The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Part of the series on
Japanese Mythology & Folklore

Mythic Texts and Folktales:
Kojiki | Nihon Shoki | Kujiki
Otogizōshi | Oiwa | Okiku | Urashima Tarō
Konjaku Monogatari

Divinities
Izanami | Izanagi | Amaterasu
Susanoo | Ame-no-Uzume | Inari
Kami | Seven Lucky Gods | List of divinities

Legendary Creatures & Spirits
Oni | Kappa | Tengu | Fox | Yōkai
Dragon | Yūrei | List of creatures

Legendary Figures
Abe no Seimei | Benkei | Kintarō
Momotarō | Tamamo-no-Mae | Sōjōbō

Mythical & Sacred Locations
Mt. Hiei | Mt. Fuji | Izumo | Ryūgū-jō | Takamagahara | Yomi | Jigoku

Sacred Objects
Amenonuhoko | Kusanagi | Tonbogiri
Three Sacred Treasures

Shintō & Buddhism
Bon Festival | Setsubun | Ema | Torii
Shinto shrines | Buddhist temples

Folklorists
Kunio Yanagita, Keigo Seki, Lafcadio Hearn, Shigeru Mizuki, Inoue Enryo
"Princess Kaguya" redirects here. For other uses, see Kaguya.

The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Japanese: 竹取物語; Taketori Monogatari) is a 10th century Japanese folktale, also known as The Tale of Princess Kaguya (かぐや姫の物語, Kaguya-hime no Monogatari). It is considered the oldest Japanese narrative.[1][2]

It primarily details the life of a mysterious girl called Kaguya-hime who was discovered, as a baby, inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant. She is said to be from Tsuki-no-Miyako (月の都 "The Capital of the Moon") and has unusual hair that "shines like gold".

Contents

[edit] Narrative

One day, while walking in the bamboo forest, an old, childless bamboo cutter called Taketori-no-Okina (竹取翁 "the Old Man who Harvests Bamboo") comes across a mysterious, shining stalk of bamboo. Cutting it open, he finds inside it a baby the size of his thumb. Rejoicing to find such a beautiful girl, he takes her home, and he and his wife raise her as their own child, naming her Kaguya-hime (かぐや姫 "radiant-night princess"). Thereafter, Taketori-no-Okina found that whenever he cut down a stalk of bamboo, inside he found a small nugget of gold. Soon he is rich, and Kaguya-hime grew from a small baby into a woman of usual size and extraordinary beauty. At first, Taketori-no-Okina tries to sequester her from outsiders, but over time the news of her beauty spreads.

Eventually, five princes come to Taketori-no-Okina's residence to ask for Kaguya-hime's hand in marriage. The princes eventually persuade Taketori-no-Okina to tell a reluctant Kaguya-hime to choose one from among them. To this end, Kaguya-hime concocts impossible tasks for the princes to accomplish. She will agree to marry the prince who manages to bring her a specified item.

That night, Taketori-no-Okina tells the five princes what each of them must bring. The first is told to bring her the stone begging bowl of the Buddha from India. The second is told to retrieve a jeweled branch from the island of Hourai. The third is told to seek the legendary robe of the fire-rat of China. The fourth must retrieve a colored jewel from a dragon's neck. The final prince is told to find the seashell treasure of the swallows.

Realising that it was an impossible task, the first prince returns with an expensive bowl, but noticing that the bowl does not glow with holy light, Kaguya-hime sees through his deception. Two other princes likewise attempt to deceive her with fakes but also fail. The fourth gives up after encountering a storm, while the final prince loses his life in his attempt to retrieve the object.

After this, the Emperor of Japan, Mikado, comes to see the strangely beautiful Kaguya-hime and upon falling in love asks her to marry him. Although he is not subjected to the impossible trials that thwarted the princes, Kaguya-hime rejects his request for marriage as well, telling him that she is not of this country and thus cannot go to the palace with him. She stays in contact with the Emperor, but continues to rebuff his requests.

That summer, whenever Kaguya-hime sees the full moon, her eyes fill with tears. Though her adoptive parents worry greatly and question her, she is unable to tell them what is wrong. Her behavior becomes increasingly erratic until she reveals that she is not of this world and must return to her people on the Moon. In some versions of this tale, it is said that she was sent to the Earth as a temporary punishment for some crime, while others say it is because she was sent to earth for safety during a celestial war.

Taketori-no Okina takes Kaguya-hime to his home, Drawn by Tosa Hiromichi, c. 1600
Taketori-no Okina takes Kaguya-hime to his home, Drawn by Tosa Hiromichi, c. 1600
Kaguya-hime goes back to the Moon
Kaguya-hime goes back to the Moon

As the day of her return approaches, the Emperor sets many guards around her house to protect her from the Moon people, but when an embassy of "Heavenly Beings" arrives at the door of Taketori-no-Okino's house, the many guards are blinded by a strange light. Kaguya-hime announces that though she loves her many friends on Earth, she must return with the Moon people to her true home. She writes sad notes of apology to her parents and to the Emperor, then gives her parents her own robe as a memento. She then takes a small taste of the elixir of life, attaches it to her letter to the Emperor, and gives it to a guard officer. As she hands it to him, the feather robe is placed on her shoulders, and all of her sadness and compassion for the people of the Earth are forgotten. The heavenly entourage takes Kaguya-hime back to Tsuki-no-Miyako ("the Capital of the Moon") against her will, leaving her earthly foster parents in tears.

The parents become very sad and are soon put to bed sick. The guard officer returns to the Emperor with the items Kaguya-hime had given him as her last mortal act, and reports what had happened. The Emperor reads her letter and is overcome with sadness. He asks his servants, "Which mountain is the closest place to Heaven?", to which one replies that the Great Mountain of Suruga Province is the closest place to Heaven. The Emperor orders his men to take the letter to the summit of the mountain and burn it, with the hope that his message would reach the now-distant princess. The men are also commanded to burn the pot of elixir of immortality since the Emperor does not desire to live forever without being able to see her. The legend has it that the word immortality (不死 fushi?, or fuji) became the name of the mountain, Mount Fuji. It is also said that the kanji for the mountain, 富士山 (literally "Mountain Abounding with Warriors"), is derived from the Emperor's army ascending the slopes of the mountain to carry out his order. It is said that the smoke from the burning still rises to this day. (In the past, Mount Fuji was much more volcanically active than today.)

[edit] Literary connections

Konjaku Monogatarishū contains a shorter version of the story, though their relation is under debate.

There have been suggestions that The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is related to the tale of Swan Lake[citation needed]. This probably is due to Kaguya-hime wearing the hagoromo (羽衣 "feather robe") when she ascends to her homeland. But the hagoromo figures more famously in a group of tales known as the hagoromo densetsu (in one example recorded in the Ohmi-no-kuni Fudo ki tells of a man who instructs his dog to steal the hagoromo of eight heavenly maidens while they were bathing, forcing one of them to become his bride). And the latter is remarkably similar to the tale of how Völundr the Smith and his brothers wedded the swan-maidens.

[edit] Banzhu Guniang

In 1957, Jinyu Fenghuang (金玉凤凰), a Chinese book of Tibetan tales was published.[3] In early 1970s, it became known to the Japanese literary researchers that "Banzhu Guniang" (班竹姑娘), one of the tales in the book, has similarity with The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.[4][5] Initially many researchers thought it has relation with Tale of Bamboo Cutter, while some were skeptical. The researchers who thought the two stories were related believe that the Japanese legend may have been drawn from the Tibetan one, perhaps through ancient contacts with China.[citation needed] The part of the legend that relates to the name of Mount Fuji is unique to the Japanese version.

In 1980s, studies showed that it is not as simple as initially thought. Okutsu[6] provides extensive review of the researches, and notes that the book Jinyu Fenghuang was intended to be for children, and as such, the editor took liberty to adapt the tales. No other compilation of Tibetan tale contain the same story.[6]

A Tibet-born person says he did not know the story.[7] A researcher went to Sichuan but the local researchers in Chengdu did not know the story except those who had already read Jinyu Fenghuang.[8] Tibetan informants in Aba did not know the story.[8]

[edit] In popular culture

As a popular folk tale, it has been a source of many adaptations and plot items.

[edit] Movies

[edit] Anime and manga

  • The Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter is used as a base for the plot in the second InuYasha movie The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass.
  • The full title of the Leiji Matsumoto series and movie Queen Millennia is Shin Taketori Monogatari: Sennen Joō, which translates to New Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter: 1000-year Queen.
  • The manga Kaguyahime by Reiko Shimizu is based on the Kaguya-hime story.
  • Planet Ladder by Yuri Narushima has a similar story centered around a girl named Kaguya who discovers that she is a long-lost princess destined to save one of nine worlds.
  • In Sailor Moon number eleven of the manga the story has the same references to Princess Kaguya.[2] In Sailor Moon the anime series, the five main characters are on a quest to find and protect the Moon princess. The small and beautiful Moon princess had been reincarnated and sent to the Earth in order to be protected from a horrible battle taking place on the Moon. In some episodes of Sailor Moon Usagi can be seen crying as she looks at the Moon and remembers her past.
  • The anime series Oh! Edo Rocket, not only is loosely based on the tale of Kaguya-hime, but uses the tale itself within the story. This is done deliberately for comedic value. The anime was adapted from a stage play.
  • In an episode of Doraemon The 21st Century Department Store delivered to Doraemon a "Kaguya Robot Set,"
  • The manga Mangetsu Monogatari by Nakamura Shungiku is loosely based around the story.

[edit] Games

[edit] Music

[edit] Others

  • The tokusatsu series Gougou Sentai Boukenger has an episode based around this tale (Task 13: The Treasures of Princess Kaguya).
  • Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency renamed the SELenological and ENgineering Explorer (SELENE) probe KAGUYA.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ The Tale of Genji refers to it as "the ancestor of all romances". ( "Chapter 17 A Picture Contest", The Tale of Genji. )
  3. ^ 田海燕 (ed.) (1957). 金玉凤凰 (in Chinese). Shanghai: 少年儿童出版社. 
  4. ^ 百田弥栄子 (1971). "竹取物語の成立に関する一考察" (in Japanese). アジア・アフリカ語学院紀要 3. 
  5. ^ 伊藤清司 (1973). かぐや姫の誕生―古代説話の起源 (in Japanese). 講談社. 
  6. ^ a b 奥津 春雄 (2000). 竹取物語の研究 (in Japanese). 翰林書房. ISBN 4-87737-097-8. 
  7. ^ テンジン・タシ (ed.); 梶濱 亮俊 (trans.) (2001). 東チベットの民話 (in Japanese). SKK. 
  8. ^ a b 繁原 央 (2004). 日中説話の比較研究 (in Japanese). 汲古書院. ISBN 4-7629-3521-2. 

[edit] References

[edit] See also

  • Thumbelina - another folktale involving a tiny girl found in vegetation

[edit] External links