BUDDHIST ALLUSIONS IN JAPANESE FOLK-SONG
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Hearn, Lafcadio
Cruel the beautiful flash,—utterly heartless that lightning! Before one can look even twice it vanishes wholly away![17]
His very sweetness itself makes my existence a burden! Truly this world of change is a world of constant woe![18]
Neither for youth nor age is fixed the life of the body; —Bidding me wait for a time is the word that forever divides.[19]
Only too well I know that to meet will cause more weeping;[20] Yet never to meet at all were sorrow too great to bear.
Too joyful in union to think, we forget that the smiles of the evening Sometimes themselves become the sources of morning-tears.
Yet, notwithstanding the doctrine of impermanency, we are told in another dodoitsu that—
He who was never bewitched by the charming smile of a woman, A wooden Buddha is he—a Buddha of bronze or stone![21]
And why a Buddha of wood, or bronze, or stone? Because the living Buddha was not so insensible, as we are assured, with jocose irreverence, in the following:—
"Forsake this fitful world"!— {Lord Buddha's} that was or teaching! {upside-down } And Ragora,[22] son of his loins?—was he forgotten indeed?
There is an untranslatable pun in the original, which, if written in Romaji, would run thus:—
Uki-yo we sutéyo t'a {Shaka Sama} Sorya yo {saka-sama } Ragora to iū ko we Wasurété ka?
Shakamuni is the Japanese rendering of "Sakyamuni;" "Shaka Sama" is therefore "Lord Sakya," or "Lord Buddha." But saka-sama is a Japanese word meaning "topsy-turvy," "upside down;" and the difference between the pronunciation of Shaka Sama and saka-sama is slight enough to have suggested the pun. Love in suspense is not usually inclined to reverence.
Even while praying together in front of the tablets ancestral, Lovers find chance to murmur prayers never meant for the dead![23]
And as for interrupters:—
Hateful the wind or rain that ruins the bloom of flowers: Even more hateful far who obstructs the way of love.
Yet the help of the Gods is earnestly besought:—
I make my hyaku-dō, traveling Love's dark pathway. Ever praying to meet the owner of my heart.[24]
The interest attaching to the following typical group of love-songs will be found to depend chiefly upon the Buddhist allusions:—
In the bed of the River of Souls, or in waiting alone at evening, The pain differs nothing at all: to a mountain the pebble grows.[25] Who furthest after illusion wanders on Love's dark pathway Is ever the clearest-seeing,[26] not the simple or dull.
Source notes
Lit.: "Change changeable-world-in, does-not-change that-which, 'We-will-never-change'-saying of Love-of Way."
[17]
Honni tsurénai Ano inadzuma wa Futa mé minu uchi Kiyété yuku.
The Buddhist saying, Inadzuma no hikari, ishi no hi (lightning-flash and flint-spark),—symbolizing the temporary nature of all pleasures,—is here playfully referred to. The song complains of a too brief meeting with sweet-heart or lover.
[18] Words of a loving but jealous woman, thus interpreted by my Japanese friend: "The more kind he is, the more his kindness overwhelms me with anxiety lest he be equally tender to other girls who may also fall in love with him."
[19]
Rō-shō fujō no Mi dé ari nagara, Jisetsu maté to wa Kiré-kotoba.
Lit.: "Old-young not-fixed-of body being, time-wait to-say, cutting-word." Ro-shō fujō is a Buddhist phrase. The meaning of the song is: "Since all things in this world are uncertain, asking me to wait for our marriage-day means that you do not really love me;—for either of us might die before the time you speak of."
[20] Allusion is made to the Buddhist text, Shōja hitsu metsu, esha jōri ("Whosoever is born must die, and all who meet must as surely part"), and to the religious phrase, Ai betsu ri ku ("Sorrow of parting and pain of separation").
[21] Much more amusing in the original:—
Adana é-gao ni Mayowanu mono wa Ki-Butsu,—kana-Butsu,— Ishi-botoké
"Charming-smile-by bewildered-not, he-as-for, wood-Buddha, metal-Buddha, stone-Buddha!" The term "Ishi-botoké" especially refers to the stone images of the Buddha placed in cemeteries.—This song is sung in every part of Japan; I have heard it many times in different places.
[22] Râhula.
[23]
Ekō suru toté Hotoké no maé yé Futari mukaité, Konabé daté.
Lit.: "Repeat prayers saying, dead-of-presence-in twain facing,—small-pan cooking!" Hotoké means a dead person as well as a Buddha. (See my Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan: "The Household Shrine")-Konabé-daté is an idiomatic expression signifying a lovers' tête-à-tête. It is derived from the phrase, Chin-chin kamo nabé("cooking a wild duck in a pan"),—the idea suggested being that of the pleasure experienced by an amorous couple in eating out of the same dish. Chin-chin, an onomatope, expresses the sound of the gravy boiling.
[24] To perform the rite called "o-hyaku-dō" means to make one hundred visits to a temple, saying a prayer each time. The expression "dark way of Love" (koi no yami or yamiji) is a Buddhist phrase; love, being due to mayoi, or illusion, is a state of spiritual darkness. The term "owner of my heart" is an attempted rendering of the Japanese word nushi, signifying "master," "owner,"—often, also, "landlord,"—and, in love-matters, the lord or master of the affection inspired.
[25]
Sai-no-kawara to Nushi matsu yoi wa Koishi, koishi ga Yama to naru.
A more literal translation would be: "In the Sai-no-Kawara ('Dry bed of the River of Souls') and in the evening when waiting for the loved one, 'Koishi, Koishi' becomes a mountain." There is a delicate pun here,—a play on the word Koishi, which, as pronounced, though not as written, may mean either "a small stone," or "longing to see." In the bed of the phantom river, Sai-no-Kawa, the ghosts of children are obliged to pile up little stones, the weight of which increases so as to tax their strength to the utmost. There is a reference here also to a verse in the Buddhist wasan of Jizō, describing the crying of the children for their parents: "Chichi koishi! haha koishi!" (See Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, vol. i. pp. 59-61.)
[26] Clearest-sighted,—that is, in worldly matters.