The Sorceress' Revolt
Author: Toriumi Jinzō
Translator: Ainikki the Archivist
Ko Biji's Story
Part One: The Way of Shattering Earth
The granddaughter's body had been
stolen by the peevish young official who had performed the cursory
autopsy
during the day. He took a length of rough white cloth and a wheelbarrow from a barn
and wrapped up the young woman's corpse, pushing it through the
wilderness.
The official passed through the forest
surrounding Mt. Xishan, staying out of the light as much as possible. He
stopped briefly to catch his breath, rolling the body toward the base of
a large tree. The girl's face shifted to the side.
The official knelt down next to the
body, stretching his hands out gently, and turned the girl's face to
his as if she could still look at him. Unwrapped from her shroud
and limned by moonlight, it was difficult to believe that she was dead.
The bloom of life still marked her features, and she was very beautiful.
Hands trembling, the official stripped
the girl of her shroud and undergarments, watching in fascination as her
breasts fell free of their bindings. He cupped her breasts in both
hands; the dark shadow of his expanding crotch fell over her white skin.
Her skin was cold, but that didn't matter; every moment that passed
eroded the official's fear and filled him with excitement. He reached
down to the girl's secret places—cold, yes, but still wet. Her hair a
bit disheveled. Her beauty in this moment was eerie, almost
otherworldly.
The piercing call of a fox rang out
nearby. At the same time, the girl's eyes opened and stared at him—as if
she could see the official. That had to be impossible, but in the low
light of the moon streaking through the branches, it seemed like she was
very much alive.
The official screamed and rolled away
from the body, then fled like a bat out of hell. He disturbed the
wheelbarrow as he went; it rolled down a hill. He didn't notice and kept
running for his life. Unfortunately for the half-naked man, he stumbled
into a tree that conked him on the head so hard that he died almost
instantly, still exposed.
A fox emerged from the forest underbrush
and crouched down next to the girl's body, giving a sad snort.
***
Tanshi lay on a wretched bed in the
elderly couple's home, staring at the ceiling and thinking grim
thoughts.
Death comes to us all, rich or poor, young or old, male or female.
Old age, illness, death... suffering is the one thing no human being
can avoid.
So said Amida Buddha.
"All those born into this world die,"
Tanshi said quietly. Life meant suffering. Death wasn't the end. When
the body perished, the soul found another body and was reborn again. The
wheel of reincarnation was permanent, fixed; the only way to escape it
was to follow Buddhist teachings and escape the cycle of suffering,
called samsara. Escape from samsara was called moksha,
"liberation." 1
"I can't even remember all of the people
that I've mourned with Jiun since I was a child," Tanshi murmured. "That
girl, so young and beautiful, is dead. Her grandparents will soon follow
her. I, too, will grow old and die. I think I know as much as anyone
about the impermanence of life. Didn't the Buddha preach that we should
give up our desires and not be attached to them? He did."
To put this into practice, Tanshi must
abide by strict precepts and devote himself to training. Tanshi had
never committed a crime, but he had lied, coveted others' things, and
succumbed (however briefly) to personal jealousies and hatreds. He had
no confidence that he could follow the Buddha's teachings perfectly.
"I'm ordinary," Tanshi said. "Just a normal person who couldn't even
help an old couple find their granddaughter's stolen body."
When he looked out the window of the
room, it was morning. Tanshi rose along with Chō Kin and his wife to
search Mt. Xishan and the surrounding area.
They never found the girl's body.
This world truly was hell.
***
In the afternoon, Tanshi said goodbye to
Chō Kin and his wife. He stopped at a tavern located just off the main
road and had a drink. He hadn't drunk any alcohol before, so this was
his first experience of the taste.
That's one temple commandment I've broken, Tanshi thought,
though the idea didn't disturb him too much.
There weren't many travelers on the main
road, which was fortunate; the sight of Tanshi red-faced and soused
after a single drink was an odd one. Tanshi didn't care what he looked
like.
"Can the Buddha's teachings really save
people from the cycle of suffering?" Tanshi asked himself. He'd never
suffered such strong doubt before. He'd been born a monk; his childhood
had been spent solely in the temple, and his adoptive father, Jiun, was
the head priest. He'd played with temple blocks instead of toys. Up
until now, Tanshi had believed that he would always be a monk and
nothing else.
"Everyone is frightened of death, but...
is it really right to live a life devoted to the Buddha and hope for the
best? Is it fate that all most people can do is wait for death? The
Buddha and gods of other religions provide comfort to the suffering, but
none of them can save us from death. No. Everyone wants to live for a
long time. Is enlightenment the act of giving up that desire? Does the
desire disappear just because we will it so? Isn't that only possible
for truly great beings, like the Buddha?
"No, even Siddhartha realized that
penance was not the path to liberation. He sat in meditation under the
Tree of Enlightenment, awakened to the causes of suffering and became
the Buddha. But even he was powerless against death. I don't want to
suffer and die. I want to live a long life without aging, falling ill,
or becoming a victim of violence or an unexpected accident. I want the
power to predict and outlive the hellish suffering of this world.
"If mortality is destiny, then defying
it means eternal life. If I was truly born from an egg, I should be able
to transcend ordinary human limitations."
This determination was what had made
Tanshi leave his temple in the first place.
"I will climb Yunmeng Mountain, even if
it turns out to be pointless."
***
Tanshi's desire for immortality was far
from new. People of the Han Dynasty (202 BCE - c. 9 CE) dreamed of
eternal wealth and longevity and created statues of immortals. These
dreams weren't just hopes and desires; many people worked to make these
things real for themselves.
Tanshi was just such a realist. He had
the same high ideals as people in the Han Dynasty, but he wanted those
ideals to be real and was willing to do anything to make them so. Daoism
centered on ideas of immortality: eternal youth and health. Methods to
achieve immortality fell into two basic categories: religious—prayers,
moral conduct, rituals and observances of commandments; and
physical—diets, medicines, breathing methods, chemicals and exercises.
The basic idea behind the Daoist diet
was to nourish the body and deny food to the "three worms"—disease, old
age, and death. Immortality could be achieved by following this diet and
by avoiding ejaculation during sex, which preserved life-giving semen,
which in turn mixed with breath and nourished the body and the brain.
Forbidden foods included many common grains, including all cereal grains
(such as oatmeal and rice).
The aim of the Daoist diet was to change
the composition of the body from flesh into durable airy material
associated with long life. Many Daoists believed that the best material
for prolonging life was air and tried to take in a variety of different
kinds of air—from the sea and from the mountains, as examples—often
accompanied by breathing exercises. "Air eating" was believed to make
people able to ride the clouds and use dragons as horses.
Elixirs of immortality were also common.
Many of these were made with cinnabar, a compound of mercury and
sulfur; it was considered an essential ingredient for turning herbal
medicines red. It could be bought and sold in Chenzou, the nearest city,
albeit at a high price; Chenzou cinnabar was known for its exceptionally
high quality. Rumor had it that elixirs made with cinnabar could prolong
one's life and bestow the ability to fly through the air.2
Empress Wu Zetian took elixirs
containing cinnabar, as did six emperors after her; all of them died.
Mercury is obviously toxic, though you could say that the elixirs did
cause the souls of the empress and emperors to fly to heaven.3
***
Tanshi's original intention when leaving
his temple was to visit the Five Sacred Mountains of the Daoists. That
was an important pilgrimage for longevity and immortality; he'd also
hoped to meet an immortal on his travels. His first stop was to have
been Mt. Heng in Hunan Province, but he had other plans now. He turned
eastward past Dongting Lake toward Yunmeng Mountain and Hakūn-do Cave.
Hubei Province was a long way on foot.
Tanshi took some time to shave his
beard, and the feel of the wind on his bare skin as he walked was
invigorating. He passed by a small settlement where there were lodgings
but didn't stop; it was too early for travelers to seek accommodations
for the evening. Tanshi, in imitation of Peng Zu, had decided not to
ride a horse or take a cart after leaving the temple.
Peng Zu was a great master of Daoism; he
lived at the end of the Shang Dynasty (around 1020 BCE) and remained a
young man in appearance even at the age of seven hundred and
sixty-seven. Peng Zu was not one to court fame; he lived simply and
chose to never use a horse or cart on his journeys, always traveling on
foot. Tanshi had always liked Peng Zu's simplicity and easy-going
personality and sought to emulate it.
One of Peng Zu's life-extending
techniques was a vitality absorption skill, which purportedly extracted
female energy into the male body (harvesting from yin to supplement
yang) through intimacy. He was known for fathering hundreds of children
with forty-nine different women. He wrote: "No matter what kinds of
high-quality elixirs you consume, you will never attain eternal life
without knowing the key points of sexual alchemy."
Tanshi had read those words largely
without knowing what they meant. His religious upbringing had been
strict and he had no experience at all with women. Something in him had
stirred at the sight of the beautiful young girl who'd died, but of
course his thoughts of her were not impure. Even if he'd been
experienced, he would never have considered such a thing.
***
There was a teahouse at the edge of the
settlement where they were selling steamed rice cakes and household
goods. There was a crowd around the storefront: children buying sweets
and their parents buying cooking implements and groceries. Tanshi paused
in front of the teahouse and lifted his hat to take a better look.
This was a quiet little place; nothing
out of the ordinary about it and there was no reason to stop. Tanshi had
seen a hundred of these little shops before.
But then an old woman screamed inside
the teahouse.
"Ah! Murder!"
The crowd shifted. Tanshi took an
involuntary step back. The men around him appeared just as apprehensive
as he was; women and children scattered like leaves until Tanshi alone
remained near the storefront, in front of the teahouse door.
The men and women who remained on the
street looked at Tanshi with eyes full of fear and distrust. Tanshi
barely noticed. He was too preoccupied with what was going on inside the
teahouse. He slid the door open and looked inside.
An obese itinerant monk was beating an
old woman with a club. She had fallen to the teahouse floor, still
conscious. The monk's head was perfectly shaved: the kind of bald head
that shone and made people look twice.
"Yo, old lady! I gave you a blessing;
you should give me alms!"
The woman tried to crawl away from him,
but the bald monk kicked her with his stocky legs and stepped around her
to prevent her escape. His monk's robe was filthy; his face,
unattractive at the best of times, twisted hideously with anger.
Itinerant monks were similar to
wandering monks like Tanshi, with a few differences. They went on
pilgrimages, but their goal was to find a place of seclusion in the
mountains and seek enlightenment there. They carried all of their
possessions in a sack hanging from their chest (from which their
shortened nickname was derived)4
and relied on the charity of others to support their worldly needs.
"Now let me go on my way, you hag, or
I'll kill you," the bald monk said, raising his club.
Before he could strike again, Tanshi
knocked him down by slamming his pewter staff into the man's side.
"Who are you?" the bald monk asked as he
staggered upright, glaring at Tanshi with a raptor-like stare.
Tanshi stood near him, unafraid, staff
in hand.
"Why are you getting in my way?"
Tanshi surveyed his opponent calmly. He
had only participated in any kind of fight once, when an armed gang of
robbers had stormed the temple. From that experience, Tanshi had learned
that it was best to take initiative. The one who showed weakness first
broke, and lost. By seizing his moment, Tanshi gave himself time to look
for weaknesses in his opponent and to come up with a plan.
That was all Tanshi had needed to do at
the temple fight: plan, delegate, and strike quickly as a distraction to
help more experienced fighters. This time, he believed that wouldn't be
enough. This was a real fight that he'd stumbled into. As he
looked down at the poor old woman on the floor, he remembered Chō
Kin's wife collapsed on the ground next to her granddaughter's
empty bed.
Tanshi was the kind of man who couldn't
tolerate anyone bullying old women.
"We're both monks. If ya stay outta my
way, I'll stay out of yours," the bald monk said in slangy informal
dialect.
"We're both monks, and you should stop,"
Tanshi said.
"What?" The bald monk was steady on his
feet again.
"A monk should have compassion for
others."
"That's why I gave her a blessing.
What's wrong with asking for alms in the name of the Buddha?"
"Giving alms is not something to be
forced. The person must choose to give them to you."
"Are ya lecturing me, boy?" the bald
monk asked, snorting out an irritated laugh.
"It's my duty to preach to the
ignorant," Tanshi said, overly polite.
The bald monk's irritation finally
boiled over into rage. "Don't you know who I am? I am Seki, the
itinerant monk, and no one who knew of me would seek to waylay me as you
have."
"I'm sorry, sir, but we haven't been
introduced before so I'm not sure how I was supposed to know who you
are."
The physical fight Tanshi feared hadn't
materialized yet, but this was certainly a battle of words.
The bald monk adjusted his grip on the
club.
The old woman crawled to Tanshi.
"He—that man put his hands on my daughter. When she resisted, he beat
her to death."
And Tanshi saw it now: the body of a
young woman, still and silent in the corner of the room. If Tanshi had
to guess, he would say that she was about the same age as Chō Kin's
granddaughter. She had gone to her death without blessings and rites,
which enraged him as much as the death itself. The utter lack of respect
that the bald monk held for this woman angered him to his soul.
Tanshi removed his hat with one hand and
threw it into the corner. There would be no walking away from
this.
The bald monk looked Tanshi over and
gave him a crooked smile. He could see that Tanshi was young; perhaps
that made him think that he would be easy pickings. His poisonous gaze
fell on Tanshi, making him feel nauseous.
"You're just a kid. If you walk away
now, I promise that I'll spare you," the bald monk said.
A muscle in Tanshi's cheek twitched.
"Don't underestimate me, Seki the itinerant monk." He was done being
polite; his voice came out as a shout. Anger at what had happened to Chō
Kin's granddaughter mixed with the fresh outrage of Seki's murder of an
innocent woman.
Seki was briefly taken aback by Tanshi's
tone. He readjusted his stance, red-faced, embarrassed: it was shameful
for an older monk such as himself to be chastised by a junior from
another order. His expression became predatory, like a tiger stalking
its prey.
"You insult me to my face and refuse to
take my instruction," Seki said, petulant. "I won't forgive you."
The onlookers watched with great
interest, but made no move to intervene.
The old woman kept crawling away from
the monk, safer now that there were many witnesses. "You speak well,
young monk, and I thank you for it, but please do not get yourself
killed," she said.
No one expected Tanshi to win this
encounter. He was like a puppy sitting in front of an angry tiger.
Slowly, Tanshi and Seki circled one another. From Seki's clumsy
movements, Tanshi knew that Seki had no training whatsoever in the
martial arts. His club was a good enough weapon against those equally
ignorant, but it posed little threat to Tanshi.
"Do it, you young fool. Attack me!"
Some monks excelled at martial arts.
Monks were soft targets because they were seen as gentle people who
served the Buddha. Tanshi had started learning the staff when he was
ten, but he'd had little opportunity to use that knowledge. Offerings
and alms had been freely given to his temple; with the exception of
bandits one time, neither his temple's goods nor his person had been
attacked before.
Tanshi had never fought an opponent like
this, one-on-one and carrying a weapon.
Seki kept circling around Tanshi,
seeking an opening to strike. His experience fighting was all done
against civilians with no training and those too weak to fight back.
Tanshi readied his staff and kept moving around Seki.
Seki let out a barbaric yawp and
attacked. At the same time, Tanshi swept the club out of his hand with
his staff. The club flew through the air and thudded against the wall,
rolling into a corner.
Disarmed and ashamed, Seki flushed red
and made a frustrated grunt low in his throat. His shoulders shook and
his expression was pained; the force of Tanshi's blow had numbed his
hand. He was obviously angry, while Tanshi remained calm. Tanshi had
directed the path of the club with his strike so that it wouldn't harm
anyone as Seki dropped it.
"May the Buddha damn you, young monk,"
Seki said.
Tanshi offered him a cynical smile. Seki
looked strong, but his arms and hands were weak. He was a villain who
got by on bravado and little else.
Some of the onlookers pressed in closer.
"Oi! Get back, ya stupid louts!" Seki
yelled. He regained his composure, determined to put up a strong façade
even if he could only do that with words. Everyone had seen Tanshi
disarm him. Most of the people watching weren't afraid of him anymore.
"Fuck you, shithead," Seki snarled at
Tanshi. Weaponless, he curled his fists and hurtled toward the
onlookers, only to find Tanshi standing in his way.
"If you want to keep fighting, retrieve
your weapon," Tanshi said.
Seki had lost what little face he'd had
coming into this encounter. Breathing heavily, he went to his club and
picked it up. He focused on Tanshi with his eyes full of hatred.
"You little brat, I'm just a little
drunk," Seki said. That was likely true.
"Would you like to sleep it off before
we continue? I'll wait," Tanshi said.
Seki was tipsy, to be sure, but far from
falling down drunk. Tanshi didn't think that Seki's level of inebriation
should affect the fight. Seki's overpowering rage was having a much more
significant effect.
Raising his club, Seki struck a blow
with his full weight behind it. Tanshi dodged to the right, bent down
quickly, and thrust his staff into Seki's chest. Seki staggered
backwards, grunting in pain. The back of his head slammed against a
millstone in the corner of the room as he fell. When he collapsed, he
didn't rise.
The onlookers cheered.
This was the first time Tanshi had ever
fought for real on his own. If Seki had just left the poor woman he'd
killed alone, she would be alive now and might have a chance at a happy
life. Tanshi had never struck a human being in anger before, but Seki
had cut an innocent woman's life short. He was surprised by his own
strength and the efficacy of his training; he hadn't expected Seki to
just fall over like that.
Tanshi waited for Seki to get up and
continue the fight. He planned to get Seki to surrender, then lead him
to the prefectural office where he could be jailed.
Rough footsteps echoed behind Tanshi. He
turned to see three prefectural officers carrying spears. They'd been
patrolling nearby and someone had alerted them to the fight in progress,
so they'd come to investigate.
"A monk is fighting another monk!"
Now the officers knew that the informant
had told the truth, and they surrounded Tanshi. Tanshi was relieved to
see them; now he wouldn't have to lead Seki to the prefectural office.
The officers could take Seki away, and that would be the end of this
mess.
"Were you fighting?" one of the officers
asked.
"I was, sir."
"Who were you fighting? Where is he?"
Tanshi looked down, scratching his head.
"I might have gone a little too far."
Another officer caught sight of Seki on
the floor and shook his head. "That moron. If only he could die twice."
Tanshi looked more closely at Seki.
Regardless of their differences, he had no intention of killing the bald
monk. This was his first real fight, after all. All he'd needed to do
was poke Seki a little and the bald monk had gone down. He hadn't
planned for Seki to slam his head on the millstone; that was a complete
accident.
But that accident proved fatal to Seki.
Stunned, Tanshi brought his hands
together and prayed. "Namu Amida Butsu..."5
He prayed sincerely, but the officers seemed to think he was mocking the
dead man.
"Monk, you cannot recite the Nembutsu
over someone you killed," one of the officers said.
"I didn't want to kill him," Tanshi
said. "I didn't plan for that to happen."
But the officers viewed this incident as
just another fight, nothing more. "Silence, monk," an officer said.
"Come with us to the prefectural
office," another officer said.
"I was only defending myself," Tanshi
said. He wasn't much more than a child, and he'd killed a grown man on
accident. Surely the officers didn't believe him capable of cold-blooded
murder?
The old woman crawled out from where
she'd been hiding. She was weeping when she said, "Officer, this monk
has avenged my daughter's death. Please forgive him."
"What?" The officers looked at the dead
woman's body.
The old woman knelt before the officers
and said, "I beg you. Please overlook this event for the sake of my
daughter."
"No. You're also coming as a material
witness."
The old woman turned pale. "What?"
Tanshi couldn't fight the officers, of
course. He felt sorry for the old woman, who'd gotten caught up in this
terrible situation. "I'll cooperate with you," he said. "Take my staff.
I will follow you to the prefectural office." He handed over his staff
and put his hands behind his back.
He had avenged a death by killing
another. What an horrible disaster. There was nothing but suffering in
this world.
It was so strange: yesterday and today,
Tanshi had come across the deaths of two young women and mourned for
them, each in a different way.
Tanshi was a murderer, now.
Having broken the precept of drinking alcohol, I have also broken the
precept of taking a life. I can no longer be a monk,
Tanshi thought.
The officers took him and the old woman
away.
Translator's Notes
1 I use typical (more mainstream) terms to describe
the basic Buddhist ideas here (samsara and moksha), though the
text sometimes leans on older terms and especially older kanji. To simplify
things, I've used the modern terms because it's easier to search for
information on these concepts that way.↩
2 Elixirs of immortality: Devout Daoists often ate
things like jade, gold, cinnabar (ore from which mercury is derived) and
certain flowers. Special elixirs sometimes contained arsenic and mercury.
The inventors of many elixirs died prematurely from taking the elixirs
intended to prolong their lives.↩
3 則天皇后: Wu Zetian, China's only ruling
empress. ↩
4 頭陀: The word zuda, the nickname used
for itinerant monks, is derived from 頭陀袋, zudabukuro, which
means "carryall sack." This is the word that Tanshi uses to
describe the bald itinerant monk.↩
5 Namu Amida Butsu ［南無阿弥陀仏］: "Homage to
Amida Buddha" or "I take refuge in Amida Buddha." Also known as the
Nembutsu. ↩
Additional Notes
木魚: Temple blocks are a type of percussion instrument consisting of
a set of woodblocks. It is descended from the muyu, an
instrument originating from eastern Asia, where it is commonly used in
religious ceremonies.
According to tradition, Siddhartha seated himself at the foot of a
tree, which has since been called the Bodhi Tree (the tree of
enlightenment). He vowed to sit beneath that tree until he had
attained deep insight into suffering. The demon Mara rose to tempt him
and to attack him with arrows of passion. Desire, fear, pride, and
thirst rose to challenge his clear concentration of mind. But
Siddhartha placed his hand on the earth, calling earth itself to
witness his firm resolve. When the morning star appeared, Siddhartha
Gautama became the Buddha, literally the “Awakened One.” He had woken
up to the nature of the changing world and the causes of suffering.
This state of awakening was also called nirvana, literally the
“blowing out” of the fires of ego-centered attachment which are the
source of suffering.
Siddhartha is called Shakyamuni Buddha, the “Sage of the Shakya Clan,”
to make clear that this awakening is not uniquely his. Over time,
there have been other individuals who have awakened to the truth and
gained enlightenment, thereby becoming Buddhas. Among the most well
known and widely venerated are Amitabha (Amida) Buddha, Vairochana
Buddha, and Bhaishajya-guru (better known as the Medicine Buddha).
Indeed, sometimes Buddhas are depicted by the thousands, for the
“Buddha nature” is the true awakened nature of all beings.
When the text refers to "the Buddha" with no extra label (Amida has
appeared a few times), it is Shakyamuni Buddha who is being referred
to.
Peng Zu (彭祖, "Ancestor Peng") is a legendary long-lived
figure in China. He supposedly lived for more than 450 years
in the Shang dynasty. Some legends say that one year was 60
days in ancient China; that made him more than 130 years old.
Others say he was 400 years old. Another says he was
accidentally left off of the death list in heaven.
Peng Zu was regarded as a saint in Daoism. The pursuit of
elixir of life by practitioners of Daoism was highly
influenced by Peng Zu. He is well known in Chinese culture as
a symbol for longevity, nutrition treatments, and sex therapy
treatments. Legend maintains he married more than 100 wives
and fathered hundreds of children.
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