The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

Taketori Monogatari (竹取物語?, "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter"), also known as Kaguya Hime (かぐや姫?, "The Tale of Princess Kaguya"), is a 10th century Japanese folktale. It is considered the oldest extant Japanese narrative[1][2] and an early example of proto-science fiction.[3]

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 the moon.

Contents

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") came across a mysterious, shining stalk of bamboo. After cutting it open, he found inside it a baby the size of his thumb. He rejoiced to find such a beautiful girl and took her home. He and his wife raised her as their own child and named 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 became rich, and Kaguya-hime grew from a small baby into a woman of ordinary size and extraordinary beauty. At first, Taketori no Okina tried to keep her away from outsiders, but over time the news of her beauty had spread.

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

That night, Taketori no Okina told the five princes what each of them must bring. The first was told to bring her the stone begging bowl of the Buddha from India. The second was told to retrieve a jewelled branch from the island of Penglai[4]. The third was 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 was told to find the cowrie which was born from swallows.

Realizing that it was an impossible task, the first prince returned with an expensive bowl, but after noticing that the bowl did not glow with holy light, Kaguya-hime saw through his deception. Likewise, two other princes attempted to deceive her with fakes, but also failed. The fourth gave up after encountering a storm, while the final prince lost his life in his attempt to retrieve the object.

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

After this, the Emperor of Japan, Mikado, came to see the strangely beautiful Kaguya-hime and, upon falling in love, asked her to marry him. Although he was not subjected to the impossible trials that thwarted the princes, Kaguya-hime rejected his request for marriage as well, telling him that she was not of his country and thus could not go to the palace with him. She stayed in contact with the Emperor, but continued to rebuff his requests.

That summer, whenever Kaguya-hime saw the full moon, her eyes filled with tears. Though her adoptive parents worried greatly and questioned her, she was unable to tell them what was wrong. Her behaviour became increasingly erratic until she revealed that she was 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.

As the day of her return approached, the Emperor set many guards around her house to protect her from the Moon people, but when an embassy of "Heavenly Beings" arrived at the door of Taketori no Okina's house, the many guards were blinded by a strange light. Kaguya-hime announced that, though she loves her many friends on Earth, she must return with the Moon people to her true home. She wrote sad notes of apology to her parents and to the Emperor, then gave her parents her own robe as a memento. She then took a small taste of the elixir of life, attached it to her letter to the Emperor, and gave it to a guard officer. As she handed it to him, the feather robe was placed on her shoulders, and all of her sadness and compassion for the people of the Earth were forgotten. The heavenly entourage took Kaguya-hime back to Tsuki-no-Miyako ("the Capital of the Moon") leaving her earthly foster parents in tears.

The parents became very sad and were soon put to bed sick. The guard officer returned to the Emperor with the items Kaguya-hime had given him as her last mortal act, and reported what had happened. The Emperor read her letter and was overcome with sadness. He asked his servants: "Which mountain is the closest place to Heaven?", to which one replied that the Great Mountain of Suruga Province is the closest place to Heaven. The Emperor ordered his men to take the letter to the summit of the mountain and burn it, with the hope that his message would reach the distant princess. The men were also commanded to burn the pot of elixir of immortality since the Emperor did 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.)

Literary connections

Elements of the tale were drawn from earlier stories. The protagonist Taketori no Okina, given by name, appears in the earlier poetry collection Man'yōshū (c. 759; poem# 3791). In it, he meets a group of women to whom he recites a poem. This indicates that there previously existed an image or tale revolving around a bamboo cutter and celestial or mystical women.[5][6]

A similar retelling of the tale appears in the c. 12th century Konjaku Monogatarishū (volume 31, chapter 33), although their relation is under debate.[7]

There have been suggestions that The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is related to the tale of Swan Lake. 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.

Banzhu Guniang

In 1957, Jinyu Fenghuang (金玉凤凰), a Chinese book of Tibetan tales, was published.[8] In early 1970s, Japanese literary researchers became aware that "Banzhu Guniang" (班竹姑娘), one of the tales in the book, had certain similarities with The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.[9][10] Initially, many researchers thought that "Banzhu Guniang" must be related to Tale of Bamboo Cutter, although some were skeptical.

In 1980s, studies showed that the relationship is not as simple as initially thought. Okutsu[11] provides extensive review of the research, and notes that the book Jinyu Fenghuang was intended to be for children, and as such, the editor took some liberties in adapting the tales. No other compilation of Tibetan tales contains the story.[11]

A Tibet-born person wrote that he did not know the story.[12] A researcher went to Sichuan and found that, apart from those who had already read "Jinyu Fenghuang", local researchers in Chengdu did not know the story.[13] Tibetan informants in Aba did not know the story either.[13]

Adaptations

Kon Ichikawa made a film of the story in 1987. Composer Robert Moran saw it and composed an opera based on it, From the Towers of the Moon.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Windows on Asia
  2. ↑ The Tale of Genji refers to it as "the ancestor of all romances". ("Chapter 17 A Picture Contest". The Tale of Genji. http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/Genji/00000028.htm. )
  3. ↑ Richardson, Matthew (2001). The Halstead Treasury of Ancient Science Fiction. Rushcutters Bay, New South Wales: Halstead Press. ISBN 1875684646  (cf. "Once Upon a Time". Emerald City (85). September 2002. http://www.emcit.com/emcit085.shtml#Once. Retrieved 2008-09-17 )
  4. ↑ McCullough, Helen Craig (1990). Classical Japanese Prose. Stanford University Press. pp. 30, 570. ISBN 0-8047-1960-8. 
  5. ↑ Horiuchi (1997:345-346)
  6. ↑ Satake (2003:14-18)
  7. ↑ Yamada (1963:301-303)
  8. ↑ 田海燕 (ed.) (1957) (in Chinese). 金玉凤凰. Shanghai: 少年儿童出版社. 
  9. ↑ 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. 
  10. ↑ 伊藤清司 (1973) (in Japanese). かぐや姫の誕生―古代説話の起源. 講談社. 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 奥津 春雄 (2000) (in Japanese). 竹取物語の研究. 翰林書房. ISBN 4-87737-097-8. 
  12. ↑ テンジン・タシ (ed.); 梶濱 亮俊 (trans.) (2001) (in Japanese). 東チベットの民話. SKK. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 繁原 央 (2004) (in Japanese). 日中説話の比較研究. 汲古書院. ISBN 4-7629-3521-2. 

References

External links