The Tale of the Heike (Penguin Classics) by VIKING ADULT

Author:VIKING ADULT
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, pdf
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2012-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

Kiyomori boiling. Top left: Lady Nii’s dream of hell fiends.

Awa no Minbu Shigeyoshi

received the commission to start again.

In their council the senior nobles

proposed securing the foundations

by means of a living sacrifice, 179

but that was judged too great a sin.

Instead they wrote the words of the sutras,

all of them, on the building stones—

hence the name Kyō-no-shima:

“Sutra Island.”

9. Jishinbō

Old men claimed that Lord Kiyomori, however evil his reputation,

was really the great Buddhist master Jie 180 reborn. And this is why:

In the province of Settsu, there stands a mountain temple named Seichōji.

The head priest there, Jishinbō Son’e, once a scholar monk on Mount Hiei,

for many years had been an ardent devotee of the Lotus.

The spirit had moved him to leave the Mountain and come to this temple,

where over time he won all who knew him to faith.

At the hour of the ox on the night of the twenty-second, in the twelfth month of Shōan 2, [1172, ca. 2 A.M.]

he was leaning on his armrest, reading the Lotus Sutra,

when between dream and waking he saw a man of fifty or so,

in white pilgrim garb, tall lacquered hat, straw sandals, and gaiters,

approach him bearing a formal letter.

“Where do you come from?” Son’e asked.

“From the palace of King Enma. I bring you a message from him.”

The figure gave Son’e the letter. Son’e opened it and read:

SUMMONS

TO: Jinshinbō Son’e of Seichōji

Settsu province, Japan

Continent of Jambudvīpa

FROM: Court of King Enma

DATE: Shōan 2, twelfth month, twenty-second day

NOTIFICATION: On the twenty-sixth next, in the Great Hall of State at the Citadel of King Enma, a hundred thousand gathered devotees of the Lotus are to chant the key passages of the sutra. Your presence is therefore required. King Enma so decrees.

That is what Son’e saw written.

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