PAST LIVES: "The Rebirth of Katsugoro"

Lafcadio Hearn (Buddhist Publication Society, Bodhi Leaves No. 94, 1983, 1987, BPS online edition © (2014), BPS and Access to Insight [Digital] Transcription Project; edited by Wisdom Quarterly, 2019

The following is not a story. It is the translation of old Japanese documents, signed and sealed, dating back to the early part of the 19th century. Various authors appear to have made use of these documents, especially the compiler of the curious collection of Buddhist stories entitled Bukkyo-hiyakkwazensho, to whom they furnished the material of the 26th narrative in that work.

The present translation was made from a copy of a manuscript* discovered in a private library in Tokyo. I [reporter Lafcadio Hearn] am responsible for nothing beyond a few notes appended to the text. Although the beginning will probably prove dry reading, I presume to advise the perusal of the whole translation from first to last, because it suggests many things besides the possibility of remembering former rebirths. It will be found to reflect something of the feudal Japan that has passed away and something of that old-time faith not the higher Buddhism. What is incomparably more difficult for any Occidental to obtain a glimpse of are the common ideas of the people concerning pre-existence and rebirth. In view of this fact, the exactness of the official investigations and the credibility of the evidence accepted, necessarily become questions of minor importance.

*TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Taken from a manuscript entitled Chin Setsu Shu Ki or “Manuscript-Collection of Uncommon Stories” made between the fourth month of the sixth year of Bunsei and the tenth month of the sixth year of Tempo [1823-1835]. At the end of the manuscript is written, “From the years of Bunsei to the years of Tempo — Minamisempa, Owner. Kurumacho, Shiba, Yedo.” Under this, again, is the following note: “Bought from Yamatoya Sakujiro Nishinokubo: twenty-first day [?], Second Year of Meiji [1869].” From this it would appear that the manuscript had been written by Minamisempa, who collected stories told to him or copied them from manuscripts obtained by him, during the 13 years from 1823 to 1835.

The Rebirth of Katsugoro

Sometime in the 11th month of the past year, when Katsugoro was playing in the rice field with his sister, Fusa, he asked her, “Elder sister, where did you come from before you were born into our household?”

Fusa answered him, “How can I know what happened to me before I was born?”

Katsugoro looked surprised and exclaimed, “Then you cannot remember anything that happened before you were born?”

“Do you remember?” asked Fusa.

“Indeed I do,” answered Katsugoro. “I used to be the son of Kyūbei San of Hodokubo, and my name was then Tozo. Do you not know all that?”

“Ah,” said Fusa, “I shall tell father and mother about it!”

But Katsugoro at once began to cry. He said, “Please do not tell! It would not be good to tell father and mother.”

Fusa replied after a little while, “Well, this time I shall not tell. But the next time that you do anything naughty, then I will tell.”

After that day, whenever a dispute arose between the two, the sister would threaten her brother by saying, “Very well, then, I shall tell that thing to father and mother.” At these words the boy would always yield to his sister. This happened many times. And the parents one day overheard Fusa making her threat.

Thinking Katsugoro must have been doing something wrong, they desired to know what the matter was. Fusa, being questioned, told them the truth. Then Genzo, his wife, and Katsugoro's grandmother Tsuya thought it a very strange thing. They called Katsugoro and tried, first by coaxing then by threatening, to make him tell what he had meant by those words.

After hesitation, Katsugoro said, “I will tell you everything. I used to be the son of Kyūbei San of Hodokubo, and the name of my mother then was O-Shidzu San. When I was 5-years-old, Kyūbei San died. And there came in his place a man named Hanshiro San, who loved me very much. But in the following year, when I was 6-years-old, I died of smallpox. In the third year after that I entered mother’s honorable womb and was born again.”

The parents and the grandmother of the boy wondered greatly at hearing this. They decided to make all possible inquiry as to the man Hanshiro of Hodokubo. But as they all had to work very hard every day to earn a living and could spare little time for any other matter, they could not at once carry out their intention.

Now Sei, the mother of Katsugoro, had nightly to suckle her little daughter Tsune, who was 4-years-old [5]. Katsugoro therefore slept with grandmother Tsuya. Sometimes he used to talk to her in bed. And one night when he was in a very confiding mood, she persuaded him to tell her what happened at the time when he had died. He said, “Until I was 4-years-old I used to remember everything.

“But since then I have become more and more forgetful. And now I forget many, many things. But I still remember that I died of smallpox. I remember that I was put into a jar [6]. I remember that I was buried on a hill. There was a hole made in the ground, and the people let the jar drop into that hole. It fell 'pon!' I remember that sound well. "Then somehow I returned to the house, and I stopped on my own pillow there [7].

(Shōgun: Tokugawa Shogunate)

“In a short time some old man — looking like a grandfather — came and took me away. I do not know who or what he was. As I walked I went through empty air as if flying. I remember it was neither night nor day as we went. It was always like [twilight] sunset-time. I did not feel either warm or cold or hungry.

“We went very far, I think, but still I could always hear, faintly, the voices of people talking at home and the sound of the nembutsu [8] being said for me. I remember also that when the people at home set offerings of hot bota-mochi [9] before the household shrine [butsudan], I inhaled the vapor of the offerings…

“Grandmother, never forgot to offer warm food to the honorable dead [Hotoke Sama] and did not forget to give to priests. I am sure it is very good to do these things [10]…

“After that, I only remember that the old man led me by some roundabout way to this place. I remember we passed the road beyond the village. Then we came here, and he pointed to this house.

“He said to me, 'Now you must be reborn, for it is three years since you died. You are to be reborn in that house. The person who will become your grandmother is very kind. So it will be good for you to be conceived and reborn there.'

“After saying this the old man went away. I remained a little time under the kaki tree before the entrance of this house. Then I was going to enter when I heard talking inside. Someone said that because father was now earning so little, mother would have to go to service in Yedo. I thought, “I will not go into that house.” And I stopped three days in the garden.

"On the third day it was decided that, after all, mother would not have to go to Yedo. The same night I passed into the house through a knothole in the sliding shutters. And after that I stayed for three days beside the kāmado [11].

“Then I entered mother’s honorable womb [12].… I remember that I was born without any pain at all. Grandmother, you may tell this to father and mother, but please never tell it to anybody else.”

The grandmother told Genzo and his wife what Katsugoro had related to her. And after that the boy was not afraid to speak freely with his parents on the subject of his former existence. He would often say to them, “I want to go to Hodokubo. Please let me make a visit to the tomb of Kyūbei San.”

Genzo thought that Katsugoro, being a strange child, would probably die before long and that it might therefore be better to make inquiry at once as to whether there really was a man in Hodokubo called Hanshiro. But he did not wish to make the inquiry himself because for a man to do so [under such circumstances] would be taken as inconsiderate or forward.

Therefore, instead of going to Hodokubo himself, he asked his mother, Tsuya, on the 20th day of the first month of this year, to take her grandson there.

Tsuya went with her grandson Katsugoro to Hodokubo. When they entered the village, she pointed to the nearer dwellings and asked the boy, “Which house is it? Is it this house or that one?” “No,” answered Katsugoro, “it is farther on — much farther,” and he hurried before her.

Before Buddhism arrived, Japan was Shinto.

Reaching a certain dwelling at last, he cried, “This is the house!” And he ran in without waiting for his grandmother. Tsuya followed him in and asked the people there the name of the owner of the house. “Hanshiro,” one of them answered. She asked the name of Hanshiro’s wife. “Shidzu,” they answered.

Then she asked whether there had ever been a son named Tozo born in the house. “Yes,” was the answer, “but that boy died 13 years ago, when he was 6-years-old.”

Then for the first time Tsuya was convinced that Katsugoro had been telling the truth, and she could not help shedding tears. She related to the people of the house all that Katsugoro had told her about his remembrance of his former rebirth.

Then Hanshiro and his wife wondered greatly. They caressed Katsugoro and wept. They remarked that he was much handsomer now than he had been as "Tozo" before dying at the age of six.

In the meantime, Katsugoro was looking all about. And seeing the roof of a tobacco shop opposite the house of Hanshiro, he pointed to it and said, “That did not used to be there!” He also said, “The tree yonder used not to be there.” All this was true. So from the minds of Hanshiro and his wife every doubt departed [ga wo orishi].

On the same day Tsuya and Katsugoro returned to Tanit-suiri, Nakano-mura. Afterwards Genzo sent his son seven times to Hanshiro’s house and allowed him to visit the tomb of Kyūbei, his father in his previous existence.

Sometimes Katsugoro says, “I am a Nono-Sama [13]. Therefore, please be kind to me.” Sometimes he also says to his grandmother, “I think I shall die when I am 16 but, as Ontake Sama [14] has taught us, dying is not a matter to be afraid of.”

When his parents ask him, “Would you not like to become a priest?” he answers, “I would rather not be a priest.”

The village people do not call him Katsugoro anymore. They have nicknamed him Hodokubo-Kozo (“the Acolyte of Hodokubo”) [15]. When anyone visits the house to see him, he becomes shy at once and runs to hide himself in the inner apartments. So it is not possible to have any direct conversation with him.

I have written down this account exactly as his grandmother gave it to me.

I asked whether Genzo, his wife, or Tsuya, his grandmother, could remember having done any virtuous deeds. Genzo and his wife said that they had never done anything especially virtuous, but that Tsuya had always been in the habit of repeating the nembutsu every morning and evening and that she never failed to give two mon [16] to any priest or pilgrim who came to the door. But excepting these small matters, she never had done anything which could be called a particularly virtuous act.

This is the End of the Relation of the Rebirth of Katsugoro. More

ENDNOTES

[5] Children in Japan, among the poorer classes, are not weaned until an age much later than what is considered the proper age for weaning children in Western countries. But “four years old” in this text may mean considerably less than three by Western reckoning.

[6] From very ancient times in Japan it has been the custom to bury the dead in large jars, usually of red earthenware, called Kame. Such jars are still used, although a large proportion of the dead are buried in wooden coffins of a form unknown in the Occident.

[7] The idea expressed is not that of lying down with the pillow under the bead, but of hovering about the pillow, or resting upon it as an insect might do. The bodiless spirit is usually said to rest upon the roof of the home. The apparition of the aged man referred to in the next sentence seems a thought of Shinto rather than of Buddhism.

[8] The repetition of the [Pure Land] Buddhist invocation Numu Amida Butsu is thus named. The nembutsu is repeated by many Buddhist sects besides the sect of Amida [aka Amitabha Cosmic Buddha] proper, the Shinshu.

[9] Bota-mochi is a kind of sugared glutinous-rice cake.

[10] Such advice is commonplace in Japanese Buddhist literature. By Hotoke Sama here the boy meant, not the buddhas proper, but the spirits [kami or pretas] of the dead, hopefully termed buddhas [aka bodhisattvas] by those who loved them, much as in the West we sometimes speak of our dead as angels.

[11] The cooking-place in a Japanese kitchen. Sometimes the word is translated “kitchen range,” but the kāmado is something very different from a Western stove.

[12] Here I think it better to omit a couple of sentences in the original rather too plain for Western taste, yet not without interest. The meaning of the omitted passages is only that even in the womb the child acted with consideration and in accordance with the rules of filial piety.

[13] Nono-San (or Somali, the child-word for the spirits [kami or pretas] of the dead, for the buddhas, and for the Shinto gods/spirits, the kami). Nono-San wo ogamu, “to pray to the Nono-San,” is the childish phrase for praying to the gods. According to Shinto religious thought, the spirits of the ancestors become Nono-San-Kami.

[14] The reference here to Ontake Sama is of particular interest but will need considerable explanation. Ontake, or Mitake, is the name of a celebrated holy peak in the province of Shinano—a great resort for pilgrims. During the Tokugawa Shogunate, a priest called Isshin, of the Risshū Buddhists, made a pilgrimage to that mountain. Returning to his native place (Sakamoto-cho, Shitaya, Yedo), he began to preach certain new doctrines and to make for himself a reputation as a miracle worker, by virtue of powers said to have been gained during his pilgrimage to Ontake. The Shogunate considered him a dangerous person and banished him to the island of Hachijo, where he remained for some years. Afterwards, he was allowed to return to Yedo and there to preach his new faith, to which be gave the name of Azuma-Kyo. It was Buddhist teaching in a Shinto disguise—the deities especially adored by its followers being Okuni-nushi and Sukuna-hikona as Buddhist avatars. In the prayer of the sect called Kaibyaku-Norito it is said: “The divine nature is immovable (fudo) yet it moves. It is formless yet manifests itself in forms. This is the incomprehensible divine body. In heaven and earth it is called Kami: in all things it is called spirit. In man it is called mind. From this only reality came the heavens, the four oceans, the great whole of the three thousand universes; from the one mind emanate three thousands of great thousands of forms.” [This is the Hindu-infused language of Mahayana Buddhism in Japan.]

[15] Kozo is the name given to a Buddhist acolyte, or a youth studying for the priesthood. But it is also given to errand-boys and little boy-servants sometimes—perhaps because in former days the heads of little boys were shaved. I think that the meaning in this text is “acolyte.”

[16] In that time the name of the smallest of coins = 1/10 of 1 cent. It was about the same as that now called rin, a copper with a square hole in the middle bearing Chinese characters.