see Translator's Note,
note 2
), the place names are real, and most relate to the steep hills that line the ancient capital Kyoto's eastern flank. Yamashina, now an eastern ward of the city, was a village lying just beyond the hills. Situated in the foothills on the city side, Toribe Temple was connected with a burial ground toward the south. Lying just to the north in those foothills, Kiyomizu Temple is still a major site of popular worship. Awataguchi was a familiar northeasterly point of entry from the hills. Wakasa Province would have been several days' journey on foot to the northeast of Kyoto. The “Magistrate” (
Kebiishi
, literally “Examiner of Misdeeds,” also translated “Police Commissioner”) to whom the characters speak was a Kyoto city official who exercised both police and judicial authority. In the original tale, the highwayman has no name; Akutagawa seems to have borrowed “Taj
ō
maru” from another story about a “famous bandit” in the same collection.

1
.
the first watch
: 8: 00p.m.

2
.
Binzuru
: The Japanese version of the Sanskrit name Pindolabharadvaja, who was one of the Buddha's more important disciples and a focus of popular worship.

3
.
bodhisattva of a woman
: In Mahayana Buddhism, an enlightened being who compassionately defers entry into Nirvana in order to help others attain enlightenment. By extension, a perfectly beautiful woman.

4
.
burial mound
: Prehistoric Japanese aristocrats were often buried
in mounded graves containing jewels, weapons, and other valuables.

5
.
Kanzeon
: Also known as Kannon. See also “The Nose,”
note 1
.

“Naigu,” an honorary title for a priest privileged to perform rites within the Imperial Palace, is pronounced “nigh-goo.” While his name, Zenchi, derives from an abstract Zen Buddhist concept of enlightenment, he is a practitioner of a simpler, more widely practiced kind of Buddhism, in which the believer is transported to a more concretely-conceived western paradise, or Pure Land, after death. His fictional temple is located in Ike-no-o, a village now part of the city of Uji, south of Kyoto.

1
.
Kannon Sutra
: Actually a chapter of the Lotus Sutra (
My
ō
h
ō
renge-ky
ō
; Sanskrit:
Saddharma Pundarika Sutra
; English:
Sutra on the Lotus of the Wonderful Law
or
Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma
), which is the premier scripture of Japanese Mahayana Buddhism. Chapter 25 details the miraculous power of the bodhisattva of compassion, Kannon (Sanskrit: Avalokitesvara), to respond to all cries for help from the world's faithful. Akutagawa's choice of scriptures in this story is not entirely consistent with any one Buddhist sect.

2
.
Mokuren
…
Shu Han emperor
: Mokuren and Sharihotsu: two of Shakyamuni Buddha's sixteen disciples; Sanskrit: Maudgalyayana and Sariputra. Ry
Å«
ju and Memy
ō
: Sanskrit: Nagarjuna and Asvaghosa. Liu Bei (162–223) was the first emperor of the Shu Han dynasty (221–64) in southwestern China.

3
.
Fugen
: Sanskrit: Samantabhadra. Often depicted riding a white elephant to the Buddha's right, Fugen symbolizes, among other things, the Buddha's concentration of mind. The trunk of the elephant might also have attracted the Naigu's attention.

Borrowed from China, the dragon, often deified, is one of the oldest East Asian symbols of awesome power and good fortune. Akutagawa's given name, Ry
Å«
nosuke, or “dragon-son,” was meant to confer on him some of the imaginary creature's auspicious nature. While this
story is based on a fictional thirteenth-century tale (for an English translation, see Translator's Note, note 3), it is set in the very real city of Nara, which was Japan's capital from 710to 784and is still a major religious center for both Buddhism and Shint
ō
, Japan's indigenous, nature-loving faith. Sarusawa Pond is a good-sized pond (some 340meters in circumference) situated just across the road from the Great South Gate of the massive K
ō
fukuji Temple, where the priestly protagonist E'in lives. (The Kasuga Shrine, one of the most important Shint
ō
establishments, is a short walk to the east.) The name E'in is a two-syllable word: “e” as in “yes” followed smoothly (without a glottal stop) by “een” as in “seen.” The name of E'in's “brother monk,” Emon, has the same short “e” followed by “mon.” According to the lunar calendar in use in pre-modern times, the third day of the third month could occur anywhere from the end of March to late April. The “distant” places mentioned in the text would all have been within a fifty-mile radius, the aunt's village of Sakurai about twenty miles.

1
.
Amida
: Adherents of Pure Land Buddhism repeatedly call upon the name of Amida (Sanskrit: Amitabha), the Buddha of Infinite Light, in hopes of being reborn in his paradise.

2
.
great annual Kyoto processions…. out of season
: As the imperial capital at the time, and having broad avenues, Kyoto had far grander seasonal processions than Nara. The Hollyhock Festival (Aoi Matsuri) was (and is) one of the grandest of all, occurring in the fourth lunar month (now 15 May) with elaborately decorated oxcarts and viewing stands and hundreds of participants marching between the imperial palace and two major Shint
ō
shrines to pray for good crops and relief from storms.

1
.
Lord Buddha Shakyamuni
: The Japanese often refer to the so-called “historical Buddha,” Siddhartha Gautama (
c
. 563–
c
. 483 BC) by his designation as “Sage of the Shakya Clan” (‘‘Shakyamuni”). The image here of “Lord Shakyamuni” (Japanese, “Shaka-sama”) as a supernatural being in Paradise derives from the elaborate Buddhist canon that took shape after his death. For sources of this story, see Translator's Note. See also note 2 to “O-Gin.”

2
.
the River of Three Crossings and the Mountain of Needles…
peep-box: “Topographical” features of the Japanese Buddhist Hell. The Stygian river, crossed by the soul on the seventh day after death, had routes of graduated difficulty depending on the individual's accumulated sinfulness. The
peep-box (nozokimegane or nozoki-karakuri
) enabled the paying customer to view a series of still pictures (often including images of heaven and hell) through openings in the side of a box. The devices had their heyday in the late eighteenth century. See Timon Screech,
The Lens within the Heart: The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002).

“Yoshihide” has four evenly-stressed syllables, pronounced: Yo-shee-hee-deh. “Monkeyhide” also has four syllables. For the source of this tale (and an English translation), see Translator's Note (and note 5).

1
.
China's First Emperor… Sui emperor Yang
: China's self-proclaimed “First Emperor” (259–210
BC
; reigned 247–210). His construction of the Great Wall, which began
c
. 228
BC
and was completed a few years after his death, cost the lives of many of his subjects. Yang, the second and last emperor of the Sui Dynasty (569–618; reigned 604–618), was another ruler whose ambitious public works cost many lives and much treasure.

2
.
Nij
ō
-
Ō
miya in the Capital
: Several eleventh-or twelfth-century stories marked this intersection outside the southeastern corner of the Imperial Palace grounds as a place where one might encounter a procession of goblins. See, for example, Helen Craig McCullough,
Ō
kagami: The Great Mirror
(Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 136.

3
.
the minister had recreated… spirit vanish
: For the translation of a N
ō
play on the legend of Minamoto no T
ō
ru (822–895), his lavish garden, and his ghost, see Kenneth Yasuda,
Masterworks of the N
ō
Theatre
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), pp. 460–84.

4
.
human sacrifice… apillar
: This echoes an ancient legend which also inspired a fifteenth-century N
ō
play,
Nagara
, in which the spirit of the sacrificial victim returns to seek vengeance for his unjust death.

5
.
Kawanari or Kanaoka
: Both artists, Kose no Kanaoka (
fl
.
c
. 895)
and Kudara no Kawanari (782–853) were noted for the uncanny realism of their works, none of which survives. A horse that Kanaoka painted on the Imperial Palace wall was said to escape at night and tear up nearby fields. See Yoshiko K. Dykstra,
The Konjaku Tales
, 3 vols. (Osaka: Intercultural Research Institute, Kansai Gaidai University, 1998–2003), 2:282–4, for a story about Kawanari.

6
.
Five Levels of Rebirth… Ry
Å«
gaiji temple gate
: In Buddhism, the five graduated realms to which the dead proceed depending on their virtue in past lives: heaven, human, animal, hungry ghost, hell. Ry
Å«
gaiji is a temple near Nara (see “
Dragon: The Potter's Tale
”).

7
.
Monju
: Sanskrit: Manjusri, bodhisattva of wisdom.

8
.
a fox spirit
: Japan is particularly rich in folklore about foxes as spiritual creatures with both threatening and nurturing aspects. See Karen A. Smyers,
The Fox and the Jewel: Shared and Private Meanings in Contemporary Japanese Inari Worship
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998).

9
.
the Five Virtues
: The five Confucian virtues: benevolence, justice, courtesy, wisdom, and fidelity.

Portuguese Jesuits arrived in Japan in 1549, and edicts forbidding the practice of Christianity were issued as early as 1587. The story is set in 1620 (the year of the Monkey), when the Tokugawa government was still observing adherents for signs of subversive activity, and foreign missionaries were not yet being jailed and executed. After the martyrdom of fifty-one Christians in 1622, the government would move against the foreign religion with increasing severity, all but obliterating it in 1638 with the suppression of the Christian-inspired Shimabara Rebellion (see headnote to “O-Gin”). One favored technique for ascertaining an apostate's sincerity was to have the person tread upon a holy image such as a picture of the virgin or a cross. The place is a remote village in the Province of Iyo at the western end of the island of Shikoku, far from such active Christian (Kirishitan) centers as Shimabara and Nagasaki on the island of Kyushu. Dr. Ogata Ry
ō
sai is a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine, in which the taking of the pulse was (and is) a major diagnostic tool.