Anthology of Japanese Literature/Tales from the Uji Collection

Layout 2

Tales from the Uji Collection

 

[Uji Shūi Monogatari]

 

This is a collection of 194 tales divided into fifteen booths and including examples of every type of theme, ranging from the Buddhist moral tale to humorous anecdotes and traditional fairy stories. The date of the collection is unknown, but it is now generally accepted as probably early thirteenth century. See also the Introduction, page 22.

•

The Grateful Sparrow

In times now long ago, one bright sunny day in early spring an old woman of about sixty was sitting outside her house picking lice. In the courtyard a sparrow hopped about. Some children who were playing nearby started to throw stones at the bird, and one of them struck it, breaking its back. While it struggled about, helplessly flapping its wings, a crow came swooping down upon it. “Oh, what a pity! The crow will get it!” cried the old woman. She rushed over to the sparrow and picked it up. Then she blew on it with her warm breath and fed it. She put the bird into a little pail which she took indoors for the night. The next morning she fed it some rice and made it some medicine of copper dust. Her children and grandchildren said sneeringly, “What a dear old lady she is, to take care of a sparrow in her old age!”

Nevertheless, she tenderly looked after the bird for several months until at last it was hopping about again. Though a mere sparrow, it felt very happy and grateful that she had restored it to health. Whenever the old woman left the house, even on the briefest of errands, she would give instructions to her family. “Look after the sparrow and see that it gets something to eat.” And her children and grandchildren laughed at her and teased her. “How touching! Why do you worry so much about a sparrow?” “Say what you please, it’s a poor helpless creature,” she would reply.

As a result of the good care she took of it, the bird finally was able to fly once more. “Now no crow will get it,” said the old woman, and took it outdoors to see how well it could fly. When she placed it on the palm of her hand and held it out at arm’s length, away the sparrow flew with a flutter of its wings. After that the old woman, in the loneliness and tedium of her life, longed for the bird. She would say, “How sad that it has flown away after so many months and days of taking it in for the night and feeding it in the morning!” As usual, everyone laughed at her.

Some twenty days later the woman heard the loud chirping of a sparrow outside her house. “Why, that’s a sparrow! Perhaps the same one has come back,” she thought, going out to look. Indeed, it was the very same sparrow. “Oh, how touching! How touching that it has not forgotten me and has come back,” she said. The sparrow, peering at the old woman’s face, dropped something very small that it held in its beak, apparently intending to leave whatever it was for her, and then flew away. “What can the sparrow have dropped?” wondered the woman. She went over and discovered that it had let fall a single gourd seed. “It must have had some reason for bringing this,” she said, picking it up. Her children mocked her, “How wonderful! She gets a present from a sparrow and acts as if it were some great treasure!” “Say what you will. I’ll plant it and see what happens,” she replied, and this she did.

When autumn came the plant bore a great many gourds. They were not of the usual kind, but much larger and more numerous. The old woman was exceedingly pleased. No matter how many she picked or gave away to the neighbors, more still remained than she could possibly use. Her children and grandchildren who had laughed at her ate the gourds every day.

At last, when she had distributed the gourds to everyone in the village, she decided that she would cure seven or eight of the largest and finest to use as containers. These she hung indoors and left to dry. When several months had elapsed, she inspected them, thinking that by this time they would be about ready. The gourds had indeed turned out very well, but when she took one of them down, she was surprised to find how heavy it was. She cut open the gourd all the same, only to discover that it was stuffed with something. She poured it out to see what it might be—the gourd was full of white rice! Amazed at this prodigy, she emptied the gourd into a big container, but when she had finished it was full again, just as when she began. Astonished and overjoyed, she said, “This is most unusual. The sparrow must be back of this.” She put the rice into containers and stored it away. When she examined the other gourds, she found that they were full of rice too. No matter how much she poured out or used, there was still more left than she knew what to do with, and she thus became a very wealthy person indeed. The other villagers were amazed and envious at her good fortune.

Now the children of the old woman who lived next door said to their mother, “Other people, though they’re no different from you, manage to become rich, but you can’t even do the simplest thing.” As the result of such complaints, the old woman from next door went to visit the first old woman. “Now then, what’s all this about? I’ve heard some rumors about a sparrow, but I really know nothing about it. Please tell me the whole story from the beginning, just as it happened.”

“It all came about from planting a gourd seed that a sparrow dropped,” replied the first old woman, and would not give any further details. But the second old woman kept pressing her. “I insist! Do tell me all about it!” And so, thinking that it would be wrong to be petty and keep the matter a secret, she said, “I took care of a sparrow that had a broken back, and nursed it back to health. It must have felt so grateful that it brought me a gourd seed which I planted, and this is what happened.”

“Please give me just one of the seeds,” said the second old woman, but she refused. “I will give you some of the rice that was inside the gourds, but I can’t give you any seeds. Those I most certainly cannot give away.”

Having been thus unsuccessful in getting a seed, the second old woman began to keep a sharp lookout in the hope that she too might find a sparrow with a broken back to take care of, but not a single sparrow of that description was to be seen. Every morning when she looked out of her house, there would be some sparrows hopping about outside the back door eating any grains of rice that had happened to fall. The old woman would pick up stones and throw them at the birds on the chance of hitting one. Since she threw a great many stones at a great many sparrows, she naturally succeeded at last in hitting one and wounding it so that it could not fly. Very pleased with herself, the old woman went over to the bird and, after making sure that its back was thoroughly broken, she picked it up, fed it, and gave it medicine with great solicitousness. Then she thought, “If the old lady next door gets so much in return for taking care of a single sparrow, how much richer I could be if there were several! I would be superior to her, and my children would praise me.”

She spread some rice in a winnowing tray and kept watch. When some sparrows gathered to eat the rice, she threw stone after stone at them, and at last succeeded in striking down three. Deciding that would do for the time being, she put the three injured sparrows in a pail, powdered some copper and fed it to them. After several months of treatment they all recovered. She joyfully took them outdoors, and they flew away with fluttering wings. “How clever I am!” she thought. But the sparrows felt only the bitterest hatred toward her, even though she had nursed them, for she was the one who had broken their backs.

About ten days later the sparrows returned. The happy old woman looked first to see whether they had anything in their beaks, where­ upon they each let fall a single gourd seed and flew away. “I thought so!” she said and, gleefully picking up the seeds, planted them in three places. The seedlings grew unusually fast and soon became very large. But they did not produce so many gourds—not more than seven or eight on a plant. Nevertheless, the old woman watched them with a broad grin on her face. She told her children, “You said that I was never good for anything, but I’ll show you that I am better than the old lady next door.” They were quite convinced now that things would indeed turn out as she said.

Since the gourds were few in number, the old woman, wishing to get the largest possible amount of rice out of them, neither gave any away to other people nor ate any herself. But her children said, “The old lady next door gave some gourds to her neighbors and ate some herself. All the more should you do so, since you had three seeds to start with. You ought to give some away, and we should eat some ourselves.” Accordingly, she picked quite a number of gourds, both for the neighbors and her own family, but the gourds proved to be horribly bitter, and made everyone feel nauseous and giddy. Everyone who ate any fell violently ill, and the old woman’s outraged neighbors went in a body to her house intending to scold her. “What on earth has she given us?” they asked one another. “How dreadful of her! Even those of us who no more than smelled one vomited, and we were so sick that we nearly died.” When they arrived at her house, however, the old woman and her children were prostrate and vomiting all over the room. There was evidently no use in complaining, and the neighbors went home.

It was two or three days before they had all recovered. The old woman thought to herself, “I wanted to keep the gourds so that they would all produce rice, but we were in too much of a hurry to eat them. That is no doubt why this accident happened.” She picked all the remaining gourds and put them away.

When several months had passed, and she thought that the gourds had reached the proper stage, she went into the storeroom with some tubs in which to hold the rice after she had poured it out. She was immensely pleased, and her toothless old mouth was grinning from ear to ear as she carried over one of the tubs and poured the contents of a gourd into it. But what came out was not rice, but hornets, bees, centipedes, scorpions, snakes, and other such creatures, and they fastened upon her and stung her eyes and nose and her whole body. Yet for the moment the old woman felt no pain at all. She thought that they were just grains of rice bouncing up out of the container and hitting her. She said, “Just wait a while, you sparrows! I’ll see that you each get a little bit.”

The many poisonous insects that emerged from the seven or eight gourds stung and bit her children too, and the old woman herself was stung to death. It seems that the sparrows, hating her for breaking their backs, had persuaded all the insects to hide inside the gourds and help them with their revenge. The sparrow next door had been grateful to the old woman who had cared for it and restored it to health when its back was already broken and it was in mortal danger of being seized by a crow. We must not be envious of others.

(III, 16)

 

The Holy Man of Shinano Province

In times now long ago there lived in Shinano Province a priest who, having entered the priesthood in a remote country district, had never been properly ordained. He determined that he would somehow go up to the capital and receive ordination at the Tōdaiji.^[1] At last he succeeded in making the journey and the ceremony was duly performed. He had intended to return to his native province afterward, but it really seemed a mistake to go back to so heathenish a place where no one even knew about the Buddha, and he therefore decided to remain in the neighborhood of the capital. He sat down in front of the Buddha of the Tōdaiji and looked all about him at the surrounding countryside to see whether he could detect any suitable place where he might live peacefully and perform his devotions. At last his eye hit upon a certain mountain which could be dimly seen off to the southwest. “That is where I will live and pray,” he thought, and went there.

As a result of the many rigorous austerities which the priest performed, he was at length able, thanks to the magical powers he gained, to produce out of thin air a small image of Bishamon, of about the size that would fit into a miniature shrine. He built a small chapel in the mountains where he enshrined the image, and spent the years and months in practicing devotions of an unparalleled fervor.

Now at the foot of this mountain there lived a certain man who, though of humble birth, was exceedingly rich. It became a habit with the holy man to have his begging bowl fly down to this man’s house, where it would be filled with food and then return. One day the rich man had opened up his stoutly built log storehouse, and was engaged in removing some wares when the bowl came flying down to beg for its usual portion of food. “What a very greedy bowl you are!” he said, and picking it up tossed it into a corner of the storehouse instead of filling it immediately.

The bowl waited there patiently, but when the rich man had finished putting his possessions in order he forgot all about the bowl, which he neither filled nor removed from the storehouse. Locking the door behind him, the rich man went home. After a short while, the storehouse began to shake and tremble in a strange and unaccountable fashion. Everyone looked on in great excitement, wondering what could be the matter, and as they watched, it swayed and moved all the more violently, until it had risen about a foot off the ground. The onlookers were astounded, and excitedly asked one another what could be the meaning of this prodigy. “That’s right!” cried someone, “the master forgot the holy man’s begging bowl and left it inside the storehouse. That must be what has caused it.” Meanwhile the bowl could be seen protruding from under the storehouse; and the building itself, riding on the bowl, sailed up into the air until it had reached a height of ten or twenty feet and then flew off, while the people gazed on in astonishment, shouting and jabbering at one another.

The owner of the storehouse, powerless to stop its flight, could only follow along to see where it would go. All the people of the neighborhood went running after it too. The storehouse flew at a leisurely pace until it arrived at the mountain where the holy man had his retreat, and dropped down with a thud beside his hut. At this everyone marveled more than ever. The owner could scarcely permit such a situation to continue, however, and approached the holy man, saying, “What an astonishing thing to have happened! Whenever your bowl has come to my house I have always filled it with food, but today I was so busy that I forgot all about the bowl and locked my storehouse without removing it. Then the storehouse began to shake and sway, and now it has flown all the way here. Please return it to me.”

“It is, to be sure, most remarkable, but since it came here of its own accord I cannot return the storehouse to you. I have never had anything of the kind, and it will be convenient for me to keep things in. However, you may take away whatever is inside as soon as you wish,” replied the holy man.

“But how,” asked the rich man, “can I carry these things home with me now? There are a thousand measures of rice inside the storehouse.”

“That is a very simple matter. I will see to it that they are transported for you,” said the holy man. He had someone load one of the bales of rice on his bowl, which he caused to fly into the sky. Thereupon all the other bales followed along after it, just like a flock of geese.

When the rich man saw the bales flying off, he was more than ever astonished and struck with awe, and he said to the holy man, “Wait! Don’t send them all back! Please keep two or three hundred measures of rice for your own use.”

“That may not be,” said the holy man. “What would I do with them if they were left here?”

“Then let me give you as many as you can use—say, ten or twenty measures,” suggested the rich man.

The holy man still would not accept. “If I had any need for so much rice, I would take your ten or twenty measures, but I have not.” He made certain that every last bale landed at the rich man’s house.

While the holy man went on living thus, performing miracles of every description, the Emperor Daigo^[2] fell seriously ill. All manner of prayers, exorcisms, and recitations of the scriptures were performed on his behalf, but he showed no signs of recovery. Someone said, “There lives at Shigi a holy man who has been practicing austerities for many years, and has never once come down from his solitary retreat. He possesses supernatural powers and performs all manner of miracles. Without so much as budging from his seat, he can make his begging bowl fly through the air. If he is summoned to court and offers prayers for His Majesty, he cannot fail to effect a recovery.”

It was decided to adopt this suggestion, and an archivist was sent as an Imperial messenger to summon the holy man. On his arrival, the messenger was greatly impressed by the hermit’s noble and venerable bearing. He announced to the holy man that he was commanded by Imperial decree to appear at court, and that he must proceed to the capital in all haste. The holy man showed no sign whatever of stirring. “Why am I being summoned?” he asked.

“His Majesty is suffering from a serious complaint. Please come and pray for him,” explained the messenger.

“Why,” asked the holy man, “may I not pray for him here?”

“In that case,” objected the messenger, “if His Majesty should recover, how would we know that it was due to the efficacy of your prayers?”

The holy man said, “So long as his health is restored, it hardly matters whose miraculous powers are responsible.”

“Just the same,” insisted the messenger, “it would be best to have some way of telling which of the many prayers and rituals performed is the one that has had the desired effect.”

“Very well then,” said the holy man, “when I perform my ritual, I shall send the Sword Guardian to His Majesty as a sign. If he should happen to see this guardian either in a dream or a vision, he may know that he comes from me. The Sword Guardian wears a cloak of swords woven together. Under no circumstances can I go up to the capital.”

The Imperial messenger returned to the court and made his report. Toward noon of the third day following, the Emperor, while fully awake, caught sight of something glittering near him. When he looked at it closely, he saw that it was the Sword Guardian of which the holy man had spoken. From that moment on, His Majesty became cheerful, all symptoms of his illness disappeared, and he was his former self again. Everyone was delighted, and the holy man was honored and praised by all. His Majesty was also greatly impressed, and sent a man with the message, “You must let me make you an archbishop, or at least let me bestow a manor on your temple.”

When the holy man received the message, he answered, “I cannot possibly become an archbishop or a bishop, and if a manor were made over to my temple, it would certainly entail having an intendant and other people to manage it. That would be as unwelcome to me as being tormented for my sins. Let me remain as I am.” And so the matter was dropped.

Now this holy man had an elder sister. She had not laid eyes on him since he went to Nara to be ordained and, being worried over how he had fared during the long years of their separation, she went to look for him. She made inquiries all around the neighborhood of the Tōdaiji for a man named Mōren, but not a soul knew of him. Though she grew weary with searching, she told herself, “I will not go home until I have found out what has become of him.” That evening she prayed all night long before the Great Buddha of the Tōdaiji, asking that she be shown where Mōren was. At last she fell into a doze, and in her dream Buddha said to her, “The priest whom you seek lives on a mountain southwest of here. Go there and look for him on the side of the mountain from which a cloud is trailing.”

When she awoke it was already close to dawn, and she waited impatiently for the day to break. As soon as the first pale light appeared, she gazed off to the southwest, and could see the faint outlines of a mountain from which trailed a purple cloud. Overjoyed, she made her way in that direction. When she arrived, she found that there really was a temple at the very spot indicated, and going over to a building which looked as if it might be inhabited, she called out, “Is Mōren there?”

“Who is it?” asked the holy man, coming out of his hut. What was his surprise to discover his elder sister from Shinano! “How did you ever find me?” he asked. “I never expected to see you.”

She told him all that had happened, adding, “You must be suffering terribly from the cold. Here is something for you to wear.” She took out what she had brought, a kind of padded underjacket. It was by no means an ordinary one; it was carefully sewn with stout thread and fashioned exceptionally thick and strong. The holy man gladly accepted it, and put it on. Up to then he had had only a single paper garment to wear, and had therefore been very cold indeed; but when he put the jacket on underneath his paper robe, he felt warm and comfortable.

In this way he went on performing his devotions for many years. The nun, his sister, did not return to her native province, but remained with him and worshiped beside him. He wore the padded underjacket constantly for many years, until it fell into shreds. The storehouse which was carried to the mountain by his begging bowl is called the Flying Storehouse. The tattered remains of the jacket and other relics of the holy man are kept inside and are said still to be there. Those who happen, through some fortunate karma affinity, to obtain even so much as a scrap of that underjacket use it as a charm. The storehouse is now in a very dilapidated state, but is still there. People who manage to get hold of even a splinter of the wood from which it was built, make it into a charm, and those who obtain larger pieces and have them carved into images of Bishamon never fail to become rich and prosperous. It is no wonder that everyone who hears this story is anxious to buy a piece of wood from the storehouse. The name of the mountain where the holy man lived all those years is Shigi; it is a place so rich in wonderful miracles that even today it is crowded morning and night with pilgrims. The image of Bishamon enshrined there is said to be the very one that the holy man Mōren miraculously produced through his devotions.^[3]

(VIII, 3)

Translated by Robert H. Brower

1. The Tōdaiji is a temple completed in 752 in Nara, and is known for the colossal statue of the Buddha Vairocana which is its principal object of worship.
2. Reigned 897–929.
3. The events described in this story are depicted in the “Shigisan Engi,” or “Illustrated History of Mount Shigi,” a famous picture scroll of the late Heian Period.