The Heike Story (19 page)

A thread of a new moon hung in the sky. On the steep path to Shimei Peak a figure like a pain-twisted ape tottered and wove its way upward. It was an aged sage, clinging to his pilgrim's staff. The shape finally emerged on a rocky crest. Below him yawned a black chasm and about him spread the wide evening sky, under which he, trembling, came to his knees.

"Na—namu. ..."

Tears coursed down his cheeks as he clasped his hands in prayer, and he lifted up his voice and wept, addressing the universe.

"Namu amida butsu (Mercy, Amida Buddha) . . . namu Amida . . . namu . . . Amida—bu—" he moaned. "Mercy . . . have mercy on me!" Prostrating himself, he cried aloud: "Blind to my folly, I tried to bring salvation to men and cannot even save myself. Which way am I to turn? Knowledge has only brought me darkness. Learning has set me far from the path of truth. I have lived in vain. This Holy Mountain is the very seat of evil. I fear to live any longer. I dare not live any more on this mountain. Merciful Buddha, if your promises are true, grant me a sign that there is a paradise, and that man can attain to it—then let me die."

Long he wept and in broken syllables reproached himself and grieved.

In his youth he had tasted deeply of the world's bitterness and sorrows, and, praying that he might become a holy man to relieve suffering mankind, he had dedicated himself to the life on Mount Hiei. For more than forty years, almost the full span of a man's life, he had worn the garments of an ascetic, practiced all manner of austerities, and mortified his flesh. For seven years, barefooted, he had made the rounds of the temples of the peak and valleys by day, until his feet bled, and meditated through the nights, then immured himself for years in the darkness of a treasure-house to pore over the Buddhist sutras until his sight grew dim. Then he traveled throughout the land, engaging with scholars of other sects in religious debates until he was acclaimed as the wisest sage of his day. In his declining years he was made the Abbot of a monastery, the recognized authority on the Four Doctrines of the Tendai sect of Mount Hiei. Yet no disciples came to sit at his feet in his monastery in the hills, for the temples of Mount Hiei had yearly grown more magnificent; their sanctuary lights shone even more brilliantly in their innermost shrines; their granaries overflowed with the abundance from manors in many provinces to sustain more than ten thousand monks, scholars, disciples, novices, and numberless slaves, and the prosperity of the Tendai sect only brought him utter despair.

"Though the first father of these monasteries, Saicho, labored here to the day of his death, my learning can do no good, I have no more strength to. live. . . . Woe is me! Though Buddha comes to meet me after death, of what use will it be? You ravens among these hills, come feed on my flesh for your day's meat!" And with this the aged monk staggered to his feet and in the next instant cast himself down into the gorge.

In the early dawn, long before the hour for morning services, a cry that seemed to echo among the clouds above Mount Hiei startled the monks from their sleep.

"The bell in the Great Lecture Hall calls! Come to the Lecture Hall!"

The deep booming of the bell still trembled in the air as the monks hurriedly threw their priests' robes over their armor, fastened on long swords, and seized their halberds. Up they crowded from the monasteries in the hills, like clouds boiling through the gorges, the aged monks clinging to their pilgrim staffs. A few stars still straggled in the late June night. Masking their faces in silken scarves or the sleeves of their robes, old and young priests, shod with straw sandals, hurried up the slopes. Cupping their hands, they hallooed over the darkened roofs of the monasteries and dormitories: "Come to the Great Hall! The bell sounds for a general assembly." Like warriors mustering for battle, they excitedly asked one another why they were being summoned.

A monk suddenly came to a halt in a clump of grass on the defile below Shimei Peak. "Ya, ya! A corpse—an old man, too! To which monastery does this priest belong, I wonder." A bloody figure lay among the boulders, its face battered beyond recognition; several monks stood round staring down at it, when one of them quickly stepped forward to examine a rosary twined around the dead man's wrist and exclaimed: "Ah! the Abbot Jitsugyo, who has been ailing for so long at his monastery. No mistake—it's he."

"What! That venerable sage?"

"No doubt about it. Take a good look."

"How could he have got killed? He must have missed his footing on Shimei Peak."

"I doubt it. He has suffered from palsy for so long, and probably in despair hurried his own death."

"That could not be the only reason. Those who have seen him lately say that to every man he met he had been cursing the rottenness and the depravity of our Tendai priesthood."

"He was always dissatisfied—a man who never smiled. Years of poor health must have caused this. Poor soul—poor soul!"

"Well, what can we do now, for the assembly bell still calls us?"

"Death would have come sooner or later to the sick man. Now that he's dead, this is no time for us to worry about a corpse —the general meeting may be for orders to march down the mountain. We can take care of his funeral later. We must get on to the assembly. Come, on to the Lecture Hall!"

Turning away from the dead man, the monks hurried on. Group after group of armed priests went by with hasty side-glances at the body.

The sun was rising. Near the dead sage's face a dew-laden gentian stirred in the breeze. His mouth gaped, revealing a single tooth, and for the first time he seemed to smile at the mountain.

A single beam, one hundred and ten feet long, supported the front porch of the Great Lecture Hall. At the foot of the wide staircase leading up to the hall, a hulking monk crouched on a stone and faced the assemblage. Over his coarse-woven armor he wore his vestments. The long sleeves of his flowing robe half-concealed his face, and he held a spear. Some eight or nine monks, young and old, stood on the porch above and gazed down over the massed heads.

One of the priests was concluding a long and fiery address: ". . . This may seem a trivial affair, but actually it is a serious matter, for it reflects upon the prestige of our Church. Not only does the affair leave us open to the contempt of our rival sects, but it is a threat to the very existence of our order on Mount Hiei, the guardian of the state. Brethren, whatever you think, the gist of our argument leaves us only two choices. Are we or are we not to make an armed protest? I ask for the unreserved opinions of all who are gathered here."

The general assembly had been called to acquaint the monks with an incident that had occurred a few weeks before in early June at the annual religious festival at Gion. At the height of the sacred celebrations the monks had been drawn into a fracas with two soldiers. The monks, it was true, were somewhat the worse for drink as were the two warriors, so both parties were equally open to blame. None the less, the affair could not be ignored, he said, for the warriors not only had given the monks and the Gion priests a beating, but had wounded some other monks who had come to intervene, and then escaped. The populace had witnessed the brawl, and blood had been spilled on consecrated ground. The priesthood had been openly insulted. Was the Church to overlook such an affair and let these warriors go unpunished? The matter had been referred to the Justice Department and the Police Commission, and the offenders tracked down and identified. It was found that both warriors served at the Cloister Palace: one was a retainer of Kiyomori, Lord Aki, and the other was his brother-in-law, Tokitada. The priests of Gion had demanded repeatedly that the culprits be handed over to them, but Lord Aki had merely laughed and ignored the injunctions. Warrants for their arrest had been filed with the Justice Department, but its chief, Tadamori (Kiyomori's father), had ignored them. The ecclesiastical authorities had finally sent a delegation in the name of Mount Hiei to the ex-Emperor and the Regent, demanding Tadamori's and Kiyomori's impeachment; they had, however, received nothing but evasive answers—an insult to the Church!

This was the outrageous state of affairs, and the priesthood had lost all patience. Both the Court and the Palace, moreover, were growing indifferent to the authority of Mount Hiei. Did not these monasteries to the north of the capital guard the "demon entrance" to ward off malignant influences? Was it not by imperial decree that the Tendai monastery had been established on Mount Hiei? Was it not the Emperor himself who more than three hundred years ago ordered the building of the Komponchudo on the mountain, so that the holy flame of peace might burn for unending ages in the main sanctuary?

"Shall Tadamori and Kiyomori be allowed to trample underfoot the dignity of the Tendai Church? Shall even the ex-Emperor and the Regent shamelessly disregard the authority of our priesthood? They scorn our past and have nothing but contempt for us!"

The priest flung up his clenched fist as he ended his impassioned speech. A shudder passed over the muffled assemblage in front of the Great Hall; then a violent roar escaped from their lips:

"To the capital! Down to the capital!"

"An armed protest! An armed protest! Justice shall be done!"

Once more that day the great bell sounded for the march down the mountain. Borne on the shoulders of priests, the Sacred Shrine came to rest before the Komponchudo, where the deities were invoked and a solemn declaration to march on the capital read to the thousands who crowded the great temple plaza.

Angry murmurs were exchanged: "It is some time now since we visited the Cloister Palace and the Court. It is only right to visit them with the Sacred Shrine and emblems from time to time and to remind them we are not to be scorned. This is a heavensent chance to put fear into the hearts of those warriors."

The June sun beat down mercilessly; to the sound of cicadas droning a march on all sides, the Sacred Shrine made its descent from the mountain. A great host followed after, moving forward as relentlessly as a landslide.

The armed protests of Mount Hiei's priesthood were not rare and thousands of monks marched on the Court or the Regent's house to press their demands, usually succeeding in making themselves heard, for no man dared incur the anger of the deities by defying the priests. In the presence of the Shrine even the Emperor descended from his dais to prostrate himself.

THE HERETIC

“
Tadamori and Kiyomori—father and son—may not be important, but these warriors at the Palace of late have begun to borrow the majesty of the tiger. It's time we plucked them out like weeds, or they'll cause trouble later on."

"No, it's the whole Cloister Palace that is slighting us."

"You mean that dispute over the manor at Kagashirayama?"

"That's it. We've had no answer to our demands on that matter."

"That manor naturally comes under our jurisdiction. When the monk who held tenure over Kagashirayama died, the Palace assumed that the land reverted to his majesty."

"A high-handed attempt at unlawful seizure. . . ."

"The Cloister Palace is where we should go!"

"We should visit it more often, or else they'll get into bad habits!"

By evening several thousand armed monks with the Sacred Shrine had poured down the mountainside, and like thunderclouds bore down on the capital from the north, following the banks of the Kamo River in the twilight to a position not far from the city gates. As darkness fell they tramped to an ominous chanting of sutras, and their blazing torches seemed to scorch the earth and set the clouds on fire.

In every village and hamlet along the marchers' route, terror seized the inhabitants as though the God of Evil himself were marching through; not a soul could be seen. In their hovels of boards, mothers clutched their children to them, hid their faces, and stopped up their ears, waiting for the terrible invaders to pass on.

At Gion the Sacred Shrine was installed in the temple sanctuary, where the monks set up watches, and through the night the light from their fires made the hot vapors of the Eastern Hills burn with a spectral glare.

The novelty of possessing a new home, and his own interest in building, provided Kiyomori with continuous pleasure. Since settling at Rokuhara, he was never content unless carpenters were constantly altering and making additions to the house. A rivulet that flowed down from the hills behind Kiyomizu Temple and past his estate reminded Kiyomori of the stream that flowed through the court of his father-in-law's mansion, and Kiyomori was taken with the idea of having the stream deflected through his garden. He spoke of this to his wife, who said:

"Yes, if we can have a stream flowing through the garden, then my sister and I can do some dyeing. I'll hire a weaving-girl and design some new patterns in unusual colors; then you and the children shall have some very special clothes."

Not only was Tokiko a skilled weaver, but as a young girl she had once been a maid-in-waiting at the Court, where she had seen and handled the rich brocades and embroideries of the imperial wardrobe.