(517) Legend / Entwined bamboos at Taisan-ji Temple

太山寺　ねじれ竹　伝説　Legend / Entwined bamboos at Taisan-ji Temple

 photo 2015 Nov. 26, Taisan-ji Main Hall

五戒： The five commandments (of Buddhism, against murder, theft, lying, adultery, and intemperance) 

  If you break even one of these five, you will fall into hell after death. 

Photo 2015 Nov. 26, picture of Hell at Bell Tower

According to a today's dictionary, adultery means voluntary sexual intercourse of married person with someone other than his or her lawful spouse.  In Edo period (1603 - 1863) in Japan, adultery is a word that refers to the sexual relationship between all men and women who are not married. If a man is unmarried, it is possible to propose marriage to an unmarried woman. But in this era when marriage was decided by the relationship between the families, it was often not permitted if there was a difference in status or wealth. As a result, it led to tragedy such as elopement or double suicides.

photo 2019 Nov.28,           2015 Nov. 26

          

This house used to be an inn for pilgrims. Usually bamboo grows straight, but these bamboos in the garden have entwined themselves as they grew. This is a legend about these twisted bamboos.

Long ago a young man and a young woman arrived at this inn. They entered their room leaving their pilgrim's staffs made of bamboo at the entrance of the inn. A Buddhist monk saw the sticks and loudly scolded them, "The walking stick is a symbol of Saint Kobo (774-835), so pilgrims must wash them before washing their feet."

  Now, I stop the story for a while, to explain the reason why the monk got so angry with the couple. Saint Kobo is said to have established the pilgrimage of 88 temples after the year 815. He is the founder of Shingon Sect of Buddhism.

Saint Kobo

All the people going on a pilgrimage to the 88 temples in Shikoku island, use the walking sticks called Kongo-zue, which symbolizes Saint Kobo. In other words, pilgrimage with the stick means that "Saint Kobo is always with me," which is called "a party of two / Dogyo Ninin (同行二人) in Japanese." So the sticks must be treated courteously. At inn, after being washed, the stick is supposed to be placed on the upper seat in the room, such as in the alcove.

 Kongo-zue

  Now I'll be back to the story. When the couple hurriedly returned to the entrance and washed their sticks. When they carried them into their room, the sticks twined each other. The couple was very surprised at the weird event and reported it to the monk.

Then the monk said, "You are not real pilgrims, aren't you?" Actually, they were an adultery couple pretending to be pilgrims. The monk said, "The sticks twined each other because something is wrong between two of you. You should repent of your behavior, make a trip separately from now on, and confess everything to Saint Kobo. If you do so, you will be forgiven."

  And the monk planted the sticks into the ground as a warning of this incident. He said, "With the permission of Saint Kobo, they will take root and grow their branches and leaves." As he said, they soon sprouted and grew. It is said that, because of this, bamboo is no longer used as a pilgrim's stick.

 Bamboo stick

  This is the end of the legend.  I don't agree with this story. Especially I don't like the reason why their bamboo sticks are twined each other. Did something bad between the two make the two sticks bent? No, no, I wanted to believe that their bamboo sticks got twined each other because the couple's love was really, truly strong.

  I found another version of this legend. In this version the couple repented their behavior in the same way, but the couple stabbed their bamboo sticks into the ground before they separated.

  Another version of the legend goes like this.

  Long ago a young man and young woman posed as pilgrims on the 88-emple pilgrimage so that they might be together. One nigh they stayed here and the priest noticed that there was something between the two and that their purpose in making the pilgrimage was not sincere. He called them aside and talked to them and they finally realized that what they were doing was wrong. They repented and promised to be true pilgrims after that. The priest told them to part ways the next day. But before they separated, they drove their pilgrim's staffs side-by-side into the ground. The staffs were bamboo and they soon sprouted and grew. As they got taller, they became entwined as the hearts of the two lovers, symbolizing their love. It is said that, because of this, bamboo is no longer used as a pilgrim's staff. The end.

 

I like this story better than the first one. 

Thank you for reading this.

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