Buddhism; Folklore -- Japan; Japan -- Social life and customs
Yukiko cut off her hair, and became a mendicant-nun,—taking the
religious name of Dassetsu. She had an _ihai_ (mortuary tablet) made,
bearing the _kaimyō_ of her dead mistress,—“_Myō-Kō-In-Den
Chizan-Ryō-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 Dengozayémon, in the village of Tanaka in the district of
Kawachi in the province of Shimotsuké. This was in the third year of
Kōkwa (1846). Thereafter nothing more was ever heard of her.
Story of a Tengu[1]
[1] This story may be found in the curious old Japanese book called
_Jikkun-Shō_. The same legend has furnished the subject of an
interesting _Nō_-play, called _Dai-É_ (“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 Mârakâyikas.
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 Kyōto. One
summer day this good priest, after a visit to the city, was returning
to his temple by way of Kita-no-Ōji, 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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