Pathway to Japanese Literature

After the cherry blossoms across the mountains had completely scattered, the consecration ceremony for the construction of the Great Pagoda and Central Hall was conducted.

Even so, as it was customary when speaking of a spring journey to first think of cherry blossoms, the Minister had held a faint hope.
He had felt a quiet flutter of anticipation at the possibility that flowers might still be blooming in the depths of Kōya and Yoshino.

The 27th day—.
Upon arriving at the mountain, the first thing he inquired about was the state of the blossoms.
This year in particular had passed swiftly, and already ten days prior, not a single branch with lingering blossoms remained even beyond the Great Master’s mausoleum.

Even when responding to such trivial matters with speech of utmost humility, these abbots never allowed their stern expressions to falter in the slightest.
"Is this what they call false humility?" he mused. "Their very countenances reveal designs to overwhelm their interlocutor.
"They presume those of lofty station must be thus and look down accordingly.
"And yet—their refined phrasing, their modesty, their immaculate delivery—what of that?
"If even their enunciation lacked coarseness, then how could the capital’s courtly diction ever hope to compare?"
Within this brief sojourn, every abbot upon the mountain who came to pay homage—each without exception—left the Minister astonished through this exquisite speech.
Precisely therefore did he feel an unrelenting tension—these abbots being at once akin to yet distinct from those obsequious yet long-winded officials of the capital.

How refined.
They likely did nothing but mourn the cherry blossoms, cling to spring’s remnants, and obsess over literature—never sparing a thought for the affairs of the realm.
This Minister—

While he translated such words, it was the mountain crows that sang those fluent phrases.

Even when observing nature’s transformations, they had no leisure to be moved.
Amidst such days—they could not even engage in the study of sutras that save the world.

Such speech caused people shame, and they uttered it without a thought.
That couldn’t possibly be—.
Causing others shame—without a thought for the bitter aftertaste borne by those they humiliated—their utter lack of consideration laid bare the wretchedness of the abbots’ way of life.

The Minister—in that instant—envisioned a portrait by court painters of recent times.
With the composed dignity of one who had become a figure in that portrait, he began to speak.

Even so, you all possess enviable leisure.
Comely acolyte monks are forced to cram their studies.
Then they cultivate them into proper students and oversee their entire lives.
Everyone who comes to Kōya says it’s enviable—but those who study Buddhist texts have the leisure to say such things, which is precisely why it’s enviable.
Scholars? Imperial graduates? They’re all just mediocrities...

The Minister delivered a doubly cutting remark against those disagreeable menials.
When he saw people speaking like inanimate objects, he felt unbearably as if being forcibly lectured by those less cultivated than himself.
The abbots were disagreeable enough, but even after speaking with the scholars for less than half an hour, the world came to feel like nothing but a gloomy, wretched place.
As he spoke with layered meanings intending to overwhelm the abbots, the fervor driving him surged forth with a vehemence that overwhelmed contemporary scholars in its tone.

Indeed, even this Kōya pilgrimage had seen Shunsai Nyūdō arrive on the eve of departure with ostentatious objections. Ritual propriety dictates thus; the Chronicles of Emperor Yao state such-and-such—but such matters were hardly astronomical upheavals. To raise this now, with departure mere hours away—such negligence was beyond measure. Had he at least invoked Yin-Yang divination, it might have held some meaning. But if it was not even ritual propriety and he prattled on about precedents, it was not worth discussing.

"In these mountains, there must be monastic scholars who study the *Sūrya-siddhānta*."

"Would you care to see it?"
"At this temple, even those who begin reading but a fragment of sutras—half as a pastime—do engage in such practices."
"If it would amuse you, I would gladly show it to you."

"Hmm—."
"That’s just it."

"There is nothing as grand as masters of the *Sūrya-siddhānta* here—"
"If we speak of our main path, this mountain has transmitted various arts—"

"I have heard that the Founder first transmitted the Eight Trigrams of the Yi—how does that stand now——."

At this moment, the Minister did not forget the inadvertently shifted expression of Hōe Risshi—who had come forth as his interlocutor.
"This may not be the court nobles that those of the mountain imagine."
He subtly hinted at such wariness.

What the Great Master brought from Tang China was not limited to the Eight Trigrams of the Yi.
Furthermore, he deigned to transmit even the art known as Nikkei divination—which had traveled from the Western Regions to the capital of Chang’an—whereby one plucks a branch of matter and casts it into the void to divine.

The Minister made a face as if doubting his own ears.

“What? Casting wooden branches to divine—”

The visibly gentle and exceedingly humble demeanor was not limited to his face alone.
It flowed through his shoulders, his arms, his knees.

I wish someone would hear this out... Perhaps it’s a method transmitted by those so-called Persians.

Suddenly, a friendly emotion—as if toward a friend—welled up.

Regrettably, nothing beyond that had been transmitted.

“Is there no one who has transmitted it in more detail?”

“Alas, regarding Nikkei divination specifically, not a single knowledgeable soul remains within these mountains.”

Even so, it seemed plausible…
There must be records related to that——.

“No—”
“Alas, even those were consumed in the □□ celestial fire a century ago.”

Was there evidence of those documents burning—was that why he made such a claim?

“No, it is entirely a matter of hearsay.”
“There has been no definitive evidence transmitted of their clear perishing.”
“However—given that a century has passed without anyone claiming to have seen those documents—”

That too—.
So they're giving up after all?

The Minister had likely come to feel as though the Nikkei divination texts had once been in his own possession.

But—was there truly no way to investigate?

Hōe Risshi did not respond; he maintained a pious yet vacant expression of silence.

“If it may serve as your reference, I would consider it splendid—but would such talk not be of use to you?”

“You say there exists a method to uncover texts that have not shown themselves these hundred years?”

“It is not so certain a matter,” he replied. “Though even at this mountain, there exists but one occasion when divination is conducted through methods wholly unused elsewhere—though it seems entirely unrelated—it is an act strictly confined to the Great Master’s mausoleum, and—”

The Minister already felt himself becoming a silverfish dancing through the margins of ancient texts brought back from Tang China three centuries past on returning monks’ ships, glowing amidst their pages. When one becomes such a Great Master as he, even now two hundred years after his death, the hair at his temples still grows. Ah—I see. I feel I’ve heard that before. Now—the Taiping Guangji—a miscellany, mind you—states that in India they make la people using human corpses. They dig up la people and use them for medicinal purposes. In those newly made ones, there are some that grow hair at their temples—so that passage states, you see.

Hōe Risshi had indeed sensed a reaction, yet he felt as though he had been brushed aside. More than that—here was a miracle that could only belong to one of such lofty virtue—yet this nobleman treated it with casual indifference, as if it were some everyday occurrence. His heart swelled with condemnation for such sacrilegious words.

This man considers himself a being surpassing even the Great Master, he thought. His heart burned with the desire to chastise this arrogance born of inherited nobility.

The Great Master lives on even now, he reaffirmed inwardly. Though Your Excellency has grouped such things as shirō—corpses transformed into preserved relics—into a single category...

No—it was indeed reasonable, he conceded. But don't grow angry—no, don't! The Great Master Kūkai possessed far nobler character than that! He was one who revered knowledge without limit—not only Buddhist scriptures but secular classics too, from Yin-Yang arts to Tonkō divination, delving even into Dainichi-kyō's esoteric doctrines.

Ah—not one-tenth of such learning do I possess, the Minister privately lamented.

“Once every twenty years, hair-shaving envoys depart from the Kyoto Imperial Court.”
“I cannot claim to have attended on such occasions.”
“However—over ten years ago, when the imperial envoy last came to the mausoleum—I did pay my respects with utmost reverence, approaching most closely to venerate.”
“Though he had indeed been made to wither and blacken with decay, his eyes remained wide open and glaring.”
“I performed the duty of assisting in replacing the monastic robe.”
“A marvel for latter ages—it serves as an excellent lesson for those of spiritual arrogance in this world.”
“There is nothing that demonstrates the dignity of the Dharma so vividly as this.”

The very act of having witnessed such a form became the great scholarly pursuit there.
At that time, what state had Kūkai’s hair and beard been in?

It is most presumptuous of me to say so.
“Truly, it had been made to grow by about two sun.”
"As for the beard, I could not bring myself to venerate it."

How weak-spirited.
But splendid indeed.
Though Japan be vast, those who have had such experiences number no more than two or three.
How enviable.
But how does this connect to Nikkei divination?

Hōe Risshi, like some fiend of erudition with eyes ablaze in inquiry, felt himself overwhelmed by the nobleman seated directly before him.

“Since time immemorial, we have performed this divinatory rite measuring the growth of hair at the Great Master’s temples.
To put it plainly—though unseen by mortal eyes—it is a phenomenon that exists now.
Merely one invisible to naked sight.
We but glimpse through layered stone at the Great Master’s form within the mausoleum’s depths.
Our purpose lies not in scorching turtle shells or deer bones to divine the future’s shape.”

The Minister was listening with a thoughtful expression, his face had become the very picture of unreserved emotion.
Hōe Risshi had even forgotten to reflect on himself as he continued speaking relentlessly, as if to show even a shred of sincere intent toward that countenance.

On this mountain where ninety-nine valleys existed, in one such valley—a place removed from all approaches to the mountain—there lay a village where low-ranking monks were stationed.
A place called Karidō’s non-ritual officers—where lowly individuals forbidden from shaving their heads resided… It was the nenbutsu holy men of that Karidō who transmitted the traditions.
They were said to be descendants of the demonic spirits from that land—those whom the Great Master Kūkai had reverently brought back from Tang China.
“It is said that those individuals settled here for the protection of this mountain—that is what they refer to.”

As if gauging whether Your Excellency’s mind inclined toward his words, he let his speech trail off momentarily.
Through vacant eyes, he glimpsed the serene light about the Minister’s forehead—

“They say since Tang times they have handled the Great Master’s comb boxes and tended his bathhouse channels. Even after his parinirvāṇa, certain rites remain performed solely by these holy men.”
“Among these is something resembling Nikkei divination—”
“When the hair-shaving envoys arrive, three days before finally unsealing the Mausoleum, three individuals from across the mountain—regardless of station—are divined to perform the tonsure.”
“Those who conduct this divination emerge from among the Karidō holy men.”
“In former times, they performed it frequently.”
“Now they practice something like striking divination sticks that no longer delight children.”
“Using merely two—two somewhat longer branches from what resembles a sumac tree—they perform their mysterious rites.”
“After manipulating them in sundry ways, they plant them in the earth.”
“Declaring this represents Dainichi Nyorai’s form, they bind the two branches into a cross.”
“This cruciform figure—they say—embodies the Venerated One’s vertical and horizontal dimensions, absorbing this floating world’s sins and impurities to purify them through divination.”

When the ritual concluded, they hurled them toward the western sky—toward the setting sun poised to dance down behind the western mountain ridge. The branches bound in this cruciform manner soared over the peaks and valleys, then flew off to parts unknown.

“Truly, whether enacted as falsehood or truth, such distinctions are but a trifling concern for we scholar-monks,” he said. “However, they say that at that moment, the tree branches resembling cruciform pillars appear as the form of a high priest, his sideburns and hair grown long and cascading down.”

Upon venerating this form and opening the mausoleum the following day to behold the Great Master’s visage directly, they say his hair and beard had grown precisely as witnessed the day before.

So it was that the monk compared—with his own eyes—the illusion of the previous day and the true form witnessed that very day.
That there is not a hair’s breadth of discrepancy—was that account you’ve given precisely as the secular world claims?
Hmm—so that Nikkei divination from the Western Regions measures the growth of the Great Master’s sideburns and hair.
Doesn’t the divination hold true, I wonder.
Spirit-summoning rituals—that's what they are.
“Beyond Persia lie lands even more distant, where barbarians are exceedingly numerous.”
Among them are those who transmit the spirit-summoning rituals of a thousand years.
“...summoning even thousand-year-old spirits and bringing them before one’s eyes, just as they appeared in life.’”

While reciting from memory, the Minister’s face appeared utterly immersed in the pleasure of fantasy.

It’s found in the lost texts of Xi Guan Tang Ji—and then, long ago, there was a single barbarian who possessed techniques of divine and wondrous sorcery.
Because of those wondrous techniques, he was regarded with suspicion and doubt, and was crucified to death.
Afterward, that barbarian’s teaching was passed down through long ages and is still practiced today.
In the capital of Chang'an as well, there were those who built a temple for me to spread its teachings, actively performing spirit-summoning rituals to summon and venerate the form of that aforementioned barbarian.
The trend of belief gradually spread among scholars and gentlemen, giving rise to corrupt practices whose extent is difficult to fathom.
That’s roughly what’s written there—since Kūkai Shōnin’s journey to Tang China occurred between the Zhenyuan and Yuanhe eras of Great Tang—the Xi Guan Tang Ji was compiled not long after.

"In any case, the sole surviving remnant of Nikkei divination that the Great Master Kūkai brought forth—it is this alone."

"The Lawyer realized this was a foe he could never hope to match in intellectual combat."

And then—those beautiful words——
A pure mouth that uttered beautiful, crisp and refreshingly clear words——.
Plump cheeks——.

The mountain monk, having grown up in the mountains and spent his youth among Buddha halls, found that his heart for gazing upon women had withered.
With eyes that perceived an unexpected beauty, he often stared intently at the men around him.
The Lawyer was beginning to be astonished that no matter where he looked upon His Excellency’s relaxed form—its unseen abundance—every aspect could only be ascribed to beauty.

After all, I had come to consider the spirit-summoning ritual as divination—
Two hundred and fifty years later—even in a mountain brimming with knowledge, there remained corners where the light of wisdom did not reach.

Your Excellency’s countenance appeared increasingly keen.
The light of wisdom—this was what the Lawyer perceived it to be.
The Great Master’s form witnessed within the mausoleum—should he be questioned about it, what terrified him was this sense beginning to take hold that he could no longer conceal the truth.

The spring day still had time before dusk would fall.
I found myself gradually wanting to visit the Kaisan Mausoleum.
There was one guide I wished to request there—

The Lawyer—once rumored to speak a touch too freely for one of the monastic hierarchy—now blended only a few words into his quiet demeanor, acquiring the outward aspect of a venerable elder monk.

Funerary offerings and stipends luminous enough to illuminate the entire mountain were distributed among numerous temple lodgings.
There were those originating from imperial decree and those manifesting the Minister’s extraordinary resolve.
Among these, what kindled joy so dazzling it evoked their daily life’s chromatic paucity was a complete set of women’s ceremonial robes—Tang-style garments reportedly donated by the Northern Consort of the Minister of the Right of Kowata.
Of course, this followed established precedent; the pristine vestments never once worn were first consecrated before the Central Hall’s principal icon before being offered to Amano Shrine’s princess deity.
For long-resident virtuous monks, these robes remained mere cataracts of color suspended on display racks—yet for high-ranking monks whose youth kept their hearts impressionable, phantasms swarmed eyes and ears beyond restraint.
Among beautiful acolytes yet to take vows and those who nurtured them were some who furtively exchanged glances, sharing silent comprehension of arcane words.
It was their wish to see these gentle beings of indeterminate gender swathe their skin in these fabrics and gaze upon themselves.

The following day was that of the Chūdō Daitō Offering.
It had been a day that choked on swirling goma smoke.
Hōe Risshi had served Your Excellency with such earnest devotion that one might have thought it sprang from some secular bond—perhaps his origins in the Minister’s household before taking monastic vows.

The doors of the Central Hall were thrown fully open.
The ritual altar, blazing fiercely within the dimness, still sent up flames; yet the newly painted ceiling, pillars, walls, and floor—bathed in the bright external light of approaching summer—suddenly illuminated the hall.

The Great Pagoda, its overlapping rings of light interweaving—the surrounding structures encircling it blazed with a radiance that outshone the mountains’ pale April greens, like a smoldering rainbow of vermilion, orpiment, and verdigris.

That day had grown dark unexpectedly early.
"Third-Month Dusk"—so the mountain people called it—such days occurred but rarely.
The sky—so clear and bright it seemed excessive—grew dim without sudden clouding, and night fell outright.
On such days, the air held a piercing clarity—so sharp that evening and deep night alike seemed to ring with its resonance.

It was now midnight.
In the capital, this season brought many hazy nights; here in these mountains, they were as dry as a winter sky.
A terrifying experience from yesterday—one he held no memory of since birth—he now sought to ascertain once more with his own eyes.
A heart trembling ghostly pale to its very depths—would it startle even tonight? He had served two generations of young emperors.
There had been numerous occasions when he found himself troubled upon encountering His Majesty’s countenance as it fully expressed wrath.
It differed even from that intensity.
It differed even from the terror instilled by the demons depicted in Hell Scrolls and the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons—that which pierces through one’s very life.

In any case, I never imagined that such things—utterly beyond the realm of ordinary life—could exist.
But before my very eyes, I had seen it with these eyes.
It was not myself who believed.
Yet to deem what I myself had experienced as a misunderstanding on my part simply because the world’s vulgar thoughts could not accept it—that was the shameful mind of a commoner.
If it had changed, then was that change itself not acceptable?
I would expand humanity's known world through these eyes witnessing new realities.

――While thus thinking, he moved forward.
Both sides were deep thickets—a mound-strewn plain littered with stupas.
Above loomed a grove of densely growing evergreen trees, creating a dimness where the path appeared pale.
A sand mist—a faint pillar of fog some five shaku high above the path, seeming as though sand churned restlessly—made the Minister doubt his eyes.
He stopped and stared intently.
It was no ocular illusion.
A faintly white wisp of smoke—shifting along at roughly human height—and a shadow moving some two ken apart—.

It grew bright.
The sound of water reached his ears.

A nightingale was singing.
In the mountains, it was not heard.
Once more, it was attempting to shift into an awkward summer song.
A loud sound of water striking the surface was heard next.
The lattice shutters were lowered, and at the bedside, a wall of darkness loomed tall.
The reason he sensed this was that the eastern lattice door at the rear stood slightly ajar, signaling that early morning had already arrived; yet lying near the western side of the southern face, he could barely make out the movement of his own hand.

The thought that he had gone out to the village—the Minister’s memory suddenly surged forth. Ah yes.
Yesterday—no—the day before yesterday he had descended from Kōya.
The impressions from those days spent there remained too vividly clear; by contrast yesterday’s events alone had been erased into a stillness like wiped slate.

What had been vividly clear until this very moment—neither dream nor association—was what had occurred on the night before last. In the moonlight that hung like mist over Tamagawa, the mountain stream, he had indeed glimpsed—dimly yet unmistakably—the figure of someone walking five or six ken ahead. The reason he swallowed the words "Hōe?" that rose to his lips was that, in that instant, the figure appeared utterly lifeless—a shadow-like thing—and yet was unnervingly tall.

But when I thought this, the figure was nowhere to be found.
The continuous fantasy I had just witnessed was merely that.
I want to ascertain that shadow-like thing.
And so, in sleep, I had seen that—a trifling phantom.
I should not have been one to be caught up in thinking about such things.
But—had that incident from the day before not occurred, there would be no reason for me to dwell on such a seemingly trivial matter.
That day, in the bright afternoon not yet twilight—what had I seen inside the Founder’s Hall?

I had imagined I would surely behold the Founder’s shirō.
Clutching this conviction—when I unsealed that imperially forbidden door opened but once every twenty years—when I descended five or six steps into [□□□□□] that inner darkness—what did Hōe’s lantern reveal?
To remember was to retch.
To remember was to speak aloud.
My spirit rebuked me for assembling thoughts like incantations whispered to my own mind.
In conclusion—to think nothing proved most effective at stilling my heart.
The Minister stirred his cowering heart with flint-edged resolve.

I seem to be increasingly resembling my elder brother and father, compelled by bloodline.
Am I not the one being tormented while observing that indecisive Regent's conduct?
Yet here I was—I who had found even the sight of His Highness the Lay Monk repulsive, he who left all matters unresolved, observed them unravel beyond repair, and seemed to take perverse delight in it—
And yet this I—precisely because this illusion-like reality is reality—am all the more fixated on examining it in minute detail.
Is this not a useless line of thought?

The sudden brightening of the building’s interior was because someone came and opened the lattice door.

Last night, claiming I wished to engage in quiet contemplation, I earnestly desired a secluded spot with sparse human presence and had a bed arranged here.

However, it seemed that all through the night, I had been awake in mind.
Though all scenery and everything else appeared to belong to that temple town atop the mountain, my body felt as though it had wandered these wilds and hills.
Above all, my wanderings in those mountains did not give my chest the slightest oppressive feeling.
Though the fact that resident monks—from highest to lowest—were uneducated and vulgar struck me as disagreeable, those three days stirred no melancholy in my heart.
Yet last night—the dream continuing until this morning—could not be thought to follow upon that reality; there was something lingering about it—as though only the form remained singular while its substance had been entirely replaced.

It was as if—in the moment I had thought I was beholding a Nioh from gigaku—a monkey had replaced its form and begun acting strangely.

Having found a way to liken it to something contemptible in such a manner, I finally felt my spirit grow lighter.
Then, an expansive chest—ah, at last my usual self had returned.
Those hailed since ancient times as this nation's foremost figures could not trouble their minds with "the inconceivable."
“To live alone in a hollow world devoid of the inconceivable—even this loneliness I feel must set me apart from the people of old—” my spirit reproached me so.

...Ah, right.
I had nearly forgotten.
The acolyte from Ryōzen-in whom I had received from the mountains—is he here now?

“Come here.”
“Like this.”

Outside the fully brightened lattice door, the rustling of garments arose.

“Do you summon me?”

What a beautiful voice.
In my residence there are many young men and women attendants, but never have I heard such a refreshing voice.
That’s right—I had sensed him to be sharp-witted, but indeed—he was precisely the youth I had imagined—.
And if that graceful demeanor—enhanced by the mountains—had not struck him as exceptionally beautiful, then—he could consider this journey’s first prize secured.
He felt such a blissful sensation welling up within him.

Have them inquire of the temple people.
Last night—had there been nothing in this mountain village—

Next, a clear voice responded to it and crossed the plank floor without making a sound.

For several days prior there had been no sign of the expected notification, yet within less than two hours of its presumed arrival, the Minister’s palanquin was borne into the village that branched off from the main road.
In Taima village, a luminous commotion welled up as though a storm of blossoms had suddenly come swirling down.

And yet today, this village hosting a noble from the capital held an unimaginable tranquility—as if yesterday’s events had never occurred.

The serene Fourth Month sun shone down, and the sand-strewn garden of the monk’s quarters glowed with capital-like elegance.
Okanomae stepped out into the garden, spreading still-early green.
The mountain birds gathered together and pecked at something—there were grass flowers blooming at the edge of a small pond.

“He had entered without being summoned.”
“If it were a task befitting Hōe, I thought…”

Ah, that was it—a slight reconsideration arose.

Ah, Lawyer.
That must have been a terrible ordeal.
From the mountains to here—under normal circumstances, it would be a two-day journey.

“No—being mountain-bred from childhood, the mountains pose little challenge. On the contrary—it would seem I grew weary during yesterday’s half-day journey across flatland.”

“Lawyer, what was the name of that charge we received from the mountains?”

Anashimaru.

What? Anashimaru.
“That’s a strange name, isn’t it.”

“Hōe hereby takes his leave.”
“May you ever increase in glory.”

Hōe—the mountains treated you well—
Transmitting Nikkei divination, nurturing Anashimaru...and there may yet come times when I climb these mountains again.

I shall eagerly await those occasions.

Hōe Ajari descended the mountain intending to represent the monastic hierarchy's resolve by seeing off the Minister's vehicle as far as Gakumonji Village at the foothills. But when he reached the overlook of Kinokawa River, a pang of lingering attachment surged within him. He resolved to accompany them at least to Mato Pass on Yamato Province's border. Upon arriving at the crossroads of the provincial boundary, an irrepressible compulsion overtook him—he would escort them all the way to Taima-dera Temple. This stemmed both from its status as a branch temple of the mountain and his newfound desire to meet with monastic acquaintances there.

Well then, I shall send off the Lawyer and go out myself as far as the main gate area to see.

“Your Excellency must kindly refrain.”
“That would be too gracious.”

“Cease treating me as you would Her Ladyship.
I take no pleasure in the ways of other court nobles!”

The rumor that Her Ladyship—the palace’s sovereign mistress once called the Northern Consort—did not deign to use her own feet even when coming and going had been a baseless tale spread throughout society.
Yet it was precisely these baseless tales that the great nobles universally embodied.
In recent times, there existed not a single practice observed at court that went unobserved in the houses of great nobles.
There were those who occasionally deemed such things presumptuous, but these consisted solely of elderly ladies who—having left their court service companions and begun to age—had come to mingle with court attendants.
What distinguished Her Ladyship was that there were days when she served at the Naishidokoro.
Particularly since winter’s onset, these days grew frequent.
There were times when she spent over half a day sitting on draft-riddled wooden flooring, and nights—so cold they seemed to congeal from midnight until dawn—when she would use hot water up to three times.

Even though it was a tradition dating back to the Age of the Gods, the women serving at the Naishidokoro still felt this pain keenly. What was performed with even greater intensity were Her Ladyship’s devotions to the gods. Such emulations were not something any court family would practice.

A precinct exceeding three chō north-south and five chō east-west.
The main gate stood atop the southern hill, where descending a gentle slope led to level ground housing the seven principal temple halls.
Separated east and west of the gate upon opposing elevated knolls stood twin pagodas.

The temple stood amidst pine groves, its entire composition visible at a single glance from the gate.

Three hundred years after the establishment of the present capital, and one hundred fifty years before that in the distant past of the Nara Palace and Asuka Capital, the family that built this temple here was a widely extended clan, but they had perished without a trace, leaving only their clan temple behind.

Though its vermilion and orpiment were aged, the temple’s sacred boundaries maintained a purity rivaling even those of the capital’s grandest temples.

From the inner precinct southward lay nothing but open fields.
There were no fields either.
But there were no forests either.
Thickets and rocky plains continued into an upward-sloping field that eventually rose into a high mountain.
The Ajari party returned along the path they had come yesterday.
Since it was the path leading down to Taima Village below the temple, they quickly vanished from sight.

The peaks of Katsuragi extended continuously from the gate’s eaves until, at last, they vanished into distant clouds.
The one whose high peak alone was visible stood as Kogose-yama of Katsuragi; then came Kaina-dake, its treetops bending low toward this place.
To the north, a long ridge extended continuously as though cascading, reaching all the way above this temple.
And there, standing as if to press down upon the gate, was Nijōzan.

The Minister, …… (abruptly cut off).