Chapter XXXII

With the removal of a barricade, a youth gains a name;

With a trial by wrestling, ascetics untangle a quarrel

At that moment Shino’s expression changed, and he asked, “This is unexpected, Mister Inukai. I had thought the affair over. When did you revive? And how much of this dialogue have you overheard, that you stop my suicide blade?”

Bungobei, who had fallen over backward with surprise, now patted his chest and added, “I called to you again and again—I sat you up and ministered to you—all my efforts failed to reach you, leaving me to bewail your death. But now you awaken as if from a drunken stupor—an unassuming revival, that called for no physician, but it relieves us. Do you feel alright?”

Kenpachi nodded firmly. “It was not unreasonable of you to think so—I gave you, and him also, reason to think so, even if only for a little while. Ah, that my little boat should drift to this inlet today, should part the reeds to find an old acquaintance and a good friend, both more reliable than any others in the world—that I should face you together— mysterious does not begin to describe it! Ah, Master Inuzuka, but you are astute! With one word you penetrate to the heart of righteousness—it is because I learned you were made of such stuff that I stayed your hand so brazenly. Before we go on, I pray you, put aside this blade.”

So saying, Kenpachi took the sword and replaced it in its scabbard. Then he continued: “Lo, Master Inuzuka, old master of the Konaya,¹ you must be suspicious of the hasty way in which I roused myself just now. I missed my step on the ridge of the Flowing Fragrance Pavilion and fell; I thought I was caught by a boat at the water’s edge, but after that I was not myself; then there was someone standing by my pillow, telling someone else, as it were, that I had died and drifted to this river mouth. I heard my late father’s name called, and mine, too. Astonished, I began to feel somewhat human again, but I was like a dreamer who cannot awake.

“I sought to calm my heart and listen carefully to what was said, and so I heard that Master Inuzuka has a filial heart and a stomach for righteousness; I heard the old master of the Konaya in dialogue with him, several times exchanging sincere remonstrance and counterargument. I learned of myself and the other, how this boat had brought us to the vicinity of the inlet at Gyōtoko, how I had been found by an old man of the village whom I have known for many years, and how I had died and come back to life. I was moved by the true-hearted treatment I had received, and tears rose unbidden in my breast. I was ashamed to interrupt. Better, I thought, to hear out your words than to break the back of your discourse; and so I stayed lying down. But as I did I saw you, Master Inuzuka, plant your feet so firmly in the way of righteousness that you appeared about to kill yourself, and I was so astonished that I hastened to sit myself up and prevent you, overly familiar of me though it may have been.

“Nevertheless, Master Inuzuka, I would not have you think I am such an oaf as, having heard from Your Lordship of my real father, to ignore my lord’s command and concentrate on my private affairs. Let me tell you all about myself first. My father Kenbei, though of small stipend and mean position, made it ever his business to do acts of hidden virtue; he never liked false display. So it was that, even though he had raised me for no reason, nourishing me on borrowed milk, and even though my duty to him was in no way different from what I would owe to a real parent, after I was old enough to know east from west he never hid from me that I was an adopted child, like the caterpillar to the digger wasp.²

“Once my parents sat me down in front of them, and my father beckoned me to his knee and explained to me how I first came to be adopted, saying, ‘Your amulet pouch that you wear at your waist even now: it is your only memento of your real father. It contains a variety of things. The scrap of paper wrapped around your umbilical cord bears a note saying that the cord, lock of hair, and other items belong to Genkichi, born on the twentieth day of the tenth month of the third year of Chōroku to Nukasuke, an inhabitant of the country of Awa. The writing is that of a woman: your mother, probably. However, your real father had been exiled from Awa by that time, and was wandering lost; where he went nobody knows. All we have heard is that your real mother died that very year. See how unfortunate your real father and mother were. You must strive, for your parents’ sake, as well as your own, to keep your heart unblemished, until you are grown and forever thereafter.’

“So earnestly did they instruct me that my childish heart was saddened, wretched, shamed. I wrapped my tears in sleeves of mulberry cloth pressed to my face, but in their volume still my heart felt straitened, and I could not help but wail. From that day I rededicated myself to accomplishing my aspirations, for if I slackened in my duty to my parents, if I failed to raise up our name and build up our house, then I should have no way of repaying the debt of gratitude I owe them for raising me, nor any means of purging the shame of my real father. Thinking thus, I redoubled my efforts in writing and my studies, not to mention the martial arts, that it might not be said I lagged behind any of my fellow disciples in learning; when fireflies flocked and filled the summer nights, when snowfall packed us in on winter days, I disrupted my sleep and endured hunger’s pangs, telling myself it was all for my parents’ sake.

“I spent years engaged thus, until last year, when in the space of three months in the spring and summer I lost both my parents. Can any sadness in the world exceed the grief of losing one’s mother and father? My tears of bereavement had not yet dried, for the days would not tarry but hurried on, when my sequestration ended and I was summoned to inherit my father’s position; then this past spring my duties changed, and I was made head jailer. At that time I reflected that my late father had been a deeply charitable man, always dedicating himself to the preservation of life, never killing uselessly. It distressed me, as his child, to think of undertaking to act as head jailer, of all offices. Furthermore, the Chancellor, Yokohori Fuhito Arimura, makes power his plaything and flaunts his authority, and is uncommonly cruel to people: many have been chained in that prison guiltlessly, and have come to tragic ends there. But how was one as powerless as I to save them? And yet it was unendurable for me to treat the innocent as if they were guilty, to take up the cane to torment them, though it was my office to do so.

“My father had been a man of lowly office, not a house retainer of hereditary favor; for me to petition now for a transfer of duties would be no great disloyalty, no great unrighteousness, although if my petition was refused I might well be let go. Meanwhile it had been wrong of me not to seek out the whereabouts of my real father while my adoptive parents were yet alive, and I could travel as I wished; and now that they had departed this world, I would be unfilial if the question of whether my real father lived or died weighed not on my mind. I began to consider whether I should not be happier as a drifter, unemployed. Finally I composed a letter containing a request that I be allowed to resign as head jailer, but Yokohori Fuhito angrily rejected it. He neither released me from my duties nor allowed me my freedom, but accused me of the serious crime of disrespecting my superiors. Immediately he had me chained in the jail, where I have spent the last hundred days or thereabouts.

“And yet I never allowed this to leave my body—I had even made up my mind that, should I be beheaded, I would first swallow it and hide it in my belly—but then, suddenly, I was pardoned of my crime and given a stern command to capture the villain Shino; it was irregular, and I did not understand it. Were I to hazard a guess I should have said it was a devious stratagem of Arimura’s. It would be like him to accomplish my death by borrowing the hand of this Shino. And yet there was no way for me to escape. My only thought, then, was to see a victor speedily decided, whether I be the captor or the slain, so that, should I chance to achieve some unexpected merit, I might beg my freedom as a reward and then withdraw from that place. I challenged you and fought you because I did not know I owed you a debt of gratitude on behalf of my real father. If I had gone on to be killed by you, or else to capture you, milord, regret must have gnawed at the survivor’s innards—oh, the peril, how great was our peril! But with the spirits of parents to ward us and the darkling aid of the bright gods to help us, we fell, still clutching one another, into the boat, and Your Lordship was delivered from your crisis, while I was able to seize a chance to escape—and not only that, but we are both alive, neither bearing any pain from the fall, and here we have each accomplished our goals—truly, this is happiness unsurpassed! I fain would hear from you what I before o’erheard about my parents, and more besides, Master Inuzuka.”

Though there was no way to show a proper deference by ceding a seat of honor in this boat, neither was it likely that their leaves of speech would be o’erheard through the rustling of the reeds in the breeze that blew in from the sea, refreshing as the sight of strong warriors in their prime speaking and thus revealing the depths of both their hearts.

As Shino raised his head, which had remained bowed during this speech, he was moved to exclaim, “Ah, Mister Inukai, anyone who harbors higher aspirations ought to be even as you are. The acts of your real father, milord, cannot all be told in a morning. He was by nature a trusty old man, artless, with benevolence always close to his heart, and no hint of malice. He met his end as dawn was breaking on the twenty-second day of the seventh month of last year, visualizing a laudable rebirth; he was sixty-one, I was told. I believe it was the fourth year of Chōroku or thereabouts when he drifted over from Susaki in Awa; he married the widow of a man named Momishichi, an inhabitant of Ōtsuka in Musashi, and succeeded to his estate; he spent eight and ten years there, or more. But the woman was childless. She passed away a year before him, the year before last. It seemed to me that, with neither family nor property, he must have nothing weighing on his mind, but when he was on his deathbed he confided in me, and all he spoke of was you, milord.

“Long ago in Susaki in Awa, on the day that was to mark the seventh night since your birth, old Nukasuke snared a bream in his net, and when he took the cleaver to it he found in the belly of the fish a bead, on which could be seen what looked like writing. He took it to have the midwife read it, and she said it was the character pronounced shin, meaning ‘fidelity.’ And so he had his wife take up her brush and write on a scrap of paper concerning your birthdate, your birthname, and the bead that had come into your possession; these he placed into an amulet pouch for safekeeping, along with a lock of your hair and your umbilical cord. Genkichi will have followed his lord and his father from Kamakura to Koga, and he should still have the bead, if he has not lost the amulet pouch—so said Nukasuke, telling me that if I relied on it as my proof, I could not mistake you. Have you the bead even now?”

Kenpachi hastily untied the knot on the cord that suspended the pouch next to his skin, opened the pouch, and unrolled the paper. “Had fate never allowed me to introduce myself to you, milord, how should I ever have learned so much about my real father? This amulet pouch never left my side through all my months of bondage in that prison. How then could I have lost the bead? Here it is—not even dusty,” he answered, and behold, there on his palm lay the bead. He showed it to Shino, who took it and examined it, pronouncing it “a treasure I would not trade for fifteen fortresses—although I would not recognize the Pearl of Sui, that shines at night.”³

Kenpachi blinked furiously, overcome with yearning for the past. “Not that it counts, but my adoptive father’s name was Takamichi; therefore he named me Nobumichi. That is, ‘michi’ is from my adoptive father’s name, while ‘Nobu’ represents the character written on this bead. I had only ever heard of it as a memento of my real parents—now I learn how the bead came to light, ’tis more of a prodigy than I knew. This is another gift I have received from you, Master Inuzuka. I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

At this Shino merely rubbed his forehead, as if deep in thought despite himself. “Are you the only one who feels so, milord? I, too—I have done what I set out to do. Your praise is too much—it does not apply to me.

“Seeing your bead reminds me of my parents, whom I miss, and a prodigy-tale that I have long cherished. I possess a bead identical to this one in the smallest particular. It bears the character kō, for filial piety. Originally it was acquired by my mother, although she then lost it. Then, when my father passed away—my mother having since departed this life—thus-and-such a circumstance occurred, and the bead appeared from a wound born by our pet dog, named Yoshirō, and thus it came to me. Nor is this the only strange thing: when I gained this bead, a mark suddenly appeared on my left arm, shaped like a peony blossom. Eight years passed, and old Nukasuke’s dying words revealed to me the bead that he had found in the fish’s belly, and also, milord, your mark. I secretly thought the tale resembled that of my bead, and my mark. Were these the workings of karma? My friend Inukawa Sōsuke also came into possession of a bead like this one. His reads gi, for ‘righteousness,’ and for this reason he gives his name as Yoshitō, although he is generally called Gakuzō. He has a mark of the same shape on his back, stretching to below his right shoulder blade from a point in the center of his back. And so I always thought that old man Nukasuke’s child was a brother to me, though of a different family: I meet you now with nostalgic yearning, as for a friend one has never seen. To see you now in person, and your bead, is to know that we are fated from past lives. See my bead, and all your doubts will melt away in a moment’s time.”

So saying, Shino first returned to Kenpachi his bead, then untied the amulet pouch that hung around his own neck and showed forth his own bead; he even bared his left shoulder and showed Kenpachi the mark on his arm. Kenpachi examined first the bead, and then the mark, then sang their praises: “A prodigy! A wonder!” Now his only vexation was that it had taken so long for Shino and himself to come face to face. Finally each took back his own bead and replaced it in his own pouch, and hung each his own pouch around his own neck; then they both knelt and bowed to Heaven and earth, making a vow to uphold the righteousness of the famed Peach Garden.⁴

Since the beginning of this exchange Bungobei had been listening silently, arms folded, concentrating on each man’s story in turn. Now, seeing both beads, though as a bystander, his astonishment mounted until he turned to both men and said:

“I may be an oaf to point this out, but I have already mentioned how my son Kobungo exchanged an oath of brotherhood with Lord Kenpachi. But it was of a different kind than Lord Inuzuka’s, and done only at the request of your honored father, Master Kenbei. But now I wonder if Kobungo has a past-life connection with Lord Inuzuka, in which case he may be deserving of a seat, a lower one, at this oath taking. He has a bead, too, one that resembles the two that belong to you, differing only in the character it bears: his reads tei, for ‘fraternity,’ as in filial and fraternal piety. Because of this he chose for himself an appellation such as is not found among those in the marketplace, though proper for him: Yasuyori, he named himself, taking the character from the bead.⁵

“If I might reveal the origin of the bead, it resembles somewhat that of Mister Inukai’s, found in the belly of the fish. When Kobungo was yet in swaddling clothes we celebrated his first eating by setting before the infant a tray laden with red-bean rice, finned things and greens, soup and salad, all according to the forms. We reached for the chopsticks, standing upright in a bowl heaped high with rice, that we might pick out a grain to place in his mouth, that he might suck on it, and when we did, something fell out of the bowl and rolled around the tray. I picked it up and looked at it—it was the bead. Such a thing should never have been in the rice in that bowl—is it not most mysterious that it was? In addition to which, the bead was so beautiful, so delicate, and so auspicious and unattainable a treasure that I finally placed it in Kobungo’s amulet pouch, where he keeps it even now, hidden.

“Nor is this all. Kobungo was not like other children in the marketplace. Ever since he was an unshorn youth he has loved the martial arts, hiding it from his parents—he was only ever interested in feats of strength. He could not have been more than eight years old when he wrestled with a boy of fifteen and dealt his opponent a painful throw; in the end, however, Kobungo slipped and fell on his backside, hitting his rump on a curbstone, which left a large mark. This mark did not fade as the years passed, but rather grew darker, and it is shaped like a peony blossom. These things, however, were so passing strange that we never told anybody. I do not believe even you, Lord Kenpachi, knew of them. I wish you could meet Kobungo right now, and see his bead and mark for yourself.”

So earnestly did he whisper this information that both listeners inched forward on their knees unaware. Now Kenpachi looked back to Shino and said, “I came face to face with Kobungo some years ago, and I know what kind of man he is, but never did it occur to me that we shared such a fate from past lives. And though I yet know him not, I now think that together with Gakuzō—Sōsuke—the four of us share this bond from past lives, with the same effects proceeding from the same karmic causes. How very reassuring it is.”

Shino nodded. “What exquisite subtlety, Bungobei—uncle. Your son, I expect, exceeds others not only in courage and might, but also in the loftiness of his aspirations. I beg of you, tell me all about him.”

Bungobei’s face broke into a grin. “Nay, ’tis not as much as that. His taste for the martial arts has its own slight karmic connection. Though it embarrasses me to speak of my lineage, I am the younger brother of Shichirō Yoshitake of the Nako, a vassal to a close retainer of the Minister of the Court Jin’yo Nagasanosuke Mitsuhiro, master of half a province in Awa. When Mitsuhiro died untimely in Yamashita Sakuzaemon Sadakane’s insurrection, Shichirō—my elder brother—fought Bokuhei of Somaki and Mukuzō of Susaki, former servants of Kanamari Hachirō Takayoshi; he cut down Mukuzō immediately, but in the process received deep wounds himself, and was cut down by Bokuhei.

“At the time I was eighteen, still too junior for service, in addition to which I was sickly. Unable to fulfill my desire of striking at Sadakane, I retreated to Gyōtoko, my mother’s hometown, where I eventually became a hostler; I only began to call my establishment the Konaya because it was a reversal of my family name of Nako.⁶ As for myself, I have become a man of the marketplace, but my forefathers were house retainers of warrior stock. Thus my son Kobungo, I expect, comes by his love for the martial arts naturally. He is five feet, eleven inches in height; as to the limits of his strength, I know not what they might be, child of mine though he is.

“There was formerly in this village a ne’er-do-well and extortionist called Inuta the Barricade. His visage was like the Stumble-Dancer’s⁷—his hands and feet were hard as lobster shells—he had as much strength as one could ask for, and his heart was ferocious and warped. With his liking for drink and gambling he lorded it over the bayside villages year in and year out, and from every house worth the name he borrowed either coin or clothing, never returning any of it. Any who would remind him of his debts he battered unreasonably; nor would he stop until they gave him more coin. Such a villain was he, but there was no suing for punishment, for the master of the territory Lord Chiba’s bows and arrows had grown weak, and his rule negligible. The people all feared Inuta as they would a poisonous serpent; they always gave him a wide berth, concentrating only on not provoking his wrath.

“Once, in a fit of drunken madness, he stretched a barricade rope of spiny tree fern through the center of the village and hung from it a paper sign that read, in a thick script, ‘He who would pass this place must pay a hundred mon in coin. He who can force his way past without bringing the coin may have Inuta’s head. Inuta will die with no grudge.’ Meanwhile he planted his backside on a nearby rock. Because of this nobody could go out into the street. It was a horribly difficult time for all.

“Kobungo was sixteen that year, and privately outraged at Inuta’s evil deeds. On behalf of all the people, and unbeknownst to his parents, he went alone to the place in question and tore down the rope so that people could pass. Inuta’s wrath was terrible and fierce; he stood right up and blocked the way, clenched his turban-shell fist, and stepped forward to deal Kobungo a blow between the eyebrows. Kobungo dodged, and then let fly with a hard kick. Inuta reeled and immediately fell with a thud, and Kobungo, not to let him rise again, climbed on top of him, grinding his foot into Inuta’s abdomen. A ferocious ne’erdowell he may have been, but now his ribs cracked, his limbs flailed, he vomited a fountain of blood, and he died without a word.

“All the villagers had gathered round, and as they watched Kobungo’s incomparable movements they joined their voices in exclamations of astonishment and joy, hailing him. Now, this extortionist Inuta the Barricade had originally come to our village after having been banished from Kamakura. He had no cronies, no wife or child, and so killing him carried no curse. For this reason, in the end everybody came to call my son by the nickname Inuta Kobungo—his ta and the other’s are pronounced the same.⁸

“The villagers were overjoyed that, by kicking the ne’er-do-well Inuta to death, my son had relieved the village of its misery. When I heard about the affair the next day, I summoned my son to me and cautioned him about the courage that comes from the blood, using all my words of moral instruction. Kobungo regretted it sorely, and vowed, ‘Though I wear a sword, I shall never draw it; though I quarrel with a man, I shall never strike him.’ Perhaps his heart is indeed filled with filial piety, for his vow to repent of his errors certainly seems as if it were made out of consideration for his father.

“Then again, not long ago, there were two mountain men⁹ in Kamakura, Nengyoku the Great Guide¹⁰ and Kantoku, a practitioner of austerities. They were evil priests, both full of pride; they savored martial arts, and loved wrestling. Their forebears, brothers, parted, and while they were yet closely related, in recent years they quarreled over the acquisition of a guideship for which they both had attestatory documents; the matter was unresolved, and at this late date even the two Overseers were unable to decide black from white; it pleased them to advise the priests to settle the matter peacefully between themselves. And so Nengyoku and Kantoku paused a while in their contentions and conversed, and one said, ‘There is an ingenious example for us: it is said that long ago when the princes Koretaka and Korehito quarreled over rank, they settled the question of precedence with a wrestling match.¹¹ Even the most exalted have resorted to this method when a quarrel is unresolvable. You and I both like wrestling. Let the victor at wrestling advance to the attainment in question. The loser shall be his disciple.’

“ ‘Even so,’ said the other, and, their counsels ripening, they exchanged written oaths, before separating to seek out prominent wrestlers. So it was that the priest Nengyoku heard Kobungo spoken of. He came to Gyōtoko in person to recruit him. The priest Kantoku heard that a man in the village of Ichikawa, Yamabayashi Fusahachirō, husband of Kobungo’s younger sister, quite exceeded other men in strength of thew, and was skilled at hand-to-hand fighting and wrestling, and so went there to recruit him.

“This Yamabayashi Fusahachi is twenty-two this year. He owns several river skiffs, with which he makes his living. He, too, had a taste for wrestling and hand-to-hand fighting when he was an unshorn youth, and has developed considerable skill. He is five feet ten inches in height, and strong enough to uproot a mountain—his name is known in all the country roundabout—it could not be kept hidden. And yet his face is that of a kind and gentle youth. He looks rather like you, Master Inuzuka, though it be unmannerly of me to say so. What you might call your spit and fetch.

“And so on the eighteenth day of this month, before dawn, there was a wrestling match in front of the Yawata Shrine. Stands were erected on the east and west where the two ascetics, Nengyoku and Kantoku, and their followers watched; villagers from all over were also allowed to observe. Each side provided one umpire. The day started with small contests between Kobungo’s and Fusahachi’s disciples. After the ninth of these minor falls came the day’s tenth and final bout, between Yamabayashi and Inuta. All the spectators, to say nothing of the two ascetics in their stands, swallowed, clutched their arms together, and awaited the outcome with bated breath.

“The umpire, in time with both men’s breathing, gave a cry and pulled back his fan. Both men as one rose and lunged, grappled and separated, twisted and dodged. In strength and skill neither was inferior nor superior to the other, and so for a full hour they pummeled each other, now here, now there, until, Fusahachi having gotten his left arm inside Kobungo’s guard, Kobungo shook him off in a flash. Then Fusahachi tried to entangle him with his legs, but Kobungo gave him a blow to the back, sending Fusahachi staggering at a run, two steps, three steps, until he fell flat on his face.

“Even those who resented it hailed this victory with cheers that did not subside for some time. Since then Kobungo and Fusahachi have not been on the best of terms. Foreseeing that something like this might occur, I had cautioned them frequently, but it was what they liked, and they found it impossible to turn down the people’s requests, all the more so because they abhorred the idea of being called cowards—they feared gossip, and paid no attention to me, and acted recklessly.”

As he finished his tale of the wrestling, made all the more convincing by his gestures, there arose from the direction of the cove, as if produced by his story, the sound of flutes and drums.

Bungobei looked around him and said, “What a buffoon I am. I lost myself in profitless stories, reflecting not on your fatigue, sirs, and forgot the setting of the sun. That tattoo you hear comes from the boats escorting the bier of the Ox-Headed Heavenly King on its cleansing. We here in these cove villages hold our Gion Festival¹² every year on the night of the full moon in the sixth month, but it has been raining since the fourteenth, making it hard to cross the water, so it was delayed this year. I have not many servants in my house—only two—and it is the local custom to give them leave for three days, beginning on the night of the Gion Festival. As I am away, and Kobungo has attached himself to the bier of the god, I heard them grumbling that they should be antsy waiting for the return of one of us. And now, it seems, somehow twilight has come: good for us to hide ourselves upon the roads in the vicinity. Pray, come.”

Saying thus, he heaved himself up and took a step forward. But as he was about to clamber down onto dry land, someone parted the reeds at the water’s edge, half revealing himself, and suddenly addressed them, saying:

“A lot of gall you have! This territory belongs to the Chiba house, no strangers to the Incumbent at Koga—any petition brought against you must have dire consequences. Know you not the danger you are in?”

Arrested by these words, Bungobei felt his heart sink, and he could not advance. Shino and Kenpachi, too, were greatly vexed that they had spent so long a time in tale-telling that they had been discovered.

Who, then, now hailed them so fiercely from the reeds? Find out in the next book, where it shall be explained.

End of Book I of Volume IV of the Lives of the Eight Dogs of the Satomi

1. The “ya” element of the name Konaya indicates a place of business; the name would have been used both as the name of the business and the surname of the proprietor.

2. The wasps in question steal caterpillars and lay eggs in them so that, once hatched, the wasp larvae can feed on them. Poem 196 in Shi jing (J. Shikyō; commonly referred to as the Classic of Poetry) refers to the wasp carrying away the caterpillar, but in such a way that suggests adoption (rather than predatory behavior). From this, “caterpillar” (meirei) came to be used as a poetic term for an adopted child.

3. For the Pearl of Sui, see Chapter XIX, note 12.

4. See Chapter XIX, note 12.

5. “Yasu” is an alternate pronunciation of the character tei; as a name Yasuyori sounds more appropriate to a samurai than a commoner.

6. In the Japanese syllabic system the name Nako consists of two syllables, na and ko; reversed they make Kona.

7. That is, like the fearsome mask used by a performer of Rakuson, a bugaku dance.

8. The villain’s name was written with characters meaning “dog” and “fat.” Kobungo’s nickname is written with characters meaning “dog” and “rice paddy.”

9. The term translated “mountain man” here is yamabushi, which usually denotes a practitioner of shugendō, a syncretic religious tradition whose adherents typically lived in retreat in the mountains, practicing austerities, and had a ferocious reputation in medieval tales. In English they are sometimes called “mountain priests” or the like; the term more literally means “hiders in the mountains” or, homophonously, “mountain warriors.” En the Ascetic, who figures in Part One, was associated with shugendō.

10.Sendatsu, a position in shugendō that involves guiding other practitioners in both spiritual pursuits and mountain treks.

11. Koretaka and Korehito were sons of Emperor Montoku (827–58; r. 850–58) who both wished to succeed him when he retired. The story of how they vied through proxies is found in, among other places, chapter 8 of Heike monogatari (The Tale of the Heike), where it is related that each boy was backed by a prominent cleric, who arranged first horse races and then wrestling to determine the succession. Korehito’s champion Natora defeated Koretaka’s champion, Yoshio, and Korehito went on to become Emperor Seiwa (r. 858–76).

12. Gion Shōja is the Sino-Japanese name for the Jetavana Monastery, where the Buddha delivered many of his teachings. Kyoto’s most famous annual religious festival is the Gion Festival, named for the Gion Shrine (now Yasaka Shrine), from which the Gion neighborhood takes its name; one deity associated with the festival is the syncretic figure known as the Ox-Headed Heavenly King (Gozu Tennō). Other lesser-known festivals to this deity throughout Japan also came to be called Gion Festivals.