Tales

of
Idolized Boys
 QR
Tales
of
Idolized Boys
QR
Male-Male Love in Medieval Japanese
Buddhist Narratives

Sachi Schmidt-Hori

University of Hawai‘i Press

Honolulu
 © 2021 University of Hawai‘i Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America

26 25 24 23 22 21   6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Schmidt-Hori, Sachi, author.
Title: Tales of idolized boys : male-male love in medieval Japanese
Buddhist narratives / Sachi Schmidt-Hori.
Description: Honolulu : University of Hawai‘i Press, 2021. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021012053 | ISBN 9780824886790 (cloth) | ISBN
9780824888930 (pdf) | ISBN 9780824888947 (epub) | ISBN 9780824888954
(kindle edition)
Subjects: LCSH: Japanese fiction—1185-1600—History and criticism. | Male
homosexuality in literature. | Buddhist stories, Japanese—History and
criticism. | Buddhist acolytes—Japan—History. | Buddhist acolytes in
literature.
Classification: LCC PL777.33.H59 S36 2021 | DDC 895.63/2093538086642—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021012053

Cover art: Vignette 4.1 from Booklet of Acolytes. Courtesy of the British Museum.
Cover design: Aaron Lee

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free

paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Council on Library Resources.
For my mother, Hori Masana (1947–2020)
 Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Prelude xiii

Introduction: Becoming a Chigo 1

Chapter One: Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes,

and the Politics and Aesthetics of Acolyte-Monk Love 41

Chapter Two: A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll

of Five Capricious Boys 78

Chapter Three: The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals,

Transformations, and Triumph 104

Chapter Four: The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie:

When an Acolyte Falls in Love with an Aristocratic Lady 134

Epilogue 161

Glossary 167
Notes 171
Bibliography 207
Index 223

Color plates follow page 103 and 133

 Acknowledgments

M any advice books for young professional women tell us to per-

form the extraordinary human feats of mental and communica-
tive acrobatics if we wish to be successful in the world of business, law,
medicine, journalism, art, academia, and almost everything else. Be as-
sertive, but not too much. Show vulnerability, but don’t be weak. Be-
have like men, but don’t look like one. And here is my favorite: Fake it
till you make it. Nevertheless, if I were to author an advice book on the
“tightrope walking” of being in my profession, pretense would not be
a part of it. As a first-generation immigrant of a blue-collar upbringing,
a non-native speaker of English, and a short Asian woman, my two
cents would be: (1) Practice the walk with rigor; (2) Practice landing
after a fall with even greater rigor; and (3) Get yourself the sturdiest
safety net you can ever find. Throughout the process of writing this
book, my mentors, colleagues, friends, and family have watched over
me. To use the analogy of tightrope walking, these people are my train-
ers and cheerleaders, who also provided me with a soft place to fall.
My wonderful Dartmouth colleagues—Dennis Washburn, James
Dorsey, Allen Hockley, Miya Xie, and Charlotte Bacon—read one or
more chapters of this book and gave me many constructive sugges-
tions. The Leslie Center for the Humanities funded the manuscript
review seminar for this project, allowing me to invite two superb ex-
ternal readers, Tani Barlow and Charlotte Eubanks. Their feedback
immeasurably improved this work, and I am extremely grateful. My
departmental colleagues, especially Yūsaku Horiuchi, Steve Ericson,
Edward Miller, Levi Gibbs, Sujin Eom, Ikuko Watanabe, Mayumi
Ishida, Soyoung Suh, Sunglim Kim, Reiko Ohnuma, and Eng-Beng
Lim, have offered great help and support since my arrival in 2015,
and I would like to thank them all.
I am in this profession today thanks to the graduate education I
received at the University of Washington. To this day, Davinder

ix
x Acknowledgments

Bhowmik, Edward Mack, and Zev Handel offer me guidance when-

ever I am in need of their wisdom and pep talks. Suyong Pak, Chris-
topher Lowy, Stephen Poland, Jon Holt, Kai Xie, and Yukiko Shigetō
are my fellow UW graduates with whom I have shared the joy and
challenge of juggling research, teaching, dissertation, and life outside
the campus.
I want to thank all of my scholar friends, who always inspire me.
Rajyashree Pandey, Keith Vincent, Samuel Perry, Wendy Matsumura,
Stephen Miller, Patrick Donnelly, Lori Meeks, Jason Webb, Vyjayan-
thi Selinger, Andrew Leong, Roy Chan, Kōno Kensuke, Tsuboi Hi-
deto, and Hibi Yoshitaka—thank you for being there for me. I am
grateful to Kanechiku Nobuyuki, Sakamoto Kiyoe, and Ishii Tomoko
for their guidance. Lindsay Nelson, Grace Ting, Patrick Schwemmer,
Eirko Hata, and Keiko Eguchi motivated me to stay on track during
my three-month stay in Tokyo in 2019. Akiko Takeyama, Brian Rup-
pert, Gian-Piero Persiani, Takeshi Watanabe, Aaron Proffitt, and
James Fujii moved me with their kindness when I was least expecting.
I am very fortunate to have my fellow scholars of premodern Japa-
nese literature as friends and occasional writing buddies: Jyana
Browne, Beth Carter, and Otilia Milutin.
I owe the production of this book to Stephanie Chun and Grace
Wen, acquisitions editor and managing editor at the University of
Hawai`i Press, respectively. This book also tremendously benefited
from the two anonymous readers’ illuminating feedback, criticism,
and energetic words of encouragement. Allison Van Deventer and Ivo
Fravashi, the excellent copyeditors, helped me write with clarity. Me-
lissa McCormick kindly allowed me to use her personal photographs
of the Chigo imamairi scroll for chapter 4. The British Museum and
Itsuō Art Museum in Osaka granted me permission to use photo-
graphs of Chigo no sōshi for chapter 2 and Ashibiki-e for chapter 3,
respectively. International Research Center for Japanese Studies let
me borrow the images of Koshibagaki zōshi and Fukuro hōshi eko-
toba for chapter 2.
The brutal winter of Hanover, New Hampshire, is manageable
thanks to my friends with warmest hearts: Helen Hong, Sergi Elizalde,
Sarah Coulter, and Casey Aldrich. My students at Dartmouth College
make teaching extremely enjoyable even on those days when the
highest temperature is in a single digit. Ann Fenton, my department’s
administrator, and Nien Lin Xie, our subject librarian, make my life
much less hectic.
 Acknowledgments xi

I would not have been doing what I do today, had my mother

not allowed me to go to college despite her financial challenges and
even study abroad in America during my junior year. She would have
been the happiest person to see a book with my name published; I
miss her.
Last but not least, Roy Schmidt has been the greatest partner the
world could ever offer me. Every day, he takes great care of everyone
around him: the kids, his father, Molly the Cat, and me. He has read
all of the numerous versions of this manuscript (not because he is in-
terested in the subject matter) and helped in completing this book
every step of the way. Momoka and Rikuo remind me that life is most
meaningful when we do not take ourselves too seriously and know
the true priorities in life.
 Prelude

T ales of Idolized Boys: Male-Male Love in Medieval Japanese

Buddhist Narratives contributes to the fields of premodern (be-
fore 1600) Japanese literature and the history of gender and sexuality
by pursuing four interrelated goals. First, this book explores the in-
tersection of sei 性 (“gender,” “sexuality,” and “sex”), age, and social
status in premodern Japan, especially in the context of medieval (ca.
1192–1600) Buddhist monasteries. The primary focus of this explo-
ration is the formal and prearranged transactional relationship be-
tween a group of adolescent boys called chigo 稚児/児 (Buddhist
acolytes) and their master priests. The second goal of this book is to
situate the medieval genre of chigo monogatari 稚児物語 (acolyte
tales) in the larger literary tradition of Japan. The third goal is to ana-
lyze the scholarship on chigo monogatari that has been published
since the 1950s, with attention to the trends in discussing sei, age,
and social status. Finally, this book provides in-depth comparative
readings of six chigo tales that are highly relevant to the discussions
of sei, class, power, politics, and religion in our own time.
Born of elite pedigrees, chigo had a striking presence in the
monochromic temple precincts due to their courtly elegance and an-
drogynous charm, highlighted by their long ponytails, makeup, and
colorful robes. For their master priests, they played diverse roles. The
boys were their teachers’ disciples, personal attendants, and sexual
partners. During important religious ceremonies, the chigo also en-
chanted local donors and pilgrims with music and dance. Images of
beautiful chigo are omnipresent in numerous scroll paintings and il-
lustrated tales.
The authors of chigo tales built their romantic and deeply reli-
gious narratives upon the shared cultural knowledge of the chigo—
revered as bodhisattvas in the flesh and celebrated for their beauty
and artistic skills—not only by reaffirming these images, but also at

xiii
xiv Prelude

times by subverting them. Although most of these fictional stories

were likely authored by clergymen who read them among themselves
for pleasure, they soon became a part of the mainstream literary tra-
dition and were copied and circulated beyond the Buddhist commu-
nity, to the extent that a satirical parody of chigo monogatari was
composed (see chapter 4).
As will be discussed further in the introduction of this book,
chigo tales—especially because of their association with the erotic la-
bor that the historical acolytes provided their teachers—have been
subjected to serious scorn and criticism in modern Japanese- and
English-language scholarship. The emergent notion of Westernized
masculinity, along with unexamined layers of misogyny and ho-
mophobia, has obscured premodern conceptions of the chigo, wrap-
ping it in accusations of deviance, sexual abuse, and lack of agency
on the youths’ part. Given this less-than-ideal reception history, the
present book offers what Rita Felski calls a “postcritical reading” of
chigo tales, a mode of reading that is informed by traditional literary
critique but transcends its typically “suspicious” and sometimes re-
ductive approaches to texts.1 Another way of characterizing my ap-
proach to the genre of chigo tales is to say that sexual agency and the
negotiation of power are matters that to me are both deeply impor-
tant and personal.

Tokyo—Early 1980s
A seed for this research was planted in my heart when I was nine or
ten. Throughout my childhood, my mother implicitly demonstrated
to me how the covert, unspoken rules of human relations could play
out in our lives. During the 1980s, my mother, a young, single parent
of three, worked at a nightclub in Kabukichō, an entertainment and
red-light district of Tokyo. Every afternoon when I came home from
school, I found her sitting in front of her dressing table, busily apply-
ing makeup and curling her medium-length jet-black hair. She would
then loosely wrap her head with a large, emerald-green silk scarf to
protect her perfect curls from oil and steam before starting to cook
dinner for us. We were the odd family that finished dinner long before
other moms in our neighborhood had begun preparing theirs. At five-
thirty, my mother changed into one of her chic dresses, and by six,
she was out the door. The three of us did not see her again until the
next morning.
 Prelude xv

There were other odd things about my childhood home. We

lived in an old, rundown apartment with walls so thin I could hear
my next-door neighbor’s son (a classmate of mine) cough, sneeze,
and laugh. Taking a bath was another issue. At the time, the lowest-
grade apartments in Tokyo did not yet enjoy the convenience of pri-
vate baths (ofuro). Those without ofuro turned to community
bathhouses (sentō) out of necessity, although many people who had
their own ofuro still enjoyed occasional trips to sentō. Fortunately for
my mother, who initially had to go to sentō during the day, our land-
lord decided to “upgrade” his property by building a row of ten indi-
vidual bathroom stalls, one for each family, on the premises. Yet I
used to dread this nightly roundtrip between my apartment and the
bathroom through a narrow, poorly lit alley, where several stray cats
roamed around. I always prayed that I would not bump into the boy
from my class on my way to the bathroom or back from it. I envied
my friends who had normal ofuro at home.
Our apartment always looked cramped and disorganized. Kids’
clothes, toys, comic books, school supplies, and backpacks were al-
ways lying in heaps. We had no “nice” things like a piano, flowers,
plants, paintings, or family photos, which could have made the place
more like a “regular” home, I thought. Nonetheless, in retrospect,
our home had a strange appeal, a certain paradoxical beauty. In the
midst of the chaotic clutter sat a shoddy bookcase, sinking into the
yellowed straw mat (tatami) of the room. It was packed with hun-
dreds of my mother’s old books: Sōseki, Tanizaki, Akutagawa, Kaw-
abata, Hesse, Dostoevsky, Baldwin, Shakespeare, and many more.
These dog-eared, worn-out, and scribbled-on paperbacks were what
she read on the train bound for the glittering neon lights of Kabukichō.
As I recall the solemn stillness of the bookcase in our dingy, disor-
derly apartment, it invites a parallel with another picture in my head:
my mother savoring a moment of tranquility inside the noisy Shin-
juku-bound train car, filled with young people anticipating a night of
carefree pleasure.
My mother’s occupational title was hosutesu (an adaptation of
the English word “hostess”), although women in this profession al-
most never call themselves hosutesu. When asked about their job, it is
common for them to say what they do, rather than who they are: “I
work at night” (yoru no shigoto shitemasu) or “I work at a bar”
(nomiya de hataraitemasu). Growing up, I never liked the sound of
the word hosutesu, perhaps because I sensed the slight contempt
xvi Prelude

people injected into the four syllables. This is the power of labeling
and ostracizing others. Even such a meaningless nomenclature as ho-
sutesu can dispirit a child.
While two “hosutesu clubs” can be as dissimilar from one an-
other as a Saks Fifth Avenue boutique and a Walmart, and two
women working in the same establishment may differ greatly in age,
personality, and style, one thing is always the same: the importance of
the women’s skill at entertaining the mostly male clientele through
conversation, drinks, and charm. In a high-end nightclub, such as
those where my mother used to work, a new client must be intro-
duced by a pre-existing patron, and when a woman switches to a
different club, her entire clientele generally moves along with her.
Thus, the hosutesu and her patrons often develop a long-term, quasi-
romantic professional relationship.
Some of my mother’s clients occasionally treated us to dinner at
fancy French, Italian, or Korean restaurants in downtown Tokyo.
(From the outside, we must have looked like an ordinary family of
five.) My mother never kept her job a secret from us, nor did she hide
our existence from her clients. These wealthy men were kind to us,
always saying, “Study hard and help your mom when you grow up!”
(Ganbatte benkyō shite, okaasan o raku ni shite agete ne). Instead of
driving a cab, authoring novels, treating cancer patients, or teaching
math, my mother dressed impeccably and entertained her patrons af-
ter their long, stressful workdays. She regarded these men not only as
the source of her income, but also as friends and allies. As unusual as
my childhood was, I was generally content with the choice my mother
made in order to keep a roof over our heads and save money for the
future.
Strangers, however, were less willing to accept someone like my
mother as an ordinary citizen. Neighbors and my schoolmates’ par-
ents tended to see her as simultaneously sleazy, piteous, and angelic.
Sleazy, because of an inexplicable (though not uncommon, in Japan
or elsewhere) contempt for women who use any amount of their sex-
uality to make a living; piteous for enduring such a shameful act as
working as a hosutesu; and angelic for debasing herself out of love
for her children. Although I always found these sentiments equally
absurd and infuriating, my mother never seemed to pay attention to
the moral crusaders who wished a more “respectable” job upon her
(which would have meant the acceptance of a huge pay cut). She was
simply too busy feeding her children, making sure they did not turn
 Prelude xvii

into juvenile delinquents, and saving for their education. After stay-
ing in the industry for over a decade, never missing a single day of
work, my mother managed to send two of her children to college.
Watching my mother negotiate with the club management and
her patrons taught me a simple fact of life: power need not stem from
wealth, a high-status profession, or a special talent. Kabukichō night-
clubs may seem far removed from the normative mores of the rest of
society, and many people believe that a hosutesu is at the mercy of her
clients and her employer. Nevertheless, well-established clubs are
generally governed by a self-regulating system that generates a power
equilibrium among the three parties involved. The more exclusive
and prestigious a club is, the more it is in the clients’ best interest to
behave in accordance with their social stature, that is, with kindness
and generosity toward the women and the management. To enforce
this unwritten agreement, however, the business and its employees do
not rely solely on the clients’ goodness of heart. At such high-end
clubs, where the customers pay all of their bills at once at the end of
each month, the honor system gives the clients prestige, yet they must
also disclose verifiable contact information. An ill-behaved patron
risks being blacklisted in the Kabukichō or facing other social sanc-
tions, which could involve his employer or family. The women, too,
possess plenty of leverage as long as they contribute to the business.
They are able to negotiate their salaries, benefits, and hours, since los-
ing a hosutesu to a competitor means losing her entire clientele, and
an unhappy former employee may speak unfavorably about her pre-
vious club to her peers, which could undermine the business’s efforts
to attract skillful women.
All in all, it would be inaccurate to assume that the hosutesu (or
anyone working in any sector of the erotic industry) are victims of
patriarchal exploitation, temptresses who take advantage of men’s
weakness, or self-sacrificing saints. Each woman is different and has
a different set of circumstances. Also, the ways hosutesu exert their
power over clients are manifold and multi-faceted. Coquetry and
flirtation work for some women; some are fantastic singers or danc-
ers; while others capitalize on their beauty (although it is common
knowledge in the industry that the most successful hosutesu in a
club is not usually the most beautiful woman). Although my mother
was not notably gorgeous or even particularly cheerful, let alone se-
ductive or submissive, she did quite well in her profession with the
resources she had cultivated by reading great literature and reading
xviii Prelude

people. The sources of her power, I think, were her down-to-earth

personality, no-nonsense authenticity, and an unapologetic drive for
upward mobility.

It was during a graduate seminar that I first encountered Buddhist

acolyte tales. These narratives turned out to be an abundant reposi-
tory of all things fascinating: Heian-esque courtly aesthetics, depic-
tions of nonbinary gender, an array of Buddhist ideals, portrayals of
male-male love, and intricate negotiations of power between the
chigo characters and those around them. Yet above all, the reception
history of acolyte tales intrigued me.
In the 1950s and 1960s, during the initial stage of research on
chigo tales, scholars in Japan routinely prefaced their works with bla-
tantly homophobic apologia for the subject matter.2 This was a lin-
gering effect of the drastic and then-necessary political strategy the
Meiji government (1868–1912) implemented—deploring same-sex
love and concealing Japan’s history of embracing this custom for al-
most a millennium—in order to “civilize” and “Westernize” the na-
tion.3 Since the mid-1980s or so, however, with the rising global
awareness of diversity in gender and sexuality, discriminatory senti-
ments about homosexuality have waned in Japanese academic publi-
cations. To put it bluntly, the intellectuals of Japan, once again, began
to fear being labeled as “backward” by their Western counterparts.
This time, however, they feared being seen not as “homophilic” but
as overtly homophobic. What happened next is remarkable: the non-
chalantly homophobic evaluation of the chigo tale genre was replaced
by denouncements of the same exact texts for the age gap between
partners in a male homoerotic relationship (nanshoku), newly inter-
preted as the sexual abuse of children.
I also noticed during the graduate seminar that no scholars were
asking why the boys may have been motivated to participate in erotic
labor in monasteries. My impression is that pondering even the pos-
sibility of benefits to the boys is deemed condoning the practice. But
it seemed to me that to call this tradition child sexual abuse might be
to make a too-hasty judgment, an assessment too detached from me-
dieval Japanese society, which operated under a worldview that dif-
fered widely from our own. I was also curious to learn whether there
had been a self-regulating system that created a relative power
 Prelude xix

equilibrium, or a type of symbiosis within the chigo tradition, like the

unwritten rules of the Kabukichō clubs that few outsiders know or
care to understand.
Yet I never addressed these questions during the seminar, be-
cause I did not have the guts to go against what seemed like the con-
sensus across all the secondary texts we read. In fact, it took me
several years to gain enough confidence and courage to embark on
this project. Since then, more than a handful of people have advised
me to choose a “safer” topic for my first book. One acquisitions edi-
tor from an academic press asked me how I felt about the “child
brides” living in the Middle East and Africa today and, before hear-
ing my response, concluded that our meeting was over. Nonetheless,
here I am, re-reading this prelude in preparation for the publication
of my book, thanks to the tremendous support of those who have
believed in the validity of this study.
A rundown apartment with a detached bathroom; an impecca-
bly made-up woman on a train reading a beat-up softcover; wealthy
businessmen walking down the neon-lit streets of Kabukichō; beauti-
ful lay boys idolized as living bodhisattvas; priest-authors composing
romantic tales of chigo; elite monks’ infatuation with their young dis-
ciples—none of these entities are reducible to what they appear to be
from the outside. Yet it is possible for us to deepen our understanding
of seemingly unfamiliar concepts and human behaviors. We can also
learn to see Otherness in a new light by carefully peeling off layers of
meanings—with our mind, eyes, ears, and heart open, and with a
dose of humility. This book is for those who believe in the possibility
of achieving a less divided, less judgmental society by delving into
literary texts from a temporally and culturally distant world.
 
 Introduction

B ecoming a C higo

T oday, the traditional concept of chigo—a deified adolescent boy

who formed a transactional, sexual relationship with a high-
ranking priest—is almost completely absent from the collective con-
sciousness of the people of Japan. If one were to ask random people
on the street in present-day Japan what the term “chigo” meant to
them, chances are that some would have no idea, while others would
be familiar with the word only as in o-chigo-san, or the young boys
and girls (from toddlers up to children aged eight or nine) who par-
take in religious processions, wearing special makeup, headgear, and
costumes (see figure 1). The websites of temples and shrines periodi-
cally post advertisements recruiting local children to participate in
upcoming festivals as o-chigo-san.
The present-day o-chigo-san may be best described as a faint
residue of a particular aspect of what being a chigo entailed in medi-
eval Japan, namely, being the center of admiration during a religious
festival. Although obtaining a comprehensive and historically precise
picture of chigo is almost impossible, this introductory chapter aims
to explain how chigo as a concept was linguistically, visually, ritually,
and discursively constructed in premodern Japan. To trace this his-
torical process of becoming a chigo, I will first examine various as-
pects of chigo’s sei 性 (gender, sexuality, and sex), which is different
from the sei of young children, adolescent girls, adult women, and
adult men. This examination of chigo’s sei will be followed by a dis-
cussion of a drastic epistemological shift in nineteenth-century Japan
that transformed the understanding of sei. This shift occurred when

1
2 Introduction

Figure 1.  O-chigo-san at Gion Festival, Yasaka Shrine, Kyoto, 2017. Source: Wikimedia
Commons.

the Meiji government established itself in 1868 as a modern nation-

state, modeled after the Western powers. With this radical reconfigu-
ration of gender and sexuality as the backdrop, I will present a brief
reception history of acolyte tales since the 1950s and discuss how this
book contributes to the fields of literary studies, Buddhist studies,
and gender and sexuality studies through a close, nonreductive read-
ing of six chigo monogatari.

C higo as Nonadults / Symbolic Children

Perhaps the best way to delineate the ontology of the concept of chigo
is to point to its liminal and nonbinary structure. One of the liminali-
ties of the chigo is “nonadultness.” To quote Gregory M. Pflugfelder,
age is “not an absolute quantity but rather a social category and can,
accordingly, be reckoned in various ways.”1 In fact, chigo embody
their nonadultness through the very title of “chigo,” which literally
means “children,” as well as through their hairstyle and child names
(dōmyō or yōmyō).
Nevertheless, the chigo’s nonadult status is unlike what we call
“infantilization,” which is a form of disempowerment. Rather, this
 Becoming a Chigo 3

phenomenon had to do with the sacralization and aestheticization of

chigo, both as a concept and as flesh-and-bone beings. According to
Matsuoka Shinpei, the strong association between children and sa-
crality/spirituality emerged during the mid- to late Heian period (ca.
794–1191), partly due to the prevalence of child emperors (yōtei).
For centuries, the government was dominated by the Fujiwara re-
gency and retired emperors, while the actual sovereigns—the child
emperors—were revered for their sanctity, which was amplified by
their lack of earthly power or desires (at least for several years).2
Moreover, at this historical moment, it became increasingly common
to visually represent religious/spiritual figures and bodhisattvas as
children. In 1069, for instance, the statue of Prince Shōtoku at
Hōryūji was replaced with another that represented the subject as a
seven-year-old boy.3
Certainly, representing emperors, bodhisattvas, and religious
leaders (such as Prince Shōtoku) through images of children is con-
gruent with the artists’ attempts to aestheticize the figures in the eyes
of the viewers, not least because people tend to find children beauti-
ful, adorable, and morally pure. That said, the chigo’s childness is
different from the youthfulness on display in a painting of the seven-
year-old version of a legendary prince. Chigo’s corporeality is based
on their adolescent bodies, which are modified with selective mark-
ings of childness. The result is a visually appealing form of nonadult-
ness, which, again, is not achieved by infantilizing, degrading, or
disempowering the teenage boys.

The title
In classical Japanese, “chigo,” a compound of chi 乳 (milk) and ko/go
子 (child), originally denoted “a child” or “children,” ranging from
infants to those around the age of twelve. The secondary meaning of
the term is “boy attendants for noblemen or priests,” followed by its
tertiary definition: “younger partner of male homoerotic
relationships.”4 In the context of medieval monasteries, the term al-
most always referred to the second definition, which, of course, does
not mean that the term ceased to evoke the image of a child. The two
primary meanings of chigo—“children” and “attendants”—over-
lapped significantly. And one of the ways these two meanings were
connected was through the hairstyles that signaled the subjects’ non-
adultness.
4 Introduction

Plate 7 vividly highlights the most remarkable visual attribute of a

chigo: his long ponytail. While the length of one’s hair is primarily
associated with gender in modern societies, the rigid tonsorial con-
ventions of premodern Japan signaled many more traits: age status,
social class, and occupation, in addition to gender. It was customary
for children to grow their hair long and style it in twin loops, one by
each ear, or in a ponytail, depending on the era and their social
class. Once a boy was ready to attain adult status, usually around
age fourteen or fifteen, he went through the coming-of-age rite
called genpuku, during which his hair was trimmed and styled into
a topknot. The ceremony was finalized with the donning of a cap.
From the seventh century until the late Muromachi era (ca. 1336–
1600), a cap was one of the most significant symbols of manhood,
worn by all save clergymen and men of the outcast class.5 Court
officials wore small kanmuri caps as part of their formal attire,
while they wore the tall lacquered hats called eboshi on informal
occasions.6 The custom of donning eboshi caps (with variations in
style and material) gradually spread to the warrior and commoner
classes and eventually became standard for the majority of men.
Eventually, the norm solidified to the extent that revealing one’s
uncovered head was deemed taboo, and men kept their caps on even
while they bathed or slept.7 In contrast to this compulsory marking
of adult maleness through the topknot and headgear, the acolyte’s
long ponytail did not signal a deliberate act of becoming an acolyte.
Instead, it was a continuation of a childlike hairstyle past the aver-
age age of undertaking the genpuku.
The robust association between coiffure and age group can be
inferred from the fact that many synonyms of “children” and
“youths” in the premodern and early modern Japanese lexicon per-
tain to hair.8 Examples include warawa 童, suihatsu 垂髪 (both of
which mean “unbound hair” and “children”), maegami 前髪 (“fore-
locks” and “adolescent boys”), and tsunogami 角髪 (“twin loops”
and “children”). Among these, the most general and commonplace is
warawa. As a classifier of a person, warawa is equally likely to refer
to (1) children around the age of ten; (2) servants/personal attendants
of all ages; (3) child dancers for religious festivals; and (4) Buddhist
acolytes (chigo).9 According to Katō Osamu, the oldest extant collec-
tion of poetry from the eighth century, A Collection of a Myriad
 Becoming a Chigo 5

Leaves (Man’yōshū), contains seven examples of the word “war-

awa,” of which two refer to the haircuts of children and the other five
refer to children themselves.10 By the time of Sei Shōnagon’s Pillow
Book (Makura no sōshi, ca. early eleventh century), however, the
term was likely to equally mean “children” or “servants/attendants.”11
In other words, a simple noun that originally described unbound hair
began to incorporate the new meaning of “children.” It then ex-
panded its definition to include “servants” and “attendants,” pre-
cisely because children were regarded as the natural attendants of
adults, especially among the commoner class.12 They grew up follow-
ing, accompanying, imitating, and helping adults so that they could
absorb the necessary knowledge and skills to become useful and inde-
pendent members of society.
Lowborn servants who belong to the outcast class, too, were
called warawa, even in their old age, and exhibited their humble sta-
tus via nonadult hairstyles. They were also known as daidōji 大童子,
ō-warawa 大童, or ō-chigo 大児 (dōji is the Sinified equivalent of
warawa), all of which literally mean “big children.” Without the op-
portunity to undertake the haircutting and capping ceremonies, the
daidōji’s trademark was a ponytail (or sometimes another common
hairstyle for children). Yet unlike the ponytail of a chigo, which com-
plemented his androgynous allure, the childlike hairstyle of a lowly
adult warawa did not translate to an aesthetic appeal. Many images
of adult or elderly warawa with facial hair, brawny physiques, wrin-
kled faces, and receding hairlines are found in texts from medieval
times, including An Illustrated Scroll of the Tale of Heiji (Heiji mono-
gatari emaki, thirteenth century; see figure 2) and An Illustrated
­Biography of Reverend Hōnen (Hōnen shōnin eden, fourteenth
century).13
A comical representation of a daidōji appears in the thirteenth-
century collection of anecdotal tales Gleanings from the Tales of Uji
Dainagon (Uji shūi monogatari). In the short vignette titled “About
the Affair in Which a Daidōji Stole Salmon” (1:15), the daidōji is
described as “a creepy, vulgar-looking, aged man with dull eyes and a
bald spot on top of his head.” When two fish peddlers suspect the
daidōji of stealing two of their salmon, they call him wa-senjō, which
roughly translates as “lowly old man.” At the end of the tale, the men
demand that the suspect open his robe to prove his innocence, and he
reluctantly obliges. When one of the peddlers finds the missing fish
tied around the old man’s belly, he proudly exclaims, “See what you
6 Introduction

Figure 2.  An adult warawa with facial hair (left) depicted in the Tale of Heiji scroll
(thirteenth century). Source: Wikimedia Commons.

did!” The daidōji begrudgingly retorts, “What a rude person you are.
If you make people strip down like this, even those royal consorts
would probably have one or two inches of sake [“salmon” and “slit”]
under their bellies!” Everyone around him guffaws at the lewd joke.14
In the limited research that has been published on daidōji, schol-
ars have yet to agree on how to interpret these grown-ups of non-
adult status. On the one hand, Kuroda Hideo states that daidōji were
 Becoming a Chigo 7

forced into sporting a children’s hairstyle to embody their lowly so-

cial station.15 On the other hand, Amino Yoshihiko suggests that
their alterity was a source of their power; the adult herd “boys”
(ushikai warawa), for example, took advantage of the magical force
(juryoku) of their long hair to control the fierce beasts.16 The two
points raised by Kuroda and Amino are not mutually exclusive, how-
ever. Rather, both aspects signify the Otherness of warawa, which
cannot be simply reduced to the notion of “powerlessness.”
To return to the ontology of the chigo, their title and hairstyle,
too, together created the liminal imagery of their age status. How-
ever, the chigo’s alterity was aesthetically distinct from the subversive
and lowly imagery of daidōji. Much like the secular domain, the Bud-
dhist community was hierarchically organized, and, among thou-
sands of “symbolic children” residing in large monastic complexes,
the chigo sat on the top tier of the pyramid due to their elite pedigree.
This fact can be confirmed by Tsuchiya Megumi’s study of the seating
arrangements during two New Year’s ceremonies at Daigoji. Accord-
ing to her research on the attendants’ physical proximity to the ab-
bot, chigo occupied the most prestigious position, seated closest to
the abbot, followed by chūdōji (“middle children,” servants aged
around twelve or thirteen), and finally daidōji.17

Another important aspect of chigo’s symbolic childness was achieved

through their “child names” (dōmyō or yōmyō). Today we prove
who we are to strangers by showing identification cards that bear im-
ages of our faces and names. Our names are the linguistic equivalent
of our faces, and our faces are the corporeal counterpart of our
names; both are intimately attached to our identities but exist for oth-
ers. To invoke J. L. Austin’s speech act theory, every time others called
a chigo by his dōmyō, be it “Hanamatsu-maru” or “Tsuruwaka-
maru,” he became all the more a symbolic child. This is because, as
Austin posits, words are not merely a string of sounds to which mean-
ings are attached, but they also create “the realities we use the words
to talk about.” We use, he explains, “a sharpened awareness of words
to sharpen our perception of [the realities].”18
How, then, are dōmyō distinct from conventional names for
adults? For both boys and girls, children’s names in premodern Japan
were influenced by animism. Therefore, dōmyō evoked everyday
8 Introduction

entities, including animals (dogs, turtles, cranes), plants (mugwort,

pine, moss), mundane objects (sleeves, rocks, “this [kore]”), and
filthy, vulgar, and/or frightening things (feces, “lowly species [gesu],”
devils). It bears mentioning that those strange names in the last cate-
gory were believed to have the power to ward off evil spirits.19 Typi-
cally, chigo were given two-character names with the diminutive
suffix -maru (or -maro).20 Though -maru later developed the conno-
tation of “something small and adorable,” it was originally derived
from the verb maru 放る (to excrete), and this meaning lingers in the
modern Japanese lexicon, as in o-maru (a portable toilet for
toddlers).21 Therefore, the names with -maru or -maro were origi-
nally meant to fend off evil spirits. Once an adolescent boy or girl
from an elite background underwent the coming-of-age ceremony, he
or she adopted an adult name, consisting of the father’s surname fol-
lowed by a newly minted given name. Most adult given names were
created by combining a character that represents a positive concept
(e.g., righteousness, loyalty, and excellence) and a suffix.22
Curiously, names that end with -maru or -maro were given not
only to children and chigo but also to men of the outcast class, female
entertainers, armories, weapons, musical instruments, ships, and do-
mesticated animals.23 Amino Yoshihiko explains that these groups of
people and inanimate objects are similar in that they belong to the
liminal space between the sacred and profane realms.24 To return to
Austin’s speech act theory, a child name attached to an adult body,
whether the body of a chigo (who was old enough to attain adult
status, if he so wished), a man of the outcast class, or a female enter-
tainer, enacts the subject’s liminality, which is reinforced every time
others address him or her by the name. Similarly, through the combi-
nation of his title as a chigo, literally meaning a “child,” his child
name (dōmyō) used beyond childhood, and his childlike hairstyle, the
acolyte embodied an aesthetically enchanting existence, a composite
of childness and a sufficiently sexually mature body. Moreover, like
all the people and objects commonly given the suffix “-maru” or
“-maro,” a chigo was also equipped with what Amino calls “liminal
power.” Again, this invisible force made outcast men, who were often
tasked with disposing of corpses and skinning animal carcasses, im-
mune to the defilement of death, and rendered armor and vessels un-
affected by the enemy’s arrows and stormy waters, respectively.
Through the same liminal power, a chigo and his master priest were
rendered insusceptible to the sin of breaking the celibacy vow. Yet for
 Becoming a Chigo 9

a youth to transform fully into a chigo, it was not enough to change

his name and appearance; he had to be figuratively reborn as an ava-
tar of the bodhisattva of mercy through an esoteric ritual called the
chigo kanjō.

Chigo as A vatars of B odhisattvas

The second facet of the chigo’s liminal ontology is their “neither hu-
man nor divine” status. In several acolyte tales, the chigo is posthu-
mously discovered to be an avatar of a bodhisattva. Historically, too,
the youths are known to have undergone an esoteric kanjō 灌頂 (Sk.
abhiṣeka or abhiṣecana, literally “watering one’s crown”) ritual to be
reborn as bodhisattvas in the flesh.25 All the extant documents related
to the chigo kanjō were created within Tendai institutions. This is not
surprising, given that Tendai is the school of Buddhism most promi-
nently associated with the custom of institutional fosterage of adoles-
cent boys as chigo and with the production of acolyte tales. The
Tendai initiation rite for chigo was an elaborate, weeks-long pro-
cess.26 And, once a youth completed the process, he donned a colorful
suikan robe, his long hair was tied into a ponytail, and his face was
adorned with makeup.
The Eizan Library of Enryakuji (Mount Hiei) owns one of the
few surviving copies of a chigo kanjō manual, which has a colophon
of 1450.27 According to Tsuji Shōko, the front cover reads A Private
Record of the Chigo kanjō (Chigo kanjō shiki), but the contents con-
sist of two related but separate documents. The first, whose title is
written on the front cover (i.e., A Private Record of the Chigo kanjō),
is a chigo kanjō manual that stipulates the rules and procedures of
the ritual. The second, titled A Private Record of the Great Esoteric
Teachings for Chigo (Kō chigo shōgyō hiden shiki), details the appro-
priate etiquette for chigo and proper ways for a monk to have inter-
course with chigo.28
Based on the first document, A Private Record of the Chigo
kanjō, the process of the initiation rite can be summarized as follows.

QR

After weeks of preliminary purification of the youth in seclusion, the

seven-day-long chigo kanjō ceremony begins. A series of esoteric prac-
tices takes place three separate times each day: during the hour of the
10 Introduction

Tiger (three to five o’clock in the morning), the hour of the Ox (eleven
in the morning to one in the afternoon), and the hour of the Dog (seven
to nine in the evening). During the day, the youth and his master chant
the Amitābha Sutra (Amida-kyō) in front of the images of three holy
figures: the Kannon Mandala in the center, flanked by Hie Sannō Gon-
gen (the avatar of the tutelary god of Mount Hiei) and Master Jikaku
(also Ennin, 794–864).29 In the evening, they chant the Avalokiteśvara
Sutra (Kannon-gyō). After this, the teacher-disciple dyad together
chants various mantras one hundred or one thousand times each and
gives thirty-three prayers to each of the holy figures on the altar. Upon
the completion of the seven-day chanting of the sutras and offering of
prayers, the master orally transmits esoteric teachings on the acolyte-
ship to the youth. Next, the master performs mudras, as his disciple
re-enters the sacred hall dressed only in trousers. The boy prays three
times to the deities and purifies his body with incense. He then recites
the Five Great Vows, cleanses his teeth and mouth, drinks the holy wa-
ter, and blackens his teeth with a brush three times.30 He transforms his
body into that of a chigo by putting on makeup, a suikan robe, and
ceremonial headgear. The kanjō ritual climaxes when the high priest
waters the youth’s crown, after which the master chants a portion of
the Avalokiteśvara Sutra. Now the youth is given a chigo name and is
announced to have been reborn as the bodhisattva Kannon (Sk.
Avalokiteśvara, Ch. Guanyin), whose unlimited compassion is destined
to save all sentient beings.

QR

The most significant takeaway point of the Private Record of the

Chigo kanjō may be that this document clearly states that if a priest is
tormented by carnal desire, he is permitted to have intercourse with a
properly consecrated chigo. A monk who transgresses by having in-
tercourse with a youth who is not a chigo, however, will be sent to
one of the three hells.31 Another curious feature of this document is
that the chigo kanjō is explained as a rite to transform the youth into
a specific bodhisattva. Though some acolyte tales render chigo as
manifestations of a Shinto deity or a bodhisattva other than Kannon,
there appears to be a strong connection between chigo and Kannon,
given the description in the Private Record of the Chigo kanjō and
prominent acolyte tales that link the two entities. I will examine this
in chapter 1.
 Becoming a Chigo 11

C higo as Androgynous Beings

In addition to the nonadult and semibodhisattva status, chigo’s lim-
inal existence pertains to their nonbinary gender. It is no exaggeration
to say that chigo in illustrations appear to be young women (plate 7)
to the untrained eye. In fact, even for the trained eye, it is not easy to
tell women and chigo apart: historians have yet to decisively conclude
whether certain figures in medieval illustrated scrolls belong to one
group or the other.32 Of course, this does not mean that the people of
medieval Japan could not distinguish between them in illustrations.
Researchers seeking to do the same must rediscover the “grammar”
of identifying chigo and women.33
To understand chigo’s sei, it is important to keep in mind two
somewhat paradoxical principles: chigo and young women share
many commonalities, yet the two groups are fundamentally distinct
and are never interchangeable. Below I will discuss several dimen-
sions of chigo’s sei in comparison to that of young women, which
will illustrate curious overlaps and differences between them.

Shared proximity to children

It is my contention that a chigo’s visual resemblance to a woman can-
not be simply equated with the former’s emulation of the latter’s cor-
poreality, and therefore it is problematic to read chigo’s corporeality
as “feminized.”34 Rather, I argue, the visual similarities between chigo
and women stem from multiple conditions, one of which is their mu-
tual proximity to children. For instance, according to the anthropolo-
gist Kōhara Yukinari, a male face tends to change more drastically
over time than a female face; in adulthood, his face elongates, the
nose bridge and forehead rise, the jaw widens, and the facial hair
darkens and thickens.35 This means that a thirty-year-old woman’s
face, on average, bears more similarities to an adolescent boy’s face
than does the face of a man of the same age. The chigo, who were
otherwise old enough to be recognized as adult men, halted their
transition into adulthood for four to five years; this short window of
time was an “ephemeral state, in which masculinity, femininity, child-
hood, and adulthood sublimely coalesce[d].”36 Nevertheless, they
had no choice but to graduate from this temporary position before
their faces and bodies matured completely. To put it differently, it was
through the genpuku ceremony, involving a drastic change of
12 Introduction

hairstyle and clothing, that boys broke away from the relatively gen-
derless state of childhood. Although our minds tend to view an adult
man as the standard, unmarked, and default version of humankind,
and to see women and children as marked (e.g., smaller, gentler,
weaker, prettier) versions of the man, the maturing processes of boys
required them to adopt deliberate and drastic markings of the male
gender by applying a series of modifications to their appearance.37
In contrast to the genpuku ritual, the physical transformation of
girls upon their coming-of-age ceremony (mogi 裳着) was minimal.
During mogi, the girl put on a pleated skirt (mo 裳) over her robe,
and the skirt’s cord was tied by her father or another male guardian,
while a handful of hair was tied at the top of her head. Although this
partial “updo” hairstyle was worn by middle- and upper-class women
on special occasions, they normally left their hair down or tied it into
a loose ponytail in premodern times. Another “childlike” attribute of
women, though mostly of women of the nonelite class, was that they
never acquired adult names and continued to be addressed by their
dōmyō.38

Chigo and women as the objects of male desire

As mentioned above, in premodern Japan, young women, chigo, and
children were often construed as the “smaller, gentler, weaker, and
prettier” versions of “people” (i.e., adult men), and they were often
the objects of protection, care, and admiration.39 Women and adoles-
cent boys, especially chigo, were the objects of men’s sexual desire.40
This tendency is clear in the premodern Japanese literary tradition as
well. Below is a brief survey of the ways chigo are represented as the
objects of adult clergymen’s desire in Japanese-style poetry (waka),
Chinese-style poetry (kanshi), and anecdotal tales (setsuwa).
Romantic poems sent by priests to chigo are found in a number
of waka anthologies, including the fourth and sixth imperial collec-
tions, A Later Collection of Gleanings of Japanese Poems (Go-shūi
wakashū, 1086) and A Collection of Verbal Flowers (Shika wakashū,
1151), respectively. The nonimperial waka collections that are known
to feature poems alluding to monk-chigo love are A Second Collec-
tion of the Shared Lineage (Shoku mon’yō wakashū, ca. 1305), whose
compilers were two chigo attached to the Hōō-in cloister of Daigoji,
and A Poetry Collection of Anshōji (Ansen wakashū, ca. 1369), com-
piled by Anshōji’s chigo Aiyo-maru (later abbot Kōga). A Collection
 Becoming a Chigo 13

of Oak Leaves of Nara (Nara-no-ha wakashū, 1237) is an interesting

anthology because its tenth volume, titled Miscellaneous Poems, Vol-
ume 1, on Warawa, is dedicated to poems written for and by chigo.41
In keeping with the waka tradition of privileging frustrated love over
joyful romance, many of these poems express laments, grudges, and
yearning for chigo, as the following two examples illustrate.

Someone told me that my disciple was visiting someone else, so I sent

this poem to him on a spring day:

Monk Zōe
Shirazariki I never knew
waga kotonoha ni about the change of heart
oku tsuyu no of the dew, formed on
hana ni utsurō the leaf that speaks of my feelings;
kokoro ari towa it now longs for a new flower.42

I composed this poem because a long time has passed since I saw the
warawa I had cared for:

Master Kei’i
Tanomeshi o Though I trusted in you,
matsu ni higoro no days have passed by
suginureba while I awaited;
tama-no-o yowami the string of my soul has weakened
taenubeki kana and my life shall end soon.43

The following verse depicts a monk daydreaming about his lover, a

chigo, after they spend a night together. Conventionally, it is a man
who visits his female lover, and the “woman who awaits/longs for her
lover” (matsu onna) is a stock poetic persona. However, in a disciple-
teacher relationship, it is the chigo who pays the visit, rendering the
master in the position of the matsu onna.44

He left his robe here, as we were saying good-bye. So I attached this

poem and returned it to him:

Master Jōei
Kite nareshi Though I am returning
yowa no koromo o the well-worn robe
14 Introduction

kaeshitemo you wore that night,

arishi sugata o I still wonder if that figure I saw
yume ka to zo omou was perhaps a dream.45

In many Buddhist communities, especially in Kyoto and Nara,

composing waka was one of the most important intellectual and lei-
surely activities. Among Rinzai Zen monks, however, it was Chinese-
style poetry (kanshi), such as five- or seven-character zekku 絶句 (Ch.
jueju), that occupied the leisure time of the clerics. And these Zen
clergies, too, composed numerous nanshoku-themed poems (enshi 艶
詩), focusing on Zen acolytes called kasshiki 喝食 (“meal
announcers”).46 An example by San’eki Eiin (mid-sixteenth century)
is translated below.

A Thank-You Note

As I repeatedly see your beautiful face with crimson cheeks, I forget

about my white hair
Between heaven and earth we cherish our affections
Together we share pleasures and deep dreams on a pair of pillows
The old pair of lovebirds would lose a hundred chips against us.47

The last line of this poem implies that the young-and-old couple is
expected to outlive the seventy-year-old pair of lovebirds (in this case,
mandarin ducks), thus win the bet against the birds and earn a hun-
dred poker chips. In the preface of this poem, the poet/older lover
suggests that his infatuation with the adolescent boy rejuvenates him
and makes him forget his declining appearance. A similarly themed
poem by Shinden Seiha (1375−1447) is as follows:

Together we composed the New Year’s poems—The Camellia Age

The red-cheeked face and glossy side locks—the springtime of youth
We newly composed a thousand poems and verses in a day
The lovely spring winds tousled my white hair
On the flowery rush mat, I picked up the brush and bashfully showed
the poems to the people.48

In this poem, Shinden Seiha contrasts his old age to the colorful, ani-
mated images of the flowery season, the exquisiteness of the kasshiki,
and the spring winds. The title also evokes longevity, for camellias
 Becoming a Chigo 15

were thought to survive eight thousand springs and autumns, accord-

ing to a legend noted by Zhuangzi (fourth century BCE). What is puz-
zling is the older partners’ reference to their own white hair in these
Chinese-style nanshoku poems. If they are Zen priests, as they are
represented in the poems, their heads should be shaven. Even if Zen
priests can see white hairs emerging from their scalp between shaves,
it would be difficult to “tousle” 撩 them. For this reason, the older
lovers in these poems are likely to be imagined as Daoist hermits.
Among the Chinese-style poems on the poets’ love for kasshiki,
recurrent phrases used to describe the youths’ appearance are “volup-
tuous” (嬋娟 sen’en or 嬋妍 senken), “jade face” (玉貌 gyokubō or
玉顔 gyokugan), “femme fatale” (傾城 keisei), and “beautiful one”
(美人 bijin or 佳人 kajin). The boys possess skin as white as snow,
glossy jet-black hair, thinly drawn eyebrows, and crimson cheeks, all
of which are phrases commonly used to praise women’s splendor in
the Chinese literary tradition. In one parallel verse, Ōsen Keisan
(1429–1493) directly compares a kasshiki to the legendary beauty
Yang Guifei: “When seated, you resemble Yang Guifei in front of the
Chenxiang Pavilion.”49
These waka and kanshi should not necessarily be read autobio-
graphically. Nevertheless, it is clear that chigo and kasshiki are posi-
tioned as recipients of priests’ admiration and erotic desire, whether
the relationship is a disciple-master dyad or an unofficial love affair
between an acolyte and a priest who is not his master.50
In the genre of anecdotal tales, too, we can discern clergymen’s
general admiration for the chigo with varying degrees of erotic con-
notations. Episode 53 of Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa, ca. 1300)
is about a farewell banquet at Ninnaji for a chigo who is about to
take the tonsure, and episode 54 illustrates a group of Ninnaji monks
scheming to befriend a very attractive chigo with a gift, to no avail.51
A more dramatic example is a “sympathetic response” (kannō 感応)
story from A Collection of Tales of Times Now Past (Konjaku
monogatari-shū, ca. 1120).52 In this anecdote (17:44), an impover-
ished monk makes pilgrimages to pray earnestly for a better life. One
day, he encounters an attractive, masterless chigo with no place to go.
Taken by the youth’s allure, the monk decides to take him home. At
the monastery, his colleagues are shocked to see the monk accompa-
nied by such a charming chigo and make a fuss about it. So the monk
decides to keep the youth by his side, away from others’ curious eyes.
As they become increasingly intimate, the monk realizes that the
16 Introduction

youth is actually a young woman disguised as a chigo. Despite the

fear of breaching the celibacy vow, they become lovers; she eventually
gives birth to a baby and disappears. What the monk thinks is a baby
turns out to be a lump of gold that the deity Bishamonten (Sk.
Vaiśravana) has brought him in response to his prayers.53 This story
unambiguously illustrates how the homosocial world of clerics auto-
matically views a chigo as the object of erotic desire. Moreover, this
desire remains unchallenged even when the chigo turns out to be fe-
male, indicating the similarity between transgenerational male-male
love and male-female love.

C higo ’ s S ei versus Young Women’s S ei

This introduction has so far described the chigo as a triply liminal
construct: neither adult nor child, neither human nor divine, and nei-
ther male nor female. Obviously, these three nonbinary attributes in-
terlock and collectively reinforce the liminality of the acolytes. To
describe the sei of the chigo with more nuance, the current section
will compare representations of the chigo’s sei with that of three sub-
groups of women: heroines of romantic tales, shirabyōshi dancers,
and meshūdo (female attendants who provide sexual labor for their
masters).

Chigo versus heroines of romantic tales

A typical chigo monogatari centers on a serendipitous encounter be-
tween a cleric in his late twenties or early thirties and a beautiful
chigo from a remote and/or rival temple. Despite the chigo’s prove-
nance, or perhaps because this challenge fuels the monk’s passion, he
earnestly woos the youth through love poems. This formulaic pattern
emulates the heterosexual courtship convention of romantic tales.
Among the six works I will examine in this book, four of them—A
Long Tale for an Autumn Night; The Tale of Genmu (both ­chapter 1);
vignettes 2, 3, and 5 of A Booklet of Acolytes (chapter 2; the other
two vignettes do not involve courtship); and The Mountain (chap-
ter 3)—follow this pattern. One important exception is The Story of
Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth (chapter 1), in which a runaway
chigo asks an elderly priest to take him in (much like the abovemen-
tioned “sympathetic response” tale of Bishamonten). As for The
 Becoming a Chigo 17

Chigo Known as Miss Rookie, which we will explore in chapter 4, it

is the chigo who pursues his love interest, the daughter of a minister.
Though an adult man’s initial approach to his love interest fol-
lows a similar protocol whether he is approaching an acolyte or a
young lady, there is some difference in how the recipient of the court-
ship is expected to react. Simply put, chigo are allowed to exhibit a
wider range of emotions than women. For instance, the boy may be-
have seductively toward a priest, as in Kannon’s Manifestation as a
Youth, or act highly responsive to a suitor (e.g., The Mountain) with-
out compromising his desirability, whereas female literary characters
can be rejected for being too eager.54 I would argue that this leniency
toward the chigo’s (imagined) sexual appetite is shown, first, because
the chigo is not female, and, second, because he is deemed an inher-
ently erotic being. The chigo does not exist without his master priest,
whom he serves sexually.

Chigo versus shirabyōshi

Shirabyōshi (“white tempo”) is a type of song and dance performance
that became popular during the twelfth century, and the performers
of this art form were called
shirabyōshi as well.55 The per-
formance was also known as
otoko-mai (man’s dance) be-
cause the female entertainers
cross-dressed, wearing men’s
white suikan robes and eboshi
hats and carrying swords, as
they danced and sang a type of
ballad called imayō (“contem-
porary style”).56 Although the
entertainers later dropped the
eboshi and the sword (see fig-
ure 3), they continued to wear
men’s robes.
In premodern Japan, sex-
ual relationships between en-
tertainers and their patrons Figure 3. An illustration of shirabyōshi
were extremely common, and Bimyō by Kikuchi Yōsai (1788–1878).
shirabyōshi were no exception. Source: ­Wikimedia Commons.
18 Introduction

This means that chigo and shirabyōshi shared the following three
traits: their androgynous charm, their role as dancers and singers,
and the erotic labor they were expected to provide.
Along these lines, Abe Yasurō remarks on chigo’s striking simi-
larities to shirabyōshi dancers in their appearance, artistic skills, and
relationship to men. Regarding the physical resemblance, Abe dis-
cusses the image of a shirabyōshi depicted in a thirteenth-century il-
lustrated scroll called Poetry Competition of Artisans during the
Hōjō Rite at Tsuruoka Shrine (Tsuruoka hōjō-e shokunin uta-awase),
attributed to a commission by the Kamakura shogun Prince Mune-
taka (1242–1274). Among the images of various laborers, artists, and
artisans who had gathered for the hōjō-e (the ceremonial release of
animals in captivity) at Tsuruoka Hachiman Shrine is a pair of female
entertainers: a courtesan (yūjo) and a shirabyōshi. Abe describes the
latter as “standing with a long ponytail, dressed in a suikan robe and
ōguchi trousers, made-up countenance with drawn eyebrows, [. . .]
exactly identical to the appearance of a Buddhist acolyte” (mattaku
jiin no chigo no sugata to hitoshii).57 He continues, “This is not
merely that a woman is cross-dressing as a man. Rather, the costume
signifies liminality, which intentionally obscures representations of
gender.”58 In this vein, Takigawa Seijirō has suggested that, by adopt-
ing the looks of chigo, the shirabyōshi became the object of both
nanshoku (male-male love) and joshoku (male-female love), as they
“danced as beautiful adolescent boys by day and served their patrons
as courtesans at night.”59
Interestingly, not only did the shirabyōshi women emulate the
chigo’s appearance, but chigo also adopted the shirabyōshi dance. It
was both common and popular for chigo to perform this dance on-
stage during the festival called en’nen (“extending one’s life”), nor-
mally held immediately after a major Buddhist sermon. Therefore, in
addition to being connected via the tonsorial and sartorial conven-
tions, shirabyōshi and chigo were intimately connected through a
particular performance art.
Nevertheless, Abe’s comparison of chigo and shirabyōshi does
not end here; he also likens the two dyads of shirabyōshi-patron and
chigo-master to each other. To illustrate the parallel between these
two erotic relationships, Abe mentions a famous anecdotal tale about
Cloistered Prince Kakushō (1129−1169, the imperial abbot of Ninn-
aji) and his two chigo, Senju and Mikawa, included in A Collection
of Notable Tales Old and New (Kokon chomonjū).60 In this story,
 Becoming a Chigo 19

Kakushō adores Senju but soon begins to favor a newcomer, Mikawa.

Devastated, Senju refuses to perform music at an important banquet.
After much coaxing, Senju appears in stunningly beautiful attire and
sings a poignant imayō song, moving everyone to tears. Later that
night, Kakushō takes Senju to his bedchamber. Seeing this, Mikawa
leaves behind a farewell poem and takes the holy vow on Mount
Kōya.
This story of Senju and Mikawa exhibits a plot similar to that of
the “Giō” chapter of The Tales of the Heike (Heike monogatari, ca.
fourteenth century). In this famous episode, the head of the Taira, the
chancellor Kiyomori, is infatuated with a shirabyōshi dancer named
Giō and patronizes her. She thus supports her sister and mother (an-
other shirabyōshi and a retired shirabyōshi, respectively), prompting
all the other dancers in the capital to envy her fortune. Nevertheless,
Kiyomori soon comes to prefer another shirabyōshi, Hotoke, and or-
ders Giō to leave his premises immediately. On her way out, she tear-
fully inscribes a poem on the sliding panel of what is soon to be
Hotoke’s bedchamber. The poem describes the fate of all dancers,
who are quickly discarded by the capricious patron. Without the
means to make a living, Giō, her sister, and her mother retreat to the
countryside and become nuns. Before long, Hotoke, too, abandons
the pursuit of fame and joins Giō’s hermitage as a nun. In the end, all
four women are said to have posthumously attained rebirth in the
Pure Land.61
In Abe’s words, the two pairs of entertainers (Senju and Mi-
kawa, Giō and Hotoke) are “completely equated in these tales” in
that they are “enacting their shared destiny that has been forced upon
them [by male superiors]” (mizukara ni owasareta unmei o enjiteiru),
which is the fate of “being adored for their artistic skills only to be
abandoned after a while.”62 Abe’s statement holds true as long as this
“destiny” refers to these two quasifictional (or possibly completely
fictional) tales. Yet he generalizes this statement to all chigo and
shirabyōshi, remarking that such a precarious condition was essential
to the ontology of shirabyōshi and chigo.
Despite Abe’s characterizations, however, the chigo-master dyad
is significantly different from the shirabyōshi-patron relation for at
least three reasons. First, performing music and dance was only one
of the many activities in a chigo’s life, and in fact being a good musi-
cian and/or dancer was not a prerequisite for initiation into acolyte-
ship. (The boys learned the performance arts after becoming chigo.)63
20 Introduction

Even as a full-fledged acolyte, the youth did not depend solely on

music and dance to advance his career. Of course, the same could not
be said of a professional entertainer whose artistic skills were her
primary means of earning a living. Second, acolyteship was a prear-
ranged, temporary position that lasted no more than four or five
years. In this respect, chigo differed from those who were born into
families or classes of entertainers, such as shirabyōshi, noh actors,
and kugutsu (itinerant puppeteers). Therefore, the premise of Abe’s
suggestion that chigo were destined to be disposed of by their mas-
ters cannot be generalized to most chigo. Lastly, the master-chigo re-
lationships were arranged between the Buddhist institutions and the
families for their long-term mutual benefit, which is likely to have
deterred the master priests from abusing their power over their dis-
ciples. Even if this arrangement did not work perfectly, it would be
incorrect to assume that the way Mikawa retired from his position
was the norm. (For that matter, we cannot assume that the story of
Giō represents a typical shirabyōshi life, either.) Importantly, the an-
ecdote of Senju and Mikawa and the “Giō” chapter of the Heike
spotlight the wise individuals who came to realize the law of imper-
manence, one of the essential principles of the Way of Buddha. Nei-
ther the cruelty of powerful men nor the plight of entertainers is the
central theme of these narratives. They are extraordinary stories and
thus worth telling; the events and the characters are not to be inter-
preted as the norm.

Chigo versus meshūdo

Another subgroup of women who have been compared to chigo is the
meshūdo 召人 (“those who are beckoned”), or the female attendants
who became their lords’ sexual partners. In her studies of historical
and fictional accounts of sexual politics in court, Kimura Saeko theo-
rizes the notion of “nonproductivity” to represent the sexuality of
meshūdo and chigo.64 A sexual union can be “nonproductive” on
two levels: first, due to the impossibility of procreation, the most sa-
lient cause of which being same-sex partnership; and second, due to
the impossibility of producing political power through procreation of
legitimate offspring. For instance, an emperor’s relationship with his
meshūdo would likely be a “nonproductive” one, because children
born to them would not be considered legitimate members of the im-
perial family.
 Becoming a Chigo 21

Further, Kimura appropriates the concept of chigo in her reading

of Torikaebaya (which translates as “I wish I could swap my chil-
dren,” ca. twelfth century). The two protagonists of this story are a
minister’s children born to two different wives. One is a daughter,
raised as a boy, and the other a son, raised as a girl. Kimura first
analogizes the physicality of these half-siblings with the nonbinary
gender of chigo. She then employs the notions of chigo and meshūdo
(both in a figurative sense) to explicate the “nonproductive” sexuali-
ties of the half-siblings, each of whom is put in a homosocial environ-
ment (i.e., the son works in the women’s quarters, and the daughter
serves in the men’s quarters of the court).65 The story revolves around
the rift between the ostensibly “nonreproductive” milieus and the un-
expected outcome: the birth of an illegitimate child to each of the
siblings.66 Moreover, in Kimura’s reading of The Tale of Iwashimizu
(Iwashimizu monogatari, ca. thirteenth century), she likens the ho-
moerotic relationship between two adult male characters (a noble-
man known as Lord Aki and a lesser-ranking man of warrior class,
Iyo-no-kami) to master-chigo and master-meshūdo pairings due to
their shared “nonproductivity.”67
While it is relevant to discuss the androgynous corporeality of
the main characters of Torikaebaya by using chigo as an analogy,
Kimura’s other point, which conflates the chigo’s relationship to his
master and the meshūdo’s relationship to her master, is a stretch.
The two aspects of chigo and meshūdo that set them most clearly
apart from each other were their status and function. That is, chigo
were the official and socially sanctioned lovers of their masters,
whereas the “beckoned ones” were the masters’ unofficial lovers
and were politically inferior to the primary and secondary wives. As
for the function, chigo played a significant role in publicly exhibit-
ing their masters’ cultural, social, and economic capital, as I will
elaborate below.
It is evident that chigo’s visibility during religious rites, ceremo-
nial processions, and dance performances functioned as a pivotal
power generator for major Buddhist institutions, even at the risk of
inciting too much desire among the spectators. This image of chigo as
enchanting, elegant entertainers with a hint of seductiveness, enthrall-
ing the men in the audience, is a common trope in the literary and
visual arts. To illustrate this phenomenon, Oak Leaves of Nara in-
cludes love poems that were supposedly sent by clergymen to chigo
after seeing them singing and dancing during a Buddhist sermon (e.g.,
22 Introduction

nos. 675, 676, 684–686, and 724).68 Images in medieval scrolls also
depict important religious events as occasions for priests and aristo-
cratic men in the region to gather and pursue beautiful chigo. In this
vein, Haruko Wakabayashi states that the Sakura-e (Cherry Blossom
Sermon) was “famous for attracting monks from every temple who
were eager to meet beautiful chigo,” and many medieval accounts
describe Buddhist priests who “became so enamored of chigo that
they sought to win them over with poetry.”69
In stark contrast to the idol-like position of beautiful and tal-
ented acolytes, meshūdo were never considered objects of desire par
excellence in premodern cultural discourse, visual arts, or literature,
although they were not stigmatized (they were considered fortunate
to have won over their masters).70 All in all, the master-chigo dyad is
fundamentally dissimilar to an elite man’s erotic relation with a
meshūdo. To reiterate, the distinctness of the former relationship
originates from the combination of the following attributes: (1) it was
unreproductive; (2) it was officially institutionalized and openly cele-
brated even by the lay community; (3) it was short-term; and (4) the
junior party had high status within the institution to which he be-
longed—the chigo was not only of elite lineage but had also been re-
born as an avatar of the bodhisattva Kannon.

The “C higo System”

It goes without saying that these idolized boys known as chigo did
not suddenly emerge out of thin air. Their existence must be under-
stood within the framework of the “chigo system,” the term origi-
nally coined by Paul S. Atkins to refer to the transactional relation
between a chigo and his master.71 In this book, however, I will ex-
pand the scope of the chigo system by including what lay beyond the
disciple-teacher pair, namely, the family of the boy and the home in-
stitution of the priest.
To grasp the essence of an obsolete custom such as the chigo
system, it is useful to draw an analogy to something more familiar.
The best parallel to the chigo system is the institution of marriage,
which constantly preoccupied the social elites in premodern Japan.
This is because, as Stephanie Coontz reminds us, marriage was pri-
marily motivated by the need to ensure the survival of families for
most of history, rather than by romantic attraction between individu-
als. Through the union of two families, people could acquire an
 Becoming a Chigo 23

increased labor force (i.e., spouses, children, and in-laws) and re-
sources.72
In the case of premodern Japan, the most rigorous and effective
form of marriage politics came in the form of the sekkan seiji (re-
gency politics) of the ninth and tenth centuries, orchestrated by the
prominent Fujiwara family. This process began with the cultivation
of their young daughters’ intellectual, cultural, and artistic sensibili-
ties. In adolescence, these highly refined ladies entered service at the
court, and one of them (or occasionally two) was named the emper-
or’s primary consort. Once she had borne him a son and the child
had secured the title of crown prince, the Fujiwara man (i.e., the con-
sort’s father) would pressure the reigning emperor into abdication
and enthrone the child emperor. The young emperor’s maternal
grandfather would then serve him as regent and become the de facto
ruler of the court.73
Much as the court and the Fujiwara benefited mutually from
regency politics, Buddhist institutions and aristocratic and elite mili-
tary families, too, formed reciprocally beneficial coalitions through
the chigo system. For instance, Taira no Tsunemasa (?–1184, nephew
of Kiyomori) received an education at Ninnaji as an acolyte of the
aforementioned Cloistered Prince Kakushō (i.e., the master of Senju
and Mikawa). According to the two Heike chapters (“Tsunemasa’s
Flight from the Capital” and “Concerning Seizan”) in volume 7,
Kakushō was so fond of the young Tsunemasa that he entrusted the
boy with Seizan, a centuries-old Chinese lute and a designated impe-
rial treasure.74 Under the care and affection of this powerful abbot of
imperial lineage, Tsunemasa grew up to become a distinguished poet,
musician, and governor of three provinces, while the Taira family un-
doubtedly profited from their connection with the court and Ninnaji
through Tsunemasa’s acolyteship.
The chigo system and the Fujiwara regency, the two forms of
interdomain quid pro quo, can also be analyzed as instruments of a
society-wide mechanism for exchanging human capital. According to
Kuroda Toshio’s kenmon taisei (structure of ruling elites) theory, me-
dieval Japanese society was sustained by the “shared rulership” of
three political blocs: the court/aristocracy, the shogunate/military
elites, and large religious institutions.75 Each bloc had its own admin-
istrative headquarters, army, and retainers, among other things, yet
none was quite powerful enough to govern the nation in its entirety.
Consequently, instead of competing for a political monopoly, the
24 Introduction

three blocs formed a troika-like system of interdependency, each of-

fering its specialty. The court/aristocracy took care of the administra-
tive functions, the shogunate/elite warrior families took charge of
military affairs, and the religious establishments controlled spiritual
matters.76 Significantly, the boundaries across the three blocs were
fluid and porous, and people frequently capitalized on this fluidity by
trading domain memberships and thus ensuring the cooperative in-
terdependency.
The imperial and nonimperial statuses, for instance, were blurred
through many conventions, one of which was shinseki kōka 臣籍降
下. Shinseki kōka refers to the practice of relegating nonheir princes
to a noble yet nonroyal status and thus creating a codependent affili-
ation between the imperial house and the aristocracy. The best-known
example of shinseki kōka, albeit in a fictional tale, involves the hero
of The Tale of Genji (Genji monogatari, ca. 1008). Due to political
pressure, the Kiritsubo emperor is compelled to designate First Prince,
born to his primary consort, the crown prince over the more talented
and beloved Second Prince, born to his lesser-ranking but favorite
consort. As a result, Second Prince takes the surname Minamoto and
becomes known as Hikaru Genji (the Radiant Minamoto).77 In addi-
tion to being a strategy to avert a potential succession dispute, shin-
seki kōka was practiced out of financial necessity; emperors typically
had multiple wives and concubines of various ranks, often resulting
in a large number of children, who would eventually have strained
the finances of the imperial treasury had they remained princes or
princesses. At times, especially during the Heian period, princesses
became noble nonroyals by marrying into an aristocratic family. This
is also called shinseki kōka, written with a different final character
(臣籍降嫁).
Another method of lessening the financial burden of the court
was for princes and princesses to enter into the priesthood or nun-
hood. Through this tradition, the court not only reduced the burden
of feeding, housing, clothing, and educating them but also prevented
the cloistered princes and princesses from producing legitimate off-
spring. As in the case of Cloistered Prince Kakushō of Ninnaji, the
abbotships of numerous monasteries and convents in Kyoto and
Nara were traditionally occupied by royalty, which in turn vastly el-
evated the religious institutions’ prestige.
In short, the chigo system needs to be understood against this
historical backdrop: the interconnected, interdependent elite society
 Becoming a Chigo 25

of premodern Japan wherein the sons and daughters of ranking fami-

lies were critical assets. And for the youths in question, participation
in the chigo system was an opportunity to receive a premier educa-
tion, to create political connections, to demonstrate their filial piety
to their parents, to accumulate religious merit, and to bask in the
homoerotic energy inside and outside of their home institutions as
idolized boys.

An Analysis of N anshoku and J oshoku

In the previous section, I argued that the chigo system is comparable
to arranged marriage. This is because both were widely practiced
ways for families to valorize the sexual capital of their offspring for
the purpose of creating political and economic securities. Seen
through our modern lens, however, the two systems appear strikingly
different, not least because arranged marriage in premodern Japan
involved a man and a woman, while the chigo system involved two
males. Nonetheless, in pre-Meiji Japan, male-male love—nanshoku
男色 (or danshoku)—between an elite man and an adolescent boy
was deemed as normative as male-female love (joshoku 女色).
Though nanshoku and joshoku may appear to be synonymous
with “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality,” respectively, there are
several key differences. To explain, I will call the first pair the “nan-
shoku-joshoku paradigm,” and the combination of heterosexuality,
homosexuality, and bisexuality the “sexual orientation paradigm.”
Most obviously, the nanshoku-joshoku paradigm is unlike the sexual
orientation paradigm in that it represents an exclusively androcentric
(or more precisely, adult-male-centric) perspective and cannot be used
to describe the erotic desire of a female or an adolescent boy.78 Also,
nanshoku is usually transgenerational, though male homosexuality
does not indicate age-based structure. Further, the nanshoku-joshoku
paradigm is not tied to what we think of today as the “sexual iden-
tity” of the subjects (i.e., adult men). This is because nanshoku and
joshoku refer to what a man does, rather than who he is. One can
practice nanshoku or joshoku exclusively, switch to the other, or en-
gage in both at the same time without having to define or redefine
oneself. In this regard, the nanshoku-joshoku paradigm presents a
stark contrast to today’s global LGBTQ discourse, which tends to
emphasize the first half of the “nature-nurture” interplay, or what
Shannon Weber calls “biological homonormativity.”79 Nevertheless,
26 Introduction

human sexuality can also be significantly shaped by cultural factors.

In the case of premodern Japan, the nanshoku-joshoku paradigm
suggests the strong influence of an aesthetics that rendered both
women and adolescent boys ideal objects of adult men’s desire.
Next, I will examine the linguistic development of the Sino-Jap-
anese terms “nanshoku” and “joshoku.” “Nanshoku” is the Japa-
nized pronunciation of the ancient Chinese compound “nanse,”
consisting of a character standing for “male” 男 (nan) and another,
色 (Jp. shoku, Ch. se), that represents multiple concepts, including
“color,” “countenance,” “splendor,” “love,” and “amorousness.”
According to a search of the Ancient Text Database, nanse appears in
a sentence from The Book of Former Han (Han shu, Jp. Kanjo,
­second century CE).80 The sentence at issue is a person’s utterance,
“柔曼之傾意, 非獨女德, 蓋亦有男色焉,” which can be translated as
“An enthralling and seductive appearance that stirs up the heart of a
man does not only belong to a woman; a man can possess such
beauty.” In this sentence, “nanse” does not translate as “male-male
love” but refers to the “beguiling allure of a male person.” Though
the remark does not specify the age range of those who may possess
nanse, it is likely to be referring to young men and teenage boys with
androgynous charm, rather than to an adult man with masculine
handsomeness. The subject’s (an adult man) attraction to the object
(the owner of the nanse) described in the above utterance is deeply
connected to transgenerational male homoeroticism. This connection
explains why the concept was adopted into Japanese primarily to
stand for transgenerational “male-male love.” (Today the term
“nanse” can refer to male-male love in Chinese, but this is probably a
reverse import from Japan.)
Another search of the Ancient Text Database demonstrates that
“nuse” 女色 (Jp. joshoku), consisting of “female” and the character
for “countenance, splendor, love, and amorousness,” was much more
common and had a longer history than “nanse.” The term “nuse” ap-
pears in as many as five pre-Qin classics, including the Records of the
Grand Historian (Shiji, Jp. Shiki, 109 BCE–91 BCE), and this com-
pound evidently referred to (and in modern Chinese still refers to) a
woman’s seductive beauty. In other words, “nuse” and “nanse” were
both used to represent a person’s ominously extraordinary beauty,
and the latter was evidently coined through an analogy to the former.
In contrast to the long history of the Chinese “source words,”
the terms “nanshoku” and “joshoku” did not enter the Japanese
 Becoming a Chigo 27

lexicon until much later, probably as late as the 1200s. The earliest
use of “nanshoku” listed in Nihon kokugo daijiten is from Continued
Discussions of Ancient Matters (Zoku kojidan, 1219). Interestingly,
in this text, the word appears within a question, inquiring of ancient
China: “Did the incident pertaining to nanshoku happen in Han Dy-
nasty?” (Kanka ni nanshoku no koto ari ya?).81 It is obvious that
“nanshoku” here refers specifically to “male-male love” rather than
to the beauty of a youth. In response to the question, the other person
relays the legend he had heard from someone, the famous episode of
the “passion of the severed sleeve.” In this legend, Emperor Ai of
Former Han (r. 7–1 BCE) wakes up from a nap with his male lover,
Dong Xian. Seeing Dong Xian still sound asleep, the emperor cuts off
the sleeve of his own robe, which is caught between his lover’s head
and the bedding, to avoid disturbing his sleep.82
The earliest use of “joshoku” listed in Nihon kokugo daijiten is
found in a text almost contemporary to the Continued Discussions.
This is A Collection of Excerpts (Senjūshō, mid-thirteenth century),
an anthology of Buddhist tales attributed to the brush of the re-
nowned monk-poet Saigyō (1118–1190). In the particular episode
(9:7), “joshoku” is used synonymously with “nuse” (i.e., the inauspi-
cious beauty of a woman), something men need to be cautioned
against because it becomes an obstacle to Buddhist enlightenment.83
The secondary meaning of “joshoku,” “men’s love for women,” ap-
pears to be a much later invention, since the oldest example listed in
Nihon kokugo daijiten is a text composed two centuries after the
Collection of Excerpts.84
Despite the brevity of this analysis, it is safe to assume that the
temporal order in which 男色 and 女色 came into existence in the two
languages is: (1) nuse in ancient Chinese (female beauty); (2) nanse in
ancient Chinese (male beauty through the eyes of men); (3) nanshoku
(male-male love) and joshoku (female beauty) in early medieval Japa-
nese; and (4) joshoku in late medieval Japanese (male-female love).
Further, by tracing this lexical development, we can conjecture that
“nanshoku” was adopted from Chinese around the thirteenth cen-
tury, despite the slight difference in meaning, out of the need for a
concrete and relatively neutral term to describe the common phenom-
enon of male-male love. It seems that once the term “nanshoku” be-
came mainstream in Japan, people reappropriated the term “joshoku”
(female beauty) as a parallel concept to nanshoku: male-female love.
As a result, by the fifteenth century, the terminology had emerged to
28 Introduction

conceptualize the nanshoku-joshoku paradigm, or the architecture of

the normative male erotic desire of the time.

Sexuality in the Religious Context of Premodern Japan

To outline the context in which the chigo system emerged and flour-
ished for centuries, this section will provide a brief overview of how
the two principal religions of Japan, Shinto and Buddhism, histori-
cally dealt with the issues of sexuality, both joshoku and nanshoku.85
Although certain religious discourses existed that treated sexuality as
sinful, immoral, and/or defiling, human sexuality, including nan-
shoku, was never relegated to the realm of taboo in premodern Ja-
pan. This general acceptance or tolerance of sexuality, especially that
of men, likely originated from the indigenous belief system of ancient
Japan, an amalgamation of Shinto (the Way of Kami) and animism,
which generally regarded sexuality in positive terms as the source of
all vibrant lives under the sky. Even after Buddhism became the most
influential religion in the land around the tenth century, its teaching
about sexuality was nativized to meet the needs of the government,
elite officials, and common practitioners.

Attitudes toward sex in Shinto discourse

Perhaps the most striking dimension of Japan’s earliest history is its
purported genesis. According to the imperially commissioned record
of mythohistory A Record of Ancient Matters (Kojiki, 712), the court
of the eighth century likened the divine creation of its country to the
process of courtship, intercourse, and childbirth between two gods.
Tasked with birthing the country of Japan, the male kami Izanagi
proposes to his wife Izanami, “I am thinking of thrusting the part of
my body that protrudes into the part of your body that is open to fill
it up so we can birth lands. What do you think?”86
The matter-of-fact reference to genitalia and intercourse, not to
mention the attribution of the divine nation’s origin to sex, reflects an
affirmative attitude toward sexuality, which stands in stark contrast to
the well-known episode in the Book of Genesis. Upon consuming the
forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve are awakened to their naked state and
sexual desire, and they are consequently exiled from the Garden of
Eden. God then declares that he will make childbirth excruciatingly
painful, as an additional punishment for Eve and all of her female
 Becoming a Chigo 29

descendants. Moreover, the son of God, Jesus Christ, will be born to a

virgin woman.
Although sexual intercourse had a negative association in the
Shinto belief system, the association did not pertain, at least origi-
nally, to the stigmatization of sexual desire or the sacralization of
chastity. Instead, the taboo came from the fear of defilement through
contact with bodily fluids.87 This means that people temporarily ab-
stained from sexual contact, for instance, during a mourning period
for a household member or before an important pilgrimage. But be-
cause defilement was deemed temporary, if a person became contami-
nated with a taboo object, he or she could be treated through a
purification ritual.88

Attitudes toward sex in Buddhist discourse

The Buddhist interpretation of sex tended to be far more negative
than that of Shinto, especially at the religion’s inception (ca. fourth
century BCE) and during the nascent stages. Nevertheless, after Bud-
dhism was introduced to Japan in the mid-500s CE, its cross-pollina-
tion with indigenous beliefs, the political pragmatism of the court,
and variants of Daoism significantly modified the ideas of sex, mar-
riage, and procreation within Japanese Buddhist discourses.
The most fundamental trait that separates Buddhism from
Shinto and the Abrahamic faith is that the Way of Buddha is not con-
cerned with the origin of the universe or the human species. Its pri-
mary concern instead is to halt the cycles of human suffering. The
term “buddha” means “one who has reached enlightenment,” and
the attainment of buddhahood, or the state of complete detachment
from all earthly desires, is the ultimate goal of Buddhism.89 Because
the historical Buddha (ca. fourth–fifth century BCE, also Siddhārtha,
Gautama, Śākyamuni) construed all forms of attachment, even love
for one’s spouse or children, as sources of suffering, sexuality was
something all believers had to transcend. In short, sexuality was dis-
couraged on the grounds of impeding the quest for enlightenment
and, in the case of heterosexual love, for the possibility of producing
offspring, for whom humans were bound to feel love and attachment,
perpetuating the cycle of suffering.90 For these reasons, celibacy was
regarded as foundational to the monastic life.91
In the Buddhist faith, the general code of conduct for followers
is called vinaya (Jp. kai 戒). Vinaya consists of hundreds of precepts
30 Introduction

(Jp. ritsu 律). Generally speaking, Japanese monks’ and nuns’ atti-
tudes toward these rules were not as rigid as the founders of ancient
Indian Buddhism had expected. One of the reasons for their lax atti-
tude is that Japan imported the laity-centered Mahāyāna (Great Ve-
hicle) Buddhist principles from China during the mid-sixth century.
In the ensuing centuries, the Mahāyāna teachings continued to be
privileged over the more ecclesiastic-centered Therevāda Buddhism in
Japan, producing pragmatic-minded clerics.92 For them, taking the
tonsure was not solely a religious endeavor. It offered a range of prac-
tical benefits, from shelter, food, and educational opportunities to ex-
emptions from hard labor and conscription. Neither the government
nor the Buddhist institutions regarded the pragmatic motivations of
the aspiring clergy as a problem, since offering people good incentives
to enter the priesthood and nunhood was necessary for the Buddhist
institutions’ survival.

Priestly love, marriage, and sexuality

Unsurprisingly, some priests, especially those who resided outside the
temple precincts, took wives and raised families.93 Based on a survey
of legal codes, land transfer documents, and chronicles, among other
sources, Lori Meeks attests that Japanese clergymen “enforced celi-
bacy only at particular times or in particular situations” and that, by
the Heian period, the court was “increasingly tolerant of clerical vio-
lations of the monastic codes.”94 Furthermore, in the Kamakura pe-
riod, it became increasingly common for monks to bestow their
wisdom, property, and clerical titles on their biological heirs.95
In premodern Japan, the most famous married monk was Shin-
ran (1173–1262), the founder of the True Pure Land school (Jp. Jōdo
shinshū), and his followers also openly took wives and procreated.
According to a medieval text called A Record of Shinran’s Dream
(Shinran muki) and its variants, during Shinran’s seclusion at
Rokkakudō in 1201, the bodhisattva Kannon enshrined at the reli-
gious site appeared in a dream in the form of a white-robed monk
and spoke: 行者宿報設女犯, 我成玉女身被犯, 一生之間能荘厳, 臨終
引導生極楽 (If you were destined to commit nyobon [breaking the
celibacy vow with a woman], I would transform my body into that of
a beautiful woman and receive your sinfulness. I would then help you
live your solemn life. When the end of your time comes, I will guide
you to the Pure Land).96
 Becoming a Chigo 31

If Shinran was struggling to reconcile himself to the principle of

celibacy, as some scholars believe, this anecdote can be understood as
depicting “sympathetic response,” or a state of “resonance between a
believer and the divine being who is the object of belief.”97 Curiously,
as Charlotte Eubanks illustrates, erotic desire on the part of the be-
liever often plays an important role in sympathetic response stories.98
An episode reminiscent of Shinran’s dream is included in Times Now
Past (17:45). In this story, a monk-in-training from Shinano Province
is overcome with lust upon seeing a gorgeous statue of the celestial
maiden Kisshō (Sk. Lakshmi) at a temple. He prays day and night for
a beautiful woman just like the statue. One night, he has an oddly
realistic dream about having sex with the very goddess he has lusted
for. When he returns to the same temple, he discovers the familiar
mark of his own semen on the statue’s robe. This monk-in-training is
greatly ashamed of his deed and reveres the goddess for her profound
compassion.99
Along with sympathetic response, a critical concept that medi-
ates the close relationship between amorous feelings and Buddhist
soteriology is “skillful means” (also “expedient means,” Jp. hōben,
Sk. upāya).100 Skillful means can refer to a “provisionary divine inter-
vention” that meets a short-term goal as a step toward the ultimate
goal of enlightenment, comparable to a raft that a person desperately
needs to cross a river and will abandon once reaching the other side.
Bodhisattvas—those who have almost attained enlightenment or
those who have attained buddhahood but linger in this world to help
others—are known to be masters of skillful means. Sometimes the
“raft” to cross the river manifests itself as a beautiful woman who
captivates the mind of a priest. For instance, another story from
Times Now Past (17:33) tells of the bodhisattva Kokūzō (Sk.
Ākāśagarbha), who takes the form of a lovely young widow. She
promises to a novice priest that they can marry if he spends three
years on Mount Hiei eagerly studying the Buddhist scriptures. After
three years of rigorous study, he returns to the spot where he encoun-
tered his bride-to-be, but the mansion is nowhere to be found.101
One form of skillful means to curb male believers’ sexual desire,
depicted in ancient Indian Buddhist texts, is exposure to the sight of
female bodies decaying in a graveyard. Within the Japanese Buddhist
discourse, however, grotesque representations of sexuality did not
catch on as a didactic method. Instead, many Buddhist-inspired ver-
nacular writings, in both verse and prose, resorted to what
32 Introduction

Rajyashree Pandey calls the “mujō [evanescence] rather than fujō

[impurity]” approach.102 Pandey points out that Kamo no Chōmei’s
(ca. 1153–1216) A Collection of Tales of Religious Awakening
(Hosshinshū, ca. 1212) and A Companion in Solitude (Kankyo no
tomo, 1222) by Keisei (1189−1268), for example, “display consider-
able ambivalence towards the plight of [the men who are attached to
their dead lovers].” These authors “profess to be deeply moved by the
feeling and sensitivity expressed” by the surviving lovers, “rather
than unequivocally condemning deluded attachment.”103 As we will
see in more detail in chapter 1, archetypal chigo tales, too, suggest
that earthly attachment is but a futile human endeavor. While this
revelation evolves into a profound religious awakening, these tales
never treat love or sex as immoral or disgusting.

Nyobon versus nanshoku

When it comes to priestly marriage or sex with a woman, modern
scholarship has at times erroneously exaggerated the severity of this
transgression, perhaps because of the medieval Buddhist term nyo-
bon 女犯, mentioned earlier in Shinran’s dream story. It appears that
speakers of the modern Japanese language often misinterpret this
two-character compound—a Japanese coinage rather than a Chinese
import—due to an association with a modern phrase “onna o okasu
女を犯す” (to rape a woman). In The Red Thread (1998), Bernard
Faure explains this term as “literally ‘assaulting’ or ‘forcing’ women,
although it came to lose some of its violent connotations.”104 Fur-
thermore, Faure translates the Kannon’s oracle in Shinran’s dream in
The Power of Denial (2003): “If you, the practitioner, due to past
karma, must violate women, I will become a jade woman to be vio-
lated by you.”105 This translation is incorrect in that the object of vio-
lation is interpreted as women rather than the celibacy vow and
therefore unnecessarily vilifies Shinran and all the clergymen who
have female lovers or wives. When a Sino-Japanese compound word
conveys “a transitive action being inflicted upon a direct object,” the
word order normally follows the Chinese syntax of “verb-object,” as
in bonkai 犯戒 “violating a precept” and hanzai 犯罪 “committing a
crime.” In the case of nyobon, the first character (female) needs to be
parsed as modifying the second (transgression), just as sokubon 触犯
(touch-transgression) refers to a transgression by touching a statue of
the Buddha.106
 Becoming a Chigo 33

In any case, the concept of nyobon, which is the most prevalent

term to indicate “violation of the celibacy precept,” is curious. It re-
flects the Buddhist community’s preference for male-male love over
heterosexual sex (with the obvious exception of the Pure Land and
True Pure Land schools). That is to say, the idea of nyobon concerns
only a monk’s sexual relations with a female, either a laywoman or a
nun, and shows no regard for the following cases: (1) a monk’s sex-
ual relationship with another male; (2) a nun’s sexual relationship
with a male; and (3) a nun’s sexual relationship with a female. In-
triguingly, there are no common terms to specifically refer to (2) and
(3), while a neutral or slightly positive term was used to represent (1),
namely, nanshoku. To reiterate my points, the parallel concept to
nanshoku is not nyobon but joshoku, and there is no parallel term for
“nyobon” that would have meant “breach of the celibacy precept by
having sex with a male.”107 This asymmetry in the two types of
priestly sexuality, one with a female partner and the other with a
male, indicates that there was even greater leniency toward nanshoku
within medieval Buddhist communities than toward marriages be-
tween monks and women.

The “origin” of nanshoku

Due to the prevalence of nanshoku in premodern Japan, scholars and
nonscholars alike have shown interest in locating the “origin” of this
phenomenon, as in “What caused it?” and “When did it begin?”108
(To the extent that modern scholars are not similarly contemplating
the “origin” of joshoku, men’s desire for women is taken for granted
as the normative behavior.) The best-known origin story of nanshoku
from the Muromachi period onward is the legend of Kūkai (774–835,
posthumously Kōbō Daishi), the transmitter of the Zhenyan (Jp.
Shingon) school of Buddhism.109 According to this legend, Kūkai is
also credited with the transmission of male-male love from Tang
China to Japan in the ninth century. The celebrated Confucian scholar
Kaibara Ekiken (1630–1714), for instance, noted that the “frivolous
custom of nanshoku has been around since the time of Kōbō,” and a
comic verse (senryū) of the Edo period read, “Kōbō enters through
the backdoor, Shinran enters through the front door.”110 Yet the con-
nection between Kūkai and nanshoku is often remarked on in a hu-
morous context, as in the case of the senryū above, and therefore it is
questionable whether the people of the Muromachi and Edo periods
34 Introduction

took this legend at face value. As for the famous researcher of male
homoeroticism Iwata Jun’ichi, he dismisses it as a “vulgar
tradition.”111 Paul Gordon Schalow similarly denies the legend’s
credibility, although he appreciates the fact that it spun off many cu-
rious texts during medieval and early modern periods.112
Gary P. Leupp is one of a minority of scholars who find the
Kūkai legend plausible for two reasons. First, pre-Heian accounts
of male-male sexuality are sporadic in Japan, even though Chinese
tales of male-male romance were common as early as the sixth cen-
tury BCE. Second, given that the Japanese sent numerous emissar-
ies to the Tang dynasty (of which one was Kūkai) to borrow
continental technologies, customs, and ideas, it is possible for the
people of Japan to have “adopted various elements of the Chinese
homosexual tradition.”113 Nevertheless, it is unreasonable to claim
that male-male eroticism is something that requires a formal intro-
duction. Furthermore, if Kūkai had actually introduced nanshoku
to the people of Japan soon after returning to Japan in 806, the
origin story should have emerged much earlier than the fourteenth
century.
Despite the lack of credibility, the idea that nanshoku origi-
nated in Tang China is fascinating in itself. This is precisely be-
cause the motivation is not to blame China for altering the
landscape of sexuality in Japan but rather to elevate the status of
nanshoku as a custom that emerged in the center of civilization.
Male-male love was already one legitimate half of the nanshoku-
joshoku paradigm that defined acceptable sexuality for adult men,
and the Kūkai legend merely added a fanciful origin to the already
established norm.
Throughout the Edo period (ca. 1600–1867, also Tokugawa pe-
riod), the tradition of nanshoku among Buddhist priests, samurai,
and wealthy merchants remained popular and became almost an art
form, known as the “way of loving the youth” (shudō, wakashudō,
nyakudō, or jakudō). This art, integrated into the vibrant theater
scene and pleasure quarter cultures in major urban centers, inspired
numerous literary and visual works, such as Ihara Saikaku’s collec-
tion of short stories The Great Mirror of Male Love (Nanshoku
ōkagami, 1687), Kitamura Kigin’s anthology of poems and excerpts
of stories Wild Azaleas (Iwatsutsuji, 1676), and countless homoerotic
ukiyoe prints, all of which celebrated transgenerational male-male
love.114
 Becoming a Chigo 35

Discourses on Male-Male Love

at the Dawn of Modernity
Considering that today’s English-language media often paint Japan
as a homophobic country, it is ironic that the end of nanshoku-jo-
shoku paradigm resulted from Japan’s contact with the West in the
late 1800s.115 During the Meiji period, the cultural, religious, and
sexual landscape of Japan was drastically transformed by the govern-
ment’s efforts to establish Japan as a formidable modern nation and
to reinstate the Shinto-based rule of the emperor. This new emphasis
on the divine origin of the imperial line radically disempowered the
institution of Buddhism, as the modern regime strove to diminish the
differences between ordained priests and laymen by forcing the cler-
ics to take surnames, partake in the universal household registration
system (koseki seido), and submit to national conscription. Addition-
ally, in 1872, the government promulgated the “eating meat and tak-
ing a wife” (nikujiki saitai) law, which read, “From now on Buddhist
clerics shall be free to eat meat, marry, grow their hair, and so on.
Furthermore, there will be no penalty if they wear ordinary clothing
when not engaged in religious activities.”116 According to Richard M.
Jaffe, this decriminalization of priestly marriage was intended to pre-
vent nanshoku, which had come to be stigmatized under the influence
of the Western sexual ideology.117 Only one year after the seculariza-
tion of the priesthood via the nikujiki saitai law, a new national penal
code was instituted to criminalize anal intercourse (keikan) for the
first time in Japanese history.118 Although this penal code was in ef-
fect for only nine years before it was abolished in 1882, legal publica-
tions continued to condemn anal sex as “the worst violation of
human morality” whose “harm [was] immense.”119 After four de-
cades of denouncing dōsei-ai (the calque translation of “homosexual
love”) during the Meiji era, the government successfully marginalized
same-sex love, and this trend continued until the post–World War II
period.120
By the time Ichiko Teiji, one of the most prominent scholars of
Japanese classics, published A Study on Medieval Novels (Chūsei
shōsetsu no kenkyū, 1955), only ten years after the end of World War
II, the concept of nanshoku appears to have been expelled to the
fringes of human sexuality. In his analysis of the chigo monogatari
genre, Ichiko comments that nanshoku is an “unnatural act and a
perverted sexual desire seen in perverts.”121 He also credits the
36 Introduction

absence of women with the emergence of nanshoku as “an outlet for

the priests’ oppressed sexual desire,” just as warriors took beautiful
youths to the battlefields, another milieu from which women were
excluded. Furthermore, he explicates the prototypical ending of chigo
monogatari, wherein the chigo’s true identity is found to be an avatar
of a bodhisattva, in the following way: “Buddhist priests [. . .] must
have been aware that nanshoku was an immoral, unnatural act. This
is why they invented the plot where the chigo turns out to be an ava-
tar of the Buddha or a bodhisattva.”122 Two years later, in his article
on two medieval homoerotic texts, Kaneko Matebei also describes
nanshoku in prejudiced terms: “abnormal sexuality, indecency, cru-
elty, unnaturalness, and immorality.”123
Today, the blatantly homophobic language used by Ichiko,
Kaneko, and many other scholars in academic writing is shocking.124
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of such language, however, is the
willful dismissal of Japan’s not-too-distant past, a time when elite
men were free to have sexual relationships with younger male part-
ners. Ichiko, for instance, never even attempts to provide religious,
cultural, medical, or legal “explanations” to buttress his exceedingly
negative perception of male same-sex love. He simply presents his
homophobic view as something universal and commonsensical, for
which no self-reflection is warranted. It is remarkable that what had
been widely perceived as an aspect of normative human sexuality for
the entire duration of recorded history was stigmatized, pathologized,
and criminalized in a mere few decades. Despite the magnitude of this
paradigm shift, Ichiko exhibits no intellectual curiosity about the re-
cent history of his country.
Meanwhile, during the post–World War II era, most research
on male-male intimacy in literary texts, visual arts, and theater was
undertaken by connoisseurs and literati, such as Iwata Jun’ichi
(1900–1945), Inagaki Taruho (1900–1977), and Dōmoto Masaki
(1933–2019).125 The profound expertise of these intellectuals not-
withstanding, their writings tend to indicate the authors’ fetishization
of nanshoku. Thus, their works may contribute little to deepening
and broadening our understanding of human sexualities in meaning-
ful ways.
The rise of the global gay rights movement from the 1960s for-
ward brought an increasing awareness of diversity in gender and sex-
uality in Western nations. In Japan, too, by the late 1980s,
discriminatory statements about same-sex love could no longer
 Becoming a Chigo 37

appear in mainstream academic discourse in any discipline. What

happened next was remarkable in the academic field of premodern
Japanese literature. The homophia-inspired negative evaluation of
the chigo tales propagated by Ichiko and his contemporaries was re-
placed wholesale by similar denouncements of the genre—this time
around, for its portrayal of lovers with an age gap.

Contemporary Discourses on Transgenerational

Male-Male Love
According to the political scientist Joseph Fischel, as sexual minori-
ties in the United States gained “unprecedented representational le-
gitimacy in media and significant legal protections” in recent decades,
new national anxieties emerged in America, especially about “sex of-
fenders,” or adults who are attracted to adolescents and form sexual
relationships with them.126 This discursive shift, to borrow Fischel’s
words, rendered such people as “the new queer” and rapidly and
drastically transformed the way transgenerational sexuality is per-
ceived in postindustrial democratic societies.127 In light of this politi-
cocultural climate, scholarly interrogations of nanshoku in
Anglophone and Japanese-language scholarship have focused on its
age and power differences for the past few decades.
The outcome of the paradigm change has been overarching. To-
day, when the idea of transgenerational male-male coupling is evoked,
we tend to make a series of mental leaps, from “inserter vs. insertee”
to “active vs. passive,” and then to “dominance vs. servitude” and
“predatory vs. victimized.” The contemporary critiques of chigo nan-
shoku and chigo tales seem to be premised on these mental leaps.128
An example of the rhetoric that automatically victimizes the
chigo is found in Faure’s The Red Thread. In this work, the author
criticizes chigo monogatari for aestheticizing the chigo system. He
then suggests we see these tales “as a rather crude ideological cover-
up for a kind of institutionalized prostitution or rape.”129 To support
his argument, Faure extensively cites Hosokawa Ryōichi’s collection
of essays first published in 1993. In one of the essays, Hosokawa sur-
veys multiple texts that tell of nanshoku in monastic contexts, includ-
ing Taira no Tsunemasa in the Heike; the noh play Kagetsu, featuring
a fictional erotic entertainer named Kagetsu; and a document regard-
ing a historical daidōji named Aimitsu-maru. Hosokawa then con-
cludes that shōnen-ai (love for boys) in monasteries is a system that
38 Introduction

“coerces the younger partner into a unilateral sexual servitude,” and

under these circumstances, “the powerful priest controls the boy’s
body and personhood, including his ‘inner-self’ [naiteki jiko].” With
regard to Amimitsu-maru of the outcast class, Hosokawa argues that
the sexual servitude into which he was forced “destroyed his ‘inner-
self’ ” as he grew older, because “he was no longer capable of main-
taining his identity as a youth.”130
Similarly, Kanda Tatsumi claims that the deification of the chigo
served not only to justify the priests’ “abuse” (ryōjoku) of the youths
but also functioned as a “device to intensify [the monks’] sexual plea-
sure” (kairaku o zōshin saseru tame no sōchi ).131 Kanda notes,
“[O]ne can visualize the brutal reality of how countless acolytes were
physically violated by priests and later discarded like a pair of tat-
tered shoes,” but he neglects to support his statement with evidence
or reasoning.132 Jim Reichert, too, suggests that premodern nanshoku
is less desirable than its modern counterpart because “the inherent
power differential embedded in the practice, manifest in the pairing
of a sexually active adult with a sexually passive youth, seriously un-
dermines any nanshoku apologia.”133
Although modern scholars’ contempt for nanshoku in medieval
monasteries may appear reasonable or even morally sound to the
readers of this book, I argue that their hyperbolic and highly specula-
tive language irresponsibly demonizes the Buddhist institutions and
parents of the historical chigo.134 To paint the chigo system with a
broad brush as “child sexual abuse” contributes nothing to efforts to
prevent actual sexual exploitation in our society. Worse, the hyper-
bole surrounding the chigo system and chigo monogatari stigmatizes
these very topics. This stigmatization undermines the objectives of
deepening our understanding of human sexuality across time and cul-
ture and of countering the sexual exploitation of vulnerable popula-
tions as well as various forms of discrimination against sexual
minorities.
Another issue pertains to how we understand negotiations of
power. The representation of power dynamics among characters is
central to many literary texts, and analyzing such a motif is a key as-
pect of literary criticism. Yet at times, scholars and readers of texts
unwittingly equate a power differential with abuse of power. A gap in
power and/or age, of course, is not the same as exploitation, as most
hierarchal relationships are not usually abusive (e.g., parent-child,
employer-employee, teacher-student, buyer-seller, doctor-patient, pet
 Becoming a Chigo 39

owner-pet). Moreover, horizontal relationships are as vulnerable to

dysfunctionality as any other relationship. Animosity between two
equal-status parties can also produce intense rivalry, and it sometimes
turns into violent conflict.
As a result of the misguided cognitive shortcuts, the nanshoku of
premodern Japan has incited much suspicion among modern schol-
ars. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that an age gap within a hetero-
sexual couple is rarely cause for such intense denunciation (as in
Hosokawa’s “it would destroy the personhood of the younger part-
ner”). As for the taboo of “power difference,” scholars seldom vilify
historical or fictional relationships between an impoverished woman
and a wealthy man, while a breach of the celibacy vow is easily for-
given if it leads to a heterosexual monogamous relationship. In other
words, a heterosexual relationship is deemed benign unless there is
clear evidence to indicate otherwise. Conversely, transgenerational
male-male sexuality is perceived by default as coercion even in the
absence of evidence, perhaps because we internalize the post-1990
convention that typecasts the older partner of such a dyad as a preda-
tory homosexual man and the younger partner as an innocent victim
who is not yet aware of his “sexual orientation.”135
This recent sea change in academic discourse—the dramatic
switch from denouncing the chigo system for its homosexuality to
denouncing it for its age/power difference—does not indicate a new
open-mindedness in the field toward sexual minorities. The repulsion
that many scholars (and nonscholars) feel when thinking of the chigo
system likely derives from a compound of several affects, including
homophobia, secularism, Orientalism, and the concept of “statutory
rape.”136 Nonetheless, as far as recent publications are concerned,
these scholars tend to turn their repulsion into just a denouncement
of the age/power differential and nothing else, possibly in an attempt
to package their complex, multilayered contempt into a simple but
visceral, seemingly moral-based argument. The fact is that analyzing
the chigo system through the lens of “child sexual abuse” is anachro-
nistic, as teenagers were not considered “children” in medieval Ja-
pan. Further, this perspective connotes deep-seated homophobic
sentiment, as the same level of suspicion is not applied to historical
and fictional heterosexual relations with age/power gaps.137
Illustrations of sexuality other than a monogamous union be-
tween two (and only two) consenting adults of opposite sexes with
neither a large age gap nor a monetary transaction often repel people
40 Introduction

in the way that an illustration of, say, a war would not.138 Today’s
scholars of premodern military epic, such as The Tales of the Heike,
do not and are not expected to criticize the brutality depicted in the
tales. Neither do they claim that the anonymous authors devised war
tales for the purpose of justifying or aestheticizing mass killing. These
scholars seldom preface their research with a disclaimer that their
interest in texts that depict beheading, disembowelment, and infanti-
cide does not mean they condone such atrocities. And this is the way
it should be.
For the most part, readers and researchers of premodern Japa-
nese texts succeed in compartmentalizing the old norms that would
be considered strange, unsightly, unethical, or criminal in today’s Ja-
pan, such as polyamory, covering one’s face with a fan in public, ex-
orcizing an evil spirit to cure a disease, dragging six-foot-long hair,
breaking into a poetry recitation in the middle of a conversation, en-
throning a child emperor, honor killing, the creation of an outcast
class, wearing a tall lacquered hat indoors, engaging in human traf-
ficking, ritual suicide in lieu of a verbal apology, blackening teeth,
and outsourcing the task of breastfeeding one’s own child to a
stranger. Nevertheless, the chigo system has so far been largely treated
as something beyond our ability to historicize and analyze according
to the cultural, religious, and political context of medieval Japan. I
hope this book will provide useful conversation starters in the fields
of Japanese literature, history, Buddhist studies, and gender and sexu-
ality studies about many important issues: the chigo monogatari
genre, the chigo system, the reconciliation of celibacy and sexuality in
the Buddhist tradition, erotic labor, nonbinary gender, sexuality as a
form of human capital, the fluidity of human sexuality, age as a social
construct, the myth of unmediated agency, and many more.
 
 Chapter 1

Chigo Monogatari
Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics
and Aesthetics of Acolyte-Monk Love

A s the introduction briefly discussed, visual and textual images of

chigo can be observed in waka poems, Chinese-style verses (kan-
shi), anecdotal tales (setsuwa), noh plays, and illustrated scrolls
(emaki), many of which idealize their androgynous beauty, grace,
spirituality, and artistic skills.1 The literary genre that arguably most
vividly shaped the image of chigo during the medieval period is what
we today call chigo monogatari. Fourteen such works have survived
to the present (see “List of Extant Chigo monogatari” in the
bibliography).2
These vernacular tales of varying styles, forms, and degrees of
religiosity and eroticism were likely first created by clergymen affili-
ated with Mount Hiei and other powerful temple complexes around
the early 1300s. It is clear that these texts were soon disseminated far
beyond the bounds of Buddhist institutions. For example, one of the
chigo monogatari we will examine later in this chapter functioned as
an advertisement for a particular temple and the sacred statue en-
shrined there.3 Another illustration of acolyte tales’ popularity is that,
in 1436, Prince Fushiminomiya Sadafusa (1372–1456) noted in his
chronicle Kanmon gyoki that he had borrowed from Mount Hiei the
five illustrated scrolls of a chigo monogatari called The Mountain
(Ashibiki-e).4 Furthermore, a satirical parody version of a chigo tale
was composed, likely by a lay female author (see chapter 4).
My primary objectives in this chapter are threefold. First, to pro-
vide a concise yet useful overview of the chigo monogatari genre, I
will examine how Japanese-language scholarship has traditionally

41
42 Chapter One

defined chigo monogatari since the 1950s and also consider what
would be gained by a more in-depth and expansive analysis of the
corpus. My second objective is to offer a comparative close reading of
three works of chigo monogatari that may be described as “arche-
types” based on the traditional definitions of this genre. These three
acolyte tales are The Story of Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth
(Chigo Kannon engi), A Long Tale for an Autumn Night (Aki no yo
no nagamonogatari), and The Tale of Genmu (Genmu monogatari).
Finally, based on the comparative analysis of the three archetypes,
this chapter will propose more nuanced interpretations of these indi-
vidual works, which will further inform the epistemology of the chigo
monogatari genre as a whole.

C higo M onogatari as a Literary Genre

The subgenre of medieval novels / otogi zōshi
One of the oldest uses of the term “chigo monogatari” appears in
the title of the chigo tale anthology A Collection of Chigo monoga-
tari (Chigo monogatari burui, n.d.), compiled by a celebrated litera-
tus of the Tokugawa period, Ōta Nanpo (1749–1823, also
Shokusanjin).5 In modern times, it was Ichiko Teiji who popularized
this term in A Study on Medieval Novels.6 In this survey of numer-
ous medieval short tales (which he calls chūsei shōsetsu, or “medi-
eval novels”) from the late Kamakura and Muromachi periods,
Ichiko divides them into six categories: court novels, monk/religious
novels, military novels, commoner novels, foreign country novels,
and nonhuman novels.7 Ichiko further classifies these six genres into
multiple subgenres, and chigo monogatari is one of the subgroups
of the monk/religious novels (i.e., medieval novels → monk/reli-
gious novels → chigo tales).
The genre name otogi zōshi is often used synonymously with
(and more frequently than) Ichiko’s term “medieval novels” today,
and many dictionaries, encyclopedias, and scholarly works describe
chigo monogatari as a subgenre of otogi zōshi.8 This appellation
originates from Otogi bunko (Companion Library), a collection of
twenty-three short narratives on various topics from the medieval
period, compiled and published during the early eighteenth century
and “otogi zōshi” used to refer only to the twenty-three stories in-
cluded in this set. Nevertheless, this term was later extended to
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 43

refer to medieval vernacular tales in general, a corpus of several

hundred texts.9

Scholars’ descriptions of the chigo monogatari genre

Today, scholars’ general perception of the chigo monogatari genre
seems to have been shaped by Ichiko Teiji’s influential work men-
tioned above. In addition to listing the most obvious traits of chigo
monogatari (i.e., featuring a chigo as a protagonist and centering on
the monastic life of the main characters), Ichiko characterizes these
stories as “naturally [onozukara] pertaining to nanshoku due to the
absence of women.”10 He further notes that the chigo and his lover
meet a tragic fate, usually the death of the youth, but this tragedy in
turn compels the survivor (the monk) to “enter into the true Buddhist
faith” (shin no Butsudō ni hairu).11
Table 1.1 shows a summary of a survey of twelve Japanese-lan-
guage sources that describe the chigo tale genre, consisting of seven
studies of a chigo tale (five journal articles and two book chapters,
nos. 1–7) and five entries in reference works (dictionary and encyclope-
dia entries, nos. 8–12) that list definitions of chigo monogatari. The
trifecta suggested by Ichiko—romantic love, tragedy (or death of the
chigo), and the religious awakening of the monk—is clearly reflected in
the way these twelve recent publications define or describe the genre.

Table 1.1.  Descriptions of the chigo monogatari genre in twelve sources

Romantic love Tragedy Religious

awakening
of the monk

1 Nishizawa Mostly stories about

(1970) nanshoku

2 Nishizawa Stories about

(1980) nanshoku with chigo

3 Takeuchi Similar to romantic Despite the The characters’

(2000) tales between a man characters’ carnal desire
and a woman (danjo mutual affection, functions as an
no ren’ai monogatari) they are opportunity for a
separated and religious
one of them is awakening
destined to die
4 Yaguchi Love stories (koi The The chigo
(2005) monogatari) between relationships are characters
a chigo and a monk; mainly depicted compel their
the relationships are as tragic love; lovers into a
mainly depicted as the chigo religious
tragic love characters awakening
compel their through their
lovers into a own death
religious
awakening
through their
own death

5 Aoki (2007) Stories revolving

around a monk’s
longing (renbo) for a
chigo

6 Aoki (2008) The main themes are The main themes The main
the romantic are the romantic themes are the
relationship (kōjō) relationship romantic
between a monk and between a monk relationship
a chigo, their and a chigo, between a monk
separation, and their their separation, and a chigo,
awakening/ and their their separation,
renouncement of the awakening/ and their
world renouncement of awakening or
the world renouncement
of the world;
many exhibit
the element of
the “honji”
(manifestation)
stories, in which
the chigo turns
out to be a deity

7 Ri (2016) Depict a romantic In many cases,

relationship (kōjō) the monk attains
between a monk and a true awakening
a chigo through a
romantic
relationship with
a chigo, whose
true identity is
that of a buddha
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 45

8 Nihon Many works revolve Many works

kokugo around a tragic revolve around a
daijiten same-sex love tragic same-sex
(2002) (dōsei-kan no hiren) love (hiren)
between a monk and between a monk
a chigo and a chigo

9 Digital Genre that revolves

Daijisen around nanshoku
(2012) between a chigo and
a monk

10 Daijirin, 3rd Genre of short tales

ed. that revolve around
(2006) lust (aiyoku) between
a chigo and a monk

11 Britannica Stories that depict a

kokusai relationship(kankei)
daihyakka between a monk (or
jiten a nobleman or
(2010) samurai) and a chigo;
a type of nanshoku
tale

12 Nihon Love stories (ren’ai Tragic Exhibit strong

daihyakka monogatari) that (higekiteki) tales religious
zensho involve chigo undertones
(2001)

Taking into consideration the limited space of these short arti-

cles and dictionary/encyclopedia entries, table 1.1 shows that “love”
is what these authors prioritize the most, as all twelve sources men-
tion this component of chigo monogatari. Interestingly, only five
sources emphasize the same-sex-ness of the main characters’ relation-
ship by using the terms “nanshoku” (nos. 1, 2, 9, 11) or “dōsei”
(“same-sex”; no. 8). The vocabulary used to describe the characters’
romantic or sexual relationships is mostly neutral (ren’ai, koi, kōjō,
etc.), except for in the Japanese-language dictionary Daijirin, which
uses a term with negative connotations, “aiyoku” (lust). Fewer than
half of the sources mention “tragedy” or “religious awakening” to
characterize chigo monogatari as a whole.
46 Chapter One

The fourteen extant tales of chigo

Let us now take a closer look at the general plots of the fourteen ex-
tant chigo monogatari. To do so, I will use the following five criteria
to measure their “chigo monogatari-ness,” or their proximity to the
typical features of this genre, as indicated by the published scholar-
ship: (1) at least one of the principal characters is a Buddhist acolyte;
(2) the chigo and a Buddhist monk develop mutual affection; (3) the
chigo dies an untimely death; (4) the surviving lover renews his devo-
tion to the Way of Buddha; and (5) the chigo turns out to be an ava-
tar of a bodhisattva. Figure 4 shows that only three of the fourteen
satisfy all five criteria: Kannon’s Manifestation, Autumn Night, and
The Tale of Genmu. This means that each of the five traits conveys a
varying degree of “chigo monogatari-ness,” and some play more sig-
nificant roles than others in qualifying a text as a chigo tale. In other
words, a combination of just a few of these five attributes can suffice,
while a different combination may mean that the text is not recogniz-
able as a chigo monogatari.
What is even more remarkable is that three of the fourteen texts
do not even feature a current chigo: The Tale of Ben (Ben no sōshi),
The Tale of Matsuho Bay (Matsuho no ura monogatari), and The

Figure 4.  General plots of the fourteen extant chigo monogatari.

 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 47

Tale of Mount Toribe (Toribeyama monogatari). In the first two, the

younger protagonist is a former Buddhist acolyte; in the Ben, Ben no
Kimi is now a young monk, and Tō no Jijū in the Matsuho is now a
young nobleman. Even more surprisingly, the younger protagonist of
Mount Toribe, Tō no Ben, has never been an acolyte before; he is a
nobleman’s son who lives at home, though, importantly, his lover is a
clergyman (otherwise this tale would not have been classified as a
chigo monogatari). Given that Matsuho and Mount Toribe are both
included in Ōta Nanpo’s Collection of Chigo monogatari, by the late
Tokugawa period, the term “chigo” in chigo monogatari was no lon-
ger limited to attendants of high-ranking priests or noblemen but in-
stead could also indicate the tertiary meaning of the term: “the
younger partner of a nanshoku relationship,” as long as the older
partner was a Buddhist priest.12
In a similar vein, when the younger hero is a Buddhist acolyte, his
love interest does not have to be a priest. In The Tale of Saga (Saga
monogatari), the Buddhist acolyte Matsuju falls in love with a lay re-
cluse, whereas the acolyte in The Illustrated Scroll of the Acolyte at
Shōren-in (Shōren-in chigo no sōshi emaki) becomes the lover of a
nobleman. A Buddhist acolyte need not even form a nanshoku rela-
tionship, for that matter—in The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie (Chigo
Imamairi), the hero, a chigo from Enryakuji, pursues a relationship
with an aristocratic lady and eventually marries her, and together they
raise a family (see chapter 4). Nevertheless, it would be highly unlikely
for a love story between a woman and the male attendant of a noble-
man to be classified as a chigo monogatari. In other words, as a rule of
thumb, the minimum requirement for a tale to be regarded as a chigo
monogatari is that a Buddhist acolyte be one of the principal charac-
ters, or, alternatively, that a priest develop a nanshoku relationship
with a younger partner who is not a Buddhist acolyte.
In addition, as long as a Buddhist acolyte is one of the main
characters, romantic endeavors on his part are not necessary for the
story to be considered a chigo monogatari. In fact, in three stories,
the chigo character does not form a romantic relationship with any-
one: The Letter from Lord Kōzuke (Kōzuke no Kimi shōsoku), Hana-
mitsu and Tsukimitsu (Hanamitsu Tsukimitsu), and Excerpts of Dust
and Thorns (Jinkenshō). The Lord Kōzuke has a structure that is very
similar to that of the aforementioned “skillful means” story from
Times Now Past (17:33), wherein a beautiful widow uses her charm
to encourage a young monk to diligently study the Buddhist scripts
48 Chapter One

for three years. In the Lord Kōzuke, a young monk named Engen
(formerly known as Lord Kōzuke) writes to his master about an en-
counter with a beautiful chigo during the previous summer. The letter
informs the recipient that Engen instantly became infatuated with
this youth and tried to sleep with him, but instead of reciprocating his
affection, the chigo challenged him to explain the true meaning of a
famous waka by the Heian poetess Izumi Shikibu.13 When the inade-
quacy of Engen’s understanding of the poem was revealed, the youth
suggested that the monk did not deserve his love and mysteriously
disappeared. Afterward, the priest earnestly practiced nenbutsu (the
chanting of Amida Buddha’s name). In contrast, Hanamitsu and Tsu-
kimitsu is the tragic story of two half-brothers who are both chigo;
the older (Hanamitsu) commits suicide because of the slander spread
by his stepmother (Tsukimitsu’s birthmother). Although Hanamitsu’s
sexual relationship with two of his monk friends is subtly insinuated,
nanshoku is not central to this tale.
Next, let us consider “tragedy,” especially a chigo’s untimely
death, as a major characteristic of chigo monogatari. In modern aca-
demic discourse, wherein same-sex love is no longer a clear evil, the
unnatural death of chigo characters may implicitly amplify some
scholars’ negative perception of the chigo system. For instance, Faure
(Red Thread) and Atkins (“Medieval Imagination”) both allude to
René Girard’s scapegoat theory to interpret the chigo as an innocent
victim who is sacrificed for the purpose of subduing communal vio-
lence and reinstating order in society.14 Nevertheless, the application
of Girard’s framework to the concept of chigo, whether in history or
in fiction, is problematic for a few reasons.
First, understanding the chigo system through the prism of the
scapegoat theory ignores the existence of (1) the historical chigo, who
are not known to have died unnatural deaths en masse; (2) the chigo
and ex-chigo characters who do not die within the stories (Matsuho,
Ashibiki, Booklet of Acolytes, Lord Kōzuke, Saga, Miss Rookie); and
(3) the non-chigo characters who die within the tales (the younger
lover in Mount Toribe, the older lover in the Ben, the older lover in the
Matsuho). Second, the two scholars ignore the fact that chigo is a tem-
porary status. This transient state of acolyteship requires the chigo
characters’ disappearance (via death or vanishing) or their transition
into adulthood (by taking the tonsure or undertaking the genpuku cer-
emony). In fact, all extant acolyte tales either eliminate the chigo char-
acters or have them grow up, with the exception of the erotocomedic
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 49

scroll A Booklet of Acolytes.15 Given the authors’ incentive to main-

tain the youthful beauty of the chigo for the audience’s pleasure, it is
understandable that many chose to kill off their chigo characters
rather than allow them to grow up and become adult men. Drawing
on literary theory to paint the chigo as victims of communal violence,
therefore, does little to deepen our understanding of acolyte tales.
Third, by projecting the image of a sacrificial being onto the chigo
characters, this theory may perpetuate the unfounded assumption that
the chigo system was inherently abusive toward the acolytes. All in all,
the chigo character’s death departs most clearly from the Girardian
concept of scapegoating—the sacrifice of an innocent victim who is
deified only post hoc—in that the untimely death of the youth usually
turns out to be a part of the chigo-qua-bodhisattva’s plan. Thanks to
this divine intervention, at the end of the story, the aspiring monk (i.e.,
the surviving lover) and others reaffirm their religious devotion.
What, then, might be a more suitable framework for analyzing
the main characters’ deaths in chigo monogatari? One possibility is to
recall the aesthetics of romantic Heian court literature, namely, the
waka poetry and courtly monogatari that chigo tales tend to emulate.
Romantic waka and monogatari traditionally privilege the poignant
aspects of romance, such as desertion, change of heart, forbidden love,
and, of course, the death of the lover, over a happy-go-lucky ethos.
Another notion worth considering is the perception of death in medi-
eval Japan. While people tended to fear the pollution caused by the
death of a household member or contact with an animal carcass, death
in the abstract had much more positive connotations. This was at least
partly due to the Buddhist ideology that regards this world as a tempo-
rary lodging, which all believers must transcend by attaining enlighten-
ment. Thus, for devout Buddhists, death symbolizes the beginning of a
better life. For the surviving lovers, too, the death of the beloved is an
opportunity to realize the impermanence of life and the need to accu-
mulate Buddhist merit to ensure one’s own enlightenment. Indeed, the
unification of love, loss, and awakening is a well-established frame-
work that was prevalent in medieval Buddhist literature.

The Skillful Means Story:

The Blueprint of Archetypal C higo M onogatari
The common structure across the three exemplary chigo monogatari
is what Konno Tōru dubs “joshoku hōben-tan” (stories of joshoku as
50 Chapter One

a skillful means), which weaves the tropes of sympathetic response

(kannō) and skillful means (hōben) into a powerful narrative of a re-
ligious miracle.16 To illustrate an example that shows a close resem-
blance to many chigo tales, I will summarize the legend of a historical
priest named Chikō (ca. 709–?) below.17 The story begins when
Chikō is still an adolescent boy, Mabukuda-maro, residing in a
wealthy man’s mansion as a lowly child servant.

QR

One day, Mabukuda-maro inadvertently stole a glance at the daughter

of his master and became completely obsessed with her. Having no
means to confess his love to the young lady, the boy made himself com-
pletely lovesick. Fearing that his son might die of heartache, the mother
of Mabukuda-maro, a gatekeeper of the mansion, also fell ill. The la-
dies-in-waiting eventually reported this matter to their young mistress.
She felt great pity and told Mabukuda-maro he would need to first
learn to read and write if he wanted to send her a love letter. So he did
as he was told in one or two days. Then she said her aged father might
pass away soon, after which she would need a very wise husband to
manage the household. Mabukuda-maro studied diligently and became
extremely knowledgeable. Next, the young lady encouraged him to
take the tonsure and devote himself to the Way of Buddha.
While he was traveling around the country as a pilgrim, however,
the young lady suddenly died of an illness. After years, the former lowly
servant finally returned home only to learn that the young lady had
been long dead. Realizing the impermanence of all things, he devoted
his whole life to the study of Buddhist teachings. In the end, as an emi-
nent holy man, Chikō attained rebirth in the Pure Land (ōjō). The
young lady was an avatar of the bodhisattva Monju (Sk. Mañjuśrī).

QR

Thus, the legend of Chikō conveys the ultimate goals of Bud-

dhism, the renunciation of this-worldly attachment and the accumu-
lation of religious merit, without resorting to negative representations
of sexuality. Many chigo monogatari take a similar approach to nan-
shoku. Before beginning a discussion of the specifics of the three ar-
chetypal chigo tales, however, let us consider the cultural significance
of bodhisattva worship in medieval Japan, which is deeply embedded
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 51

in those powerful miracle stories of chigo-qua-bodhisattva. In the

next section, I will discuss Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion,
featured in Kannon’s Manifestation and Autumn Night, and the bod-
hisattva of wisdom, Monju (Ch. Wenshū, Sk. Mañjuśrī), who appears
in The Tale of Genmu.

Bodhisattva Worship in Medieval Japan

The Sanskrit term “bodhisattva” (Jp. bosatsu) is a compound of “bo-
dhi” (awakening) and “sattva” (person), commonly referring to “one
who courageously seeks enlightenment through totally and fully ben-
efiting others.”18 The bodhisattva is often regarded as pivotal in the
lay-centered Mahāyāna tradition, embodying the possibility that all
sentient beings can attain buddhahood.19 As intermediaries between
the Enlightened One and believers, bodhisattvas have a significant
presence, arguably more so than the Buddha himself, in medieval Jap-
anese literary and visual arts.
Kannon’s ability to perceive all the sounds of the world signifies
his utmost compassion, which leads him to heed the prayers of all
sentient beings until they are free from suffering. In this vein, Kannon-
gyō (i.e., chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra, also the “Universal Gateway”
[Fumonbon] chapter) catalogues an impressive list of adversities from
which this bodhisattva can save those who worship him: drowning in
a river, being lost at sea, murder, demonic attack, fierce beasts and
noxious snakes or insects, legal punishment, attack by bandits, falling
from steep precipices, extremes of weather, and internecine civil mili-
tary unrest, among other things.20
Reflecting Kannon’s immense popularity in medieval Japan, a
plethora of didactic anecdotes was produced to illustrate his miracu-
lous powers. Volume 16 of Times Now Past, for instance, consists
entirely of stories of miracles by Kannon, forty in all. In this volume,
the bodhisattva mercifully feeds part of his own flesh to a starving
monk (no. 4) and prevents a young woman from being forced into
marriage with a serpent (no. 16). To the modern reader, some of the
divine interventions carried out by Kannon may seem unconventional
and even puzzling. Not only does the bodhisattva take an arrow to
save a violent criminal (no. 26) and help a gambler (no. 37), but he
also rewards a fervent Kannon worshipper by drowning him (thus
escorting this man to the Pure Land) when he is found to be reluctant
to catch sacrificial animals for a local Shinto festival (no. 35).21
52 Chapter One

In addition to directly helping the masses through miracles, Kan-

non is known to be a great teacher of the Way of Buddha through
skillful means; he can transform himself into one of thirty-three figures
to guide a mortal in the direction of religious devotion, and ultimately
to enlightenment or rebirth in the Pure Land. Although just seven of
the thirty-three manifestations are female (nun, Buddhist laywoman,
elder’s wife, householder’s wife, officer’s wife, Brahman woman, and
young girl), by the tenth century in China Kannon had come to be
perceived as more female than male.22 Thanks to the Chinese influ-
ence, a feminized image of Kannon became prevalent in Japan as well.
The art historian Yamamoto Yōko, for instance, remarks, “One may
be surprised to hear that Kannon actually wears a mustache, since the
feminine image of this bodhisattva is undeniably common.”23
In addition, the Japanese tendency to imagine Kannon in the
form of a woman may be attributed to the famous legend of Shinran
(see the introduction), in which Kannon promises to appear as a beau-
tiful maiden and receive his transgression should he feel compelled to
breach his celibacy oath. The most direct connection between the
chigo system and Kannon, of course, is that the Tendai consecration
rite purportedly turned a youth into an avatar of Kannon. (This ritual
may have been partly inspired by Shinran’s oracle story.24) The his-
torical Buddha, too, guarantees Kannon’s ability to absorb a mortal’s
sexual frustration in the Lotus Sutra: “If there are beings of much lust
who are constantly mindful of and humbly respectful to the bodhisat-
tva He Who Observes the Sounds of the World, they shall straight-
away contrive to be separated from their lust.”25
In contrast to the feminine imagery of Kannon, Monjushiri Bo-
satsu (more commonly Monju Bosatsu), whose avatar appears in The
Tale of Genmu as the chigo Hanamatsu, is often associated with the
image of an adolescent boy. In the iconography of the Buddhist Triad
(Shaka sanzon), this bodhisattva of wisdom flanks the Buddha along
with Fugen Bosatsu (Ch. Puxian, Sk. Samantabhadra) mounting a
white elephant. Typically portrayed as a youth astride a mythical lion
(shishi) and carrying a sword, Monju appropriately represents the
youth Hanamatsu, who takes vengeance on his father’s killer and is
in turn killed by the son of his victim. Moreover, in the popular imag-
ination of the Tokugawa period, Monju’s association with “the way/
art of loving youth” was widespread, although it is not clear whether
this connection already existed when The Tale of Genmu was com-
posed.26 In any case, Monju’s connection with male-male love is due
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 53

to his full name in Japanese, Monjushiri, of which the last two sylla-
bles are homophonous with the Japanese word for “buttocks.” His
name thus became a code for male-male sexuality within the haikai
(comic verse) tradition.27
One of the historical conditions that pushed the people of medi-
eval Japan to turn to Buddhist practices was the belief that Japan had
entered the Age of the Final Dharma (Mappō) in 1052, after which
reaching enlightenment would become exceedingly difficult.28 Due to
this widespread pessimism and strong desire to overcome the chal-
lenge, the medieval period spawned many vibrant religious move-
ments and new schools of Buddhism (e.g., Pure Land, True Pure
Land, Ji, and Nichiren). In an attempt to increase their chances of
posthumous salvation, the masses, too, were mobilized to practice
Buddhist rituals: they chanted Amida Buddha’s name, copied sutras
(especially Kannon-gyō), and visited famous Kannon sites, such as
Hasedera, Kiyomizu-dera, and Ishiyama-dera.29

T he S tory of K annon ’ s M anifestation as a Y outh :

The Origin Story of a Kannon Statue
In this section, we are going to take a close look at the first represen-
tative chigo monogatari: The Story of Kannon’s Manifestation as a
Youth.30 This tale was composed during the late Kamakura period
and is the second-oldest extant chigo monogatari after The Letter
from Lord Kōzuke. Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth deviates from
the other romantic chigo tales by casting the chigo’s lover as an old
monk, although he is not the boy’s original master (i.e., the high
priest who initiated the boy into acolyteship). Compared to the other
two archetypal chigo monogatari, Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth
is much shorter and has a simpler organization. At its core, this is an
origin story (engi) that explains the historical circumstances in which
a boy-figured Kannon statue came to be enshrined at Bodai-in in
Nara.31 A summary is provided below.

QR

There once was a revered priest in Nara. He lamented that he had no one
to call a disciple, even though he was over sixty years of age. A youth,
who would care for him, carry the torch of the Way of Buddha, and
pray  for his rebirth in the Pure Land, was what the priest wished for.
54 Chapter One

Therefore, he made a monthly pilgrimage to Hasedera for three years, in

hopes that the bodhisattva Kannon would grant him a disciple. Never-
theless, he decided to descend the mountain, having realized that his wish
had not come true even after he made three extra monthly pilgrimages.
While passing through the foothills of Mount Obuse with a heavy
heart, he saw an attractive chigo of thirteen or fourteen playing the
Chinese flute in the middle of nowhere. Intrigued, the monk asked the
youth who he was and what he was doing there. It turned out that the
chigo had become upset with his master priest and run away from his
home temple near Tōdaiji. When the beautiful boy unexpectedly asked
the monk to keep him as an attendant (chūdōji), the priest became
overjoyed and took him to his cloister. The boy was unimaginably car-
ing and talented in music and poetry, so the monk felt extremely thank-
ful to Hasedera Kannon.
The two spent many months sharing their bliss, until the boy sud-
denly fell ill toward the end of their third spring together. On his
deathbed, the youth asked the master not to bury or cremate his body
but instead to keep it in a coffin for fifty-five days and then open it.
When the youth passed away, the grief-stricken monk placed his
body in a casket as instructed and stored it in the Buddha hall of his
home temple. Hearing the devastating news, people from near and
far visited the temple and copied the Lotus Sutra to ensure the repose
of the youth.
Upon completing the memorial service, the priest was overcome
with emotion and opened the lid of the casket. As the magnificent fra-
grance of sandalwood filled up the room, the golden Eleven-Faced Kan-
non emerged. The bodhisattva informed the monk that the youth had
been one of his own avatars. He then promised to return in seven years
to escort the monk to the Pure Land and disappeared into the skies as if
he were a flash of lightning.

QR

At the end of the story, the narrator notes that the Kannon statue
enshrined at Bodai-in was modeled after the image of this particular
Kannon, adding that those who make a pilgrimage to see this boy-
figured statue and offer him copies of the Lotus Sutra will surely be
rewarded.
Much like the other chigo monogatari examined in this book,
Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth is an adaptation of an earlier tale.
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 55

The “source story” is a short vignette, another origin story of the

same Kannon statue at Bodai-in, included in A Collection of Miracu-
lous Stories of Hasedera (Hasedera reigenki, ca. 1200).32 Some of the
superficial differences between the two texts derive from the fact that
the earlier version offers more concrete information: the monk is
identified as Reverend Chogon from the Bodai-in cloister at Kōfukuji,
and the exact date of his encounter with the boy as the New Year Day
of Kankō 5 (1008). In contrast, the priest in Kannon’s Manifestation
as a Youth remains anonymous, while his affiliation with Bodai-in is
not disclosed until the very end and there is no mention of any par-
ticular date.
A more significant distinction is that the master-disciple dyad in
Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth is far more erotic than the pair in
the source text; this may be one of the reasons the Stories of Hasedera
version has not been considered a chigo monogatari. The eroticiza-
tion of the master-disciple dyad in Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth
is achieved through the following methods: making the priest’s re-
quest specifically about acquiring a disciple; making the boy slightly
older; emphasizing the boy’s attractiveness; and inserting icono-
graphical symbols of romantic love into the illustrations of the
Kōsetsu Museum version.
To elaborate on the first point, what Chogon asks Hasedera
Kannon for in Stories of Hasedera is general religious awakening, not
a disciple.33 After three years of pilgrimages with no effect, the priest
encounters a boy (warawa) of twelve or thirteen, who laments that he
has no one to rely on.34 Out of pity, Chogon employs the boy as a
servant at his cloister with no awareness of the connection between
this event and his pilgrimages.35 In contrast, the anonymous monk of
Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth specifically prays for an atten-
dant-disciple. So, upon meeting the mysterious youth, who now ap-
pears slightly older (thirteen or fourteen), the monk immediately
thanks the bodhisattva for making his wish come true.
Second, while the narrator of Stories of Hasedera praises only
the boy’s piety and loyalty and never mentions his physical attractive-
ness, the beauty and poise of the youth in Kannon’s Manifestation as
a Youth are highlighted time and again. For instance, the moment the
monk lays eyes on the youth, he is struck by the latter’s “complexion
pale as the moon and adorned with flower-like magnificence.”36 He is
also “more graceful than a willow bending in a spring breeze.”37
Iconographically, too, this youth is portrayed with the signature
56 Chapter One

markers of a chigo, namely, a long ponytail, a powdered face, and a

beautiful robe. He also plays the flute, which is a sign of education
and class. (No images accompany Stories of Hasedera.)
The third method of eroticization also concerns the illustrations
of Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth. Kimura Saeko points out that
the initial encounter of the protagonists is preceded by an image of a
pair of inosculated pine trees (aioi no matsu), a symbol of romantic
love, standing in the middle of a desolate field. She also notes that
there exists another pair of trees outside Bodai-in, one taller than the
other, that evokes transgenerational nanshoku.38 Other pictures visu-
alize the intimacy between the monk and his disciple more concretely.
In one illustration, the couple and a few guests gather for a soiree and
enjoy music and company, while another depicts the monk embracing
the dying chigo, whose head is resting on his teacher’s lap.39 In the
picture of the memorial service for the dead youth, the monk is found
prostrating himself over the casket, weeping.40
In addition to highlighting the romantic dimension of the pro-
tagonists’ relationship, the author of Kannon’s Manifestation as a
Youth amplified the dramatic effect of the ending. On the one hand,
in the Stories of Hasedera version, the monk Chogon discovers a
statue of the Eleven-Faced Kannon in the deceased warawa’s casket.
Having witnessed this miracle, Chogon reaffirms his devotion to the
bodhisattva of mercy. When the final moment of his life approaches,
he entrusts his salvation to the mercy of Kannon, and this leads him
to be reborn at Kannon’s home, Mount Potalaka. The final scene of
Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth, on the other hand, is far more
spectacular. The golden Kannon himself appears before the monk
and promises that the bodhisattva will personally escort him to the
Pure Land in seven years so that they will be “together on a lotus
petal in the ninth and highest grade of paradise.” Then, in a flash, the
bodhisattva flies into the sky.41
Though both stories explain the origin of the same boy-figured
Kannon statue at Bodai-in of Kōfukuji, Kannon’s Manifestation as a
Youth explicitly advertises the location where the sympathetic re-
sponse occurred, encouraging the readers to pay a visit to this par-
ticular statue at the particular subtemple. One of the significant
features of engi stories such as Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth is
that they were products of collaborative efforts on the part of reli-
gious institutions and others who had a stake in the promotion of the
temples and shrines: government agencies, donors, local people, and
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 57

residents of the estates.42 This information sheds light on the lay peo-
ple’s perception of the chigo system. The production of an engi narra-
tive would naturally require crafting a positive or awe-inspiring image
of the religious establishment so that it appealed to potential pilgrims
and donors from near and far. In this vein, the creation of Kannon’s
Manifestation as a Youth by adding more dramatic and erotic ele-
ments to an older, more subdued story indicates that not only were
the lay community familiar with priest-chigo nanshoku but they also
did not regard it as distasteful.

A L ong T ale for an A utumn N ight :

A Synecdoche for the C higo M onogatari Genre
A Long Tale for an Autumn Night (Aki no yo no nagamonogatari,
before 1377) is by far the most famous chigo monogatari, and it has
attracted a fair amount of attention in Japanese-language scholar-
ship.43 Not only is this work a religious tale par excellence, but it was
also known for its nanshoku theme during the Tokugawa period,
judging from the fact that a digest version of Autumn Night is in-
cluded in a seventeenth-century collection of literature on male-male
love, Wild Azaleas (Iwatsutsuji) compiled by the celebrated scholar-
poet Kitamura Kigin (1624−1705).44
Whereas Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth is an engi story of
the Chigo Kannon statue at Bodai-in, Autumn Night takes the form
of a quasibiography of a prominent Tendai priest, Reverend Senzai
(?–1127, also Sensai and Sensei). He is famous for rebuilding Ungoji
in Kyoto and for erecting an enormous golden statue of Amida Bud-
dha within its precincts in 1124.45 As a legendary figure, Senzai also
appears in an anecdote included in Senjūshō (3:7), in which he is
reprimanded by the bodhisattva Monju after refusing to give a robe
to an aged female beggar (Monju’s avatar).46 Moreover, he was a re-
nowned poet whose works made it into numerous waka collections,
including the most prestigious imperial anthology, New Collection of
Poems Ancient and Modern (Shin-kokin wakashū, 1205, nos. 658
and 1977).47 The latter (no. 1977) is incorporated into Autumn Night
as the poem that Senzai composes in his hermitage, thinking of his
dead lover: The light of the moon / we viewed together / Is it guiding
him / Westward, tonight?48
Autumn Night opens with a monologue by an unnamed narra-
tor, an old man versed in Buddhist principles. During a long, sleepless
58 Chapter One

autumn night, he decides to tell a story he has recently heard, the

story of the wondrous events that occurred during the reign of Em-
peror Go-Horikawa, when Master Senzai was still known as the
monk Keikai and resided in the Eastern Pagoda of Mount Hiei.49 Be-
low is a summary of this tale.50

QR

When Keikai was a young priest with the rank of risshi (master of pre-
cepts), his heart was restless, despite his reputation as a great sage.
Yearning for a true understanding of the Way of Buddha, he traveled to
Ishiyama-dera and gave prayers to the Kannon for seventeen days. On
the seventeenth night, a beautiful chigo appeared in his dream, so Kei-
kai interpreted this as a positive omen. Nevertheless, the situation
worsened back on Mount Hiei; the stunning image of the youth con-
stantly occupied Keikai’s mind and heart. To express his grievance, he
set off to return to Ishiyama-dera. On his way, Keikai was caught in a
rain shower and decided to take shelter at his home temple’s long-term
enemy, Miidera.51 There, Keikai stole a glimpse of a chigo, who looked
identical to the very youth who had been consuming every waking mo-
ment of his life.
Keikai managed to befriend the chigo’s boy attendant, Keiju, and
learned that the beautiful youth’s name was Umewaka; he turned out
to be the son of the Hanazono Minister of the Left and an acolyte serv-
ing the abbot of Miidera. Keikai eventually won the trust of Keiju and
this boy agreed to assist the monk with delivering love letters to Lord
Umewaka. After a period of courtship, Keiju set up their first tryst.
They consummated their relationship that night and exchanged vows
to be lovers. Back at the Eastern Pagoda, the dreamlike night with the
chigo further fueled Keikai’s obsession, making him completely love-
sick. Learning of this, Umewaka decided to visit Keikai—he clandes-
tinely departed Miidera, accompanied only by Keiju. On their way to
Mount Hiei, however, the pair was kidnapped by a band of bird-faced
flying goblins (tengu) disguised as mountain ascetics (yamabushi) and
was thrown into a cavern.
Meanwhile at Miidera, the disappearance of the beloved Umewaka
triggered chaos among the clerics. Hearing the rumor that a Hiei monk
had recently pledged his love to this chigo, they concluded that Ume-
waka’s father must have given the two permission to elope. A mob of
five hundred angry Miidera monks subsequently attacked the minister’s
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 59

residence, burning every building to the ground. In response, Keikai led

a force of over a hundred thousand fighting monks from all 3,700
branch temples in a counterattack, reducing all of the buildings to ashes
and leaving intact only the shrine of Shinra Daimyōjin, the patron deity
of Miidera.52
Fortunately, Umewaka and Keiju escaped from captivity thanks to the
help of a dragon god who had also been incarcerated in the cave. Despite
a moment of joy and relief, the chigo realized that the two places he
called home, his father’s mansion and Miidera, had been completely
obliterated because of his own selfish actions. Crushed by agonizing guilt
and despair, Umewaka jumped into the Seta River when Keiju left his side
to deliver his letter to Keikai. Upon discovering the lifeless body of Ume-
waka, Keikai and Keiju were overcome with immense grief and pain, and
both contemplated following him in death. The next day, they took the
body to a nearby crematory and helplessly watched the beautiful boy’s
flesh turning into a wisp of smoke. After three days of mourning, Keikai
set out on a pilgrimage, carrying his lover’s ashes in a small container
strapped around his neck. Later he built a hermitage in a place called
Iwakura on Mount Nishi, where he prayed for Umewaka’s salvation.
Keiju, too, became a priest and retreated into seclusion on Mount Kōya.
In the aftermath of the violent conflict, thirty surviving Miidera
priests kept vigil in the shrine of Shinra Daimyōjin. Deep in the night,
when dream became indistinguishable from reality, a lavish procession
escorting Hie Sannō, the guardian deity of Mount Hiei, appeared in the
eastern sky and descended to Miidera. The Shinra Daimyōjin then threw
a splendid banquet and entertained his guests with a feast and music all
night long. The next morning, after the strange visitors disappeared into
the sky, one priest inquired of the Shinra Daimyōjin why he was so ami-
cable toward the patron god of their enemy. The great deity explained
that the destruction of the temple was not in vain, because it had opened
up a myriad of opportunities for accumulating religious merit, such as
rebuilding the halls and recopying sutras. Shinra Daimyōjin went on to
say that he and Hie Sannō were ecstatic to see Keikai’s profound reli-
gious awakening. Basking in awe, these thirty Miidera priests decided to
visit the hermitage of Keikai, who had now taken a new name, Senzai.
He later built Ungoji near the capital so that he could directly serve the
masses. Numerous worshippers from all walks of life were seen gathered
around this holy man, crying tears of utmost bliss.

QR
60 Chapter One

As is Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth, Autumn Night is also

connected to older, simpler texts. One is a chronicle of the inter-
temple skirmishes between Mount Hiei and Miidera, The Rise of
Conflicts between Enryakuji and Miidera (Sanmon Mii kakushitsu
no okori, ca. early thirteenth century). The entry for the second day
of the fifth month in the year of Hoan 2 (1121) is translated below
(the Arabic numerals are not in the original but have been added for
reference):

According to a rumor, (1) the risshi named Keikai of Mount Hiei

fell deeply in love with a youth from Miidera. (2) Keikai secretly
wandered around the boy’s temple a few times. (3) One time, the
youth left his temple and no one knew his whereabouts. (4) Ac-
cording to a rumor, the Miidera folks made a huge commotion
about this, ascended the mountain, and burned down two or three
cloisters. The infuriated Hiei folks chased their enemies down and
engaged them in battle, which resulted in the burning of the Mi-
idera complex. This was the third day of the fifth month of
Hoan 2. (5) Later, the youth managed to escape the goblin’s dwell-
ing. Nevertheless, upon learning that the entire complex of ­Miidera
and the mansion of his father, the major counselor [dainagon],
had been reduced to ashes, the chigo jumped into the Seta River.
(6) Keikai achieved a profound awakening and built Ungoji to the
east of the capital. He called himself Reverend Senzai, they say. A
Long Tale for an Autumn Night must be a story based on this
event.53

Although this account mentions Autumn Night, which suggests that

Autumn Night was written first, scholars generally agree that this
comment was added by a later copier.54
Additional source texts of Autumn Night exist, as well. In Au-
tumn Night, the language used to describe the love affair of Keikai
and Umewaka alludes to sections of the well-known martial epic A
Chronicle of Great Peace (Taiheiki, late fourteenth century), and
several entire passages are borrowed from this text. An anecdote
about the dragon god’s being kidnapped by tengu and escaping the
cavern-dungeon is found in Times Now Past (20:11). As for the Mi-
idera monks’ dreamlike encounter with Shinra Daimyōjin, it seems
to have been inspired by an episode included in Discussions on An-
cient Matters (Kojidan, ca. 1212).55 In this story (5:37), after the
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 61

massive burning of the Miidera complex, one of the surviving monks

dreams of a man dressed in a cap and hunting attire. The monk asks
the man who he is, to which he answers that he is a messenger of the
Shinra Daimyōjin, the guardian god of Miidera. The monk scoffs
and spits out, “So much for that nonsense! All the buildings of our
temple turned into ashes and went up in smoke; how good of a
guardian is he?” After a while, an old man with bright white hair
and long eyebrows stretching almost down to his mouth appears
and says, “How ignorant you are! Tutelary deities like myself are
not there to protect the Buddha halls and cloisters. We exist to en-
sure the enlightenment of the clergy. A volatile occasion like this
compels clerics to discover the true meanings of the Way. Such peo-
ple would work most diligently toward attaining enlightenment; I
am here to guard them.”56
Although these source texts of Autumn Night present themselves
as historical records, the author of this chigo monogatari employs
intentional anachronism to signal to the readers that this is a work of
fiction. That is, the author of Autumn Night sets it in the time of Em-
peror Go-Horikawa (r. 1221–1232), Emperor Ichijō (r. 986–1011),
or Emperor Nijō (r. 1158–1165), depending on the variant, instead of
the imperial reign of Emperor Horikawa (r. 1086–1107) or Emperor
Toba (r. 1107–1123), which would have overlapped with Senzai’s
lifetime.57 Perhaps this deliberate anachronism indicates the author’s
ambition to create a piece of literature that is fairly realistic yet simul-
taneously far more fantastic and poignant than a mere record of his-
torical events could be. Just as the historical record of Chogon was
adapted into the more elaborate and dramatic tale of Kannon’s Man-
ifestation as a Youth with gorgeous illustrations, Autumn Night un-
derwent a similar transformation on a much greater scale. That is, to
borrow Nishizawa Masaji’s words, Autumn Night vividly exempli-
fies the “leap from a setsuwa [an explicatory anecdote] to a full-
fledged monogatari.”58
To elaborate on Nishizawa’s point, the creation of Autumn
Night involved the abstraction of “historical documents” into a sym-
bolic narrative of universal human concerns, such as the conflicting
desires for a lover and for enlightenment. This tale speaks to the fact
that happiness and sorrow are two sides of the same coin; glee cannot
be conceptualized without the existence of sadness, and vice versa,
and these two emotions amplify each other’s effects. Tragedy helps
humans find bliss in ordinary events, while profound affection for
62 Chapter One

others makes the loss thereof all the more painful. The most signifi-
cant step in developing an anecdote into a chigo monogatari, there-
fore, is foregrounding the plight of the lover, followed by the solemn
revelation that renunciation of all earthy attachment is the only path
to enlightenment.
To put it another way, the “monogatari-ization” process of Au-
tumn Night involved highlighting the romantic aspect of the source
story, which was quantitatively demonstrated by Nishizawa Masaji’s
1980 study. Nishizawa compared the source text (the Hoan 2 entry in
the Rise of Conflicts) and Autumn Night to contrast the relative weight
of each of the six stages of the story (1 through 6 in the translation
above) in both texts (see table 1.2). In the Rise of Conflicts, the love
affair between Keikai and the chigo consists of two sentences (twenty-
two Chinese characters altogether, or 15 percent of the entire entry),
while the same event accounts for 38 percent of Autumn Night. Fur-
thermore, the second-longest section in Autumn Night (25 percent) is
about Umewaka’s flight and death, increased from 22 percent in the
source story, while the battle scenes are reduced from 34 percent to 14
percent through the monogatari-ization.59

Table 1.2.  Ratio of the six major events in Rise of Conflicts and Autumn Night.
Events Descriptions Number of Number of lines
characters in the in Autumn Night
Rise of Conflicts

1&2 Keikai and 22 (15%) 129 (38%)

Umewaka’s love
affair

3 The kidnapping of 10 (7%) 27 (8%)

Umewaka

4 The intertemple 48 (34%) 48 (14%)

battles

5 Umewaka’s flight and 31 (22%) 83 (25%)

death

6 The awakening of 31 (22%) 52 (15%)

Keikai and the
Miidera monks

Source: adapted from Nishizawa 1980.

 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 63

The sheer vulnerability of the reputable Buddhist monk, exhib-

ited through his maddening passion for the youth and his devastation
over Umewaka’s suicide, moves the readers profoundly. Nevertheless,
after vicariously experiencing the lover’s plight, the readers discover
that everything was a part of Ishiyama Kannon’s plan, a skillful
means of guiding Keikai into the sublime truth of Buddhism. Such a
revelation would have demonstrated the efficacy of Kannon worship
and given hope to those living in a deeply somber time: the Final
Stage of the Buddhist Dharma.
As a piece of Buddhist literature, Autumn Night’s significance
lies in its innovative transcendence of the skillful means model.
Whereas many scholars focus solely on the Buddhist principle of im-
permanence (mujō) that Keikai comes to embrace, Konno Tōru
makes an illuminating observation about another Buddhist ideal:
“aspiration for enlightenment, salvation of all beings” (jōgu bodai,
geke shujō 上求菩提 下化衆生). This pair of four-character phrases,
appearing in the first line of Autumn Night, represents the ontology
of the bodhisattva. That is, a bodhisattva is one who looks heaven-
ward in hope of enlightenment (jōgu bodai) as well as earthward,
driven by the selfless desire to save the masses (geke shujō). By open-
ing with this moving imagery, the author signals to the readers that
this story tells of a bodhisattva in the true sense, one who embodies
genuine hope and unlimited compassion.
Konno aptly points out that most hōben-tan (skillful means sto-
ries) center on the surviving lover’s plight and his subsequent realiza-
tion of mujō, while they neglect the suffering of the dead lover
(bodhisattva in disguise) through which the holy being strives toward
self-enlightenment.60 For instance, Konno argues, in the aforemen-
tioned story of Mabukuda-maro (later Reverend Chikō), the young
lady remains out of the boy’s reach from the beginning to the end of
her life. Even though she helps him enter the priesthood and accumu-
late religious merit, it is only Mabukuda-maro who swallows the bit-
ter pill in this process. The young lady, in Konno’s words, “merely
pitied the boy from a lofty place and never submerged herself in the
world of humanly carnal desire.”61 The oldest extant chigo monoga-
tari, The Letter from Lord Kōzuke, similarly depicts a somewhat
aloof chigo-deity who simply disappears before the monk is given a
chance to become his lover. Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth is
closer to Autumn Night in that the monk and his disciple seem to
become lovers, but the chigo’s suffering is limited to dying of an
64 Chapter One

illness. In short, the legend of Reverend Chikō, The Letter from Lord
Kōzuke, and Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth together depict rela-
tively moderate sacrifices on the part of the bodhisattvas.
In contrast, Ishiyama Kannon, who manifests himself as the
chigo Umewaka, commits a grave transgression as a chigo attached
to Miidera by betraying his master and doing so with a monk from
Miidera’s rival temple, Enryakuji. Umewaka’s love affair sets off a
series of disastrous events: being kidnapped by a band of tengu and
incarcerated in the cave-dungeon, which sparks the violent confron-
tation between Miidera and Enryakuji, causing the loss of countless
lives and the burning of his father’s mansion and the Miidera com-
plex. Finally, he feels compelled to seek penance by drowning him-
self. It is telling that at the end of Autumn Night, the two deities from
enemy temples celebrate the seemingly horrific outcome of the forbid-
den love. This exemplifies the Buddhist principle of nonduality, the
idea that the enlightened mind “sees reality without ‘two-ness.’ ”62
Such tragic events as the destruction of the buildings, statues, and
sutras and the loss of human lives are opportunities to increase the
surviving priests’ religious merit. The two guardian deities toast the
birth of a new bodhisattva in the flesh, Master Senzai—the holy man
who devotes his life to the salvation of all sentient beings by spread-
ing the wisdom of the Buddha.63

T he T ale of G enmu : A Story of Platonic Love

and Nonduality
Our last archetypal acolyte tale is The Tale of Genmu, a story cen-
tered on the strange fate of a monk named Genmu and a chigo from
a faraway province, Hanamatsu. Each chigo monogatari has its own
distinct ambiance, and The Tale of Genmu is one of the darker and
more solemn examples, incorporating such motifs as vengeance and
an encounter with a ghost. Unlike Umewaka’s death—a guilt-driven
suicide, with which readers would have readily sympathized—Hana-
matsu’s death is one of the links in a chain of murders. Hanamatsu,
the son of a samurai, murders a man, Onodera, who killed his father
in a duel when he was a young boy, and Hanamatsu is then slain by
the son of Onodera. In the end, the monk Genmu takes the young
Onodera (i.e., the killer of his beloved), now a recluse, as his life part-
ner. A summary of this tale is given below.64
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 65

QR

In Ōhara, near the capital, lived a young Tendai monk named Genmu,
who longed to attain the true understanding of the Way.65 Every day he
prayed to Hie Sannō and asked to be released from the eternal cycle of
birth and death. Then, one night, Sannō appeared in Genmu’s dream
and instructed him to visit Konpon chūdō (the main hall of Enryakuji)
and give prayers to the Yakushi Buddha.
After Genmu completed his pilgrimage to Konpon chūdō and was
heading home, it started snowing heavily. So he decided to take shelter
at Shiō-in Hall, where he fell in love at first sight with a beautiful chigo
of sixteen or seventeen years. The youth was called Hanamatsu and
had come from the Chikurinbō cloister on Mount Nikkō, along with
his colleagues, the priests Sotsu and Jijū. The four entertained them-
selves with linking verses (renga).
The following morning, Genmu went over to the inn, where Hana-
matsu and the priests had been lodging, only to learn that they had al-
ready departed. Yet the youth had left a letter with the innkeeper in
which he apologized for leaving so hastily and asked Genmu to visit
Chikurinbō if he happened to be in the vicinity of Shimotsuke Province.
Hanamatsu had also attached a poem to his letter: Awake all night / on
my cold and lonely travel pillow / I cannot see you in dreams I do not
dream.66 Heartbroken, the monk returned to Ōhara.
Genmu anxiously awaited the end of the long winter. At the first
sign of spring, he traveled by day and by night in anticipation of seeing
the beautiful boy again. When he finally arrived at Mount Nikkō, how-
ever, he was at a loss, not knowing which one of the thousands of clois-
ters was Chikurinbō. Then a monk spotted the forlorn itinerant and
approached him. Delighted, Genmu asked him for directions to
Chikurinbō, but the monk suggested that it was too late for any cloister
to accept visitors and that he should try again in the morning. So
Genmu decide to spend the night in an abandoned hall nearby.
Deep in the night, Genmu heard the faint sound of a flute coming
from outside. As he listened to the enchanting music in a dreamy state,
the sound became louder and louder. The flute player eventually walked
into the desolate hall—it was Hanamatsu dressed in the attire of a war-
rior. He then escorted Genmu to Chikurinbō. There, Genmu tearfully
confessed his love for the youth and suggested they play renga again to
celebrate their reunion. The initial verse Hanamatsu composed,
66 Chapter One

however, was ominous: With this evening squall / we will be parted from
the blossom / not to be seen again in the morning.67 After some time,
Hanamatsu drew the flute from his belt, wrapped it in the paper on
which he had written down their linked verses, and handed it to Genmu.
The boy then bade the monk farewell and disappeared into the night.
The following morning, Hanamatsu’s master priest found Genmu in
his home cloister. Alarmed by the presence of this stranger, the abbot
called out for his subordinates. Genmu explained who he was and why
he had spent the night there. This is when the abbot told Genmu that
Hanamatsu had died six days earlier, exacting revenge on his father’s
killer, Onodera. After the boy’s father lost his life in a duel when Hana-
matsu was seven, he vowed to someday avenge his father and he finally
carried out this mission, although he was chased down by Onodera’s
son and fell victim to his sword, said the abbot. Genmu was struck by
the revelation that his eyes, clouded by the deep attachment, had made
him envision the ghost of the youth. At last, the monk came to see the
folly of all human pursuits and retreated to Mount Kōya to devote him-
self to the invocation of Amida’s name (nenbutsu).
On the first anniversary of Hanamatsu’s death, Genmu chanced
upon a monk who turned out to be the very killer of his beloved. The
young Onodera had renounced the world to dedicate his life to praying
for the repose of his father and Hanamatsu. For the next four decades,
the two recluses chanted the holy name of Amida day and night in their
hermitage. One day, Genmu, at age seventy-seven, and Onodera, aged
sixty, were together reborn into the Amida Buddha’s Pure Land.

QR

In closing, the narrator remarks that Hanamatsu was an avatar

of Monju Bosatsu, adding that those who have heard this story
should read one scroll of a Buddhist sutra and recite the holy name of
Amida. If people follow this guidance, the narrator assures, at the end
of their life, Amida will absolutely escort them to the Pure Land.
Much like the other archetypal chigo tales, The Tale of Genmu
has several source texts. One is an episode included in an obscure col-
lection of records called Documents of the Satake Family (Satake-shi
monjo, ca. late Muromachi period). It is a brief account of a histori-
cal monk named Genmu with the basic outline of The Tale of Genmu,
although there is no decisive evidence to show which text was com-
posed first.68 The Tale of Genmu is also known to allude to two short
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 67

episodes (12:15 and 12:21) from the Sangoku denki (Records of the
Three Countries, fifteenth century) and a well-known otogi zōshi
called The Three Priests (Sannin hōshi).69 I will return to the signifi-
cance of The Three Priests later.
Among the many interesting aspects of The Tale of Genmu that
separate this tale from the other archetypes, the most remarkable is
that the two protagonists, Genmu and Hanamatsu, do not even come
close to becoming lovers. Their “first night together” is spent playing
the game of renga along with two of Hanamatsu’s colleagues. By the
time Genmu travels all the way to Shimotsuke to see the youth, he
has already been deceased. Nonetheless, the erotic tension between
the two is evident. In the letter to Genmu, Hanamatsu writes, “[T]he
desire to stay here one more day burns deep in my heart,” which
makes one wonder if the two priests decide to leave early in the morn-
ing to prevent Hanamatsu from seeing Genmu again.70 Moreover, the
boy attaches a romantic poem to this letter: Awake all night / on my
cold and lonely travel pillow / I cannot see you in dreams I do not
dream. For these reasons, it is not far-fetched to include The Tale of
Genmu as an archetypal chigo monogatari, although Genmu’s feel-
ings are not exactly reciprocated by Hanamatsu. During the winter
months, Genmu is restless, yearning for the youth, whereas the chigo
is preoccupied by his thirst for vengeance. Therefore, when the flute-
playing ghost sees the face of Genmu in the abandoned hall, he re-
marks, “Somehow, traveling monk, I feel as though I’ve met you
before [. . .] but I don’t quite remember.”71
The fact that Genmu and Hanamatsu fail to become lovers does
not mean that this tale is uninterested in, let alone critical of, nan-
shoku. On the first anniversary of Hanamatsu’s death, Genmu no-
tices the presence of the young man Onodera at Kōbō Daishi’s shrine
on Mount Kōya: “This young monk was only about twenty years old
and wore a tattered black hempen robe. He seemed totally intent on
his salvation in the next world, as he too recited the nenbutsu. ‘How
strange!’ thought Genmu. ‘As young as he is, he seems very anxious
about his fate in the next world. How wonderful!’ ”72 Following their
introduction to each other, the two men marvel at their strange fate,
entangled in the cycle of deep attachment. In The Three Priests, the
otogi zōshi to which The Tale of Genmu is believed to be alluding, a
man whose beloved wife has been brutally murdered renounces the
world. On his pilgrimage, he chances upon his wife’s killer, who has
also taken the holy vow. The former forgives the latter and, along
68 Chapter One

with a third priest, they become friends with the same goal of attain-
ing ōjō. At the end of this story, the three monks speak in affirmation
of the Buddhist principle of nonduality: wickedness and goodness are
no different, and vulnerability is not meaningless because it makes
humans turn to Buddhism.73
Similarly, Genmu feels no bitterness toward Hanamatsu’s killer.
Each monk treats the other as a mentor; they “devoutly recited the
nenbutsu and vowed that they would share the same lotus seat when
they were reborn together at the very highest level of the [Pure
Land].”74 The two recluses’ sincere commitment to each other is
praised by the narrator: “What a blessed fate they shared!”75
As the two tutelary gods celebrate the destruction of the En-
ryakuji and Miidera complexes in Autumn Night, The Tale of Genmu
also illustrates the transcending power of nonduality. Two kinds of
sin, Genmu’s obsession with Hanamatsu and the young Onodera’s
vendetta against Hanamatsu, do not elicit karmic retribution. In-
stead, Genmu, after losing his beloved to the cycle of violence, ac-
quires a fellow practitioner of nenbutsu who shares Hanamatsu’s
youthful beauty, samurai lineage, and the experiences of losing a fa-
ther to violence and avenging the death of his father. Their attach-
ments are transformed into a revelation of higher truths and lifelong
opportunities for redemption.

N anshoku Relationships in the Archetypal

C higo M onogatari
Now that we have grasped the basic structures of the three arche-
types, let us compare the nanshoku relationships depicted in these
texts. First, the chigo in Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth stands
out in the acolyte tale genre because the story does not inform the
readers of his name, home temple, or lineage. The only information
provided is the disturbing backstory that the youth has run away
from his home temple without a place to go. Further, he magically
appears before the aged monk, playing the flute in the middle of an
empty field, which betrays the standard protocol for a lovers’ encoun-
ter in romantic tales.76 The typical process of courtship in Heian-style
monogatari and acolyte tales begins with the man catching a glimpse
of an unsuspecting woman or a youth, followed by a series of poetry
exchanges, after which the love interest either agrees or declines to
meet the suitor.77
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 69

Obviously, the most unusual aspect of Kannon’s Manifestation

as a Youth is that the story centers on a master-chigo relationship
(albeit an unofficial one), something we do not see in any other chigo
monogatari. It is significant that none of the extant chigo monogatari
that came after Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth adopted its frame-
work—why was this the case?
To tackle this question, we need to return to the premise of the
chigo kanjō initiation ritual, which explains the official reasoning be-
hind the chigo system. The chigo kanjō rite posits that the youth is
reborn as an avatar of Kannon in order to absorb the transgressions
of imperfect mortals and guide them toward eventual enlightenment.
The sobering truth, however, is that the acolytes were not tasked with
helping just any unenlightened beings by having sex with them. It is
abundantly clear that the official beneficiaries of their erotic labor
were their master priests, who offered the chigo and their families
valuable cultural capital in return. This glaring fact, I would argue,
created a dilemma for authors wishing to compose a fictional tale
that realistically depicted the chigo system. If the master priest was
already high-ranking enough to be served by a chigo and he had
earned the high station as a result of his religious merit, he should
have been the last to benefit from the mercy of the living bodhisattva.
This inherent flaw in the chigo system must be one of the reasons aco-
lyte tales do not focus on the sexuality of the master-chigo dyad. Such
a relationship is especially at odds with the hōben-tan framework.
What kind of shortcoming should a high-ranking cleric display to
inspire a bodhisattva to offer help? Also, if the high priest is struck by
the emptiness of carnal desire upon the loss of his chigo, the only
reasonable conclusion of the story is for him (and all the other master
priests) to forsake the privilege of being served by chigo. Such a con-
clusion, of course, would not be congruent with the institution of the
chigo system.
In light of this structural impasse, Kannon’s Manifestation as a
Youth can be read as an attempt to create a poignant sympathetic re-
sponse tale (albeit based on an older origin story) without undermin-
ing the chigo system. Consequently, the author chose to tell the story
of an anonymous priest whose sincere worship of Hasedera Kannon
was rewarded with an unofficial acolyte and the promise of a rebirth
into the Pure Land. Furthermore, to provide a reasonable context in
which the unofficial chigo could be granted, the monk had to be an
elderly man who needed someone to care for him and pray for his
70 Chapter One

posthumous salvation. (In other words, it would make little sense for
a younger monk to spend three years and three months praying for a
disciple.78)
Nevertheless, there was a drawback to making the beneficiary of
Hasedera Kannon’s sympathetic response a man in his sixties: doing
so limited his opportunity to “pay it forward,” compared to Genmu
and Keikai (Senzai). Genmu spends forty years on the nenbutsu prac-
tice, whereas Senzai’s renewed faith pays off on a much larger scale;
he rebuilds Ungoji and reaches out to the lay community, spreading
the wisdom of the Buddha. Another way to look at Genmu’s and
Senzai’s fervent religious devotion is to consider that it is partly moti-
vated by their desire to accumulate Buddhist merit to ensure the sal-
vation of their beloved, because neither of them learns that the chigo
was an avatar of a bodhisattva.
Conversely, not only does the aged monk in Kannon’s Manifes-
tation as a Youth learn that the chigo was an avatar of Hasedera Kan-
non a few weeks after the boy’s death, but the priest also receives an
assurance that he will attain ōjō in seven years. What might one do or
not do when his afterlife is guaranteed by none other than the bod-
hisattva Kannon himself? Instead of continuing with the unofficial
master-chigo model, later stories devised a new framework: designat-
ing a character other than the chigo’s master to be his lover/admirer,
represented by Keikai, Genmu, and many others. This way, the ques-
tion concerning the master priest’s sagaciousness remains outside the
reader’s sight and mind.

The Politics of Aging and C higo N anshoku

Another reason an author might avoid featuring the “unofficial mas-
ter-chigo” model is the age structure of this relationship. As noted
above, for the worshipper of Hasedera Kannon to pray for a disciple,
he had to be an aged priest. Though such a premise poses no chal-
lenge for an ordinary, nonerotic Buddhist narrative, it is a different
matter for a romantic tale, as the lover’s advanced age can indeed
undermine the effectiveness of the story.
Creating a romantic chigo monogatari normally involves depict-
ing the homosocial, erotically charged monastic milieu, wherein the
male characters are arranged according to their relative sexual attrac-
tiveness. In this constellation, the chigo character is automatically set
on the pinnacle of the pyramid as the object of collective sexual
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 71

desire. The acolytes are followed by younger and junior-ranking

monks, and then by their older and higher-ranking counterparts. This
arrangement exhibits a reverse correlation between the seniority and
attractiveness of the clergymen. Put another way, unlike wealth, wis-
dom, and social influence (also known as economic, cultural, and so-
cial capital, respectively), which one tends to accumulate over time,
desirability (or “erotic capital,” to use Catherine Hakim’s term) tends
to decline over time.79 Yet the author of Kannon’s Manifestation as a
Youth paired two individuals with an enormous erotic capital gap as
the main characters, at the risk of undercutting the religiosity and
aesthetic appeal of this tale.
The genius of Autumn Night, The Tale of Genmu, and many
other chigo tales is that the authors chose a younger monk in his late
twenties or early thirties from a distant temple for the role of the aco-
lyte’s temporary lover. Thus, they dealt with the issues of both religi-
osity and aesthetic appeal at once. Keikai, Genmu, and other young
monk-lovers are always portrayed as handsome and masculine in
ways the chigo’s masters are not. For instance, the narrator of The
Tale of Genmu depicts the abbot of Chikurinbō as a visibly aged man
with frost-tinged eyebrows and a wrinkly forehead.80 The abbot also
likens himself to an “old pine tree” (oiki no matsu). This monochro-
mic, gloomy imagery contrasts with the colorful and vibrant image of
Hanamatsu (“pine tree in blossom”), whom the abbot calls a “blos-
som on a young tree” (wakaki no hana).81 Edward R. Drott shows
that the aged body was particularly marginalized in premodern Ja-
pan. The eighth-century mythohistories A Record of Ancient Matters
and A Chronicle of Japan frequently represent earthly deities (kuni-
tsu-kami) as old men and women who are also “physically weak,
sexually barren, and unsightly.”82 These earthly deities are, Drott
notes, “in contradistinction to the heavenly deities (ama-tsu-kami)
who inhabited the Plain of High Heaven and from whom the imperial
line purportedly descended.”83
Around the late eleventh century, however, the formally stigma-
tized corporeality of the elderly became more nuanced and began to
function as “an opportune device for those marginalized by tradi-
tional spatial and social schemas.”84 This phenomenon can be ob-
served in numerous medieval legends and engi stories that feature
bodhisattvas and buddhas in the form of an elder (okina), as does the
genre of auspicious noh plays (wakinō or shobanme-mono). In fact,
the imagery of Hanamatsu’s master may be alluding to Zeami’s
72 Chapter One

(1363?–1443?) famous wakinō called Old Pine (Oimatsu), whose

protagonist is the spirit of the titular plant, a symbol of longevity.
This newfound prestige of the aged body in the medieval period,
however, did not go so far as to render an elderly man the ideal ro-
mantic hero.
In monogatari, it is customary to mention the age of the object
of desire, which indicates the importance of the age structure in a
romantic relationship. The narrator almost always mentions the age
of a male character’s love interest, whether it is an adolescent boy or
a woman, usually as soon as he or she appears in the tale. In The Tale
of Genmu, too, Hanamatsu’s age is noted at his first mention in the
text (“There, Genmu noticed a youth of sixteen or seventeen”).85 Yet
we never learn whether Hanamatsu’s colleagues, Sotsu and Jijū, are
young or old. Similarly, there is no age description of the innkeeper or
the priest who guides Genmu to the abandoned hall. In contrast,
Genmu’s initial encounter with Onodera is narrated as follows:
“There [Genmu] was fervently reciting the nenbutsu, praying for the
salvation of each and every being in the universe, when he noticed a
young monk. This young monk was only about twenty years old.”86
This description suggests Genmu’s erotic gaze.
By consolidating all the erotic desire for the chigo in the younger
monks, most acolyte tales obscure the fact that the youths are sup-
posedly in monogamous sexual relationships with their teachers. In
the case of The Tale of Genmu, the Chikurinbō abbot’s white eye-
brows and wrinkled face and his self-comparison to an old pine in-
validate his sexual vitality. Curiously, the abbot shows no concern
about Genmu’s obsession toward the youth, even though he travels
hundreds of miles on foot to see the abbot’s beloved chigo after meet-
ing him only once. The ghost of Hanamatsu does not seem to worry
about slighting his master, either—he escorts Genmu to Chikurinbō,
where his master resides, telling Genmu that the abbot will greet him
the following morning. The lack of virility in Hanamatsu’s master
signifies his role as a nonromantic character; similarly, Umewaka’s
teacher in Autumn Night is completely absent. As such, the sexuality
of the master-chigo dyad in most acolyte tales is pushed into the ob-
scure background of the narrative, and the readers instead focus on
the acolyte’s (normally fleeting) romantic affair with someone other
than his teacher.87
The readers of Autumn Night and The Tale of Genmu are given
opportunities to appreciate the bittersweet love affairs of Keikai and
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 73

Genmu before the sudden and tragic demise of the youths. The excru-
ciating grief and pain thrust upon Keikai and Genmu, however, turn
into a powerful impetus for the men to refocus on their missions as
Buddhist priests. In this framework, it is the institution of the Bud-
dhist faith that prevails in the end, with its principles being upheld as
the supreme truth. In the meantime, the chigo system is left unchal-
lenged. The interlocking structure of love and religious awakening is
the essence of the chigo monogatari genre, although the details vary
depending on the story (see figure 4). Ultimately, the production of
acolyte tales, as of most other literary texts—and other forms of art,
for that matter—was intricately entangled with the creation of power,
knowledge, and “reality.” The corpus of the chigo tales functioned as
a cog in the power-generating engine of medieval Buddhist establish-
ments, which further benefited the elite society at large.88

Arranged Romance as a Romance Killer

To continue the analysis of love and religiosity, the dovetailed foun-
dation of many chigo monogatari, I posit that depicting the main
characters’ love affair as romantically as possible was a significant
preoccupation of the authors of these pro-Buddhist tales. This is be-
cause the more devastated the monk is by the loss of the chigo, the
more profound his awakening will be. To that end, it makes sense for
chigo monogatari to locate romance outside the master-disciple hier-
archy, since the chigo system was fundamentally incompatible with
what premodern audiences (like today’s readers) viscerally associated
with “romance.”
According to Eva Illouz’s theory, the concept of “enchanted
love” in medieval Europe literature exhibits the following six attri-
butes: (1) its object is sacred; (2) it cannot be explained; (3) it over-
whelms the experiential reality of the lover; (4) there is no distinction
between the subject and object of love; (5) the object of love is unique
and incommensurable; and (6) the person in love is oblivious to his or
her self-interest as a criterion for loving another person.89 The vast
cultural differences between Europe and Japan notwithstanding, pre-
modern Japanese literary tradition is consistent with Illouz’s analysis,
including her take on the importance of “love at first sight” in a ro-
mantic tale. According to her description, “love at first sight” is an
event that occurs when one is least expecting it and completely capti-
vates the subject. Such “enchanted love,” Illouz remarks, “affirms the
74 Chapter One

radical uniqueness of the object of love, the impossibility to substitute

one object of love for another, the incommensurability of its object,
the refusal (or impossibility) to submit feelings to calculation and to
rational knowledge.”90
Indeed, romantic monogatari typically privilege a man’s love at
first sight as the ideal beginning for a courtship. Keikai and Genmu
instantly fall in love with a chigo even though Umewaka belongs to
Keikai’s enemy temple and Hanamatsu is living in a distant province.
Perhaps these obstacles even fuel the monks’ passion. In contrast, not
only does the youth in Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth simply ap-
pear before the aged monk but also follows the monk home without
any challenge, conflict, or courtship. Their relationship thus appears
less romantic than those in the other archetypal chigo tales. Ulti-
mately, the trope of “enchanted love” is diametrically opposed to
what the chigo system was built upon: a formally arranged, politi-
cally motivated, short-term exchange of favors.
One of the prime examples of the “enchanted love” stories of
Heian Japan is The Tale of Ochikubo (Ochikubo monogatari, ca.
990). The first half of the tale illustrates the plight of the heroine,
Lady Ochikubo, the only child born to the middle counselor
(chūnagon) Tadayori and his secondary wife. Upon the death of
this wife, Tadayori brings his young daughter to the mansion where
he lives with his primary wife. The stepmother, however, is a vi-
cious woman who confines the girl in a dungeon-like space in the
subbasement of the residence and makes her work as an unpaid
seamstress. The major turning point in Lady Ochikubo’s life ar-
rives when the handsome son of a powerful minister, Michiyori,
falls in love with her. He marries the young lady while she is in
captivity and later manages to take her to his mother’s villa in
Nijō. In the second half of the story, Michiyori orchestrates an
elaborate scheme of retaliation against Lady Ochikubo’s evil step-
mother. Michiyori, his beloved wife, and their adorable children
soon rise to power, and their daughter becomes the primary con-
sort of the emperor.91
The Tale of Ochikubo can be justly dubbed a story of “en-
chanted love.” The central theme of this tale is the triumph of the
couple’s disadvantaged love (i.e., with no interfamilial backing and
no intrinsic political or economic advantage for Michiyori). Michi-
yori even goes against the norms of his time by taking only one wife
and remaining completely faithful to her.
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 75

Michiyori, of course, is an anomaly for a hero of a romantic tale.

Polyamory and its consequences are the driving force of numerous
courtly tales of premodern Japan. In such monogatari, arranged mar-
riages are often depicted as loveless and tragic, reflecting the idea that
these arrangements were made for the sole purpose of benefiting the
two families; the couples’ feelings and desires were irrelevant. For
example, many of the primary wives in The Tale of Genji, including
the hero’s two official wives, are neglected by their husbands (e.g.,
Aoi and the Third Princess [Genji], Lady Kokiden [Emperor Kirit-
subo], the first wife of Captain Higekuro, the primary wife of Tō no
Chūjō, Ochiba no Miya [Kashiwagi], and the Second Princess [Ka-
oru]), while the men are romantically involved with their (usually
lesser-ranking) lovers. Even though, in reality, primary wives should
have been able to find solace in their noble lineage and official status,
monogatari texts often foreground such women’s loneliness, jealousy
toward their rivals (the “chosen ones”), and self-loathing.
This in no way means that Heian courtly tales glamorized the
lives of secondary wives, mistresses, and unofficial lovers. In these
tales, such women cannot be free of anxiety about their lack of inter-
familial backing and social recognition. If they are financially depen-
dent on their male lovers (as in the case of the shirabyōshi dancer
Giō), a change of heart on the part of the men can mean serious
ramifications. Worse, these politically powerless women sometimes
live in fear of retaliation by the primary wives.92 Even Genji’s favor-
ite lady, Murasaki, cannot escape the precarious fate of being an un-
official wife. After a long period of relatively happy marriage, Genji
suddenly takes a much younger wife of royal lineage, the Third Prin-
cess, to fill the position of primary consort that has remained vacant
for decades after the death of Aoi. Utterly devastated and heartbro-
ken, Murasaki weakens and dies prematurely without regaining
complete peace of mind. Thus, the world of Heian courtly tales, re-
volving as it does around socially sanctioned male polyamory, often
highlights the female characters’ anxieties, regardless of their rank
and status.
Although I maintain that the best analogy for the chigo system is
arranged marriage, there are key differences between the two institu-
tions, the most crucial of which is that the chigo is in a position to
enjoy the perks of both primary wives and unofficial lovers. He pos-
sesses a high social status in his home temple, familial backing, and
societal recognition, just like the primary wife of a nobleman.
76 Chapter One

However, the youth is also free from the type of insecurities that can
haunt a primary wife for not being the “chosen one.” This is because
the chigo is by design an erotic being who is at the center of erotic
desire in monasteries and in public. In the world of chigo monoga-
tari, too, the youth typically plays the role of the “chosen one” and
the object of the enchanted, forbidden love. As a testament to the
idolized boy’s enormous erotic capital, a young, handsome monk
takes many risks in order to pursue his affection.
Contrary to the critics’ assumption that the chigo system was
inherently exploitative, it is clear that this interdomainal arrangement
was founded upon conditions that empowered the acolytes and made
it difficult for the master priests to abuse their power. The youth had
the option to return home or pursue a different master if necessary; he
possessed more erotic capital than his master; the arrangement was
short-term; and procreation was impossible.93 In the meantime, the
fictional world of chigo monogatari distracts the readers from the un-
derlying architecture of the chigo system. These tales enchant the au-
dience with a touching account of wholesome love, which inevitably
comes to a sudden halt upon the expulsion of the chigo from the nar-
rative or his entrance into adulthood. Thus, the illegitimate love affair
of the protagonists threatens neither the master-chigo sexual union
nor the temple-family alliance. Far from destabilizing the establish-
ment, the passion and plight of the surviving lover are skillfully co-
opted into the pro-Buddhist message that protects, strengthens, and
ensures the continuation of this society-wide interdependency.

Conclusion
This chapter has provided an overview of the chigo monogatari genre
and its archetypes, qualified by the five traits strongly associated with
“chigo monogatari-ness.” Also shown in this chapter is that the three
representative acolyte tales, Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth, Au-
tumn Night, and The Tale of Genmu, use the framework of the deeply
romantic and didactic hōben-tan as their blueprint. Through a com-
parative analysis of the three tales, the two pillars of chigo monoga-
tari—enchanted love and religious awakening—have become
discernible. Autumn Night can be read as the epitome of chigo mono-
gatari because of its powerful structure that joins those two pillars
through the depiction of Ishiyama Kannon’s compassion for all sen-
tient beings and aspiration to achieve his own enlightenment.
 Chigo Monogatari: Central Themes, Archetypes, and the Politics 77

I have also attempted to solve the major conundrum of the aco-

lyte tale genre, which preexisting scholarship has yet to tackle: why do
chigo monogatari almost always focus on the illegitimate romantic re-
lations between a chigo and someone other than his master? As argued
above, the answer probably has something to do with the fact that the
chigo system was built upon the pretense that it existed for the benefit
of all clergymen when in fact it did not. Therefore, these fictional tales
needed to keep the readers’ focus away from the sexual relationship
between a chigo and his master. Though Kannon’s Manifestation as a
Youth offered an alternative to the formal master-chigo dyad, a few
difficulties remained. An aged clergyman nearing the end of his time,
the monk had little time left to accumulate religious merit after the
Hasedera Kannon’s divine intervention was revealed. Furthermore, in
a romantic tale, it was not ideal for a sexually marginalized elderly
person to form an erotic relationship with an adolescent boy.
As the three archetypal chigo tales aptly maintain the readers’
attention away from the chigo system, the vulnerable and precarious
position of master priests can go unnoticed. Nevertheless, one text
fearlessly tackles this issue. In the next chapter, I will examine the
boldest way of dealing with the unattractive, lustful high priests’ di-
lemma. The text, as we will see, is a collection of five short vignettes
with simultaneously erotic and absurd storylines and astonishingly
sensual images that turn the master priests’ insecurities into carni-
valesque humor.94
 Chapter 2

A Booklet of Acolytes
An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys

T his chapter will explore chigo’s erotic adventures as they are rep-
resented in the images and texts of a fourteenth-century illus-
trated handscroll (emaki), originally called Daigoji’s Illustrations of
Male-Male Love (Daigo nanshoku-e). Commonly known today as A
Booklet of Acolytes (Chigo no sōshi), this work consists of five short
stories with colorful, striking images of erotic encounters between a
chigo and his male partner. In keeping with the chigo monogatari
tradition, the youth’s lover is a man other than his teacher and some-
one who is usually much younger than the master priest.
The original version of the Booklet of Acolytes has been lost,
and the identities of its author, calligrapher, and artist are un-
known.1 Currently, Sanbō-in Cloister at Daigoji Temple in Kyoto
possesses a copy with a colophon of “finished copying in Genkō 1
(1321),” although it is not available for public viewing. Another
copy belongs to the British Museum, and others are in various pri-
vate collections.2
In addition to being one of the fourteen extant chigo monoga-
tari, the Booklet of Acolytes can be categorized as one of the three
“ko-shunga,” or pre-Tokugawa-period erotica, along with A Book of
the Small Brushwood Fences (Koshibagaki zōshi, ca. late twelfth cen-
tury) and An Illustrated Tale of a Bagged Monk (Fukuro hōshi eko-
toba, ca. late fourteenth century). In fact, approaching the Booklet of
Acolytes both as a literary text and as a piece of visual art is vital to
understanding this multimedia work, in which the main narratives,
the illustrations, and the “in-picture dialogues” (gachūshi 画中詞, or

78
 A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys 79

inscriptions of the subjects’ utterances within the illustrations) con-

stantly interact to create complex, nuanced layers of meaning.
It is an understatement to say that the Booklet of Acolytes is unlike
any other chigo monogatari. Rather than a stand-alone narrative, it is
an omnibus-style collection of vignettes. More significantly, this work is
unique because of its absence of religious didacticism and embrace of
humor. For instance, many chigo characters and their sexual partners
vocalize their apprehension about committing adultery yet go on to pur-
sue wildly sensual pleasure within the high priests’ home cloisters, im-
plying that their “nervousness” is simply rhetorical, employed to
enhance the comical undertones of this work. Furthermore, the Booklet
of Acolytes is the only chigo tale that blatantly celebrates a “vulgar”
(zoku) sensibility that is often associated with the explicatory tale (set-
suwa) genre, as opposed to the typical “elegant” (ga) aesthetics, diction,
and ambiance of most chigo monogatari, waka, and courtly tales. The
narrator and the characters of each short episode in the Booklet of Aco-
lytes utter shockingly blunt words such as “mara” (cock), “setsuri”
(masturbation), and “shiri” (buttocks), while the acolytes and their lov-
ers indulge in a variety of sexual acts with no prospect of karmic retri-
bution or awakening to the emptiness of somatic desire.
The exceedingly erotic nature of the Booklet of Acolytes extends
to its illustrations. There are sixteen images in total, of which only
two are not sexually explicit, although they are erotically charged.
Each of the remaining fourteen images depicts a single motif: a man
stimulating the chigo’s anus by fondling, licking, applying heat, lubri-
cating, or penetrating with a penis, a hand, or a dildo. This means
that the illustrations do not represent the complete duration of the
episodes but rather focus on the characters’ engagement in a variety
of sexual acts, as the primary function of erotic arts is to provide the
viewers with arousing images.

The Three Medieval S hunga

Chinese and Japanese shunga
In today’s Japan, shunga 春画 (“spring pictures”) is the most common
nomenclature to refer to premodern erotic paintings of East Asian ori-
gin, with the spring season being a euphemism for “sex” in classical
Chinese.3 It is known that Daoist sexual treatises from China were
widely read by Japanese elites as early as the eighth century, and such
80 Chapter Two

texts probably inspired and influenced the production of Japanese erotic

art.4 Yet Japanese erotic art also developed its own styles and conven-
tions. A keen attention to the genitalia, shown through intricately de-
tailed and often oversized representations, and a humorous undertone
are characteristics of pre-nineteenth-century Japanese erotica that are
absent from Chinese shunga.5 Furthermore, according to Hayakawa
Monta, the three medieval shunga (ko-shunga) share the following dis-
tinctive features: (1) the use of a narrative form, (2) main characters
who are aristocrats and religious figures, and (3) a setting in the vicinity
of Kyoto.6 I will elaborate on these points in the coming sub-sections.

Shunga as narrative
Among the three narrative-based ko-shunga, A Book of the Small
Brushwood Fences is remarkable in that the source story is a histori-
cal incident, a scandal that allegedly occurred in 986, involving the
imperial house.7 One year prior to this event, Princess Nariko (n.d.;
also Saishi) had moved to Nonomiya Shrine in Sagano, where she
was scheduled to spend the two-year purification period that was re-
quired for a newly appointed imperial priestess to serve at Ise Grand
Shrine. Although an imperial priestess had to remain a virgin for the
duration of her tenure (i.e., an imperial reign), a rumor that Nariko
was having a love affair at Nonomiya with a member of the imperial
guards, Taira no Munemitsu, spread to the capital. The court opened
an investigation into the matter, but the reigning sovereign, Emperor
Kazan (r. 984–986), suddenly abdicated the throne before a conclu-
sion was reached. Consequently, Nariko returned to the capital with-
out having occupied the prestigious post of Ise priestess.8 There are
two major lineages of variants of this shunga scroll: earlier, shorter
versions characterized by the author’s critical attitude toward this
scandal, and later, more elaborate versions that tend to romanticize
the incident. Both lineages, nonetheless, openly depict forbidden sex
between Nariko and Munemitsu in the sacred space of Nonomiya.9
The second ko-shunga piece, An Illustrated Tale of a Bagged
Monk, is a humorous story about a lewd monk who tricks three la-
dies-in-waiting on a pilgrimage into having sex with him. Later, when
the monk visits the same women in court, they hide him in a large
fabric bag with a hole for his penis to protrude from and turn it over
to their mistress, a nun (in some variants, an aristocratic lady). The
mistress enjoys him and lends this sex toy to her cousin, also a nun.
 A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys 81

Once the monk’s stamina is completely drained and he is no longer

useful, the women kick him out.10 As in the case of the Brushwood
Fences, different variants connote different judgments about the sen-
suality of the women involved in the Bagged Monk story.

Kyoto elites and religious figures as subjects of shunga

The second and third attributes of the ko-shunga, the featuring of reli-
gious figures and settings in or near the capital, result from the fact that
Kyoto was the center of political, religious, and cultural power from
the late eighth century to the end of the sixteenth century. As men-
tioned earlier, the Booklet of Acolytes was originally known by the title
of Daigo nanshoku-e, and one of the oldest copies of this scroll cur-
rently belongs to one of the subtemples of the Daigoji complex in
Kyoto. This indicates that this emaki was most likely commissioned by
a prominent figure affiliated with this prestigious Buddhist power-
house. Although none of the episodes is set in Daigoji, all of the places
mentioned in the Booklet of Acolytes are within the vicinity of Kyoto.
The connection between the Brushwood Fences and the Kyoto
elites is also significant, even beyond the imperial lineage of the main
character, Princess Nariko. The original calligrapher is traditionally
thought to have been the immensely formidable Cloistered Emperor
Go-Shirakawa (1127–1192), and the scroll was purportedly produced
as a wedding gift from Go-Shirakawa’s consort, Taira no Shigeko
(1142–1176), to her niece, Taira no Noriko (1155–1213, the daughter
of Kiyomori, later Kenreimon-in), upon her marriage to Emperor
Takakura (1161–1181).11 Even though it is nearly impossible to prove
or disprove such claims, it is noteworthy that members of the imperial
family were associated with the production and ownership of an erotic
scroll based on a historical (and historic) scandal of the court.
Finally, the Bagged Monk also involves women attached to the
imperial court (the ladies-in-waiting and their mistress) as well as re-
ligious figures (the priest and nuns). All in all, it is clear that the cre-
ation of the three ko-shunga was tied to an effort to represent social
and religious elites in a highly sensual, vulgar, and comical light.

E maki Production as the Reproduction of Power

Before discussing the contents of the Booklet of Acolytes, it is useful
to consider what it may have meant for the people of
82 Chapter Two

fourteenth-century Japan to commission a high-quality emaki. This

process demanded a considerable amount of time, planning, and re-
sources on the part of the “producer” (the one who commissioned
the project), and talent and dedication among the collaborative team:
the author of the narrative, the illustrator, the calligrapher, and the
artisan who assembled everything into the form of a beautiful hand-
scroll. By commissioning an original emaki or even high-quality cop-
ies and/or by owning a collection of premium works, the producer
exhibited his or her economic, cultural, and social capital to others in
the same social circle.12 Because the Booklet of Acolytes was a collec-
tion of five independent stories with masterful paintings, its produc-
tion would have involved even more labor than usual on the part of
the project team.
What is fascinating is that wealthy, cultured figures spent time
and resources to produce the three ko-shunga with over-the-top, ta-
boo-breaking tropes: the imperial maiden’s sexual adventure in the
sacred shrine; the court ladies’ and nuns’ sexual exploitation of the
lecherous monk-in-a-bag; and the Buddhist acolytes’ illicit and daring
tête-à-têtes. Unlike the connection between the composition of the
archetypal chigo tales and the support these stories gave the institu-
tion of Buddhism, the elite individuals’ motivation for creating ap-
parently satirical erotic art is not straightforward.13
Despite the intriguing subject matter and superb artistic value,
little research has been conducted on the politicocultural significance
of ko-shunga production. When it comes to the Booklet of Acolytes,
even less is known. There has yet to be a serious academic engage-
ment with this work; a handful of researchers have simply mentioned
its title and given a brief description in various studies of shunga,
chigo monogatari, and/or premodern Japanese homosexuality. Un-
fortunately, on some occasions, the Booklet of Acolytes has been ap-
propriated as a foil for the presumably more “egalitarian” shudō of
the Tokugawa period and/or modern (i.e., Westernized) homosexual-
ity. I will return to this issue in my discussion of vignette 2.
Despite the relative lack of scholarly interest thus far, the cre-
ation of the Booklet of Acolytes is nothing short of fascinating, even
more so than that of the other two ko-shunga, due to what appears to
be its creator’s hyperbolic self-mockery. That is to say, this erotic
scroll was likely commissioned by a powerful figure affiliated with
Daigoji and with a deep appreciation for nanshoku, and he probably
viewed this emaki as part of a group that included others of
 A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys 83

comparable status. This means that the premise of the work puts the
primary audience in the position of a cuckold.
Then why would these powerful clergymen have enjoyed read-
ing such stories and viewing the vivid illustrations of chigo’s infidel-
ity? Did these masters of chigo take a masochistic pleasure in
imagining their own beloved youths with other men? Or did they
simply shift their perspective to that of the men who “get lucky” in
the stories? And why did the producer of the Booklet of Acolytes
want to tell such self-deprecating stories? Although it is impossible to
provide definite answers to these questions, this chapter will suggest
partial answers by closely examining the narratives and images of this
work in comparison with other chigo monogatari and ko-shunga.

A Reading of the B ooklet of A colytes

The basic organization of the five vignettes in the Booklet of Acolytes
can be described as an “A-B-B-B-C” structure.14 This means that vi-
gnette 1 (“Narrative Type A”) and vignette 5 (“Narrative Type C”) are
distinct from each other and also from vignettes 2, 3, and 4 (“Narra-
tive Type B”), the three middle stories with almost identical plots.
Moreover, the number of images included in each vignette is arranged
to form a pattern. In all the variants I have examined, plate 3 has
clearly been mispositioned; it has been erroneously inserted into the
beginning of vignette 5, although it is the first image of vignette 4. Once
this correction is made, the numbers of the images for the five stories
exhibit the “5–1–2–3–5” pattern. Again, the opening and the closing
episodes contrast with the middle three. Due to their structural simi-
larities, I will first consider the three middle episodes together, followed
by an independent discussion of vignette 1, and another of vignette 5.

Mercy Mercy Me 1: Vignette 2

Deducing from the recurrent pattern of this emaki, the opening para-
graph of vignette 2 seems to be missing. Without introducing the char-
acters (the sagacious high priest, his beautiful chigo, and the chigo’s
suitor), the story begins abruptly with a love letter sent by a monk to
his abbot’s favorite chigo: “At first, I tried to suppress my feelings like
the famous poem, but now that my feelings for you have grown so
deep, I am crying a river and my sleeves cannot stop it from overflow-
ing, just as those famous poems describe.”15 Both of the poems to
84 Chapter Two

which this letter alludes are from the seventh imperial waka anthology,
A Waka Collection of One Thousand Years (Senzai wakashū, 1187).
One is by Jakuzen (n.d.): Michinoku no / shinobu mojizuri/ shinobitsu-
tsu / iro niwa ideji / midare mo zo suru (As I suppress my feelings / like
the Michinoku prints / my face may appear / calm to you / but my heart
is in turmoil).16 The other was composed by Minamoto no Arifusa
(n.d.): Morasabaya / shinobihatsu beki / namida-gawa / sode no shiga-
rami / kaku to bakari mo (What if I reveal / to my loved one / that I
have been crying a river? My sleeves cannot / shield any more tears).17
Reading this love letter, the youth responds, “I am not in a position to
conduct myself as I please. There is nothing I can do about my situa-
tion. Please stop thinking about me.”
Despite multiple rejections from the chigo, the monk refuses to
give up. At last the boy agrees to a tryst and instructs the monk to
hide in the tall reed grasses in the courtyard of their cloister. That
night, with his junior acolyte as a watchman, the chigo walks into the
reed bush and lifts up his robe, and the two have intercourse. They
fall in love and clandestinely meet night after night without discovery.
In closing, the narrator marvels at the chigo’s rare compassion, as
their affair continues even after the youth takes the tonsure.
As we will see in our examinations of vignettes 3 and 4, these
middle stories generally consist of (1) courtship by a monk; (2) the
chigo’s initial rejection; (3) the chigo’s eventual acceptance of the court-
ship; and (4) the couple’s carefree engagement in their illicit affair. The
first three stages are clearly parodying the clichéd pattern of the roman-
tic courtly tale. Then, in the last stage, the chigo exhibits extreme en-
thusiasm for the affair, evoking humor through the complete change in
the boy’s attitude. Of course, repeating the same scenario three times in
a row amplifies the comedic effects of the vignettes. That said, scholars
who have written about the Booklet of Acolytes have not yet acknowl-
edged the comical and subversive nature of this emaki.
As an example, let us consider Saeki Junko’s essay on what she
calls the “boy power” (shōnen-ryoku) phenomenon of the Tokugawa
period. According to Saeki, boys (shōnen) “played significant roles [in
culture of the new capital, Edo] as star kabuki actors and idols who
sustained the bond between men.”18 Although most of Saeki’s essay
pertains to shudō of the Tokugawa era, in the section titled “The Dif-
ferences from Medieval Nanshoku,” she presents the Booklet of Aco-
lytes as the antithesis of the “boy power” phenomenon. To make this
argument, she construes the acolyte-lover pairs within this emaki as a
 A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys 85

series of binaries, such as long hair/no hair, younger partner/older

partner, pale skin/dark skin, feminine/masculine, and passive/active.19
In this vein, Saeki comments on the illustration of the courtyard scene
(plate 1): “In the image wherein the monk is violating [okashite iru]
the chigo from behind, the latter is at the monk’s mercy solely out of
obligation [gimuteki ni sōryo no nasu ga mama] and he does not seem
to be subjectively experiencing ecstasy [shutaiteki ni kōkotsu-kan ni
hitatte iru].”20 This remark is followed by another: “In contrast, ado-
lescent boys depicted in the Edo shunga have smiles on their faces and
participate actively in sex with older men.”21
To judge by the above quote and the other points made through-
out her essay, Saeki seems to be mistaking the acolytes’ secret lovers in
this emaki for their masters. In any case, contrary to many of her asser-
tions, the sexual exploitation of the acolytes, either by a secret lover or
a master priest, is the last thing this erotica represents. Further, much
like the archetypal chigo monogatari I examined in chapter 1, the
world of the Booklet of Acolytes exhibits highly complex negotiations
of power among the characters (chigo, master priests, and chigo’s lov-
ers), as well as between the producer and the viewers of this emaki.
In the case of vignette 2, the text plainly explains that it is the
chigo who instructs the monk to wait in the courtyard. He then walks
up to the monk and lifts up his own robe to have intercourse. Coer-
cion, pressure, and obligation are not found in this story, and the
lover-monk has no power over the chigo, whether political, social, or
physical. Moreover, to ensure the success of this tryst, the boy enlists
his junior colleague as a watchman in case the abbot summons him.
This means that the abbot is being fooled by not just one but two of
his acolytes, hinting at the precarious power dynamics among the
characters. Indeed, after their first night, the chigo and the monk re-
peatedly see each other unbeknownst to their mutual superior (the
abbot), and their affair continues even after the chigo takes the ton-
sure—an act the narrator calls evidence of “singularly profound love.”
In the Booklet of Acolytes, such seriocomical juxtapositions of
ga (elegance) and zoku (vulgarity) appear throughout the illustra-
tions, narrations, and gachūshi. For instance, the narrator describes
the couple’s rendezvous in the moonlit courtyard in the following
way: “Standing in the dewy thicket, the chigo’s buttocks were
drenched with all the dewdrops dripping from the monk’s cock,”
mixing poetic and derogatory diction and images in a single sentence.
The final words of this story are uttered by the junior chigo inscribed
86 Chapter Two

within plate 1: “The poignant autumn winds seem to know [ori-shiri-

gao] now is their season.” This remark also juxtaposes ga and zoku,
as it puns on the word shiri (buttocks).
The most outlandishly humorous prop in this story is what ap-
pears to be a “reed suit,” which the monk is wearing on his naked
body, although the narrator does not mention this strange outfit in
the text. This means that after reading the last sentence of the narra-
tion (“I heard from a credible source that this singularly profound
love continued even after the chigo took the tonsure”), the viewer
carefully rerolls the scroll from right to left, proceeding to unroll the
paper to discover plate 1. We can only imagine the surprise the viewer
must have felt seeing this sight for the first time—the image of a na-
ked poet-suitor in a reed suit with his enormous erect penis ready to
penetrate the gorgeously dressed chigo.

Mercy Mercy Me 2: Vignette 3

In the opening of vignette 3, the narrator introduces a renowned high
priest of aristocratic birth who lives near Saga. He has a favorite chigo
whom he always keeps by his side. Nevertheless, an administrative
monk at this temple becomes infatuated with the high priest’s beloved
chigo and tries to pursue him. The youth thinks, “If I accepted his
advances and my master discovered it, my position in this temple
would be jeopardized,” and he pretends not to notice anything. Yet
the love-struck monk continues to let the youth know of his deep feel-
ings whenever an opportunity arises. The chigo finally gives in and
invites the monk to join him in the bath. As they soak in the warm
water together, the youth extends his leg to fondle the monk’s penis
with his foot. The chigo then rests his head on the edge of the tub like
a pillow and makes love to the monk (plate 2, vignette 3.1). Later that
night, the chigo asks the monk to stand nearby. After the high priest
falls asleep, the youth sticks his bottom out of the master’s bedroom
and lets the monk penetrate him (plate 2, vignette 3.2). The narrator
concludes the story by saying that such a fortunate event is very rare.
Vignette 3 shares the second episode’s basic plot and stock charac-
ters: a monk who pursues the favorite acolyte of the high priest, and the
acolyte who hesitates at first but eventually gives in to the passion of
the suitor. Once the chigo accepts the courtship, however, he becomes
extremely bold and naughty. First, he seduces the monk in the bathtub
by caressing his genitalia, and second, he has sex with the monk right
 A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys 87

beside his sleeping master (and his snoozing boy servant, making the
adorable sound “kūkū”). Again, given this audacity, the chigo’s earlier
apprehension about getting caught induces a comical effect.

Mercy Mercy Me 3: Vignette 4

In this story, a nobleman living in the vicinity of Hosshōji has an at-
tendant he dotes on.22 Yet every night, this boy, who is versed in the
martial arts, travels over to the area near Sonshōji and behaves “mis-
chievously” (plate 3). Among the many clergymen smitten with this
beautiful boy is an old, lowly monk who engages in menial labor in
the monastery. For several years, this aged monk complains about his
unrequited love. If people find out about his obsession with the youth,
there is no doubt that he will be banished from the monastery. Never-
theless, he feels so lovelorn that he can no longer keep his feelings a
secret. Discovering this old monk’s sincere heart, the youth changes
his belligerent manners and abandons the Way of the Warrior. One
day, the youth invites the old monk over to his chamber to wash his
feet. As the latter happily obliges, the boy exposes his buttocks, as if
by accident. So the monk inserts his wet fist into the youth’s bottom
(plate 4, vignette 4.2). They then proceed to have sex (plate 4, vignette
4.3). The narrator marvels at how this chigo has extended his compas-
sion to his secret lover’s colleagues, which is a rare thing to hear of.
Vignette 4 is yet another story about a capricious boy who pities
his suitor. But in this episode, the youth steps outside the common ste-
reotypes attached to the younger partners of nanshoku; he is described
as a “mischievous boy” (akujō o konomu warawa) who loves martial
arts and even solicits sex nightly near Sonshōji. To support this charac-
terization, in plate 3, the naughty youth grabs and tugs the young-
looking monk’s rosary hard enough to rip it apart, spilling the beads all
over the floor.23 Though the text does not specify, the young monk
presumably retrieves the scattered beads and pieces them together. This
penetrative action likely had a sexual connotation, as the monk in vi-
gnette 3 says, “There is a thing called spirit [. . .]. That’s why monks
have to thrust and pierce tama (the spirit/beads of a rosary).”
After breaking the youthful monk’s rosary, the boy coquettishly
asks him to come over. Perhaps in a state of shock, the monk only
manages to utter, “Are you serious?” Then the older monk marked
with “crow’s feet” expresses his lust for the chigo: “How appalling. I
am so jealous that the boy invited just him!” The other
88 Chapter Two

young-looking monk retains his composure, however, and says,

“That’s heartless. Let’s just go.”
According to the narrator, following this encounter, this aged
menial monk (namadoshi otonashiki chūgen hōshi) becomes com-
pletely lovesick. Upon seeing the old monk weakened and scrawny
(yase-otoroeru), the youth feels pity and invites the monk to come
over and wash his feet, indicating the significant gap in their status. In
their private moments, the two exchange playful banter, during which
the youth’s speech remains domineering and the lowly monk shows
his deference by constantly speaking in honorifics.24 As the monk
washes the boy’s feet, the latter “as if by accident” (ayamachi naru yō
nite) flashes his naked bottom. Deeply moved by this fetching gesture,
the monk spontaneously reaches to the boy’s crotch. Seeing him un-
perturbed, the monk then thrusts his hand into the boy’s anus until
his entire fist disappears “as if it had been sucked in” (suiiru yō nite).
In this way, vignette 4 adds new details to the collective image of the
chigo: a boy who is assertive, seductive, domineering, and playful.

Just to Keep You Satisfied: Vignette 1

Now let us turn to the opening story of the Booklet of Acolytes. Out
of the five vignettes, this episode shows by far the greatest complexity
and depth in its plot and the characters’ interpersonal relations. It
begins with the narrator’s flattering description of a reputable, ac-
complished, and noble high priest who lives near the Kaiden-in clois-
ter at Ninnaji. Among the many attendants serving him, the priest is
especially fond of one chigo, and he always takes this boy to bed at
night. Nevertheless, his advanced age has been making it increasingly
difficult for him to achieve an erection. Moved by his master’s disap-
pointment, the chigo enlists his own attendant, Chūta, to dilate and
soften his anus with Chūta’s penis, a dildo, lubrication, and a brazier.
Thanks to the chigo’s diligent effort, the priest is able to achieve
smooth intercourse later that night. The narrator concludes this epi-
sode with the remark that such a dedicated chigo is extremely rare.
Vignette 1 shares a few traits with the “middle stories”: praise for
the renowned high priest, the high priest’s favorite chigo’s engaging in
sexual acts with someone else, and outlandish humor. What vignette 1
completely lacks is any type of apprehension on the part of the chigo
character or his secret lover, because of the absurd premise of this
story. That is, the chigo is merely dilating his own anus for his teacher,
 A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys 89

so to speak, except that he is receiving some help from his vassal. Based
on this backstory, the chigo’s intercourse with Chūta can be thought of
as a case of “benevolent infidelity,” at least on the surface.
One might think that the high priest of vignette 1 is being treated
slightly more gently than the priest whose chigo has sex with a man
right beside him (vignette 3) or the nobleman whose attendant nightly
goes around the neighborhood soliciting sex (vignette 4). Yet this
master of the “unusually caring” chigo is still subjected to plenty of
biting ridicule. After the narrator lauds the elderly priest for his pro-
found wisdom, this acclaim is immediately undercut by another com-
ment: “Even though his miraculous powers were unrivaled, he still
could not give up that one thing.” The narrator goes on to reveal that
despite the sage’s great sexual appetite, “his arrow is no longer sharp
enough to penetrate the target—it would only scratch the surface of
the adjacent mounds in vain.” Plate 5 illustrates the couple’s first at-
tempt at their “benevolent infidelity,” first with Chūta penetrating his
lord with his penis (1.1) and then with a dildo (1.2).
One of the ways vignette 1 differs from all the other stories in
the Booklet of Acolytes is that the chigo’s unofficial lover is a layman.
To be more precise, Chūta is the chigo’s “foster brother” (menotogo),
or his former wet nurse’s (menoto) child.25 In premodern Japan, it
was customary for a highborn lady to hire menoto to raise her child.
This was done for two major reasons: one was the perception of inel-
egance attached to breastfeeding; the other was the desire to hasten
the next conception (as lactation hinders the resumption of the moth-
er’s menstrual cycle). Thus, the employment of menoto was a way to
release the mother from the burden of caring for an infant as well as
to shorten the interval between her pregnancies.26 For a woman to be
employed as menoto, she has to be able to lactate, which means she
has an infant of her own.27 In premodern Japan, the menoto’s bio-
logical child and her young charge were often cared for in tandem,
and in their adulthood, the menoto’s child customarily served the no-
bleperson as a close attendant and foster sibling.
For the majority of the ruling class, in which the patriarch sired
children with multiple women (from the primary wife to concubines
and attendants), the idea of “siblings” was a far cry from our modern
equivalent, mostly because the children usually grew up in separate
households. For children of the elite class, the relationship with their
menotogo was more analogous to what we think of as the relation-
ship between siblings today (or at least many literary texts paint such
90 Chapter Two

a picture). To use The Tale of Genji as an example, the hero’s most

trusted vassal is his menotogo, Fujiwara Koremitsu, whereas Genji’s
relationship to his half-brother, Emperor Suzaku, is a turbulent one.
One of the most dramatic representations of the bond between
two foster brothers is that between Kiso Yoshinaka (1154–1184) and
his retainer, Imai Kanehira (?–1184). In the “Death of Lord Kiso”
chapter of The Tales of the Heike, Yoshinaka is chased down by en-
emy troops. Once his head is taken by one of the soldiers, Kanehira
proceeds to commit suicide, as the two have promised each other that
they will always be together, even in death. He first announces that he
will demonstrate how the bravest man of Japan ends his own life.
Kanehira then plunges the tip of his sword into his mouth and flings
himself headfirst from the horse.28
In medieval Japan, the pairing of a menotogo and his or her
charge carried substantial meaning. It instantly evoked the image of
symbolic siblings who grew up together and shared everything along
the way—breast milk, a place called home, and even the final moments
of life. Of course, the lifetime of shared experiences, the stereotype
goes, makes the menotogo one’s most faithful and trustworthy subor-
dinate. Further, it is no surprise that the culturally established intimacy
between foster siblings could involve sexual activities. One famous ex-
ample is the abovementioned Kiso Yoshinaka and his other menotogo,
the celebrated female warrior Tomoe (n.d), as volume 35 of Rise and
Fall of the Minamoto and the Taira indicates.29 To understand the ex-
traordinary intimacy between the chigo and Chūta, it is essential to
take this cultural meaning of foster siblinghood into account.
To begin, the first two images of vignette 1 and the accompanying
gachūshi let us in on the intriguing relationship between the chigo and
Chūta. In plate 5, vignette 1.1, Chūta is naked except for his eboshi
cap, penetrating the chigo. Though the chigo’s face is invisible, his
curled-up toes, which conventionally signify the subject’s sexual plea-
sure, and his erect penis indicate his enthusiasm. While having sex
with his lord, Chūta remarks, “Because you occasionally reward me
like this for my nightly services, Sir, my faith grows stronger. When
you treat me coldly, I don’t feel validated. Let me take advantage of
this chance and satisfy my needs.” To this, the chigo responds, “If this
is all you want, sure. [. . .] [J]ust screw me all you want!” Importantly,
this conversation informs us that Chūta and the chigo have sex every
night (“for my nightly services”), signaling that their benevolence is,
after all, not completely innocent. On this day, Chūta is particularly
 A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys 91

animated because he is normally on the receiving end of penetration,

despite his desire to turn the tables. Given the rare opportunity to pen-
etrate his lord, Chūta can hardly contain his excitement.
In plate 5, vignette 1.2, Chūta complains that his penis has be-
come feeble due to his nightly masturbation, indicating that solo sex
is his way of coping with the frustration of being both aroused and
rejected by his lord night after night. One may wonder, however,
why his genitals do not appear to be so feeble. The reason is that il-
lustrations in an emaki typically represent a duration of time, rather
than being still images like photographs. One can see this most
clearly in images where the same subjects are depicted at two differ-
ent positions within the frame to indicate a sequence of events.30
Even though the Booklet of Acolytes does not use this technique, the
very existence of gachūshi concretely demonstrates that each illustra-
tion signifies a period of time. In the case of plate 5, vignette 1.2,
based on the couple’s conversation, we know that Chūta first loses
his stamina, prompting the chigo’s command to switch to a dildo
(“If that’s the case, shove the dildo deep into my bottom once
again!”). And, while penetrating his lord with the device, Chūta evi-
dently regains an erection.
In plate 6, vignette 1.3, Chūta is now applying clove oil, a tradi-
tional analgesic and lubricant, on the chigo’s anus. Even though he is
clearly ready for penetration and even vocalizes his wish for a second
chance, his young lord ignores it. What is clear in vignette 1 is that
being the recipient of anal penetration has nothing to do with passiv-
ity—the chigo fittingly uses a domineering style of speech, including
the imperative form of the verbs “tsuke” (“Pound!”) and “ireyo”
(“Put it in!”), while Chūta constantly speaks in honorifics, compara-
ble to the way vignette 4 captures the undeniable class difference be-
tween the mischievous chigo and the aged menial monk.31
In the final illustration of this episode, the gorgeously dressed
and made-up chigo stands in front of the sliding door to his teacher’s
bedroom. The story ends with the following narration: “Due to the
careful preparation, the master was able to achieve a perfectly smooth
insertion. Such a caring chigo was very rare.”
As such, the first episode of the Booklet of Acolytes consists of
two socially prescribed hierarchical dyads: the master and his chigo
and the chigo and his menotogo. The two hierarchies connected by
the chigo, intricately enmeshed with gender, sexuality, desire, and
power, fashion a curious, misshapen love triangle.
92 Chapter Two

To put the asymmetrical triangle (figure 5, left) in perspective, let

us first consider an archetypal counterpart (figure 5, right) in the Uji
chapters of The Tale of Genji: the world after the eponymous hero’s
death. This particular “archetypal love triangle” involves two best
friends and romantic rivals, Captain Kaoru and Prince Niou, and
their mutual love interest, Ukifune. The class disparity between the
men and the woman is undeniable, as indicated by the positions of
the three characters in the right side of figure 5. Kaoru is the ostensi-
ble son of Genji with his primary wife (the lady formerly known as
the Third Princess), and Niou is the son of the reigning emperor and
his primary consort, Empress Akashi (Genji’s daughter).32 In con-
trast, Ukifune is the illegitimate daughter of a cloistered prince and
has been raised by her mother and stepfather in the provinces. Her
sobriquet means “floating boat,” signifying her precarious position
as a woman of humble upbringing who is sought after by two young,
superbly attractive noblemen of royal lineage. She is in love with both
Kaoru and Niou, but there is no way she can be with both. That said,
she is in no position to disgrace either man, socially or psychologi-
cally. Her inability to escape the double bind exacerbates her self-
loathing, while at the same time the two best friends’ longing for
Ukifune escalates, fueled by their mimetic desire and pride. In this
predicament, the entanglement of sorrows, frustrations, and resent-
ments intensifies and multiplies inside the inverted triangle, and even-
tually the bottom point caves in, embodied by Ukifune’s plunge into
the Uji River. When her attempted suicide fails, she becomes a nun
and never sees the men again.33

Figure 5.  Left, asymmetrical love triangle in vignette 1 of the Booklet of Acolytes;
right, symmetrical love triangle in the Genji.
 A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys 93

In contrast, the opening episode of the Booklet of Acolytes about

the “unusually caring chigo” paints a very different love triangle. The
two parties who share a love for the chigo are not social equals, and
the connection between the priest and Chūta (indicated by the dotted
line in figure 5, left) is weak and impersonal. In fact, the chigo’s two
lovers are on the opposite ends of every spectrum: social class, age,
physical attractiveness, sexual potency, and reversibility of sex posi-
tion. One is a renowned, sagacious priest who is a designated penetra-
tor (his age-induced erectile dysfunction notwithstanding); the other is
a handsome young man of humble birth with a high-functioning penis,
and, just like the chigo, he is a giver and receiver of anal intercourse.
In stark contrast to the perfectly symmetrical love triangle fash-
ioned by the main characters of the Uji chapters, which eventually
purged the most vulnerable party in the most tragic way, this asym-
metrical triangle is a well-oiled machine. The center of desire is the
chigo, who is, unlike Ukifune, in total control of the triad—he knows
exactly what he needs to give and not give to his two lovers. With his
aged master, who possesses economic, social, and cultural capital, the
acolyte ingeniously provides the only thing his teacher is missing in
his life—effortless penetration—by loosening his own bottom. The
chigo also demonstrates a masterful ability to wrap Chūta around his
little finger. The menotogo is kept in a state of suspended frustration
and is only occasionally gratified with the “special reward.” Although
their nightly sex must gratify Chūta, it also makes him yearn for the
rare chance of penetrating his lord. Even when he is given such an
opportunity, the story informs us, as soon as his performance de-
clines, the chigo ruthlessly orders Chūta to switch to a dildo and re-
fuses him a second chance. The chigo never overindulges or cajoles
Chūta, so there is no ambiguity about who is in control.
Another crucial aspect of the misshapen love triangle is that
there is no sense of rivalry or jealousy between the chigo’s master and
retainer. For Chūta, whose paramount priority is his beloved lord’s
well-being, it is in his best interest to do everything possible to safe-
guard the mutually beneficial master-disciple relationship. This means
that the high priest’s happy sex life is synonymous with Chūta’s own
bliss. Furthermore, this loyal retainer of the chigo has no reason to
feel jealous of the high priest; not only is it highly unlikely that the
chigo will be physically attracted to him, but it is also true that the
priest cannot achieve sex without Chūta’s indirect assistance. Is the
high priest then jealous of Chūta? The night the priest achieves
94 Chapter Two

smooth intercourse with his beloved, he must realize that someone

has prepared the chigo’s bottom on his behalf and that that someone
was probably the chigo’s personal attendant. For an obvious reason,
the priest does not mind this benevolent infidelity. Thanks to these
well-balanced interdependencies the chigo has formed with his mas-
ter and his vassal, as well as the very loose tie between the master and
Chūta, every party’s satisfaction is ensured. The juxtaposition of the
two love triangles challenges our tendency to view a horizontal rela-
tionship in an unquestioningly positive light and to equate hierarchy
with abusiveness. Another important point is that the give-and-take
between the chigo and his master is designed to be ephemeral. The
acolyte is destined to move on to the next stage of his life after his
tenure. For the time being, there is no emotional buildup or eruption
in this unusual, misshapen, gleeful love triangle.

Please Stay (Once You Go Away): Vignette 5

The final episode of the Booklet of Acolytes opens with the now-famil-
iar introduction of a high priest who is extremely accomplished and
sagacious. He lives in Kitayama and, as one would expect, adores his
chigo. The youth, with his gentle temperament and superb skills in
music and entertainment, is the center of admiration at every banquet
he attends. Whenever someone pays attention to this boy, however, the
jealous priest becomes testy. Therefore, the narrator explains, people
stop visiting his cloister, including his own disciples. Nevertheless, one
young besotted monk in this temple remains indomitable. He decides
to make his heart known to the youth, sneaks into his bedroom—a
windowless retreat called a nurigome—and quietly awaits an opportu-
nity. That night, when entering the nurigome, the chigo senses some-
one’s presence, which leads him to wonder, “Did someone feel so
deeply as to visit me here? How touching.” So moved by this strang-
er’s gesture, the chigo lies down to offer his bottom, while sticking his
head out from under the curtain to read a bedtime story to his boy
servant. The monk nervously embraces the boy’s hip from behind—
amazingly, he does not even budge. So the monk proceeds to penetrate
him. Because the chigo is such a veteran of the art of nanshoku, the
insertion is perfectly smooth and the youth even continues to chat
with his boy servant while this is happening! After this event, the chigo
installs a wooden door to his nurigome so that he and his lover can
enjoy each other’s company with increased privacy.
 A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys 95

It is obvious that the final episode of this erotic emaki is much

simpler than the opening story in terms of the characters’ interper-
sonal relations and the plot. The five pictures attached to vignette 1
also exhibit more variety than those accompanying vignette 5, all of
which simply portray five different sex positions of the couple in the
nurigome. (The first four images are painted darker to reflect being
inside the windowless retreat, and the final image is lighter thanks to
the torch the monk brings in.)
Curiously, the illustrations of the two other surviving works of
medieval erotica, the Brushwood Fences and the Bagged Monk, also
end exactly the same way: with a series of sex positions performed by
the characters against a blank background (plates 11 and 12), al-
though the images number three instead of five.34 Since this common-
ality strongly suggests that an established convention governed the
way medieval erotic emaki ended, the objective of vignette 5 was pre-
determined. Also, if the background had to be blank, it makes sense
that the scene was set in the windowless, sound-proof nurigome.
In keeping with the rest of the Booklet of Acolytes episodes, the
images and dialogue of vignette 5 show the chigo as an active, enthu-
siastic participant in a sexual adventure with a colleague. His sensual
pleasure is expressed via curled toes, smiles, and tight embraces. And
the nuances of the interactions revealed by the gachūshi include play-
ful affect and humor.
Further, an examination of the gachūshi of vignettes 1 and 5
shows an unmistakable pattern. These intimate conversations revolve
around affirmations of all five senses: olfactory (“It’s so fragrant,”
Chūta, plate 6, vignette 1.3), tactile (“Ouch, watch how you blow the
fire,” chigo, plate 6, vignette 1.4), auditory (“Aw, aw! [moaning],”
monk, plate 8, vignette 5.2), gustatory (“Ah, tasty. Slightly bitter,”
monk; “A little salty,” chigo, plate 9, vignette 5.4), and visual (“It’s
so bright,” chigo; “I have never seen anything like this before,” monk,
plate 10). Such bodily sensations and pleasures are generally discour-
aged in Buddhist teachings as sources of attachment—with the nota-
ble exception of the Tachikawa-ryū school. This branch of Shingon
Buddhism is said to have been established by Ninkan (n.d.), who was
a Shingon priest and disciple of Shōkaku (1057–1129). Curiously,
Shōkaku was an abbot of Daigoji and the founder of its Sanbō-in
cloister, where the oldest extant version of the Booklet of Acolytes is
still preserved.35 Therefore, it is possible that this erotic handscroll
was significantly influenced by the Tachiwaka-ryū doctrine, which
96 Chapter Two

valorizes vivid sensory experiences, especially sexual ecstasy, as a

gateway to enlightenment or rebirth into the Pure Land.

Corporeality as Depicted in the B ooklet of A colytes

Now that we have examined the narratives and gachūshi of the Book-
let of Acolytes, we shall shift our focus to the visual components of
this emaki. As a starting point, let us consider what it means to fea-
ture nude subjects in visual arts. One way to approach this inquiry is
to analyze “nudity” vis-à-vis different types of unclothedness.
The art historical distinction between “nakedness” and “nu-
dity” was most famously articulated by Kenneth Clark: “To be naked
is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the
embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word ‘nude,’ on
the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable
overtone.”36 To imagine a form of unclothedness in visual arts that is
not “nudity,” we can consider “colonial nakedness” as an example.
Popularized in Europe during the Victorian era, “colonial nakedness”
was a signifier of the “primitiveness” and “savagery” of colonized
subjects, a trope that fascinated the viewers of colonial arts.37 Con-
versely, “nudity” in visual arts can be understood as an unrealistic
idealization of the male and female figures of reproductive age, usu-
ally represented as able-bodied, cis-gendered, neither obese nor
scrawny, youthful, and unblemished. In addition, these figures usu-
ally possess the complexions, facial features, and facial and body hair
deemed attractive in the culture and time period in which the particu-
lar art piece was created. Although it is impossible to categorize all
visual representations of unclothedness according to the binary of
degradation and unrealistic idealization, this framework suggests var-
ious symbolic interpretations of unclothed flesh and is a useful tool
for analyzing the subjects of the Booklet of Acolytes.
Aside from the three ko-shunga, complete unclothedness in me-
dieval arts appears to be limited to infants and sinners in hell. In re-
gard to the latter examples, Kuroda Hideo examines two illustrated
scrolls, A Book of Hell (Jigoku sōshi, twelfth century) and The Ori-
gin of Kitano Tenjin (Kitano Tenjin engi, thirteenth century), and
notes that the male subjects in hell are dehumanized not only through
their nakedness but also via their “caplessness.” Because it was con-
sidered taboo for an adult male to reveal his topknot in medieval Ja-
pan, these emaki depicted abject, capless figures to enhance the
 A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys 97

didactic objective of hell scrolls.38 Of course, in the Booklet of Aco-

lytes, Chūta maintains his eboshi cap during sex. His headgear and
his unclothed flesh, marked with a darker complexion, a muscular
physique, and an enlarged phallus, together represent an idealized
young adult man’s body that is worth viewing. That is to say, he is
“in the nude” rather than “naked.”
In addition to the distinction between nakedness and nudity, the
concept of “nudity as a costume” proposed by the Greek classicist
Larissa Bonfante is pertinent here.39 With this concept, Bonfante ar-
gues that nudity in art shares many of the functions of conventional
clothing. Indeed, the corporeality of the characters in the Booklet of
Acolytes tells the viewers of the scroll a great deal about the subjects,
even while they are in a state of unclothedness. This notion becomes
most salient when we compare the chigo and his attendant, Chūta, in
vignette 1.
Because Chūta is not merely the chigo’s personal attendant but
also his menotogo, the medieval viewers of vignette 1 would have
automatically projected the culturally established image of foster
brotherhood onto the pair. This would include an assumption that
they are similar in age. Therefore, calling the chigo an “adolescent
boy” or “youth” on the one hand and labeling Chūta an “adult man”
on the other seems to contradict such a purportedly self-evident no-
tion as “age.” Furthermore, because the chigo and Chūta happen to
both have the male sexual organ, our genital-centric idea of “biologi-
cal sex” would compel us to call both protagonists “male.” Nonethe-
less, the nude bodies of the chigo and his attendant, which signify
their symbolic age and symbolic sei (sex/gender), show that thrusting
them into the same box would be a significant contradiction.
One way to work through this apparent contradiction is to read
the unclothed, stylized bodies of the chigo and Chūta as “costumes”
or “performative nudity.” That is, what has materialized on the sur-
face of the scroll paper as paintings is the crossover of the performa-
tive and discursive sei and age of the two concepts: “chigo” and
“young adult layman.” Put another way, the fact that the two sub-
jects are close in age and possess similar genitals is not the primary
concern of the artist, producer, or intended audience of the Booklet of
Acolytes. In this framework, even the boundaries between the chigo’s
makeup and flesh and between Chūta’s eboshi and flesh are blurred.
The whiteness of the chigo’s powdered face extends to the rest of his
body, while Chūta’s eboshi is integrated into his corporeality, and
98 Chapter Two

their gendered attire is simply replaced with gendered nudities, both

of which are culturally, discursively, and performatively constructed
“costumes.”
Another case in point is the chigo’s suitor from vignette 4. Upon
his first encounter with the mischievous youth, who breaks his col-
league’s rosary, the old menial monk becomes scrawny and weak due
to lovesickness. When the chigo invites the monk to his place, how-
ever, the monk’s physique is far from old or scrawny. Despite the
distinct “crow’s feet” on his eyes, he seems to have received a gener-
ous “costume upgrade,” because, as the one who has sex with the
charming adolescent boy, it is best if he is not an eyesore to the view-
ers. This observation aligns with the discussion of age in chapter 1.
Because advanced age is a personal trait that significantly marginal-
izes a character’s desirability, almost all the authors of chigo monoga-
tari divert the reader’s attention from the fact that the chigo is the
designated lover of his master priest.40 Yet, to reiterate my point,
when a story did call for a depiction of a chigo having sex with an old
monk, as in vignette 4, the artist gave the latter a makeover to make
him appear good enough to be the boy’s sexual partner.
Now, based on the stylized and discursively constructed corpo-
reality of the chigo in the illustrations of the Booklet of Acolytes, I
will consider the gender construction of the chigo in the acolyte tale
genre as a whole. In the past, scholars have offered varying takes on
this matter. For instance, Kuroda Hideo argued that chigo’s gender
was either musei (nongender) or chūsei (neutral gender),41 which has
been seconded by Hashidate Ayako.42 Ichiko Teiji, Higuchi Kiyoyuki,
and others used the term “dōsei-ai” (homosexuality) to describe
chigo-monk relationships,43 while Tanaka Takako suggested that
chigo represented feminine gender.44 In my view, Kuroda’s argument
best describes the chigo’s nonbinary ontology. To build on his ap-
proach, I propose that a chigo’s liminal status allowed his gender ex-
pression to materialize and congeal in relation to another figure,
especially in a romantic or sexual context.
As I demonstrated in the introduction, there are numerous re-
semblances between chigo and young women, and according to the
illustrations accompanying the Booklet of Acolytes, the two groups’
similarities extend to their nude bodies in erotic art. It is undeniable
that in the presence of a male sexual partner, the acolyte’s performa-
tive nudity is modeled after that of women in a heteroerotic setting.
In plate 5, vignette 1.2, and plate 13, the Brushwood Fences, the
 A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys 99

chigo and the imperial priestess are characterized by their long, jet-
black, flowing hair; curled-up toes; fair complexion; and plump fig-
ures. The boundary between the body of a young woman and that of
a chigo is further blurred by the representation of the chest. Because
women’s breasts were primarily a symbol of motherhood and were
not considered erotic or sexual in medieval Japan, neither the Brush-
wood Fences nor the Bagged Monk pays close attention to the female
subjects’ breasts.45 In most images, the woman’s breasts are not even
visible, being hidden behind clothing, her partner’s limbs, or her own
limbs. This indifference to breasts stands in vivid contrast to the con-
tortionary postures the female subject is given to ensure a clear view
of her vulva. Even in the few cases where the view of the woman’s
breasts is not obstructed, the amount of detail conveyed is miniscule
compared to the meticulous delineation of the genitalia. Along the
same lines, in the Booklet of Acolytes, the youth’s anus is treated as a
proxy for a vagina; his sex positions provide an unobstructed view of
his buttocks. Furthermore, the chigo’s anus is not only penetrated by
the partner’s penis or a dildo, but also fondled, licked, warmed up,
lubricated, and so on. Conversely, the chigo’s penis, which is always
drawn smaller than his partner’s, never attracts the lover’s attention
(and the acolytes pay no attention to their partners’ anuses either).
The performative nudity of the adolescent boys in the Booklet of
Acolytes is even more remarkable when contrasted to that of their
ancient Greek counterparts. Somewhat similarly to the nanshoku and
shudō of pre-Meiji Japan, elite men of ancient Greek cities celebrated
paiderastia, or pederasty. According to Andrew Lear and Eva Cantar-
ella, ancient Greek pederasty consisted of “erotic relations between
adult men and adolescent boys [. . .] [that] was practiced on a more
widespread basis and with greater public approval than any time in
any Western culture.”46 Out of the several iconographical conven-
tions for the younger male partners called eromenoi (singular erome-
nos), their muscular physique is the most noticeable (see figure 6).
Although toned bodies have wide aesthetic appeal across cul-
tures, the “costume” of the eromenos is interesting because it is coded
with highly specific sexual implications. To unpack this visual “gram-
mar,” it is important to point out that the “proper” form of male-
male copulation in ancient Greek was intercrural (i.e., between the
thighs). For this reason, the youth’s thighs were highly eroticized, re-
sulting in the convention of exaggerating their thickness (comparable
to the enlargement of the male and female genitals in Edo shunga).47
100 Chapter Two

Figure 6 shows a typical schema of pederastic courtship; the older

partner (erastes, plural erastai) is seen fondling the youth’s chin and
genitals simultaneously, while his knees are kept bent. The bent knees
of the erastes and the thick thighs of the eromenos in tandem signal
the desirer and desiree of intercrural sex.48 Furthermore, in Athenian
pederastic arts, idealized male partners both young and old typically
exhibit disproportionally small and flaccid penises. Based on these
observations, it is clear that ancient Greek pederasty was made to ap-
pear unambiguously distinct from heterosexual love. The eromenos
was cherished as a more youthful version of the erastes, and the ideal
form of male-male sex—intercrural stimulation—was performed, dis-
cussed, illustrated, and promoted. Anal penetration, in contrast, was
extremely stigmatizing, albeit only for the recipients. This is precisely
because it was deemed feminizing and therefore degrading the in-
sertees, although this does not mean that people of ancient Greece
never performed anal sex. In sum, the superficial resemblances not-
withstanding, medieval Japanese nanshoku and ancient Greek peder-
asty were built upon immensely different gender/sexual ideals that
were projected onto the younger partners.
Nevertheless, the fact that the younger participant in nanshoku
was positioned as the “feminine” partner should not be interpreted
according to the misogynistic and homophobic concepts of “femini-
zation” and “emasculation.” The Kyoto-centered elite culture of He-
ian and medieval Japan upheld the tradition of embracing a feminine
aesthetics, and both highborn men and women equated it with ele-
gance, sophistication, and native Japanese (as opposed to Sino-Japa-
nese) sensibility.49 Even though women in premodern Japan did not
enjoy the same privileges that men did, “femininity” as a concept was
generally not stigmatized, and in certain contexts it was positively
regarded.50 In this vein, androgyny was not a construct that repre-
sented “a male with insufficient masculinity” or “a female with insuf-
ficient femininity.” Instead, it usually represented the amalgamation
of the best qualities of both worlds. Adolescent boys, especially chigo,
were idealized and idolized due to their androgynous allure and its
impermanence. Further, whether in an Autumn Night–type romantic
tale or the erotocomedic Booklet of Acolytes, the chigo characters are
no less in control of their bodies and minds than other highborn char-
acters in monogatari.
Figure 6.  “Black-figure” vase painting from ancient Athens, ca. sixth century BC.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
102 Chapter Two

Conclusion
This chapter has examined discursive and visual representations of
the erotic adventures of five chigo, materialized as the Booklet of Ac-
olytes handscroll. In the past, most scholarly writing on the acolyte
tale genre has appropriately positioned Autumn Night as the paragon
of chigo monogatari, the masterwork that perfectly unifies the two
narrative worlds of enchanted love and Buddhist soteriology. In my
view, the Booklet of Acolytes also marks an enormous accomplish-
ment of the literary and visual arts of medieval Japan. It creatively
incorporates the Tachikawa-ryū school’s uncompromising affirma-
tion of the five senses and sensual pleasures, while completely sub-
verting the institutional hierarchy within the monastic realm. The
Booklet of Acolytes achieves its carnivalesque transvaluations
through the juxtaposition of absurdly comical plots and striking,
skillfully created images, which Ozaki Kyūya lauds: “If this had not
been an emaki of erotic content, no doubt it would have been named
a national treasure.”51 Indeed, considering that it has been a slow
process for the acolyte tale genre in general to attract serious, unbi-
ased attention, it is no surprise that scholars have been reluctant to
engage fully with this hypererotic rendition of chigo monogatari.
It is intriguing, and therefore worth repeating, that this emaki,
which consists of five stories of adulterous acolytes and their cuck-
olded masters, was commissioned by a powerful Daigoji figure (who
was likely a master of acolytes himself). In short, the Booklet of Aco-
lytes is an elaborate self-mockery on a massive scale. For the un-
named Daigoji abbot who commissioned this work, one of the
motivations may have been to undercut the impact of the “inconve-
nient truths” surrounding the chigo system.
There are two major “inconvenient truths” that pertain to the
chigo system. As I argued in chapter 1, the premise that the youths
were reborn as living bodhisattvas to absorb the transgressions of the
imperfect mortals is a stretch. In reality, the acolytes’ posts were ar-
ranged by their families and the Buddhist institutions for their mutual
gains. Furthermore, even if the chigo’s sexual labor was not stigma-
tized, old people’s sexuality was not deemed romantic or aesthetically
pleasing. As a result, most chigo monogatari were designed to obfus-
cate the transactional and unromantic master-acolyte dyad by direct-
ing the reader’s attention away from the chigo system and toward the
boy’s unsanctioned, temporary love affair with a young, handsome
 A Booklet of Acolytes: An Erotic Handscroll of Five Capricious Boys 103

monk. Nevertheless, the Booklet of Acolytes seems to have resorted

to a radically different and innovative approach to the issue: hyper-
bolic, scathing, self-deprecating humor.
With this humor, each episode of the Booklet of Acolytes tackles
head-on the unspoken, inconvenient truths of the chigo system. First,
this erotic emaki illuminates the fact that exceptionally renowned
Buddhist teachers were, after all, mere humans and hardly immune to
such feelings as lust, jealousy, and insecurity. Second, in the chigo
system, the beautiful adolescent boy willingly slept with his master
simply because it was his job. Once his tenure was over, the youth
moved on and started a new life as an adult man.
The contradictory nature of the chigo system notwithstanding, it
was not necessarily up to the Buddhist institutions to revise or dis-
mantle it. This is because this interdomainal arrangement had been
incorporated into a much larger machine that supported the interde-
pendencies of the ruling class. The chigo system was imperfect in that
it was built upon a false premise, but it was probably the best imper-
fection—just like the similarly imperfect institution of marriage—the
Buddhist community could have devised. In keeping with the chigo
monogatari tradition, the Booklet of Acolytes exhibits no attempt to
represent the adulterers as villains or the master priests as victims.
But this erotic emaki goes one step further by refusing to make the
illicit affairs opportunities for the characters to experience religious
awakenings. The self-deprecating humor that imbues the vignettes
can also be interpreted as one of the few options available for over-
coming the anxieties shared by the beneficiaries of the system. The
anonymous producer of the Booklet of Acolytes seems to have cre-
ated a piece of art that openly displayed his (and his peers’) worst-
case scenarios: the master priest suffers from age-induced erectile
dysfunction; the abbot’s favorite chigo has sex with a man in the high
priest’s own bedchamber as he snoozes; the nobleman’s beloved chigo
nightly visits neighboring temples to solicit sex, and so on. By dwell-
ing on these scenarios, the producer of this emaki and his peers may
have been able to laugh at themselves before being laughed at, thus
disempowering their critics and finding solace in the belief that their
acolytes would at least be more faithful than those in the Booklet of
Acolytes.
 Chapter 3

The Mountain
An Acolyte Tale of Traversals,
Transformations, and Triumph

T he fifth chigo monogatari I examine is The Mountain (Ashibiki).1

On the “flow chart” of the fourteen extant chigo monogatari
(see figure 4), based on a series of simple yes/no questions, the Book-
let of Acolytes (chapter 2) is separated from the three archetypes by
only one degree, a difference produced by a single question: “Does
the chigo die?” The one other text that shares a spot on the chart
with the Booklet of Acolytes is The Mountain. The ambiance of these
two texts could not be any more dissimilar, but just as all the acolyte
characters featured in the ko-shunga version of chigo monogatari
stay alive and well, the younger protagonist of The Mountain lives a
long (though turbulent) life. At the end of this tale, the former chigo
attains rebirth in the Pure Land as an aged recluse.
Despite several signs of influence by Autumn Night, the author
of The Mountain does not attempt to emulate the most famous chigo
monogatari. On the contrary, the creator of The Mountain appears to
be rejecting the “solutions” to which Autumn Night and many other
chigo tales resort to create romantic and pro-Buddhist narratives of
chigo. The Mountain plays an extremely important role in the genre
of chigo monogatari by showing its readers a radically novel way to
tell a story of commitment to love and religious devotion without
killing off the youth in the process.
The Mountain is also one of the few chigo monogatari whose
main characters travel far beyond their domain (i.e., monasteries and
other religious sites). In this way, this story bridges the two worlds
connected by the chigo system: the homosocial and homoerotic

104
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 105

Buddhist institutions and the main characters’ homes, which are do-
mestic spaces occupied mostly by laymen and laywomen of all ages
and ranks. In addition to the numerous crossings between physical
locations and atmospheres, The Mountain captures the transforma-
tions of the characters over time. The older protagonist, Jijū, is a
chigo-turned-priest; Jijū’s father is a Confucian scholar-turned-Bud-
dhist; and the younger protagonist, initially called Wakagimi (Young
Lord), transforms his appearance and status several times in this tale.
Below is a plot summary of The Mountain.2

QR

There once was a man who had abandoned Confucianism for Bud-
dhism. He decided to entrust his bright and adorable son to the care of
a reputable priest at the Eastern Pagoda on Mount Hiei. The priest
cherished this chigo. Two or three years passed and the chigo entered
the priesthood. He came to be known as Jijū no Kimi Gen’i.
One moonlit evening in the eighth month, Jijū was in Shirakawa,
near the capital, to visit an acquaintance. While taking a walk, Jijū
heard the beautiful sound of the Chinese lute. Intrigued, he walked in
the direction from which the music was coming. He arrived in front of
a villa; inside was a beautiful chigo of fourteen or fifteen playing the
Chinese lute. Jijū found out from a servant that the youth was the son
of Minbukyō Tokugō, a scholar monk at Kōfukuji, and he was also an
acolyte attached to Tōnan-in Cloister in Nara.3 Jijū was immediately
attracted to this chigo. He returned to this villa the next day and ex-
changed poems with the boy. A few days later, knowing that he would
have to head home soon, Jijū went back to see the boy, hoping to spend
some time with him. Fortunately, that night, the two became lovers.
The couple spent a few blissful days together, and, after promising to be
reunited soon, they parted ways.
Jijū, back on Mount Hiei, and Wakagimi, back at his father’s resi-
dence in Nara, were lovelorn, each neglecting his duties. Upon the
Tōnan-in abbot’s nudging, Tokugō finally made his son return to his
master. Nonetheless, even in the presence of his master, Wakagimi was
visibly preoccupied with his distant lover, making the abbot feel uneasy.
Moreover, determined to see his lover again, Wakagimi slipped out of
Tōnan-in and headed for Mount Hiei. Meanwhile, Jijū, too, decided to
descend the mountain to visit the youth in Nara. Fortunately, they
stumbled upon each other at the main Buddha hall of Enryakuji. Elated,
106 Chapter Three

Jijū introduced Wakagimi to his master at the Eastern Pagoda and re-
ceived his blessing.
At Tōnan-in, however, the disappearance of Wakagimi triggered
chaos. Hearing the rumor that the chigo had recently involved with a
Hiei priest, the youth’s tutor (menoto), the monk Kakunen, ascended
the mountain and demanded the return of his young charge. Although
the clergymen were alarmed by the sudden appearance of this Nara
monk, Jijū’s master intervened to alleviate the tension. The master then
suggested that Jijū travel to Nara and formally ask Wakagimi’s father
for permission to live with his son on the mountain. Subsequently,
Kakunen escorted Jijū and Wakagimi to Tokugō’s residence. Having
been reunited with his son, the happy father gave the two permission to
be together on Mount Hiei.
After spending some time in Nara, Jijū headed back to the mountain
first. Meanwhile, all the attendants at Tokugō’s residence began pre-
paring for the celebratory departure of their young lord. Though the
abbot heard about the return of his chigo and offered to send an escort
to bring him back to Tōnan-in, Tokugō made up some excuses and
kept his son home. While the house was filled with an auspicious air,
Tokugō’s second wife was overcome with fury about all the fanfare her
stepson was receiving. One night, the stepmother sneaked into the
youth’s bedchamber and cut off his long ponytail (plate 14). The next
morning, everyone in the house panicked at the incident that had trans-
pired overnight.
The departure for the mountain was canceled and, in despair, the
youth secretly ran away from home. As Wakagimi wandered aimlessly
in the mountains, he encountered a group of mountain ascetics (yama-
bushi) traveling to Mount Kumano. Without a place to go or a person
to rely on, the lonely youth decided to follow them (plate 15).
After Jijū anxiously awaited his reunion with his lover for some
time, he ran out of patience and sent a group of monks and warawa to
escort Wakagimi back his way. Upon the revelation of the devastating
news, however, Jijū fell gravely ill and retreated to his father’s home in
the capital. For the next few months, Jijū’s parents tried to help him by
bringing in yinyang diviners and healers, but Jijū became frailer by the
day. Fearing that their son might be on the verge of death, his parents
summoned a reputable yamabushi, known for his “blade-sharp” power
to exorcize and heal anyone. Accompanying the ascetic was a young
assistant, who turned out to be none other than Jijū’s estranged lover,
now called Shōshō no Kimi. Jijū immediately bounced back, and the
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 107

couple moved to Mount Hiei. On the mountain, Shōshō no Kimi took

the tonsure and called himself Monk Zenji.4
Two or three joyful years passed. Zenji then began to worry about
his aging father, Tokugō. So the couple set out for Nara. On their way,
Zenji sent a letter from his lodgings to announce their arrival. The let-
ter, however, was delivered during Tokugō’s absence and his wife re-
ceived it. The thought of her stepson’s return provoked this woman
and reignited her fury. This time, she enlisted her son-in-law, the monk
Raikan, and ordered him to murder her stepson before his arrival. Al-
though Raikan gathered two hundred outlaws with a plan to ambush
Zenji, Jijū caught wind of the scheme and assembled an army of the
fiercest fighting monks from the mountain to counterattack. Jijū at last
took Raikan’s head himself. Now that the wicked woman’s machina-
tions had been exposed, Tokugō banished his wife along with his step-
daughter and their female servant.
Having recuperated for several days in Nara, Jijū prepared to ascend
the mountain. Before his departure, Tokugō expressed his wish to keep
his son close. Knowing that Zenji was now the only family left to him,
Jijū accepted the request and promised his lover that their hearts would
always be together.
Years passed and Zenji inherited Tōnan-in after his former master’s
death and came to be known as Shōshō Risshi; Jijū also became the
head at the Eastern Pagoda of Mount Hiei. For a period, each won
rank and fame though his earnest devotion to the Way of Buddha.
Nonetheless, Jijū’s father, the former Confucian scholar, cautioned him
against the futile pursuit of fame and glory. After the death of his fa-
ther, Jijū took a new name, Jakuji Shōnin, and retired to Ōhara and
later to Mount Kōya. There he met an aged recluse, Nara Shōnin, who
turned out to be his estranged lover. The two spent one or two years
together until Jakuji fell ill. Within a few days, he was reborn into Ami-
da’s Pure Land. Nara Shōnin spent some time in the hermitage to be
close to his lover’s grave and then set out on a pilgrimage. Eventually
he built another hermitage in the foothills of Mount Higashi; in the last
moment of his life, with the wonderful scent of sandalwood, the Three
Buddhas appeared and escorted the recluse to the Pure Land.

QR
108 Chapter Three

An Ersatz Version of A utumn N ight ?

There is little debate among scholars about which work single-
handedly defines and represents the chigo monogatari genre. The
answer, of course, is A Long Tale for an Autumn Night. To this
day, the vast majority of scholarship on chigo monogatari has cen-
tered on this work. One of the unfortunate consequences of the
singular prominence of Autumn Night is that it can overshadow
the existence of the other chigo monogatari, with the result that
those who study this masterwork may inaccurately assume they
are versed in the acolyte tale genre as a whole. Further, the other
acolyte tales are sometimes undervalued simply because they are
not Autumn Night.
The most authoritative encyclopedia of premodern Japanese lit-
erature, Nihon koten bungaku daijiten (Great dictionary of classical
Japanese literature, 1983–1985), for instance, delivers a harsh verdict
on the literary value of The Mountain, calling it “an ersatz imitation
of the Autumn Night,” with the plot being “lesser in scale” and
“contrived.”5 Another literary encyclopedia, Chūsei ōchō monoga-
tari / otogi zōshi jiten (Dictionary of medieval courtly tales and otogi
zōshi, 2002), criticizes the “disconnectedness” of the events and the
deus ex machina-esque reunions of the lovers in The Mountain,
though the author of the entry, Nishizawa Masaji, also remarks that
it is “as emblematic of chigo monogatari as the Autumn Night.”6
Similarly, Ichiko Teiji both praises and dismisses The Mountain as
“the second best chigo monogatari.”7
In response to these less-than-flattering evaluations, two short
articles were published in 2005, each defending this text’s literary
worth. One is by Yaguchi Yūko, who asks, “Is Ashibiki really a mere
mediocre imitation of the Autumn Night?” and aptly critiques the
premise of the comparison.8 The other is by Tanaka Takako, who at-
tempts to make a case for the superiority of The Mountain over Au-
tumn Night, based primarily on the fact that the younger protagonist
(Wakagimi) does not die in the end. In fact, on close examination,
Tanaka’s main argument has less to do with The Mountain than with
the familiar denouncement of Autumn Night and the chigo monoga-
tari genre in general, for she posits the chigo characters and historical
acolytes as the victims of systemic sexual exploitation.9 Much as
many other scholars have done in the past, Tanaka’s criticism of the
chigo tale genre conflates the perspectives of the authors, the fictional
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 109

monk characters (the chigo’s masters and lovers), and the historical
masters of chigo.
It goes without saying that, in reality, the perspectives of the au-
thor and the priest characters of an acolyte tale (let alone those of
thousands of historical priests) are independent of each other, and the
perspectives of the author and the monk characters of one text are
never generalizable to the entire genre. Although Tanaka rightly
points out that the authorial perspectives of Autumn Night and The
Mountain are starkly different, the disparity cannot be explained as
the former being “written from the perspective of the priest, who is a
violator” (okasu gawa no sō),10 whereas the latter is depicting “an
equal partnership of a chigo and a monk” (chigo to sō to no taitō na
ai).11 Instead, the disparity derives from each author’s method of in-
tegrating the two pillars of chigo monogatari: romantic love and Bud-
dhist soteriology, as I will illustrate in the next section.

A utumn N ight versus T he M ountain

As mentioned earlier, The Mountain appears to be in conversation
with Autumn Night without attempting to become a version of it.
Among the superficial commonalities between the two texts, an obvi-
ous one is that each of the lover-monks (Keikai and Jijū) belongs to
the Eastern Pagoda at Mount Hiei, indicating that both authors were
likely affiliated with Enryakuji. Each character also falls in love with
an acolyte from a distant temple that has long harbored enmity to-
ward Enryakuji (Miidera and Kōfukuji). In each case, this obstacle
makes it possible for much of the story to unfold outside the chigo’s
home temple and thus keeps the audience’s focus away from the
chigo system. Of course, the combination of the distance and inter-
temple animosity also makes the plot more dramatic, since it creates
conflicts among characters, fuels the passion of the lovers, and exac-
erbates the monk’s pain after a tragedy befalls the chigo character
(kidnapping, assault, death).
Recall that, in Autumn Night, Umewaka is kidnapped by a band
of tengu before commiting suicide. This means that each of the chigo
characters similarly vanishes for a time, as the result of a villain’s evil
deed, namely, the tengu’s kidnapping of Umewaka and the stepmoth-
er’s cutting of Wakagimi’s hair. Yet the consequence of Umewaka’s
disappearance is much harsher: Enryakuji and Miidera turn exceed-
ingly violent toward each other, due to their centuries-old rivalry and
110 Chapter Three

grudges, and countless human lives are lost and buildings, statues,
and sutras go up in smoke. Because of this horrendous outcome,
Umewaka decides that death might be the only option to atone for
his guilt. As a result of his suicide, Keikai and the surviving Miidera
monks realize the supreme Buddhist truth to which they were previ-
ously oblivious. In contrast, Wakagimi’s adversity, the loss of his long
ponytail, is incomparable to Umewaka’s calamity, although this inci-
dent still so devastates Wakagimi that he runs away from home, giv-
ing up his dream of being with Jijū on Mount Hiei. I will return to the
issue of Wakagimi’s hair and flight from home later.
The greatest accomplishment shared by the two tales is their in-
tegration of enchanted love and the supremacy of Buddhist soteriol-
ogy into a single narrative. The Mountain, however, diverges from
the framework employed by Autumn Night (the skillful means tale or
hōben-tan) by allowing the main characters to live on, part ways of
their own accord, and find each other again in their old age. Further,
the author of The Mountain creates this new type of acolyte tale by
adopting a different framework: mamako banashi, or “the story of a
stepchild,” whose protagonist overcomes a series of challenges and,
in the end, attains long-term happiness with his or her beloved.

M amako B anashi : The Triumphant Story of a Stepchild

One of the oldest extant mamako banashi is the aforementioned Tale
of Ochikubo, a tenth-century story of enchanted love in which the
bullied stepdaughter marries an ideal nobleman and eventually be-
comes the mother of the imperial consort. The Ochikubo’s contem-
porary mamako banashi is The Tale of Sumiyoshi (Sumiyoshi
monogatari), whose heroine is also subjected to her stepmother’s bul-
lying at home, albeit her treatment is much less horrific than the
abuse inflicted upon Lady Ochikubo.12
The literary tradition of mamako banashi continued through the
medieval period, forming a subgenre of otogi zōshi.13 According to
Ōchi Yuriko, the mamako banashi that became popular during the
Muromachi era generally consist of three major stages: the beginning,
the trials, and the resolution. The beginning stage describes the birth
of the protagonist, usually a girl, and the death of her birthmother.
During the trial stage, the heroine is uprooted from her home (unlike
the heroines of the Heian mamako banashi, who are confined at
home) due to the stepmother’s evildoing. The girl winds up deep in
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 111

the mountains, where she usually encounters a supernatural savior.

With the help of this magical figure, the heroine overcomes a series of
hardships and marries an ideal nobleman. Finally, the resolution stage
informs the readers of the elimination of the stepmother, the birth of
the protagonist’s children, and the family’s happiness and prosperi-
ty.14 Some of the famous Muromachi stepdaughter tales include Lady
Hanayo (Hanayo no hime), The Hag Robe (Ubakawa), and The
Bowl Bearer (Hachi-kazuki), all of which consist of the three stages
suggested by Ōchi.15 To illustrate the basic structure of the medieval
mamako banashi, I will provide a plot summary of Lady Hanayo.

QR

In the province of Suruga, there lived a wealthy man, Moritaka, and his
wife. Because they longed for a child, they built a chapel to enshrine a
statue of Kannon and earnestly prayed for a baby every day. After sev-
eral years, a lovely baby girl was born; they called her Lady Hanayo.
Sadly, when Hanayo was only nine years old, the mother became ill and
passed away. Moritaka continued to dote on Hanayo and pray for his
late wife’s repose in the afterlife. Some time passed, and Moritaka’s
relatives urged him to take a new wife to care for him and Hanayo. At
last, when the girl was eleven, his father reluctantly decided to remarry.
The new wife despised her stepdaughter because her husband paid
attention only to this girl. One day, while Moritaka was away, the step-
mother hired a samurai and had him kidnap and abandon Hanayo on
a remote mountain near Mount Fuji. Moritaka, of course, was devas-
tated at the news of his daughter’s disappearance.
Meanwhile, Hanayo aimlessly walked about in the mountains, terri-
fied and freezing. She prayed to the god of the mountain and to Kan-
non, asking for protection. Then she saw a hint of a bonfire in the
distance. The light was coming from the dwelling of the mountain
crone (yamanba). Despite her hideous appearance, the crone was kind
and granted the girl a small bag of treasures and a magical robe that
could transform the wearer into an old woman. The mountain crone
also gave Hanayo directions to people’s residences where she might be
able to find work.
Disguised, Hanayo found work as an old hearth maid in the man-
sion of a middle counselor (chūnagon). One day, the middle counselor’s
youngest son, Saishō, caught a glimpse of Hanayo in her true form and
instantly fell in love with her. Saishō hid Hanayo in his menoto’s home
112 Chapter Three

and visited her every night. Hearing that her youngest son was infatu-
ated with some unidentified woman, Saishō’s mother felt uneasy and
decided to hold a “bridal contest” for her three sons, in the hope that
the anonymous woman would embarrass herself in front of the entire
family and Saishō would become disillusioned with her.
On the day of the competition, Hanayo unknowingly reached into
the bag the mountain crone had given her. Inside the bag were colorful
gems, which instantly turned into piles and piles of beautiful silk robes,
sashes, accessories, swords, and everything else Hanayo needed to gor-
geously dress herself and her attendants. During the contest, everyone
agreed that the older brothers’ wives were no match for Hanayo’s
beauty and poise. Happily married to Saishō, Hanayo rejoined her be-
loved father. The stepmother clandestinely left Moritaka’s residence and
was never seen again. Saishō moved into his father-in-law’s mansion,
inherited the lordship, and managed the estate with his wife. The couple
was blessed with adorable children, Moritaka married the middle coun-
selor’s niece, and everyone in the family lived happily ever after.

QR

Simply put, the mamako banashi is a coming-of-age tale about

an abused stepdaughter who grows up to be a marriageable adult
woman as a result of conquering arduous challenges.16 In the otogi
zōshi versions of mamako banashi, unlike their Heian counterparts,
the heroines are always displaced from their homes. Lady Hanayo is
kidnapped by the stepmother’s accomplice, whereas the heroine of
the Bowl Bearer is kicked out of the home by both of her parents.
As for the protagonist of the Hag Robe, the stepmother’s abuse is so
unbearable that the girl runs away of her own accord. Wakagimi’s
case is comparable to the last case; his stepmother successfully elim-
inates the youth by hacking his hair off. This means that she knows
that Wakagimi, without his beautiful long hair, will be too ashamed
to remain in Tokugō’s household, to such an extent that he will
even sever his ties with his father, his lover, and his master. Why is
this the case?
The underlying reason behind Wakagimi’s flight has yet to be
seriously considered by scholars. The two 2005 articles by Yaguchi
Yūko and Tanaka Takako, for example, mention the incident only in
passing. Ichiko Teiji, too, simply describes the sequence of the attack
and the protagonist’s departure in the plot summary of The
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 113

Mountain in Shin Nihon koten bungaku taikei as “Tokugō’s second

wife was jealous of her stepson and cut off his hair in the middle of
the night, so the chigo left home.”17 Similarly, in the plot summary
included in the otogi zōshi encyclopedia, Nishizawa Masaji describes
the event thus: “The stepmother of Wakagimi, who had always de-
spised the boy, cut his precious black hair. So he left Nara in despair.”18
Komatsu Shigemi’s approach is slightly different. He dramatizes the
young hero’s plight by attaching a creative caption to the illustration
of Wakagimi melancholically sitting on the veranda amid the chaos
inside the home the morning after the incident: “The following morn-
ing, Wakagimi woke up to a clamor in the house. When he saw him-
self in the mirror, the youth was utterly devastated. His appearance
was completely altered by the hideous cropped hair. He broke down
and sobbed, thinking to himself, ‘How could I ever let Jijū see me like
this?’ ”19 Still, this caption, too, points to Wakagimi’s cropped hair as
the direct cause of his flight.
The narrator of The Mountain does not explain why a mere
haircut should drive a youth away from his home, father, lover, and
career. The entire aftermath is described in two sentences: “Wakagimi
was devastated about his appearance. Perhaps due to the profound
sadness he was experiencing, he slipped out of Tokugō’s compound
in Nara when the sun was setting, and started traveling aimlessly.
This is when he encountered a group of mountain ascetics on their
way to Kumano. So Wakagimi followed them to their destination.”20
The narrator expends few words on describing the situation, perhaps
because the medieval audience did not need an elaborate explanation.
Now that the modern readers of The Mountain can no longer easily
connect the dots between the incident and Wakagimi’s subsequent
flight, it is necessary to take a close look at the cultural significance of
hair in premodern Japan.

Hairstyles That Matter

Tonsorial regulations in premodern Japan
It would be difficult to claim that our head hair has as much practical
utility as our eyes, ears, noses, mouths, and limbs do. The only practi-
cal value of the head hair may be its moderate ability to protect us
from head trauma and cold air (a role that can be easily played by a
head covering). Nonetheless, the hair on the head, or rather the way
114 Chapter Three

the hair is modified, plays an essential role in our social life. In Penny
Howell Jolly’s words, hair modification creates a “semiotic system”
consisting of “a series of signs legible to those in our social groups.”21
Just as our faces, which we cannot easily see, and our personal names,
which we rarely say out loud, primarily exist for other people’s sake,
our hair too exists mostly for others. In premodern Japan, this was
particularly true, because hairstyles were prescribed and people gen-
erally had to style their hair according to their gender, age group,
class, status, and occupation.
During the Asuka period (ca. 592–628), the court adopted a
law from Korea known as the “twelve grades of cap rank” (kan’i
jūnikai, 603), which forced male courtiers to wear a cap (kanmuri)
in a particular color according to their rank. The enforcement of
this law gradually shifted aristocratic men’s hairstyle from the tradi-
tional mizura (a loop of hair by each ear; for children, it is called
tsunogami or agemaki) to a topknot that could be neatly tucked
­inside the cap. Eight decades later, in the fourth month of 683,
­Emperor Tenmu (r. 673–686) issued a decree that standardized the
“updo” style (keppatsu) as the legally sanctioned means of hair-
dressing for the majority of the people.22 While the keppatsu law
had a drastic effect on men’s hair in Japan, it did not carry the same
weight for women. In fact, the government’s attitude toward wom-
en’s hairstyles was ambivalent, causing Tenmu to lift, reimpose, and
relift the law enforcing the keppatsu on women during his reign.23
This suggests that women’s long unbound hair signified something
more complex than that of men. It was something simultaneously
enthralling and threatening to men, and the emperor apparently
could not decide whether to mitigate the charm or the harm. In fact,
the initial decree of 683 already excluded women over forty, proba-
bly because their coiffure was no longer a threat to men or an object
of their desire.24
Meanwhile, keppatsu remained the standard hairstyle for Japa-
nese men for twelve hundred years, from 683 to the Meiji Restora-
tion of the late nineteenth century. (Additionally, until the late
Muromachi period, men were required to cover their topknot with
headgear.25) By the same token, for over a millennium, male individu-
als who did not wear this signature hairstyle belonged to one of five
categories: boys who had yet to undertake the genpuku ceremony,
symbolic children (chigo, chūdōji, daidōji, etc.), clerics, mountain as-
cetics, and outcasts.
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 115

The transformative power of head hair

A boy in premodern Japan, unless he was born into the outcast class,
was destined to cut his hair as part of the coming-of-age ceremony or
to shave his head to take the holy vow. Interestingly, since the age of
genpuku was not rigidly fixed (it was generally between fourteen and
twenty), it was the hairstyle that determined the boy’s position on the
child-adult continuum, rather than his calendar age.26 Such societal
norms gave the head hair far-reaching performative power. A youth’s
hairstyle and the interpellation to which he was subjected (such as
“chigo,” “warawa,” or “Umewaka-maru”) together formed his cor-
poreality as a symbolic child.
In fact, the remarkable transformative force of the hair is vividly
illustrated in the mythohistories of Japan. A Record of Ancient Mat-
ters gives an account of the sun goddess Amaterasu, who amassed
incredible physical power by changing her feminine hairstyle to that
of men (mizura) upon receiving an unexpected visit from her unruly
brother, the sea-god Susano-o.27 Also recorded in A Chronicle of Ja-
pan is the gender transformation of the legendary Empress Jingū (r.
fourth century) by virtue of donning the mizura. After the death of
her husband, Emperor Chūai, Jingū inherited his mission to unite the
nation and rule the Korean Peninsula. She traveled to Kashihi Bay
and said as she unwrapped her hair, “I [. . .] intend in person to chas-
tise the West. Therefore do I now lave my head in the water of the
sea. If I am to be successful, let my hair part spontaneously into
two.”28 The moment she dipped her head in the ocean, her hair sepa-
rated in half, so the Empress bound her parted locks into two bunches.
She then announced that even though she was a “weak woman”
(taoyame), now that she had assumed the form of a “fierce man”
(masurao), she would forcefully execute her “grand, manly plan”
(ooshiki hakarigoto, or yūryaku) of subjugating Silla.29
This engulfing power of the hair to transform the subject’s cor-
poreality, including its capacity to “male”—as in a causative verb—a
body that was previously construed as “female,” speaks to the notion
that gender is a continuum rather than a fixed binary. It also aligns
with Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, through which she fa-
mously conceptualized gender as “the repeated stylization of the
body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that
congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natu-
ral sort of being.”30 Butler’s theory defies the common presumption
116 Chapter Three

that one’s male- or femaleness is a “revelation” or a “natural reflec-

tion” of one’s internal “authentic truths” (based on the shape of the
sexual organ, gender identity, etc.) that are self-evident to the subject.
Conversely, one’s male- or femaleness is a set of socially sanctioned
exteriors (hairstyle, clothing, mannerisms, etc.) that together create a
vision of sei (which in turn shapes one’s “authentic truths”). In the
case of a chigo, after he undergoes the initiation ritual, various modi-
fications are made to his exteriority. He first changes his hairstyle to a
long ponytail and puts on colorful attire and makeup. He also ac-
quires the title of “chigo” and a personal chigo name. As his appear-
ance becomes increasingly chigo-like, his internal self gradually takes
the shape of a chigo as well.
In A Record of Ancient Matters, Amaterasu gained astonishing
physical might through her change of hairstyle—as she stomps the
ground in anticipation of battle, her body sinks into the hard earth,
as if she were walking on three feet of powder snow. What if we sup-
pose that the effect of the stepmother’s assault on Wakagimi was as
robust as Amaterasu’s transfiguration? What if the attack did not
merely constitute the shortening of the boy’s hair but was the equiva-
lent of the “swing of a magic wand” to instantly dispel his entire
chigo-ness? And what if he could not have regained the same level of
chigo-ness without repeating the entire process all over again, begin-
ning with growing his hair back, undergoing the chigo kanjō ritual,
submitting to Buddhist training, and so on?

Cutting hair as a form of violence

In premodern Japan, government regulations meant that people had
no freedom to modify their hairstyles to their liking. When people
were tasked with cutting others’ hair, that is, not merely trimming the
ends but removing a significant length (e.g., as a part of the genpuku
or ordination ceremony), the haircutters had to follow established
protocols. One consequence of this hyper conservativism about hair
modification was that cutting someone else’s hair without permission
became a form of grave violence. This means that such an act could
be either a criminal offense or a form of corporal punishment.31 For
instance, because the combination of a topknot and headgear signi-
fied a man’s privilege as a standard “human,” cutting someone else’s
topknot was a way of relegating the victim to a subhuman rank, sim-
ilar to that of beggars, outcasts, and criminals.32
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 117

As for cutting a woman’s hair against her wishes, several ac-

counts of such violence are given in fictional, quasihistorical, and
historical texts. A fictional example is found in The Illustrated Tale
of Obusuma Saburō (Obusuma Saburō ekotoba, late Kamakura
­period), a variant of mamako banashi. In this story, an adorable
baby girl is born to a wealthy man named Yoshimi Jirō and his
wife. The couple names her Jihi (“Compassion”), and she grows up
to be a gorgeous young woman. One day, Jirō is ambushed by a
band of robbers during an outing and fatally wounded. Moments
before his demise, Jirō leaves a will with his vassal in which he asks
his younger brother, Obusuma Saburō, to care for his wife and
daughter after his death. Unfortunately, Saburō and his wife kick
Jirō’s wife and daughter out of their own home and the evil couple
move in as the new master and mistress of the household. Saburō’s
wife then crops Jihi’s hair down to the middle of her back, changes
her name to Karakami (“Korean God”), and forces her to labor as
a lowly maid. Moreover, when a midranking government official
courts Karakami instead of the wife’s biological daughter, the infu-
riated woman further shortens her niece’s hair, renames her Nenohi
(“The Day of the Rat”), and clothes her in a ragged mesh garment
commonly worn by beggars.33
A quasihistorical account of cutting a woman’s hair is given in
the eleventh chapter of The Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Eiga mo-
nogatari, ca. 1030). Some time after Retired Emperor Ichijō (980–
1011) passed away, one of his widows, the imperial consort
Fujiwara no Genshi (n.d.) became romantically involved with a
nobleman, Minamoto no Yorisada (977–1020). This affair infuri-
ated Genshi’s father, Akimitsu. To punish his daughter, Akimitsu
reportedly cut Genshi’s beautiful trailing hair into the “bob” hair-
cut (ama ni nashite).34 Somewhat similarly, according to the “Kogō”
chapter of the Heike (6:4), the hegemon Kiyomori cut the hair of a
lady-in-waiting named Kogō in a rage after Emperor Takakura (Ki-
yomori’s son-in-law) became too infatuated with her while neglect-
ing his own daughter (Empress Kenreimon-in Noriko [also Tokushi
and Tokuko]).35
Obviously, the case of the Obusuma Saburō is driven by a
slightly different motivation than the other two. Because Jihi never
commits any offense against anyone, her aunt’s act of cutting her
hair, especially the first time, is not punitive per se. Saburō and his
wife intend to abuse their niece out of sheer loathing (likely derived
118 Chapter Three

from the couple’s inferiority complex vis-à-vis Jirō and his family) by
forcing her to look, live, and feel like a lowborn servant. Secondarily,
Saburō and the wife preemptively prevent Jihi from competing in the
marriage market against their eldest daughter, who, according to the
narrator, resembles a demon.
In the case of Genshi, however, Akimitsu’s primary objective
was to punish his daughter for what he perceived as sexual impro-
priety—presumably based on the ideology that a widow should
preserve her chastity in honor of her late husband until her own
death. To Genshi and everyone else, the loss of her gorgeous trail-
ing hair—the most prized symbol of gentlewomen—would have
been a visible reminder of her alleged “sexual impropriety,” an
equivalent of the “scarlet letter.”36 Another motivation behind
Akimitsu’s behavior would have been to keep his daughter from
continuing with the affair. By cutting Genshi’s hair, the angry father
attempted to make her look undesirable to her lover and to make
her look and behave like a nun. As for the case of Kogō, although
she had already contemplated taking a holy vow as a nun before
this incident, Kiyomori forcibly cut the lady’s hair out of fury for
the purpose of breaking her spirit.
To return to The Mountain, taken together, the cases clarify the
stepmother’s assault of Wakagimi. First, it is certainly an attempt to
undermine her stepson’s social status: he is attached to the presti-
gious Kōfukuji as the only son of the scholar monk Minbukyō
Tokugō and the favorite acolyte of the Tōnan-in abbot. For Jihi, her
aunt’s attack causes her to become similar to the lowest-ranking ser-
vants, whereas Wakagimi’s degradation takes the form of joining a
group of heretics who practice mountain asceticism. It must be no
coincidence that Wakagimi’s hairstyle is identical to that of the yam-
abushi in plate 15. In the world of Buddhist literature, mountain as-
cetics are not simply pagans; they are also scorned as avatars of the
bird-faced flying goblins (tengu).37 Second, when the stepmother at-
tacks Wakagimi, it is undeniable that she has motivations similar to
those of Fujiwara no Akimitsu and Taira no Kiyomori. She wants to
deplete Wakagimi’s erotic capital by altering his appearance and
making his body look like that of an adulterer. I will further discuss
the significance of the stepmother’s attack in relation to Wakagimi’s
sexuality in the next section.
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 119

Reading T he M ountain as a Quasi-M amako B anashi

For Wakagimi or any other chigo, the emblematic long ponytail is the
defining feature of their corporeality and the source of their spiritual
and erotic powers. Losing his precious locks to the sneak attack is
therefore horrendous enough. Nonetheless, the stepmother’s calculated
assault amplifies the injury to him precisely because of her timing.
Recall that in Lady Hanayo, the magical gems from the moun-
tain crone turn into piles of gorgeous robes and accessories that the
heroine needs for her decisive victory in the bridal contest. Similarly,
in The Mountain, the ladies-in-waiting at Tokugō’s residence are
tasked to create the garments for the special procession that their
young lord and his entourage are about to undertake. That is to say,
in this story, Wakagimi’s departure is likened to a wedding ceremony,
and his imminent future on the mountain to a marriage of the pro-
tagonists. Furthermore, for Wakagimi, his decision to be with Jijū on
Mount Hiei permanently means he is prepared to graduate from the
acolyteship, discontinue his sexual relationship with his teacher, and
become an ordained priest. It would likely have been the job of the
“bridegroom” to formalize this transition by cutting the chigo’s long
ponytail and shaving his head. Nevertheless, as we know, this sce-
nario never comes to pass for the newlyweds-to-be. Jijū’s mission of
consummating his union with his beloved is stolen by the stepmother.
In sum, Wakagimi is left to resemble an adulterous woman—only a
few days before his “wedding” day.38
After waking up to the horrific outcome of the assault, Wak-
agimi flees his home in despair. Had The Mountain been an arche-
typal mamako banashi, Wakagimi would have then come across a
supernatural figure who would have helped him survive and attain
eternal happiness. Sadly, Wakagimi is not so fortunate—it is a group
of yamabushi who saves his life instead.39
What may be the significance of the fact that Wakagimi’s “sav-
iors” are yamabushi? As mentioned earlier, the Buddhist community
imagined yamabushi to be the avatars of tengu, the flying goblins that
were equated with evilness (ma 魔).40 In addition, in medieval times,
the mountain ascetics were known to love beautiful boys.41 This be-
lief can be observed in the noh play The Goblin at Mount Kurama
(Kurama Tengu), in which a mountain ascetic (a tengu in disguise)
becomes enamored with the chigo Ushiwaka-maru (the young Mina-
moto no Yoshitsune).42 Another Yoshitsune legend, A Record of
120 Chapter Three

Yoshitsune, echoes a similar sentiment. While Yoshitsune and his en-

tourage are traveling north to flee persecution by Minamoto no Yor-
itomo (Yoshitsune’s older half-brother and the head of the Minamoto),
the hero’s wife disguises herself as a chigo. Yoshistune’s most loyal
retainer, Benkei, remarks as he coaches the lady how to act like an
acolyte, “Since there are numerous yamabushi in the Deep North, we
are going to encounter them on our way. They will break a flowery
branch and present it to you, saying, ‘This is for the young one.’ ”43
Given this cultural background, when Wakagimi is rescued by the
group of mountain ascetics, he inadvertently enters into a nanshoku
relationship with its leader.
If we are to read The Mountain as a variant of mamako banashi,
the yamabushi leader plays the role of both the protagonist’s savior
(in the role played by the mountain crone for Hanayo) and the hard-
ship (the equivalent of Hanayo’s hard labor as a hearth maid). More-
over, during the trial period, Hanayo and Wakagimi each construct
an undesirable temporary self: an anonymous, lowly old woman and
the apprentice yamabushi, Shōshō no Kimi, respectively. For the step-
child characters to escape their predicaments, someone else has to
look past their temporary guise and redeem them for who they are.
These special people, of course, become their true lovers.
The months-long quasicaptivity of Shōshō in the company of the
group of heretics finally comes to an end when Jijū’s father summons
the “blade-sharp” yamabushi to treat his deathly ill son. Jijū is not
thrilled at first, but he is convinced by the ascetic’s scruffy face and
white beard, signs of long and arduous training, and agrees to receive
his treatment. Jijū then notices the yamabushi’s charming assistant,
who is not quite twenty years old. As he attentively observes the
youth’s rich shoulder-length hair and his attire gracefully framing his
petite body, he realizes that the youth is none other than his lover,
whose disappearance caused his illness.44
Before Wakagimi’s disappearance, Jijū had seen his lover only as
a chigo with the iconic long ponytail, makeup, and elegant suikan robe.
So it takes him a few moments to realize that the youth is his missing
lover, although Jijū is instantly drawn to him. As the couple rejoices at
their reunion and cries tears of happiness, the mountain ascetic and
Jijū’s father stare at them dumbfounded, not knowing what is happen-
ing. Jijū then makes an emotional plea to the yamabushi explaining
their backstory and begging him to let his disciple go. Now that Shōshō
has no reason to be at his master’s mercy, he, too, straightaway asks
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 121

the yamabushi to let him stay with Jijū. The yamabushi hedges but
admits that “saying something disagreeable would do no good” and
agrees to let his disciple-lover be with Jijū. As the mountain ascetic is
leaving the estate of his client, in a last attempt to preserve their rela-
tionship, he says to the youth, “No matter where you may be, I shall
never forget you. Please, whenever you come back to the capital, be
sure to inform me.” Shōshō replies, “Of course I will,” although the
readers would know he has no intention of doing so.45
As table 3.1 illustrates, the former chigo’s reunion with Jijū
marks a positive turning point in his life, corresponding to Hanayo’s
encounter with her future husband, Saishō. Once Hanayo and Saishō
fall in love, despite his mother’s scheme to break them up, they to-
gether follow a linear progression toward “eternal happiness.” The
details of Hanayo’s “eternal happiness” are left to the reader’s imagi-
nation—hopefully, she will always be beautiful, well taken care of by
her husband and entourage, blessed with lovely children, and her
husband will show no interest in any other women. In short, Lady
Hanayo spares its readers the unglamorous, realistic details of mar-
ried life. This literary convention of obfuscating the postwedding life
of a romantic heroine is not dissimilar to the tradition of expunging
the younger protagonist from an acolyte tale before he loses his
youthful, androgynous beauty. Nevertheless, The Mountain rejects
both conventions and instead puts the younger protagonist to work
again—this time, toward his own rebirth into the Pure Land.

Table 3.1.  Major events in The Mountain and Lady Hanayo

The former chigo Hanayo

Banishment The stepmother cuts his The stepmother has a

hair and he runs away samurai kidnap Hanayo
from home and abandon her in the
mountains

Savior The yamabushi leader The mountain crone

Hardship Erotic labor as the Physical labor as an

yamabushi leader’s lover aged hearth maid in the
mansion of the middle
counselor

Breakthrough Reunion with Jijū in the Saishō’s “discovery” of

capital Hanayo
122 Chapter Three

Further development Moves to Mt. Hiei with Victory in the bridal

Jijū contest
The stepmother is The stepmother is
eliminated eliminated
Inherits Tōnan-in Reunion with her father

Eternal happiness Devotion to Buddhist Happy marriage

practices Births of children
Reunion with his former Prosperity
lover
Rebirth in the Pure Land

Once reunited with Jijū in the capital, Shōshō moves to Mount

Hiei and begins his life anew—as an ordained priest, Zenji. The cou-
ple spend a few joyful years on the mountain together, but Zenji
grows increasingly concerned about his aging father, Tokugō. Zenji’s
homecoming provides Tokugō with the opportunity to eliminate his
malicious wife and stepdaughter permanently. Yet with his son living
so far away, he will now be all alone in Nara. The lovers therefore opt
to go their separate ways, each focusing on his duty as a son and cler-
gyman. Zenji eventually inherits Tōnan-in from his master, earns the
title of gon-no-risshi (supernumerary master of precepts), and be-
comes known as Shōshō Risshi. In his old age, Shōshō Risshi retreats
to a mountain hermitage and calls himself Nara Shōnin. He is re-
warded with a serendipitous reunion with his former lover, now called
Jakuji Shōnin. In this way, The Mountain tells a touching story of
love and religious devotion without driving the chigo out of the story.
Thus far, I have attempted to explicate the structure of The
Mountain as a quasi-mamako banashi by paying particular attention
to Wakagimi’s plight. Again, one of the most notable characteristics
of the medieval mamako banashi is that its protagonist, a stepchild, is
destined to be uprooted from home. Yet precisely because he or she is
displaced from home and steps into the paranormal space of the deep
mountains, the protagonist eventually finds a path to eternal happi-
ness. In this vein, the stepmother’s attack on Wakagimi, which disfig-
ures him and drives him away from home, is the beginning of a series
of challenges. And only through overcoming these obstacles can he
triumph as the hero of this deeply romantic, religious narrative. Fur-
ther, Wakagimi’s loss of his beautiful hair appears to play yet another
critical role in this tale. In the next section, I will demonstrate how
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 123

the stepmother’s cutting of Wakagimi’s hair fits into The Mountain’s

ambitious goal: to be the only chigo monogatari whose younger pro-
tagonist unapologetically shaves his head, lingers until he reaches a
ripe old age, and finally attains rebirth into the Pure Land.

Taking Steps toward the Buddhist

“Happily Ever After”

The stepmother’s attack as a buffer

Earlier, I pointed out that Wakagimi’s postattack coiffure is identical
to that of the mountain ascetics depicted in plate 15. Equally signifi-
cant is that his cropped hair also resembles that of a woman who had
undertaken “partial tonsure.” The signature bob haircut was called
amasogi (nun’s cut), and it indicated the transitory state between a
laywoman and a nun. Although some noblewomen did seek a full
tonsure (teihatsu, “shaving one’s head,” or rakushoku, “dropping
one’s ornament”) to become fully ordained nuns, aristocratic ladies
were generally discouraged from shaving their heads. This is purport-
edly because fully tonsured women were not allowed at court or at
any places or occasions associated with Shinto.46 Nevertheless, it is
not difficult to imagine how visually astonishing it would have been
for a highborn lady with silky, six-foot-long, jet black hair to instantly
switch to a state of complete baldness. In a similar vein, a bald-headed
woman who renounced the world, along with her love life, family,
and feminine beauty, must have been a threat to manhood, and she
may occasionally have been stigmatized for lacking femininity. (This
negative perception may have spawned the nuns’ custom of covering
their shaved heads with headscarves.) Therefore, not only was the
“nun’s cut” a preparatory state before the eventual full tonsure, but it
also can be understood as a “buffer” that shielded the women from
stigmatization.
If aristocratic women’s heads were shaved, it was typically done
on their sickbed.47 Curiously, according to Katsuura Noriko, once a
woman had completely shaven her head, she “was regarded as the
equivalent of a male monk.”48 For instance, Imperial Consort Fuji-
wara no Senshi (962–1002) first became a partially tonsured nun af-
ter the death of her husband, Emperor En’yū (r. 969–984). A decade
or so later, she received the full tonsure as she neared her own end;
the courtier-calligrapher Fujiwara no Yukinari (972–1027) described
124 Chapter Three

this event in his diary as having “turn[ed] her into a [male] priest” (sō
to nasu). Similarly, in the words of the courtier Fujiwara no Sanesuke
(957–1046), Imperial Consort Fujiwara no Seishi (972–1025) was
“made into a male priest” (hōshi to nasu) when she shaved her head
on her deathbed.49 This, of course, is still another example of the
depth of tonsorial power—by adopting a male hairstyle, the sun god-
dess Amaterasu acquired enormous physical might; Empress Jingū
swiftly subjugated the Korean Peninsula; and highborn women near-
ing death defied the common belief that women were unable to attain
enlightenment.50
Along similar lines, the stepmother’s attack pushes Wakagimi in
the direction of acquiring masculinity, adulthood, and priesthood,
creating a buffer zone between the state of the triply liminal chigo
and that of a full-fledged priest. Indeed, the author of The Mountain
provides Wakagimi with another buffer by fluidly moving the story
back and forth between male homosocial-homoerotic realms and het-
erosocial-heteroerotic domains.

The acolyte in the mixed-gender domain

Partially modeled after the mamako banashi prototype, The Moun-
tain goes against the tendency of acolyte tales to exclude women. As
we have seen, the main stage of this story continues to shift between
the homosocial religious world (Mount Hiei, Tōnan-in, the dwelling
of the yamabushi, and Mount Kōya) and mixed-gender domestic
spaces, namely, Tokugō’s residence in Nara and the home of Jijū’s
parents in the capital.
The narrative, however, pays no heed to a key female character in
a typical mamako banashi—the stepchild’s dead mother. The readers
are not even given an explanation of how Wakagimi’s mother died;
the narrator simply states, “Years had passed since the death of Wak-
agimi’s mother, so Tokugō decided to promote one of his attendants to
become his new wife.”51 Conversely, in Lady Hanayo, the heroine’s
biological mother, who dies an untimely death, is remembered by the
heroine as an exquisite and loving lady. Moreover, toward the end of
the story, Hanayo attributes all of her good fortune to her late mother,
who built a chapel to worship Kannon. Yearning for a child, the lady
prayed to the bodhisattva of compassion and, after Hanayo was born,
she continued to pray for the well-being of her daughter, until the last
day of her life. This type of virtuous message honoring the late mother
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 125

is prevalent in mamako banashi because one of the functions of this

genre of stories is to teach the readers (girls and young women) about
the importance of filial piety.52
The disregard for Wakagimi’s birthmother is also congruent
with the fact that the majority of The Mountain’s female characters—
the ladies-in-waiting who work at the homes of both protagonists,
Jijū’s mother, and Tokugō’s stepdaughter—receive little attention.
They remain in the background without uttering a word. Worse, the
only two female characters who speak in this tale, the stepmother and
her servant Owari, are villains. Thus, breaking out of the typical all-
male setting of chigo monogatari does not mean that The Mountain
depicts women in a positive light.
The repeated insertion of Wakagimi into a mixed-gender domes-
tic milieu, however, plays a significant role in this story in a way that
is not directly related to the plot. That is, it makes Wakagimi’s physi-
cal transformation from an idolized and eroticized figure to a cleric
with a shaved head less dramatic and more digestible for the audi-
ence. Within the fourteen extant acolyte tales, The Mountain is the
only text in which the central chigo character takes the tonsure mid-
story. In all the other cases of a chigo’s entrance into the priesthood
(i.e., Hanamitsu and Tsukimitsu, The Tale of Matsuho Bay, and vi-
gnette 2 of A Booklet of Acolytes), the event is announced by the
narrator at the very end. This is because, in Yaguchi Yūko’s words,
taking the tonsure causes a chigo to “relinquish his charm as a [sym-
bolic] child,” after which he “can no longer be the object of [Bud-
dhist priests’] romantic interest.”53 Therefore, just as we rarely
encounter realistic depictions of romantic heroines in middle age and
beyond, Hanamitsu and Tsukimitsu, the Matsuho Bay, and vignette 2
of A Booklet of Acolytes spare the readers the image of the chigo-
turned-monk in a plain black robe, wearing no makeup, and with a
head completely shaven.
The fact of the matter is that to soften Wakagimi’s relinquish-
ment of his beauty and avoid alienating the readers, he must be made
unlike Umewaka, the mysterious chigo-qua- bodhisattva. The Moun-
tain achieves this innovation by illuminating several sides of its
younger protagonist, instead of portraying him solely as the object of
the homoerotic desire of his master, colleagues in the monastery, and
lover. The readers of The Mountain are given opportunities to see
him as the son of Tokugō, the stepson of Tokugō’s second wife, the
young master at Tokugō’s residence, and the yamabushi-in-training
126 Chapter Three

at the home of Jijū’s parents before he becomes the monk Zenji. As a

result, the younger hero of The Mountain comes across as unusually
human, imperfect, nondivine, and nonmysterious, which makes his
transformations less shocking and less disappointing than they would
otherwise be.
With Buddhist enlightenment as the ultimate goal, Wakagimi’s
long spiritual journey consists of numerous incremental steps. Along
the way, the stepmother attempts to break his spirit by hacking his
long ponytail, and when this does not work out, she even schemes to
have him murdered. But the hero of this tale never relents. Instead, at
every juncture of his spiritual journey, he evolves. His appearance,
name, and status transform: from the chigo Wakagimi (his actual
chigo name is not revealed) to the yamabushi-in-training Shōshō no
Kimi, followed by the monk Zenji, Shōshō Risshi, and, finally, the
recluse Nara Shōnin. Through these gradual changes in Wakagimi’s
corporeality and ontology as well as the opportunities for the readers
to see him through the non-erotic eyes of his father, stepmother, fe-
male attendants, and Jijū’s parents, the hero of The Mountain earns
the gift of living a full and complete life until his natural death. This
wholesome life of our hero, of course, is filled with ups, downs, and a
hiatus of nanshoku relationships.

Male-Male Love in T he M ountain

Human love with Jijū
In the most archetypal chigo monogatari, Autumn Night, the rela-
tionship between Keikai and Umewaka is punctuated by a series of
challenges, beginning with the former’s unrequited love for the image
of the youth in his dream. Days later, he chances upon Umewaka at
Miidera—the archenemy of Keika’s home temple—and becomes even
more obsessed with the boy. The young monk’s pursuit of the chigo
stretches over many days of trial and failure. At last the two seize the
opportunity to have a rendezvous one evening and exchange vows of
eternal love. Surprisingly, this turns out to be the only time they spend
a night together as lovers. In this story, the fleeting love affair of Kei-
kai and Umewaka is presented as something mystical, beautiful,
dreamlike, and surreal.
This is not the case for the protagonists of The Mountain. As an
integral part of the “wholesome and complete” life of the humanized
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 127

chigo and his partner, this story traces the evolution of their less-than-
mystical romantic endeavor until their final reunion. Wakagimi’s hu-
manity vis-à-vis Umewaka is obvious from the beginning, as shown
in his receptivity to Jijū’s advances. The day after Jijū first sees Wak-
agimi in Shirakawa, he returns to the villa to catch a glimpse of the
chigo again. Surprised to see this stranger outside the fence of the
villa, Wakagimi blushes and hides behind the curtain, yet he does not
leave the site entirely. Jijū then squeezes through a gap in the fence
and comes inside the premises. Standing beside the veranda, the monk
composes a poem: “Behind this curtain / you may be wondering who
this stranger is / But I know you and / my heart is already engrossed
in you.” The youth immediately replies in verse, “I am not con-
vinced / How could anyone see me through the curtain / let alone feel
so strongly about me?”54 One week after this poetry exchange, Jijū
returns to Shirakawa, hoping that the chigo’s servant will let him see
the chigo. To his delight, Wakagimi has already been on the lookout
for him, standing by the gate. After they speak with each other for a
while, the chigo escorts the monk inside. They become lovers that
night.
Once Wakagimi and Jijū are lovers, they spend their days and
nights at the villa in Shirakawa, playing music and singing along. Ap-
palled by their nonchalant attitude, Tokugō scolds his son, reminding
him that he has an obligation to the abbot of Tōnan-in. Once Jijū
awkwardly introduces himself to Tokugō, the father ceases to gripe,
perhaps because the couple is about to be miles apart. Meanwhile,
Wakagimi and Jijū take Tokugō’s silence as a cue to enjoy each oth-
er’s company even more openly. Finally, Jijū receives a message from
his master, instructing him to hurry back to the mountain, so they bid
farewell each other, vowing to meet again.

The master-chigo relationship

I have noted in the previous chapters that the chigo’s masters tend to
remain in the background, and if they appear as characters, their sex-
ual engagement with their acolytes is downplayed. Umewaka’s mas-
ter, for example, never appears as a character in Autumn Night, while
The Tale of Genmu moderates the Chikurinbō abbot’s sexual rela-
tionship with Hanamatsu. That is, when Genmu visits Mount Nikkō
to look for Hanamatsu, the abbot does not seem troubled by the fact
that this young, good-looking monk, clearly besotted, has traveled all
128 Chapter Three

the way from Kyoto to the eastern province to see his favorite chigo.
In the comical and satirical Booklet of Acolytes, however, each vi-
gnette pokes fun at the master of the chigo. In other words, master-
chigo sexuality is not something to which an acolyte tale pays close
attention, and when it does, it portrays the union in an exaggerated,
humorous manner.
In The Mountain, the treatment of the master-chigo relationship
is somewhere between a complete denial and over-the-top mockery.
Every time Wakagimi slights his master, the author of The Mountain
draws the audience’s attention to the insecurities of the Tōnan-in ab-
bot. For instance, upon returning from Shirakawa to Nara, the chigo
feels too preoccupied with Jijū to resume his duties at Tōnan-in, so he
lingers at his father’s estate. Seeing this, Tokugō reprimands his son,
saying, “How long do you plan to behave this way? Why don’t you
compose yourself and hurry to your master? The abbot has kept tell-
ing me how concerned he was while you and I were in Shirakawa.”
The boy reluctantly departs for Tōnan-in simply because “it was not
as if Wakagimi could disobey his own father.”55 Upon Wakagimi’s
return, however, things do not improve for the abbot: “Every time the
abbot looked over to check on his disciple, the youth was absorbed in
deep thoughts, reminiscing about what had happened in Shirakawa.
Overcome by a range of emotions, the abbot remarked, ‘I am turning
into that old grouch who fusses over everything!’ Despite his efforts,
he was unable to maintain a poker face, so others began asking him
what the matter was. Inside his heart, the abbot was distraught and
was struck by how much the chigo had changed just within the few
days he was gone.”56

The nanshoku relationship with the yamabushi leader

Another man with whom the younger protagonist of The Mountain
forms a sexual relationship is the yamabushi leader. Although it
would be inaccurate to characterize this man as a villain, it is none-
theless an unfortunate situation for Shōshō to be his lover. Because
Shōshō does not enter into Shugendō (Mountain Asceticism) out of
genuine desire, this relationship brings him no benefits beyond sur-
vival, unlike his relationship with his master priest at Tōnan-in. Fur-
thermore, because his relationship with the yamabushi is an informal,
ad hoc arrangement, Shōshō has no leverage or protective measures,
such as the presence of his father, whose utmost concern is the
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 129

well-being of his son. Hence, as soon as Shōshō is reunited with Jijū

in the capital, he breaks off relations with his temporary master. For-
tunately for Shōshō, after he regains his freedom, no one blames,
criticizes, or shames him for what he has had to do to survive.
In sum, The Mountain unmistakably champions the protago-
nists’ romantic love based on mutual attraction, and Shōshō’s uneven
relationship with the yamabushi leader functions as a foil for the
ideal companionship. This story also breaks with the conventions of
acolyte tales by exposing the truth about the chigo system, that is, a
chigo’s participation in a sexual union with his teacher signifies his
willingness to provide erotic labor diligently, rather than his sexual
attraction to the master. On the whole, this tale’s attitude toward the
chigo system is ambivalent at best. Although the author certainly
does not vilify the abbot, his authority over his chigo is depicted as a
precarious one. This phenomenon can be seen most saliently in his
power negotiation with the chigo’s other male guardian: his father,
Tokugō.

Father versus Master

If an author of an acolyte tale wished to protect the positive image of
the chigo system, he had good reason to avoid depicting the power
dynamics between a chigo’s two male guardians. In fact, out of the
five acolyte tales we have examined thus far, The Mountain is the
only text that features the younger protagonist’s father. In other texts,
chigo’s fathers are either not mentioned at all or are mentioned only
for the purpose of explaining the chigo’s lineage.
The master-father dyad of The Mountain is of particular interest
because both men belong to the great Kōfukuji community, with the
abbot holding a far higher status than Tokugō. Nevertheless, Tokugō
is depicted as a father first and a member of the Kōfukuji complex
second. When necessary, he is not afraid to betray the hierarchical
order of his institution for the love of his son. Although Tokugō tries
to intervene in his son’s affair with Jijū on multiple occasions, after
Wakagimi slips out of Tōnan-in to be with his lover, Tokugō appears
to recognize the boy’s stubbornness and the importance of respecting
his feelings and desires. Once Wakagimi’s tutor, the monk Kakunen,
arrives on Mount Hiei and demands his young lord back, Jijū’s mas-
ter steps in and suggests that Jijū ask Wakagimi’s father for permis-
sion to be with his son, completely leaving the chigo’s master out of
130 Chapter Three

the discussion. Tokugō, of course, chooses his son’s happiness over

loyalty to the abbot and agrees to send Wakagimi to Enryakuji as
soon as appropriate preparations have been made. Having caught
wind of Wakagimi’s return, the abbot repeatedly summons his disci-
ple, but Tokugō makes up various excuses to avoid complying.57 For-
tunately, many years later, when the former chigo (monk Zenji) visits
Tōnan-in, the abbot, who is dying of an illness, shows no sign of bit-
terness. On the contrary, the former master is delighted to see Zenji
and asks him to be the head of Tōnan-in after his death.

Hypothesizing the Authorship of T he M ountain

After The Letter from Lord Kōzuke was composed during the late
Kamakura period, a host of similarly oriented narratives emerged.
Most of these stories conclude by affirming the primacy of Buddhist
teachings over a fleeting this-worldly attachment, whereas the formal
master-chigo union, vaguely lurking in the background, is not sub-
jected to scrutiny. The Mountain’s approach to the chigo system is
remarkably different, as the author is clearly not afraid to shed light
on the unglamorous aspects of this tradition. This includes the chigo’s
impenitent obsession with a young, handsome monk from a rival
temple, the abbot’s grievance about his disciple’s unfaithfulness, and
the abbot’s precarious authority over his chigo vis-à-vis his father.
In my view, this tale’s subtly critical stance toward the chigo
system was not the result of the author’s moral judgment on the tra-
dition. Rather, it probably stemmed from the fact that the chigo sys-
tem benefited only the top echelon of the monastery. I would also
argue that The Mountain seems to be reflecting the perspective of
lower- to midranking clerics—or the bystanders of the chigo system—
who were unlikely to be in the position of having chigo of their own,
even in the future. These bystanders played a significant role in the
longevity and vibrancy of the chigo system because they experienced
(but could not act upon) mimetic desire for the master priests, thereby
further elevating the status of the ranking priests and strengthening
their authority. Another way to look at the exclusivity of the chigo
system is to hypothesize that it resulted in resentment among the
lower- and midranking clerics. Thus, The Mountain appears to repre-
sent the bystanders’ fantasy. In this highly unrealistic scenario, a gor-
geous chigo falls in love with a slightly upgraded version of themselves,
runs away from the master to be with him. Then, after overcoming a
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 131

series of obstacles, the lovers spend the last few years of their life in a
small, serene mountain hermitage until they both finally attain en-
lightenment.

Conclusion
Despite The Mountain’s reception history as a failed imitation of Au-
tumn Night, its plot, characters, and structure bear little resemblance
to those of Autumn Night. Yet thematically speaking, both acolyte
tales excel at telling a compelling story of selfless love and religious
devotion. Also, to make a comparison between The Mountain and
Lady Hanayo, the latter story progresses rapidly until the heroine’s
marriage to her Prince Charming—and then it stalls. The very last
thing the narrator mentions in this heterosexual mamako banashi is
that she is blessed with one baby boy and one baby girl and that she
finds each child superb menoto and attendants. The Mountain, in
contrast, does not stop at the resolution of the major conflict, follow-
ing Shōshō’s reunion with Jijū in the capital. Afterward, the younger
protagonist continues to endure and overcome challenges: a threat of
assassination, a long-term separation from Jijū, and the deaths of his
father and master.
In addition to discussing these similarities and differences be-
tween The Mountain and its more tragically oriented counterparts,
this chapter has offered an in-depth analysis of hair in the context of
premodern Japan. By slashing Wakagimi’s hair, the stepmother ac-
complishes many objectives. She undermines the boy’s attractiveness;
she makes him resemble a heretic, a lowly servant, and an adulterous
woman at the same time; she deprives Jijū of a chance to give his
lover a tonsure; and, most importantly, she expels Wakagimi from
home. I have also argued that Wakagimi’s cropped hair signifies his
transitory status as he stands on the cusp of becoming an adult male
priest. By creating this buffer between his status as a chigo and an
ordained priest, The Mountain seems to have made the hero’s trans-
formation more gradual, similarly to the way highborn women
sought a partial tonsure as an in-between state before pursuing a full
tonsure.
The abundant illustrations of tonsorial power in premodern Jap-
anese texts, including The Mountain, show us that one’s sei is not a
merely descriptive manifestation of one’s internal “truth.” Rather,
human corporeality—the “vision” of sei included—is embodied and
132 Chapter Three

materialized in an intricate web of social, cultural, and religious con-

ditions and messages. This vision of physicality functions as a pre-
scriptive force to shape one’s self. The descriptive and prescriptive
functions of body and self push, pull, and interact, allowing one to
continue evolving throughout one’s life.
Today we tend to regard gender/sex, race/ethnicity, and age as
more predetermined and unchangeable than, say, social class, spiritual-
ity, and morality. Nonetheless, in premodern Japan, all of these labels
were considered more or less malleable. To the extent that the modifi-
cation of hair, clothing, and appellation caused the individual to
emerge as a new being, it is understandable that the government strictly
regulated such social markers in premodern times. As Nikki Sullivan
reminds us, it is important to question the overwhelmingly prevalent
notion that the subject is a “unique, unified, rational, autonomous in-
dividual [. . .] whose desires and actions are transparent to him or her-
self,” since there is no “true self that exists prior to its immersion in
culture.” The Mountain, a relatively unknown tale from medieval Ja-
pan, helps us question the validity of the numerous labels we apply to
define ourselves and others hastily and uncritically every day.
Figuratively speaking, initiation into chigo-hood was not unlike
signing a short-term, nonrenewable contract to play a stage character.
The process of casting an adolescent boy for this role was arranged
between the boy’s parents and his future master, as illustrated at the
beginning of The Mountain (Jijū’s father entrusts the boy to the care
of the high priest at the Eastern Pagoda of Enryakuji). When a mutual
agreement was reached, the youth was given a script to play his role
by and remained in the spotlight at the monastery for a few years. Al-
though we don’t know whether physical contracts for chigo actually
existed, an etiquette manual, known as Uki (ca. 1190), has survived.58
Composed by the Cloistered Prince Shukaku (1150–1202), the first
half of this document, titled “Matters Regarding Symbolic Children
and Others’ Etiquette” (Dōgyō tō no shōsoku no koto), enumerates
twenty-five “do’s and don’ts” for chigo. One of the instructions con-
cerns the timing of retirement: “The age for taking the tonsure should
be between seventeen and nineteen. Since the acolytes decorate their
countenances with kohl, rouge, and face powder only for four or five
years, during that time, they should diligently study the classics.”59
As a result, the lifespan of the chigo was much shorter than a
woman’s “marriageable age” in medieval times. In the world of chigo
monogatari, the youth usually steps out of the spotlight before the
 The Mountain: An Acolyte Tale of Traversals 133

light turns off on its own, with the exception of the hero of The
Mountain. Long after taking the holy orders, he unapologetically oc-
cupies the center stage to pursue his goal of attaining enlightenment.
Toward the end of the story, the author lets the reader have a glimpse
of the former chigo, now known as the recluse Nara Shōnin: “ex-
traordinarily skinny, with a dark complexion, and wearing an old,
droopy, ink-dyed black robe.”60
The relatively earthly milieu of The Mountain created a heart-
warming love story of two fervent followers of Buddhism. What hap-
pens to a chigo, then, when he moves from the monochromic cloister
on Mount Hiei to the flowery capital and lives in a domestic space
occupied by numerous ladies-in-waiting—as one of them? In the next
chapter, we will consider our last chigo monogatari, the story of a
Hiei chigo who falls in love with the daughter of a minister and pur-
sues her affection through an elaborate, novel scheme.
 Chapter 4

The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie:

When an Acolyte Falls in Love with an Aristocratic Lady

T he last chigo monogatari that this book will examine is The

Chigo Known as Miss Rookie (Chigo Imamairi), an acolyte tale
that has drawn increasing scholarly attention in recent years.1 The
title stems from the temporary nickname given to its hero, On-Imam-
airi (Miss Rookie). He earns this sobriquet when he takes a leave
from his acolyte position and serves his love interest, the daughter of
a high-ranking minister, as her new lady-in-waiting.
In the “flow chart” of the chigo monogatari genre (figure 4),
The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie diverges from the archetypes by
two degrees, for the chigo character does not develop a romantic
relationship with a Buddhist monk and does not turn out to be an
avatar of a deity. Unsurprisingly, scholars have positioned Miss
Rookie as “an anomalous and marginalized” acolyte tale, precisely
because the male protagonist forms a heterosexual relationship with
an aristocratic lady and, by the same token, much of the story un-
folds outside a Buddhist institution.2 In Ichiko Teiji’s words, this
work “lies midway between chigo monogatari and romantic novels
of aristocrats.”3
Although such assessments of Miss Rookie are not invalid, they
do not necessarily capture this tale’s bold, playful, and subversive
ethos. As this chapter will show, Miss Rookie is a satirical parody of
the chigo monogatari genre, sprinkled with lighthearted and not-so-
lighthearted humor. It also deals with such important yet neglected
issues as female homosociality, interspecific and interreligious rela-
tions between Buddhist humans and Shugendō-practicing tengu, and

134
 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 135

the reconciliation of this-worldly happiness and posthumous salva-

tion. What is most significant is that, while the majority of chigo tales
focus on the androcentric monastic world and they were likely penned
by male priests for the enjoyment of predominantly male audiences,
Miss Rookie is the opposite. In short, this tale is presented to its read-
ers as a chigo monogatari “of the women, by the women, and for the
women.” As a first step toward delving into this fascinating story, let
us consider the plot.

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Not so long ago, there was a minister of the center (naidaijin), who was
fortunate to have a handsome son and a stunningly beautiful daughter.
Himegimi (Young Lady) had been betrothed to the crown prince and
everyone at the mansion had attended her with the utmost care and
admiration. Regrettably, in the second month of the year, Himegimi
suddenly fell ill. Afraid that she may have been possessed by a malevo-
lent spirit, the minister had reputable healers conduct an exorcism, al-
beit to no avail. He then summoned the bishop (sōjō) from Mount
Hiei.4 After seven days of prayers and purification rites, Himegimi
made a significant recovery. Though her parents were elated, they asked
the bishop to extend his stay just to be on the safe side.
It was past the twentieth day of the third month and an assortment
of flowers was in full bloom in the courtyard of the mansion. One late
afternoon, the bishop’s favorite chigo, who had accompanied his mas-
ter to the minister’s estate, was strolling through the courtyard, enjoy-
ing the view of the lovely blossoms, and caught a glimpse of Himegimi
sitting on the veranda (plate 16). The lady seemed to be fifteen or six-
teen years of age. Her beauty and elegance were mesmerizing, and the
youth was instantly enthralled. On the final day of the bishop’s sched-
uled stay, the chigo asked for a temporary sick leave and headed for the
home of his menoto (wet nurse) in the capital.
At the menoto’s home, the chigo spent weeks lying in bed and refus-
ing to confide in her. Eventually, he sat up and began scribbling verses
about unrequited love on a sheet of paper. So the nurse hit upon the
idea that her young lord must be lovelorn for someone.5 She finally
persuaded him into a confession; upon hearing his story, the nurse de-
cided to pull a stunt on behalf of her beloved charge.
For the next few months, she frequented the minister’s mansion with
various tributes and befriended the women who worked on site. She
136 Chapter Four

then volunteered her “young mistress” (i.e., the chigo) for a position as
a lady-in-waiting to serve the minister’s daughter. Although the chigo
was initially flabbergasted at this idea, he reluctantly agreed to dress as
a woman for the chance to see the young lady again. The menoto and
her attendants transformed the chigo into a charming lady-in-waiting
and they set out for his interview in a carriage.
It was around the tenth day of the ninth month. At the minister’s
mansion, the people came out to greet the candidate. Thanks to the
chigo’s beauty, poise, and superb talents in the Chinese lute (biwa) and
calligraphy, he was hired on the spot. From that day on, the people at
the mansion called the new attendant On-imamairi (Miss Rookie). As
he taught the young lady the biwa, they became close friends. Because
On-imamairi kept the young lady company day and night, Himegimi’s
other attendants found themselves out of place in their mistress’s cham-
ber and spent more time in the other locations of the premises.
The more private time the chigo spent with Himegimi, however, the
more painful it became to suppress his feelings. Fully aware that the
lady’s wedding day was fast approaching, the chigo finally confessed
everything to her. Although Himegimi was horrified and dumbfounded
at first, after days of continuous courtship, they became lovers.
Several weeks passed and Himegimi felt unwell; the chigo broke to
her the terrible news that she was probably pregnant, turning her life
upside-down. With all the elaborate planning for her wedding already
underway, Himegimi was utterly devastated. Meanwhile, the Enryakuji
bishop had been nagging the menoto for the return of his favorite aco-
lyte. Unable to keep evading the pressure, the menoto asked the chigo
to take a temporary leave from his service at the minister’s mansion.
Though it was painful to leave his pregnant lover behind, the chigo
had no choice. He first went to the nurse’s home to change back into
his chigo attire and then ascended the mountain. In contrast to the
chigo’s gloomy spirit, the bishop and the other clergymen were over-
joyed at the chigo’s return and threw a celebratory banquet (plate 17).
A few days passed on the mountain. One evening, the forlorn youth
was out on the veranda. This is when a tengu, dressed in the garb of a
yamabushi, appeared out of thin air and snatched him away. The sud-
den vanishing of the chigo set off a panic on the mountain. The clergy-
men thought this must be the work of those wicked flying goblins and
started praying for the return of the chigo. The ominous news spread to
the capital. Having a hunch that this must be her lover, Himegimi’s
shock was indescribable. Without her only confidant, the thought of
 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 137

herself at the center of salacious gossip was so unbearable that it made

her feel suicidal.
One early morning, while her attendants were still sound asleep,
Himegimi slipped out of her home. She aimlessly walked about in the
deep mountains until her feet bled, looking for a body of water to dive
into. But her heart broke whenever she imagined how excruciating her
death would be to her parents. Her suicide would be a terrible disgrace
to the family name as well. Himegimi was at a loss. Then she saw a
faint light flickering in the distance, so she decided to walk in that di-
rection. The light was coming from the dwelling of an enormous, hid-
eous-looking ama tengu (nun goblin). The lady summoned up the
courage to ask for a night’s stay (plate 18).
Despite some initial reluctance, the ama tengu let the human girl in,
having used her mind-reading powers to discern the situation. The ama
tengu told Himegimi that it was her own child who had kidnapped her
lover and instructed her to hide in a cabinet-like shrine (zushi).
Soon, the ama tengu’s son, an eerie-looking tengu named Tarō-bō,
accompanied by his fellow flying goblins and the spiritless chigo, ar-
rived and threw a rowdy banquet (plate 19).6 The ama tengu managed
to convince Tarō-bō to entrust the chigo to her care overnight, on the
condition that should she ever lose the boy, he would take his own
mother’s life. As soon as all the evil creatures left her dwelling, the ama
tengu let Himegimi and the chigo reunite. Although this would mean
the end of her life, the ama tengu, who had now turned to the Buddhist
faith, offered to take the young couple any place they wished to go. To
this, the chigo replied, “Please take us to my menoto’s home.”
The chigo, who had been spirited away from Mount Hiei, must al-
ready be dead, people came to assume. As for the chigo’s menoto, she
had taken the tonsure and moved to Uji, where she prayed for her
young master’s salvation day and night.7 So her surprise and delight
were extraordinary when she saw her beloved lord alive and well.
Sadly, soon after the ama tengu dropped the couple off on the menoto’s
doorstep, she was devoured by her son and his underlings. Having wit-
nessed a murder of crows in the sky throw down her severed feathered
arm just outside the nurse’s home, the chigo and Himegimi offered her
a solemn memorial service.
Meanwhile, in the care of the menoto of Uji, her daughter Jijū, and
other attendants, Himegimi gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. The
chigo was a proud new father, and everyone was in a celebratory spirit.
But Himegimi’s heart was in turmoil. Every night, the lady had the
138 Chapter Four

same dream about her parents weeping frantically, worrying about their
missing daughter. Seeing the young lady’s grief, the menoto decided to pull
another stunt. First, she composed a letter and sent it to the chigo’s master,
informing him that his disciple had been found alive and was staying with
her now. As soon as the bishop received this letter, he rushed down to Uji.8
The master priest was ecstatic to see his acolyte as well as to learn of the
great efficacy of his prayers. The chigo explained to his master that
the young lady had been brought to the nurse’s home but she refused to tell
anyone her name or where she had come from. Thinking that this might be
the missing daughter of the minister, the bishop then hurried to the capital.
Since Himegimi’s disappearance, the minister’s wife had stopped tak-
ing any food and had become extremely frail. However, hearing that her
daughter might still be alive, she could hardly contain her excitement.
To find out whether this unidentified girl was actually her missing
daughter, the mother sent Himegimi’s former menoto, Saishō, to Uji.
Before Saishō’s arrival, the chigo temporarily changed from his aco-
lytes’ attire to that of an adult man and stayed behind a partition so
Saishō, his former colleague, would not recognize him. When Saishō and
Himegimi saw each other, all they could do was cry happy tears. Saishō
then returned to the capital to relay this marvelous news. Eager to see
their daughter as soon as possible, they sent Saishō right back to Uji.
For Himegimi, the notion of homecoming was bittersweet, knowing
that she would miss the women she had grown so fond of during her time
in Uji. Several days after the young lady left for home, a marvelous proces-
sion arrived to escort Himegimi’s husband and her infant son to the capi-
tal. The new groom turned out to be of the prestigious Northern Fujiwara
lineage. So the minister fabricated a pretext to welcome the young couple
into his mansion. After informing the court of the passing of his sick
daughter, the minister also notified them that his son with a concubine
had just undertaken the genpuku ceremony and was ready to serve the
court. Thus, the former chigo received the rank of lesser captain (shōshō).
The couple was blessed with another baby boy, followed by a baby
girl, who eventually became the junior consort (nyōgo) to the emperor.9
Moreover, they had a dream of the ama tengu’s rebirth into the Inner
Sanctum of the Fourth Heavenly Realm (Tosotsu no naiin). The former
chigo was promoted to the rank of major captain (taishō) as well. The
menoto of Uji was given a piece of land near her home, and her daugh-
ter, Jijū, was appointed to be the new nyōgo’s lady-in-waiting.

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 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 139

Miss Rookie is a multimedia text, consisting of the main text,

illustrations, and gachūshi (in-picture dialogues), similar to the Book-
let of Acolytes. While each of the three modes conveys a set of mean-
ings within its own bounds, when juxtaposed, these modes of media
interact with each other to create curious layers of meanings.10 In
light of this complexity, chapter 4 will analyze the main narrative,
­illustrations, and gachūshi, as well as the richly layered discourse
of this tale, emerging from the interactions of the media modes.
Through this process, this chapter will attempt to deepen the readers’
understanding of Miss Rookie and, more crucially, show how this
story positions itself within the landscape of the chigo monogatari
genre at large.

The C higo : A Not-So-Idolized Boy

The chigo’s social station

To begin our analysis of Miss Rookie, we shall examine its hero,

simply known as “the chigo.” Recall that the chigo name of the
younger protagonist of The Mountain is also unknown to the read-
ers, although the narrator calls him by the honorary title “Wak-
agimi” (Young Lord). The namelessness of Miss Rookie’s protagonist
is but one example of the text’s refusal to wholeheartedly idealize
and idolize its hero. Its heroine, in contrast, is addressed by the nar-
rator as “Himegimi” (Young Lady), or the female equivalent of
“Wakagimi.”11 Of course, toward the end of the story, the hero does
turn out to be of elite pedigree. When this fact is announced, the nar-
rator suddenly switches from her moderately polite language to
­extremely honorific language in the space of a single sentence, indi-
cated by the boldface and underlining below: “As for this man we
call ‘chigo,’ his origin is not frivolous. He is the honorable descen-
dant of the Northern Fujiwara [. . .]” (Kono chigo to mōsu mo moto
no nezashi ada narazu, kita no Fujinami no on-sue nite owashi-
mashi-kere-domo).12 Although Abe Yasurō regards the chigo’s heri-
tage as “clearly the same station as Himegimi’s or higher,”13 it is
important to keep in mind that as an orphan, the chigo has no fam-
ily backing and is socially and politically at a significant disadvan-
tage. When he refuses to return to the mountain after falling in love
with Himegimi, the chigo, unlike the protagonist of The Mountain,
does not have a home to return to. Instead, he goes to his menoto’s
140 Chapter Four

home. It is obvious that, had it not been for his marriage to Himegimi,
he would have been destined to become a priest on Mount Hiei,
whether he liked it or not.

The chigo’s erotic capital in the eyes of nanshoku practitioners

It goes without saying that, from Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth
to The Mountain, all five chigo monogatari we have seen so far treat
the acolyte character as the object of desire within the homosocial/
homoerotic domain to which he belongs. Across these five tales, the
subjects of homoerotic desire are the masters of the chigo, the chigo’s
unofficial lovers, the chigo’s colleagues (clergymen), the chigo’s foster
brother (A Booklet of Acolytes, vignette 1), and the yamabushi in
The Mountain.
Miss Rookie, too, makes it clear that the hero is the center of
homoerotic desire on Mount Hiei. For instance, at his first appear-
ance in this story, the narrator informs the readers that the bishop
adores this disciple so much that he never lets the boy out of sight.
When the chigo falls ill (due to lovesickness for Himegimi), the mas-
ter immediately sends a group of holy men to the menoto’s home and
has them conduct an exorcism for his disciple. And as the chigo’s stay
on the mountain stretches out, the master demands his return to the
menoto. Upon the chigo’s return to Mount Hiei, the bishop and other
priests enlist multiple acolytes to throw a banquet to welcome him
back (plate 17).
I will also argue that the chigo is seen through a homoerotic lens
by the tengu Tarō-bō. As discussed in chapter 3, the reputation of
tengu and yamabushi as admirers of beautiful boys, especially Bud-
dhist acolytes, was well established in medieval times. Therefore, it is
no surprise that Tarō-bō’s kidnapping of the chigo is at least partly
motivated by his sexual desire for the youth. This reading can be sup-
ported by textual evidence as well. On the same night that Himegimi
stumbles upon the dwelling of the ama tengu, Tarō-bō brings a num-
ber of his fellow tengu to her home. There, the half-bird, half-human
creatures feast on food and sake and take off. What was the occasion
for this party?
As some scholars have already pointed out, we can draw a paral-
lel between the two banquets (one on Mount Hiei and the other at
the ama tengu’s home). The illustrations of the banquet scenes con-
vey the creator’s disapproval of hedonistic clergymen by insinuating
 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 141

that they resemble the evil creatures.14 In my view, the implied com-
parison of Tarō-bō to the bishop goes beyond the fact that both are
the hosts of the banquets—Tarō-bō is about to become the youth’s
formal older sexual partner, and the banquet is a proxy for a wedding
ceremony between the chief tengu and the unconscious chigo.
Tarō-bō, who obviously does not live with the ama tengu, has brought
his underlings to his mother’s home to celebrate this special occa-
sion.15 Furthermore, plate 19 depicts what seems to be a mound of
rice cakes, sake in a red wooden cup (the bride and groom drink from
a single cup during a wedding ceremony), and a red snapper, all of
which are typically served at an auspicious event. Had it not been for
the ama tengu’s intervention, the chigo might have been in a position
similar to that of Shōshō no Kimi in The Mountain, having to convert
to Shugendō and become a reluctant lover of the yamabushi leader
(who is, in this case, a bona fide tengu).
Although The Mountain casts Wakagimi’s relationship with the
Tōnan-in abbot and his quasicaptivity by the yamabushi in a slightly
negative light, the story is not critical of nanshoku itself. Rather, these
less-than-perfect sexual unions function as antitheses to the romance
between Wakagimi and Jijū based on mutual attraction. On the con-
trary, in the gynocentric world of Miss Rookie, male-male love is in-
deed marginalized—no positive examples of nanshoku are shown in
this story. This does not mean, however, that the chigo’s relationship
with Himegimi is upheld as a case of enchanted love.

The chigo’s erotic capital in the eyes of women

As the hero of a heterosexual love story, how does the chigo fare?
One way to answer this question is to compare Miss Rookie to the
other two otogi zōshi that feature romance between a female charac-
ter and a chigo. The first is a skillful means tale, The Tale of a Hum-
ble Hut (Hanyū no monogatari), summarized below.

QR

The daughter of a major counselor (dainagon) was known to be a gor-

geous lady, and many bachelors asked the major counselor for her hand
in marriage. Uninterested in such a frivolous matter as romantic love,
the young lady announced she would agree to meet only with a suitor
who could compose a letter that alluded to a great waka poem
142 Chapter Four

unknown to her. As expected, no one was able to meet her demand,

until the moment she received a message from a chigo at Miidera, hint-
ing that he had once attempted to drown himself due to the pain of his
one-sided love for her.
Time passed and the young lady set out on a twenty-seven-day pil-
grimage to Ishiyama-dera. On the first night, a beautiful youth ap-
peared to her in a dream, saying that he was the sender of the love
letter. After spending some time at Ishiyama-dera, she noticed the voice
of a young man chanting a sutra. Since the voice sounded familiar, she
looked inside the chamber from which the voice was coming. It was the
chigo from Miidera. She became completely captivated by this mysteri-
ous youth, although it was time for her to return home.
Back home, the young lady confided in her menoto and menotogo
about what had happened in Ishiyama-dera. Thanks to their help, the
couple was able to meet in person for the first time; they eventually
married and soon had a baby boy. Sadly, the lady unexpectedly fell ill
and died at the age of twenty-three. Her husband retreated to a hermit-
age on Mount Higashi, spending the rest of his life praying for the re-
pose of his late wife. He then attained ōjō at the age of forty-eight. It
turns out that the young lady was an avatar of Kannon, who appeared
in the form of a young woman to lead the former chigo, the lady’s par-
ents, and many others to attain enlightenment.16

QR

The other otogi zōshi on chigo-woman romance is known as The Tale

of Tsukiō and Otohime (Tsukiō Otohime monogatari), a story far
more fantastical than the Humble Hut.17 This narrative concerns an
interspecific marriage (a subgenre of otogi zōshi called irui kon’in-tan
異類婚姻譚); the heroine, Otohime, is the daughter of the dragon king
(ryūō) of the undersea world, and she falls in love with a chigo named
Tsukiō. In the end, Tsukiō, Otohime, and their son live happily ever
after in the undersea world. It is noteworthy that, as in the case of the
Humble Hut, it is the heroine’s “stolen glimpse” (kaimami 垣間見)
that makes her fall in love with the gorgeous chigo. This shows that a
chigo can be the object of men’s and women’s erotic gaze.
The opening section of Miss Rookie, however, casts the chigo in
the role of a typical monogatari hero—it is the chigo who steals a glance
at the unsuspecting heroine and falls in love. This, of course, destabi-
lizes the traditional gazer-gazee dyad, in which the chigo typically
 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 143

occupies the latter role, even when the gazer is a woman. Further, the
narrator of this tale diverges from the chigo monogatari convention of
praising the chigo’s beauty the first time the chigo is mentioned. The
narrator of Miss Rookie simply introduces the hero in the following
way: “This bishop had a chigo, whom he always kept by his side. For
this trip to the minister’s residence, too, he brought the boy along, as
usual.”18 This does not mean, however, that this chigo is any less attrac-
tive than the other acolyte characters we have seen thus far. Rather, the
narrator is suspending the obligatory praise of the hero’s attractiveness
until his transformation into Miss Rookie. For the time being, the nar-
rator directs the readers’ attention to Himegimi’s exquisiteness in the
kaimami scene: “The lady seemed to be about fifteen or sixteen years of
age, leaning against the balustrade of the veranda, admiring the cherry
blossoms. She was extraordinarily graceful and her resplendent eyes
and forehead were beyond description. When for some reason she
flashed a smile, he felt as if his heart was filled up with her loveliness.”19
Following the narrator’s description of Himegimi’s enthralling
beauty, the viewers of the illustrated texts are presented with a visual
representation of the kaimami scene in which the chigo is the gazer,
while Himegimi, who is oblivious to the existence of the spectator, is
the gazee (plate 16). This type of kaimami, with a gazer and an un-
suspecting gazee, is a common motif in romantic tales. An illustration
of such a scene normally centers the object of desire, while the specta-
tor turns his or her back on the viewer of the image. Nevertheless,
when it comes to Miss Rookie, all four versions of the illustrated
texts (three emaki and one narae-bon) I have seen assign the chigo to
play the dual role of gazer and “co-gazee,” as he reveals his frontal
view to the audience. How should we interpret this unusual composi-
tion of the kaimami scene with two foci?20
On the one hand, it is easy for the readers of the Humble Hut
and the Tsukiō and Otohime to perceive the chigo characters as re-
cipients of erotic desire by simply matching their own gaze to that of
the female protagonists, who instantly fall in love with their future
husbands after kaimami. On the other hand, the narration of the kai-
mami scene in Miss Rookie does not seem to be inviting the audience
(who must have been predominantly female) to match their gaze to
that of either Himegimi or the chigo.
One possible way to read the text and illustration of this scene is
to regard them together as a playful, or even satirical, reversal of
what elite men had been enjoying for centuries: the chance to
144 Chapter Four

objectify women and adolescent boys side by side (i.e., nanshoku-jo-

shoku paradigm). In other words, the kaimami scene provides the
female audience with a rare opportunity to observe two objects of
male love, with the chigo on the right and the court ladies on the left.
Indeed, the hero of this story is destined to become the center of the
female—albeit nonerotic—gaze as a one-of-a-kind spectacle: the
chigo-turned-lady-in-waiting, Miss Rookie.
Thus, compared to the other five acolyte tales we have examined
in chapters 1 through 3 and the two love stories of a chigo and a
woman (Humble Hut and Tsukiō and Otohime), Miss Rookie seems
unwilling to idealize its hero at the outset of the story. Even after
Himegimi and the chigo become lovers, it would be difficult to say
that he is presented to the female audience as an ideal male partner.
One of the reasons for this is that, throughout Miss Rookie, there is
no first-person account of Himegimi’s deep affection for her lover.
Conversely, the only emotions the young lady clearly expresses via
conversations or poetry exchanges are sadness, apprehension, and
fear, resulting from her unplanned pregnancy, the possibility of be-
coming the target of an enormous scandal, the chigo’s departure for
Mount Hiei, the chigo’s disappearance, and her parents’ belief that
she may be dead.

The chigo’s transformations

In my discussion of the chigo’s nude body (chapter 2), I explained the
fluidity of chigo’s sei. Due to his liminal ontology, a chigo represents
a more feminine form of androgyny when he is juxtaposed with a
more archetypal male, such as Chūta. By the same token, Miss Rookie
attests to the fact that a chigo’s masculinity is amplified when he is
paired with an archetypal female. In this sense, this narrative exposes
the blurred boundaries between maleness and femaleness.
Another story that plays on the fluid sei of a young male charac-
ter is found in Notable Tales Old and New (16:511), and Miss Rookie
appears to be alluding to this anecdote. In this story, a monk with a
feminine face falls in love with a beautiful nun at first sight. To get
close to her, he pretends to be a woman and visits the nun’s residence,
saying, “I recently lost my husband and shaved my head. Could you
take me as your disciple?” The nun graciously obliges. After years of
living under the same roof, the monk summons up his courage, con-
fesses his secret, and initiates lovemaking. In the middle of having
 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 145

intercourse, the nun jumps up and rushes to the Buddha hall in her
home. Horrified, the monk regrets his actions. Yet the nun soon re-
turns with a smile on her face. When the monk asks what happened,
she replies, “I just could not keep such a wonderful pleasure all to
myself, so I went to share my bliss with the Buddha!”21
Evidently, what enables this monk’s gender bending is identical
to what allows the chigo to become Miss Rookie: the possession of
the right face and the right hairstyle, as well as the declaration of a
new identity. One condition that clearly differentiates the two stories
is that the monk passes as a nun without any modification of his ap-
pearance. The chigo, in contrast, undergoes a somewhat elaborate
transformation, although his “female-ing” turns out to be subtly im-
perfect. This ever-so-slight imperfection is repeatedly insinuated by
the female attendants at the minister’s mansion and by the female
narrator (probably an attendant herself) with keen interest in the ap-
pearance of their new colleague.

Scrutinizing Miss Rookie

Recall that the idea of dressing the chigo up as a woman is proposed
by his foremost advocate: his menoto, who raised him and loved him
for many years as a surrogate mother and his closest attendant. When
the nurse dresses the chigo in the correct attire for ladies-in-waiting,
she thinks to herself, “There is nothing about him that makes him
look any different from any actual ladies-in-waiting” (Nyōbō ni su-
koshi mo tagō keshiki naku). Her young lord looks noble and exqui-
site, which deeply pleases the menoto.22 Nevertheless, the story
implies that her evaluation of the chigo’s transformation is influenced
by her rose-colored glasses.
When the chigo, dressed as a charming maiden, arrives at the
minister’s mansion in a carriage, the live-in employees at the minis-
ter’s mansion are pleasantly surprised by the appearance of this atten-
dant-wannabe: “Inside the minister’s estate, torches were elegantly
lit, and the ladies-in-waiting came out to greet the new girl, who ap-
peared to be in her late teens. Her refined, graceful beauty was ex-
tremely appealing, and her hair, eyebrows, and forehead, among
other things, far surpassed their expectations. More junior-ranking
attendants were trying to catch a glimpse of the candidate, oohing,
aahing, and whispering to each other. So the menoto felt that her plan
was a huge success.”23 Yet the gachūshi of the illustration
146 Chapter Four

corresponding to this particular scene tells a slightly different story.

Among many words of admiration uttered by the attendants, one
lady-in-waiting makes a comment explicitly about the chigo’s an-
drogynous charm: “Look how she got off the carriage. She seems
slightly boyish [sukoshi warawa-nari nite] and so refreshing. How
attractive she is!”24 Also, in the following scene, when the female at-
tendants introduce the new attendant to the minister, the narrator
describes his appearance as “slightly boyish [sukoshi warawa naru]
but charming, elegant, and graceful.”25
People’s curious eyes continue to follow the chigo into the eve-
ning, when he gives Himegimi a lute lesson. In the illustration of this
scene, four ladies-in-waiting surround their newest colleague, seem-
ingly with every eye glued to him. The first two women praise the
chigo’s superb musical talent. What follows is Chūnagon-dono’s pen-
etrating comment: “Why does Miss Rookie not trim her sidelocks? I
cannot believe she wears her hair like that.” Bōmon-dono chimes in,
saying, “Indeed. Even [average-looking] women like us would care to
trim our sidelocks. I wonder if she is too attached to her long hair.”26
The reason the chigo has not quite perfected a woman’s hairstyle
is probably that he sees Miss Rookie as a temporary persona, a means
to an end. When he returns to Mount Hiei, he cannot appear before
his master and colleagues with trimmed sidelocks. A woman’s un-
trimmed sidelocks indicate neglect, but a chigo who trimmed his side-
locks would be signaling his desire to wear a woman’s hairstyle. This
is still another example of numerous idiosyncrasies concerning hair
modifications—a trait that seems extremely trivial to outsiders’ eyes
can stir up a range of emotions and evaluations among insiders. It
may be that the “boyishness” of the chigo/Miss Rookie noticed by
the women at the minister’s mansion has little to do with the inadver-
tent seeping of his “truths” (his male body and male identity) through
the feminine disguise. Instead, it may simply be that his hairstyle is
that of a pre-genpuku/mogi child, and this subtle signifier of gender-
lessness is perceived as androgyny by the spectators.

Parodying the “I wish to see him as a woman” trope

The previous chapters of this book have shown how acolyte tales,
through a variety of methods, buttressed the institution of the chigo
system. Along these lines, in chapter 3, I argued that one of the func-
tions of the stepmother’s attack on Wakagimi was to provide the
 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 147

text’s primary audience (clergymen in favor of nanshoku) with a

“buffer” between the protagonist’s linear progression from the state
of being a beautiful chigo to becoming an ordained priest.
Likewise, heteronormative romantic tales, too, tend to support
the institutions of marriage and patriarchy by glamorizing the pro-
cess in which enchanted love develops into marriage, procreation,
and prosperity. In this paradigm, the beautiful, caring, and virtuous
heroines serve as role models for the female audience, and the hand-
some, resourceful, and chivalrous heroes embody what the audience
should want in their own spouses. This means that, in Miss Rookie,
the hero’s transformation from the state of being chigo into becoming
a near-perfect maiden is a detour rather than a part of the linear pro-
gression a romantic hero is expected to achieve. This is another piece
of evidence that the male protagonist of Miss Rookie is not a typical
romantic hero, because such a digression would be unlikely to make
him more desirable in the eyes of a female audience.
One possible way of interpreting the chigo’s transvestism is to
see it as a parody of the established trope of “I wish to see him as a
woman” (onna nite mitatematsura mahoshi), most famously known
from the “Broom Cypress” chapter of the Genji. In this scene (often
called the amayo no shinasadame or “discussion on a rainy night”),
the seventeen-year-old hero, the Radiant Genji, and his fellow play-
boy friends debate the qualities that make for the ideal woman. Dur-
ing the passionate discussion, the noblemen notice that Genji has
been oddly silent for some time. When they look over, they find Genji
“dressed in an intentionally casual manner in an informal robe [. . .]
over soft white underrobes [. . .] [having] neglected to tie up the cords
of his outer robes.” The narrator remarks that the three men “felt a
desire to see him as a woman” and realized that none of the highest-
ranking ladies would look adequate to be paired with a figure like
Genji.27 Within this tale, the expression “I wish to see him as a
woman” is used to describe the beauty of four highborn male charac-
ters, including the hero.28 To expound upon this phenomenon, I have
hypothesized that the vision of a male character who possesses what
I call a “beautiful feminine face” stirs up the beholder’s desire to
match his “beautiful feminine face” with a beautiful feminine hair-
style and attire.29 This desire, harbored by the observer, constitutes
nothing but a fantasy, and the beholder does not normally act upon
the idea. In fact, any unrealistic and erotically charged fantasy tends
to remain intriguing to the extent that it is not expected to come true.
148 Chapter Four

If the gazer’s wish to see the man as a woman did in fact come true
through a change in his hairstyle, clothing, and so on, there is no
guarantee that this person would look more attractive than before the
transformation.
To scratch the monogatari-readers’ itch to turn a femininely
handsome man into a full-fledged woman without risking disappoint-
ment, a chigo may be the most fitting literary character to take up the
task of “female-ing,” since many of the chigo characters already pos-
sess “beautifully feminine faces,” and their hair is already similar to
women’s. Nevertheless, reading the chigo’s “female-ing” as a parody
of the established literary trope (which is prevalent beyond the Genji)
does not mean that its purpose is simply playful and lighthearted fun.
As in the case of the kaimami scene, it can also be understood as an
expression of this tale’s critical stance toward the male-centered elite
culture with a long history of objectifying women and young men
side by side, and of keeping young men away from their potential fe-
male partners through the chigo system. It can also be read as a
tongue-in-cheek response to the “I wish to see him as a woman”
trope, as if to show that men cannot achieve “complete femaleness”
after all.
All in all, it is possible to read this tale as women’s subtle criti-
cism of nanshoku culture, primarily for the exclusion of women. To
this end, Miss Rookie idealizes its female protagonist over its male
counterpart in term of pedigree, character, and general desirability.
The tale then goes on to convey to its readers that not only is a woman
the superior lover for a man but also, given the opportunity to choose,
a chigo would want a woman as well.
Finally, another crucial drawback of the male protagonist of
Miss Rookie as the hero of a romantic tale is his relative inaction. The
only significant voluntary action he takes in the entire story is to pur-
sue Himegimi as a lover during his service at the minister’s mansion.
Otherwise, he remains in the shadow of the more active female char-
acters: the menoto, the ama tengu, and the female protagonist of this
tale, Himegimi.

Himegimi: A Nonordinary Heroine

Stunningly beautiful, graceful, and noble, Himegimi appears to em-
body the archetypal heroine of an auspicious monogatari, a girl who
“has it all” and whom her female audience adores and envies.
 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 149

Nevertheless, Miss Rookie puts its heroine in a hugely disadvantaged

position from the outset. This is because she is about to achieve what
the heroine of a romantic tale is supposed to earn at the end of the
story: her betrothal to the heir apparent to the throne. The equally
idealized heroines of romantic and didactic monogatari, such as Lady
Hanayo and Lady Ochikubo, endure a range of predicaments, from
parental abuse, solitude, and hopelessness to grueling labor, until
their future husbands magically appear before their eyes. These lov-
ing and handsome men help the ladies escape their plights. Thus,
these tales teach the female audience the value of perseverance, dedi-
cation, and filial piety, all of which are destined to pay off in signifi-
cant ways. In this vein, Himegimi’s involvement with someone other
than her fiancé, the crown prince, would have been a “loss” in the
eyes of most medieval readers.
Certainly, Himegimi’s affair with the chigo could have become
her “gain” in a completely different scenario, such as if Himegimi
had loathed the crown prince and wished to nullify her engagement
to him. But Miss Rookie does not provide such a premise. Himegimi
simply gives into the chigo’s persistent courtship, and she is inadver-
tently trapped in this relationship by her pregnancy. It is questionable
whether she would still have chosen the chigo over the crown prince
had she not become pregnant when she did. From the time when
Himegimi becomes gravid until she and her new husband return to
the capital, her life can be described as disastrous; it is not a life that
her female audience would have been envied.
In fact, Himegimi’s pregnancy brings significantly unbalanced
outcomes to the couple. On the one hand, her superior social posi-
tion, especially her father’s close affiliation with the court and her
engagement to the crown prince, make the situation immeasurably
more injurious to her than to the chigo. If this scandal had been ex-
posed, it would have been considered lèse-majesté and would have
ended her father’s career. On the other hand, the orphaned chigo,
who was destined to enter priesthood on Mount Hiei, benefits tre-
mendously from his illicit affair. He acquires a powerful new adop-
tive family and a court rank, on top of marrying the love of his life
and becoming the father of an imperial consort. To exemplify the rift
between the lovers, the gachūshi of the scene, wherein the chigo first
breaks the news about the pregnancy, captures Himegimi’s devasta-
tion. She breaks down and says, “I wish I could disappear like a bub-
ble floating in water. I will not be able to face the world.” In response,
150 Chapter Four

the chigo suggests she should find comfort in the thought that this
was all predetermined by fate.30
As if this were not dreadful enough for the heroine, the chigo
leaves her behind in the capital to return to Mount Hiei in time for an
en’nen ceremony, and he is spirited away. For some time, all the
young lady can do is lie in bed and hide behind the curtain to keep
others from noticing her changing body. The thought of jumping into
the water to end her suffering haunts her, although she knows suicide
would bring immense sorrow and shame upon her family. Himegi-
mi’s concerned parents and fiancé have an exorcism performed to
cure her mysterious illness and regretfully postpone the wedding.
Though she is unsure whether to live or die, one thing is abundantly
clear in the young lady’s mind. She will not let the world see the ar-
rival of her illegitimate child. So the lady secretly departs her home
and goes deep into the mountains.
Just as the chigo trespassed upon the women’s quarters as Miss
Rookie some time earlier, Himegimi, too, winds up in a place off-
limits to women, albeit unwittingly. In premodern times, many sacred
peaks were designated sites for Shugendō training, and women were
excluded from these spots because of the alleged impurity of their
body. Shugendō evolved from the ancient mountain worship by in-
corporating various facets of esoteric Buddhism, Daoism, and sha-
manism. Yamabushi, Buddhist priests, and even some laymen
practiced Shugendō to acquire magicoreligious powers, especially the
ability to exorcise evil spirits. As seen in plate 15, mountain ascetics’
attire featured a black cap (tokin), a tunic with baggy trousers (suzu-
kake), a fan (hiōgi), and a wooden/bamboo container carried on the
back (oi), among other things, with each item carrying symbolic sig-
nificance.31
In regard to Himegimi’s entering the sacred peaks, Melissa Mc-
Cormick convincingly argues that this entails the young lady’s par-
ticipation in “a quasi-ritualistic mountain ascent,” through which its
female readers “could imagine their own identities and circumstances
according to the imagery, practices, and genealogies of a male-cen-
tered ascetic practice.”32 McCormick further remarks that Himegimi
is allowed to “re-appropriate the embryological symbolism of yama-
bushi practice.” That is, rather than conducting this Shugendō ritual
while carrying the symbolic womb (i.e., the oi) on her back, Himegimi
does so while pregnant, which McCormick explains as, “[I]nstead of
carrying the symbolic womb[,] she is in a sense a walking womb.”33
 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 151

This observation aligns with the overall pro-women messages of Miss

Rookie, including its attempt to reclaim women’s ownership of femi-
nine aesthetics and the attention of young men.
Furthermore, in Miss Rookie, the heroine undergoes another
symbolic rebirth in the dwelling of the ama tengu. When the matri-
arch informs Himegimi of her wicked son’s imminent visit, she “hides
in a womblike shrine-cabinet [zushi]” wherein she awaits her reemer-
gence in the fetal position.34 After Tarō-bo and his underlings leave,
the ama tengu, as if a midwife, helps Himegimi come out of the zushi.
It is worth noting that after her symbolic rebirth, her suicidal thoughts
never haunt her again—she clearly chooses life over death, or, more
precisely, the lives of her unborn child and herself. Soon afterward,
she gives birth to a beautiful baby boy in the home of the menoto
who is the surrogate mother of the chigo, the birthmother of her
daughter Jijū, and now a motherly caregiver of Himegimi.

The M enoto : Breast Milk Is Thicker Than Blood

The first episode of the erotic chigo monogatari, A Booklet of Aco-
lytes, features the “benevolent infidelity” of a chigo and his menotogo
named Chūta. As mentioned before, highborn women in premodern
Japan did not breastfeed their own children and instead hired menoto
for this purpose. Yet the menoto’s service usually continued far be-
yond their young charges’ infancy, which is one of the many differ-
ences between a “menoto” and a “wet nurse.” In a romantic
monogatari, the single most important role that the protagonist’s
menoto plays is to assist with her charge’s romantic endeavors or to
eliminate potentially undesirable suitors.35 In Lady Hanayo, Saishō’s
menoto hides Lady Hanayo in her home, and in the Humble Hut, the
heroine’s menoto and menotogo locate the Miidera chigo on behalf
of their mutual mistress. It is telling that in the slightly misogynystic
chigo monogatari, The Mountain, Wakagimi’s menoto (乳父/傅) has
to be a male monk, Kakunen. Interestingly, Kakunen, too, intervenes
in his young charge’s love affair with Jijū.36 Given this convention of
the menoto character’s function, it is no surprise that the menoto in
Miss Rookie is so determined to help her lord pursue the minister’s
daughter.
The quasi-mother-son bond between the menoto and the chigo
in Miss Rookie is particularly strong, probably because he is an or-
phan. The text even implies that the menoto and the bishop are
152 Chapter Four

competing for the affection of the chigo. When the chigo falls sick
with love for Himegimi, he retreats to the menoto’s home in the capi-
tal. This is similar to the situation in which Wakagimi refuses to re-
turn to Tōnan-in and stays in his father’s residence after falling in
love with Jijū. Whereas Tokugō scolds his son and sends him right
back to his master, the menoto maps out an elaborate scheme that
not only helps the chigo but also keeps him away from her competi-
tion, the bishop, for an extended period. The menoto first lays the
groundwork herself by visiting the minister’s estate. There, she in-
quires of the women on the premises whether the minister’s family is
in need of a decorative cosmetic box (tebako), knowing that the fam-
ily is collecting a fine dowry for the daughter’s upcoming wedding.
Then the menoto offers the women a gorgeously crafted tebako—a
gift the chigo once received from none other than his master.
Nothing speaks more loudly about the menoto’s profound love
for her charge than what she does after he is kidnapped by the tengu.
She becomes a nun and undertakes a pilgrimage, letting her feet guide
the way. After this, she retreats to Uji and prays to the Buddha night
and day, saying, “Please let me know my young lord’s whereabouts
and let me see him in this world just once. If he happens to have
passed away already, then may you take my worthless life away and
allow us to be reborn on the same lotus flower in the Pure Land and
exchange our vows.”37
When the menoto hears a knock on her door and opens it, stand-
ing before her are her missing young master and an unknown lady. At
first, she does not believe her eyes and assumes a fox or something of
the sort has come to play a trick on her. She then thinks to herself,
“Who cares if he is not real?” (samo araba are) and happily invites
the couple in.38 Once she realizes that it is indeed her beloved young
lord, she thanks and praises the Buddha for his guidance and cries
endless tears of joy.
The other guardian of our hero, the bishop, also cares deeply
about the chigo, but compared to the menoto, this high priest tends
to be depicted as a less-than-sagacious figure. For instance, when the
chigo falls sick, he sends a steady stream of priests over to the meno-
to’s home and has them conduct an exorcism for his disciple. The
chigo is greatly annoyed by the incessant chanting of the sutras and
sends them back to the mountain. Also, when the high priest is finally
reunited with his long-lost chigo, he immediately congratulates him-
self on the power of his own prayers. In both cases, he behaves in this
 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 153

manner precisely because the menoto has intentionally kept him in

the dark.

The A ma T engu : The Manifesto of the Mother Monster

Of the three principal “mother” characters in Miss Rookie—
Himegimi, the menoto of Uji, and the ama tengu—the one who com-
mits the most selfless act is the only nonhuman of the triad. To bring
Himegimi and the chigo to safety, the ama tengu feeds her own flesh
to the very flesh she brought into the world: Tarō-bō. On the grounds
that the ama tengu has converted to the Buddhist faith and subse-
quently attains posthumous salvation, Miss Rookie can be regarded
as a deeply Buddhist text.
The concept of a tengu-qua-nun was not invented by the author
of Miss Rookie, however. Such a figure is found in Times Now Past
(20:5) as well. In this anecdote, an ama tengu sneaks into the Buddha
hall of a temple and tries to steal a crate storing monks’ holy robes,
although she is in the end overpowered by the prayers of a renowned
bishop from Ninnaji and runs away.39 The narrator of this story pro-
vides no details about the female goblin’s appearance except that she
is wearing a headscarf (a visual marker of nuns), as if there is nothing
extraordinary about her appearance. In contrast, the ama tengu in
Miss Rookie is portrayed as a monstrous figure, standing as tall as the
eaves of her home and holding a flaming torch, and her husky, fright-
ening voice comes out of a long, hooked beak jutting from her hawk-
like face (see plate 18).40
The Japanese tengu’s association with birds and yamabushi de-
veloped only during the late Heian period. Literally meaning “celes-
tial dog/fox,” tengu 天狗 (Ch. tiangou) is the nomenclature the
ancient people of China gave to such inauspicious omens as comets
and shooting stars, since they resembled mischievous canines running
across the sky with their long tails trailing behind.41 In Japan, the
earliest known use of this term is in A Chronicle of Japan, noting a
falling meteor. Hearing the people’s terror, a scholar monk named
Sōmin, who had spent over two decades in China studying Buddhism,
reportedly explained to the onlookers that it was a roaring celestial
fox.42 As Buddhist teachings penetrated Japanese society, tengu began
to be associated with wickedness or wicked beings (both can be con-
ceptualized as ma) without a specific shape, and they were believed to
tempt people into committing sins and to thereby obstruct their
154 Chapter Four

enlightenment.43 For instance, in the Uji chapters of the Genji, the

heroine Ukifune was caught in a tumultuous love triangle with Kaoru
and Niou that she found unbearable (see chapter 2). Once she began
contemplating suicide, “some goblin [tengu] or sprite of the forest
[kodama]” compelled her to jump into the Uji River.44
During the medieval period, as Shugendō’s popularity grew, the
images of yamabushi, birds (especially hawks and crows), and tengu
became increasingly conflated, at least partly due to the Buddhist es-
tablishment’s effort to curb the heretic influence. Therefore, it is un-
surprising that a chigo monogatari should have cast Shugendō and
yamabushi in a negative light: the kidnappers of Umewaka, the yam-
abushi leader in The Mountain, and Tarō-bō, who kidnaps the chigo
and even commits matricide. By the same token, the choice in Miss
Rookie to feature the heinous creature and to turn her into a paragon
of compassion after her conversion to Buddhism indicates the promi-
nence of the Way of the Buddha.
At the dwelling of the ama tengu, before Tarō-bō and his guests
arrive, the mother monster warns Himegimi that her son and his un-
derlings are terrifying beings with no sense of compassion (osoro-
shiku mono no aware mo shiranu).45 Once the chaos of the raucous
drinking and eating is over and the couple is reunited, the nun goblin
remarks, “It must be due to the lack of kindheartedness in my previ-
ous life that I have sadly acquired a beastly form in this life.”46 The
ama tengu also tells Himegimi and the chigo that she has been dili-
gently chanting the holy name of Amida Buddha. Implying that her
posthumous salvation is no longer impossible, she conveys to the
couple that she is willing to give up her life to bring them back where
they belong.47 Then, before departing for Uji, the ama tengu gives the
couple instructions: “When my child takes my life, you shall see the
sign. After that, please carefully conduct a memorial service on my
behalf. Also, at the place I am about to take you, be sure to put up
talismans that bear the words of the Sonshō Dhāraṇī and the mantra
of Compassionate Salvation (which tengu are known to fear).”48
In Buddhist teachings, the “tengu’s realm” (tengu-dō, sometimes
used interchangeably with madō or “the evil realm”) is the place
where those who are conceited and/or begrudging are born. Whereas
the ama tengu attributes her fate of having been born into the tengu’s
realm to the lack of compassion in her previous life, she may also feel
that she has committed a greater sin in her current life: prolonging
the cycle of evil by producing Tarō-bō. Accordingly, she devotes
 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 155

herself to the nenbutsu practice, to undo some of her sin, without

knowing for sure whether she can transcend the tengu’s realm. This is
when a strange twist of fate makes the lost human girl stumble into
the ama tengu’s home. After discovering that this girl’s anguish is not
unrelated to her own sin of bringing Tarō-bō into this world, the ama
tengu turns this serendipity into an opportunity for atonement.
The text presents the mother-child bond between the ama tengu
and Tarō-bō as a feeble one. For instance, when the two have their
only dialogue in this story during the banquet in the home of the
mother goblin, she refers to herself as “ama” (nun).49 In this context,
a more natural choice of general noun in lieu of a first-person pro-
noun would be, of course, “haha” (mother). Or she could even have
resorted to the generic first-person pronoun “ware” (I/me), which she
does use during her conversation with Himegimi.50 The ama tengu’s
decision to call herself “ama” in front of Tarō-bō symbolizes her re-
nunciation of Shugendō and of her role as his mother in the hope of
achieving enlightenment.
As for Tarō-bō, this tengu leader shows little deference to his
mother linguistically or otherwise (in the main text and the gachūshi).
He generally refrains from using the socially obligatory honorific lan-
guage for a parent, although he uses the auxiliary verb to indicate
moderate politeness (sōrō). The only adequately deferential line is
“Ushinawase-tamai-sōrawaba, on-inochi o mōshiuku-beshi” (If you
let the chigo escape, I shall take your life away), which includes the
honorific auxiliary (tamō) and the politeness prefix on- attached to
inochi (life).51 Tarō-bō’s exclusive use of honorific language in this
context, however, makes his message all the more chilling and ruth-
less.
Fully aware that her action will cause her cold-blooded son to
destroy her, the ama tengu brings Himegimi and the chigo to safety in
Uji. The couple later sees her severed arm. They conduct a heartfelt
memorial service in Uji, and after getting settled in the capital, they
copy the five Mahāyāna sutras, build a Three Buddhas hall, and con-
tinuously pray for her salvation. As a result, Himegimi and her hus-
band have a dream of the ama tengu, now beautiful, riding a purple
cloud and being reborn into the Inner Sanctum of the Fourth Heav-
enly Realm, or the home of bodhisattva Maitreya (Jp. Miroku Bo-
satsu), in which women could be reborn.52 Just as the ama tengu
serves Himegimi as her symbolic midwife earlier in the story by help-
ing the girl emerge from the zushi cabinet, Himegimi reciprocates the
156 Chapter Four

gift of rebirth for the mother monster. This is another touching repre-
sentation of female bonding in Miss Rookie.

M iss R ookie : A C higo M onogatari of Subversions

Religiosity
In many ways, a typical chigo monogatari and a typical romantic
courtly tale are at odds with each other, at least on the superficial
level. The former’s fundamental objective is to support the continu-
ous existence of Buddhist institutions and the chigo system—with-
out having to rely on procreation. In fact, as the chigo monogatari
gained popularity outside the Buddhist community, these tales may
have propagated positive images of the Buddhist faith and the chigo
system, encouraging more people to turn to Kannon worship or to
urge their sons to pursue acolyteship. Heterosexual courtly tales
with happy endings, in contrast, promote marriage and reproduc-
tion. Therefore, the creation of Miss Rookie signifies an impres-
sively ambitious will of the author, who integrates two genres that
are mirror images of each other. In short, this is a truly subversive
monogatari.
That said, as a sign of being a relatively secular-oriented chigo
monogatari, Miss Rookie ends with the celebration of the this-
worldly achievements of the main characters. The couple welcomes
another baby boy and a baby girl into their family; the former chigo
is promoted to the rank of major captain; their daughter is named the
new junior imperial consort (nyōgo); the couple gives pieces of land
to the menoto; and the menoto’s daughter, Jijū, is chosen to serve the
new nyōgo as her attendant. The only religious component of this
happy ending is the ama tengu’s rebirth into Miroku’s Pure Land. We
cannot overemphasize the fact that, out of the numerous characters,
the author of this tale singles out this female, nonhuman, former her-
etic to achieve posthumous salvation.

Romance
As much as Miss Rookie breaks a number of rules associated with the
chigo monogatari genre, it also breaks many rules of romantic, het-
erosexual courtly tales. The most remarkable example of the latter
rule breaking is that Himegimi’s station is set much higher than that
 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 157

of the hero at the outset of the story. Therefore, when their relation-
ship is finally officialized toward the end of the narrative, we find
Himegimi—unlike most monogatari heroines—socially and politi-
cally worse off than she was before meeting the chigo, whereas the
hero is rewarded with significant upward social mobility.
Of course, there are other stories whose hero of humble birth
marries an aristocratic lady or the daughter of a wealthy man, but in
such cases, the lady (who functions as a “trophy wife”) is not choos-
ing her husband over someone else, let alone someone of royal blood.
The fact that Himegimi is betrothed to the crown prince at the very
beginning of the story makes it almost impossible for any man to sud-
denly appear and improve her situation. In the premodern Japanese
monogatari tradition, the most coveted fate for a woman is to be-
come the mother of an emperor (kokubo 国母 or “national mother”),
and Himegimi could have achieved this position if it were not for the
chigo. (To allow Himegimi to “recover” some of the loss she has in-
curred, the author makes her daughter enter the court with the pos-
sibility of becoming the mother of a kokubo.) On the surface,
Himegimi’s fall in station seems like an unintended, ironic result of
the author’s attempt to elevate the desirability of the heroine vis-à-vis
the hero. I shall return to this point later.
Surprisingly, even the court is not outside the purview of Miss
Rookie’s rebellious spirit. The crown prince is made to believe that his
fiancée, the minister’s daughter, has tragically passed away. He even-
tually ascends to the throne and marries the granddaughter of the
same minister. He is not aware that his new consort is actually a child
born to his former fiancée and the very man who cuckolded him.
Thus, this story subtly destabilizes the integrity of the imperial line.

The polyphonic world of Miss Rookie

All in all, Miss Rookie is a highly effective satirical narrative. One of
the ways the text communicates an ethos of subversion is through the
somewhat cynical voice of the narrator. For instance, after Himegimi
and Miss Rookie become lovers, the minister’s wife walks in on the
couple in bed and expresses her happiness at finding such a wonder-
ful companion for her daughter. In reaction, the narrator comments,
“How gullible and foolish she is!” (hakanaku okogamashisa ya).53
Also, the morning after Himegimi’s flight, her disappearance sends
shock waves across the minister’s mansion. In the midst of the horror
158 Chapter Four

and panic, the narrator does not fail to mention that the minister is
extremely concerned about his reputation in court.54
Even more intriguing is how some of the illustrations and
gachūshi are put to use. Usually the process of creating a literary text
requires that unnecessary descriptions and irrelevant voices be elimi-
nated so that the work can present an illusion of coherence. What the
creator of Miss Rookie accomplishes is to present multilayered reali-
ties by selectively inserting marginal information into the monoga-
tari. Thus, this story chips away at the appearance of coherence and
unified perspective that monogatari readers would expect to see.
Whereas the narrator of Miss Rookie delineates the essence of events
in the main text, the accompanying illustrations sometimes zoom out
of the center of a particular event just enough to capture activities by
side characters that are incongruent with the narration. Moreover,
some illustrations also pick up “noise”—the marginalized voices of
side characters and bystanders—and boldly broadcast it through the
gachūshi.
One rather lighthearted example of this is the scene in which the
menoto tries to befriend the women at the minister’s mansion. She
begins crying uncontrollably while pretending that one of the ladies-
in-waiting there resembles her late daughter. In the accompanying il-
lustration, several women look sympathetically at the menoto
standing on the veranda. Within the same picture, the menoto’s girl
servant down on the ground comments, “What on earth is this? She
just told a made-up story and started bawling. I wonder if she has lost
her mind. Unbelievable.”55
Other “behind-the-scenes” illustrations concern some of
Himegimi’s closest attendants. The main text notes that ever since
Miss Rookie started serving Himegimi, she has been constantly by
the young lady’s side, so the rest of her attendants have begun work-
ing in various other parts of the mansion. The visual representation
of this scene captures the intimate moment of the couple on the left
side of the frame. In the room adjacent to the couple’s bedchamber,
three female attendants (one of whom is Himegimi’s menoto, Saishō)
are huddled around a sugoroku table (a type of board game), chatter-
ing: “Great, now it’s my turn to throw the dice and make a come-
back!” “Go ahead. I am going to keep beating you again and again!”56
Along similar lines, on the morning of Miss Rookie’s temporary ab-
sence, Saishō and other women lament that they won’t be able to
play hooky while she is gone.57 Although the strong bond between
 The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie: When an Acolyte Falls in Love 159

Saishō and Himegimi is conjectured from their emotional reunion in

Uji, there is no question that Saishō failed at the most important task
given to a menoto of a young lady: to guard her against potentially
undesirable suitors.58
Perhaps the most striking example of “noise” is the scene fol-
lowing the disappearance of Himegimi. While most of the ladies-in-
waiting prove themselves to be loyal servants of the family by
expressing their worries and fears, a couple of the attendants are con-
cerned about an entirely different matter. They find a grief-stricken
colleague’s frowning face so funny that they are trying to suppress
their urge to burst into laughter.59 Lastly and most symbolically, those
who have the final words of the story are three of Himegimi’s ladies-
in-waiting. At the very end of the scroll, they gossip about the un-
canny resemblance of their new young lord to their former colleague,
Miss Rookie.60

Conclusion
Our sixth and final chigo monogatari has been The Chigo Known as
Miss Rookie—the work I called “an acolyte tale of the women, by the
women, and for the women.” This description, however, is not to be
taken literally, because no one can know for sure who composed this
tale, for what reason, or for whom. Rather, the description refers to
the text’s self-presentation, and a close reading of this work indicates
that such an interpretation is plausible.
Unlike any other extant chigo monogatari, Miss Rookie im-
presses upon its readers vivid images of lively, wise, and caring female
characters and their unlikely camaraderie. Not only is this an unusu-
ally gynocentric tale by any measure, but it is also a skillfully satirical
and humorous narrative. This story’s cynical or disapproving stances
toward powerful institutions and figures are expressed via a variety
of voices. Through the innovative use of peripheral voices that are
normally edited out of a text, this seemingly innocuous tale exposes
the precarity of elite institutions and those who occupy the top eche-
lon thereof, hidden behind the veneer of their authority, courtly ele-
gance, composure, loyalty, and holiness.
Before concluding this chapter, I will pose two questions and
suggest possible answers. The first question is: Why does Himegimi
fall ill at the beginning of this story? In Miss Rookie, multiple charac-
ters suffer from ailments with known causes—the chigo’s
160 Chapter Four

lovesickness, Himegimi’s pregnancy, and the minister’s wife’s dejec-

tion after her daughter’s disappearance. Nevertheless, the young la-
dy’s illness remains a mystery. If we are not to accept “We don’t
know” as the answer (although it would not be incorrect), the only
possible explanation this text offers is that Miss Rookie is a story of
sympathetic response between the ama tengu, who sincerely wishes
for her penitence and salvation, and the bodhisattva Miroku, who
heeds her voice and plants a little seed. The seed is Himegimi’s illness,
which sparks a chain of events: the minister’s invitation to the bishop
to come to the capital, the chigo’s kaimami of the young lady, the
birth of Miss Rookie, Himegimi’s pregnancy, Tarō-bō’s kidnapping
of the chigo, Himegimi’s flight and her encounter with the ama tengu,
and, finally, the ama tengu’s self-sacrifice and her subsequent rebirth
into the Miroku’s Pure Land.
The other question is: Why does Himegimi have to get the short
end of the stick? Even after things appear to have fallen into place,
Himegimi is never given a chance to redeem her original self. The
young lady who was once engaged to marry the crown prince is ren-
dered dead by her father, and her husband is adopted into her own
family. Now her birth parents have suddenly become her in-laws and
Himegimi has to live as the anonymous wife of a courtier.
Earlier, I noted that the significant fall in Himegimi’s station ap-
pears to be an unintended and ironic consequence of pitting the two
protagonists against each other. Yet there might be a more pro-women
way of understanding this situation. Perhaps this tale is questioning
the value of the narrowly defined “happiness” for girls and women:
being sought after by a highborn man, marrying up, and giving birth
to children to the political benefit of the family.
Even though Himegimi never achieved the status of imperial
consort, she may have found a new meaning in life after the entire
grueling ordeal. At the very least, the series of challenges must have
made our heroine exponentially more resilient and compassionate
than the young lady she once was. We know she left her old self be-
hind and lived her public life anew as a wife and mother. She may
have found her newfound anonymity and enormous freedom refresh-
ing. Or she may have been too busy to lament the life she could not
attain. At times, she must have reminisced about the incredible plight
she had undergone and thought of her savior whom she had also
saved—the kindhearted, honorable ama tengu riding a purple cloud
with a beautiful smile on her face.
 Epilogue

I n the history of Japan, the medieval period was a particularly

­tumultuous time. It was literally the “middle” period, sandwiched
between the more peaceful Heian and the Tokugawa eras. Not only
did the people living in medieval times suffer from a series of natural
disasters, but their lives were also disrupted and threatened by man-
made disasters. They lived through the rise and fall of two military
shogunates, the split of the imperial household into Northern and
Southern Courts due to the succession dispute, violent intertemple
conflicts, and a series of catastrophic civil wars. In addition, by 1052,
it was believed that the world had entered the Final Stage of the Bud-
dhist Dharma, when the teachings of the historical Buddha had be-
gun to deteriorate, making enlightenment less achievable for mortals.
Rather than resigning themselves to hopelessness, the people felt
compelled by their dismal life prospects to turn with renewed com-
mitment to Buddhist practices in the earnest hope of an afterlife.
One of the key concepts frequently used to describe the political
climate of medieval Japan is gekokujō 下剋上 (overthrowing of the
upper by the lower), referring to the inversions and shifts in the estab-
lished power dynamics within the social, political, economic, and
military domains. In this vein, many otogi zōshi are said to reflect this
transformative cultural trend of the time, in which “individuals of
lower status rise above or otherwise get the better of their superiors.”1
Some of the representative works that portray the upward mobility of
impoverished and underprivileged men include The Tale of Bunshō
(Bunshō sōshi), The Tale of the Millionaire in Umezu (Umezu chōja
monogatari), and The Daikoku Dance (Daikokumai, also The Tale
of Daietsu [Daietsu monogatari]), in which a man of humble birth
achieves “stunning worldly success.”2 Other famous examples that
reflect the notion of gekokujō are Lazy Tarō (Monogusa Tarō), Little

161
162 Epilogue

One-Inch (Issun Bōshi), and The Tale of a Little Man (Ko-otoko no

sōshi), which are said to “tell of extraordinarily lazy or diminutive
men who succeed in marrying women beyond their social and physi-
cal stature.”3 Nevertheless, the underlying message about these un-
likely heroes’ triumphs has little to do with the protagonists’ efforts.
These men are rewarded with wealth, court ranks, and beautiful
wives thanks to divine intervention, their hidden noble pedigree, or a
combination of the two.
For instance, the hero of the Daikoku Dance is the filial son of
extremely poor parents. After he prays to the Kiyomizu Kannon for
help, the bodhisattva of mercy grants him a piece of straw, which he
trades for increasingly valuable items. With his propriety and new-
found wealth, this young man marries an aristocratic lady. Another
example is the titular hero of the Lazy Tarō, a homeless man covered
in filth and grime. Nevertheless, after days of cleaning and grooming,
he is found to be a stunningly handsome man of high birth—the
grandson of a former emperor, no less. We shall note that, in every
case, the hero moves to the capital and becomes a subject of the court,
acquiring the most traditional form of prestige. Rather than truly re-
flecting the idea of gekokujō by transcending the power of the old
establishment, these men join the establishment and reinforce the
time-honored social hierarchy.
While the fantastic stories of miracles and hidden elite pedi-
grees give little hope to the oppressed class, the same is not true for
many Buddhist tales that focus on happiness in the afterlife. Instead
of the promise of wealth and attractive spouses, these religious nar-
ratives encourage the readers to let go of earthly desires, seclude
themselves in the mountains, copy the sutras, and chant the nen-
butsu in order to secure posthumous salvation, which all believers
can supposedly obtain. (It was fortunate for the Buddhist institu-
tions that no one could disprove this promise.) In this regard, most
of the fourteen extant chigo monogatari narratives provide hopeful
messages for their readers, whether they were clerics, lay folks, men,
women, elites, or commoners. The Story of Kannon’s Manifestation
as a Youth demonstrates the efficacy of Kannon worship; A Long
Tale for an Autumn Night illustrates the incredible compassion of
the Kannon; and The Tale of Genmu reminds the readers of the im-
portance of forgiveness, redemption, and nondualism. Further, The
Mountain teaches the readers the value of being tenacious and resil-
ient, while The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie advocates the virtues
 Epilogue 163

of selflessness and unconditional faith in the power of Buddhism,

even if one is a female heretic monster.

Prospective C higo M onogatari Research

The 260-year rule of the last shogunate, the Tokugawa bakufu, ended
in 1867, and the new Meiji imperial government was established the
following year. One of the most urgent goals of the leaders of this
newborn nation was to reverse the unequal treaties with the Western
powers. Another was to elevate Japan’s inferior status on the world
stage. Throughout the process of adopting political, legal, and educa-
tional systems, the latest industrial and scientific technologies, and
cultured lifestyles from such countries as France, Germany, the United
Kingdom, and the United States, the Meiji government also attempted
to dissociate itself from the old customs that would make Japan look
“effeminate” in the eyes of the Western nations. To this end, the Meiji
imperial regime upheld such “masculine” slogans as bunmei kaika
(advancing civilization), fukoku kyōhei (enriching the nation and
strengthening the army), and shokusan kōgyō (encouraging indus-
try). In this politicocultural climate, the centuries-old nanshoku-jo-
shoku paradigm was gradually replaced with the tripartite paradigm
of homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality, of which only the
last component was deemed acceptable. The notion of ideal mascu-
linity also changed, rendering obsolete—at least for the time being—
such iconic cultural heroes of yesteryear as Narihira, Genji, and
Yoshitsune, who embodied courtly refinement, androgynous beauty,
and amorousness.
Today one of the greatest obstacles to reading pre-Meiji litera-
ture is our impulse to apply the implicit yet pervasive misogynistic
and erotophobic lens of the present. Although misogynistic and anti-
sex discourses existed before the Meiji period, an increasing number
of studies on the history of gender and sexuality in Japan has demon-
strated that the modernizing and Westernizing processes of the nation
exacerbated the negative associations of the notions of “feminine”
and “erotic” (see the introduction).
Since the inception of chigo monogatari studies in the 1950s,
quite a few journal articles and book chapters have examined this
genre of literature, of which a more-than-negligible number appear to
have been colored by homophobic, misogynistic, and anachronistic
understandings of the chigo system. The fact of the matter is that as
164 Epilogue

long as newer research continues to build uncritically on the preexist-

ing academic discourse on the chigo system, it will continue to be
difficult to expand and deepen our collective knowledge of chigo mo-
nogatari. To break the cycle of perpetuating homophobia, misogyny,
secularism, and anachronism, we need a more introspective, self-re-
flective metaanalysis of the dominant academic discourse of our time.
In light of the unfortunate reception history of chigo monogatari, I
wrote this book with what Rita Felski calls “postcritical reading” in
mind.4 Though no study can be completely free of subjectivity and
personal beliefs, it has been my intention to let chigo monogatari
speak for themselves first, rather than approach the texts with a pre-
determined thesis. I hope this book will be able to offer a useful per-
spective or two, which may in turn start a new type of conversation
about chigo monogatari and the chigo system.

Expanding the Definition of Success

Medieval Buddhist tales often prod their readers to look to the won-
derful “equal opportunity,” the chance for people of all walks of life
to achieve eternal happiness in the afterlife. In contrast, for the less
religiously inclined citizens of modern capitalist nations, “happiness”
has little to do with detaching oneself from earthly desires, practicing
the nenbutsu, or copying sutras. Instead, happiness today has a great
deal to do with the idea of “success.” Through the media and other
means, we are bombarded with visions of narrowly defined success in
the domains of education, career, social life, and romantic life, pre-
sented as what we ought to desire. And those who are determined to
achieve alternative forms of happiness are rendered invisible and in-
audible to the rest of society.
My mother, who worked as a Kabuki-chō hosutesu during my
childhood, indeed subscribed to the mainstream definitions of success
and happiness. When I was five or six, I once asked her if there was a
god. Without a moment of contemplation, she answered, “If there
were such a thing, you would see money raining every day!” My
mother knew very well the advantages of possessing a financially re-
warding, “respectable” occupation and a stable lifestyle. It just so
happens that a life of prestige and stability was out of her reach, as
she was a single mother of three young children without a college
education or much work experience. Even though she was too busy
to feel sorry for herself or let others make her feel small, I would be
 Epilogue 165

lying if I said she was completely satisfied with her life or that she
regarded her life as “successful.” Certainly, my mother did not want
her children to be in a similarly disadvantaged position.
In an ideal world, people in all walks of life would be able to
find happiness and peace of mind through many different means and
would be respected for doing their best. Yet to realize such a society
would require a drastic shift in our value system. Realistically speak-
ing, to make a cultural shift possible, we almost certainly need to be-
gin by conforming to the old value system. Only after acquiring a
conventional form of “success” might we have a chance of advocat-
ing for meaningful change and challenging the status quo that bene-
fits the powerful at the expense of the less privileged. In short, our
challenges to the old values must be constantly backed up by recog-
nizable “seals of approval,” such as academic degrees, professional
certificates, affiliations with organizations, respectable positions
within the organizations, and so on. This is our reality, but it can also
be our skillful means. The otogi zōshi heroes who were born into
disadvantaged lives seem to have forgotten all about the injustices
that used to oppress them once they achieved a level of privilege; they
happily became cogs in the oppressing regime. These innocent-sound-
ing stories should be a reminder that meaningful gekokujō requires
tenacity, resilience, and an aspiration to become a part of something
bigger than ourselves and something that takes more than one gen-
eration to achieve.
Thanks to my mother’s diligent work, I received an education
and a chance to study abroad during my junior year in college. One
fortunate event led to another for the next two decades (college edu-
cation to me was what the piece of straw was to the protagonist of
Daikoku Dance). The scrawny girl who used to be mesmerized by the
sight of her mother applying eye shadow and curling her hair in front
of the vanity in the cramped dingy apartment has now written this
book. It is my objective to use my research and teaching to shed light
on the covert aspects of premodern Japan and beyond, through which
I hope to reflect the voices of courageous, selfless people who use
their lives to make this world a kinder place for all.
 
 Glossary

ama  尼 a nun  
bosatsu  菩薩 a bodhisattva
chigo  稚児・児 Buddhist acolytes
chūdōji  中童子 adolescent boy attendants (not of elite or
outcast class)
chūsei shōsetsu  中世小説 medieval novels
daijōji  大童子 adult attendants (of outcast class)
dōmyō  童名 a child name
eboshi  烏帽子 a lacquered, tall hat for adult males
emaki  絵巻 illustrated scrolls
engi  縁起 origin stories of religious institutions and/
or statues
en’nen  延年 “life-extending” dance and singing
ga  雅 courtly elegance
gachūshi  画中詞 in-picture dialogues
genpuku  元服 the coming-of-age ceremony for boys
hōben  方便 skillful means, expedient means
hōben-tan  方便譚 stories centering on a bodhisattva’s hōben
imayō  今様 “contemporary style”; a type of ballad
jōgu bodai, geke shujō  a spiration for enlightenment, salvation of
  上求菩提 下化衆生 all beings
joshoku  女色 women’s beauty; male-female love
kaimami  垣間見 clandestinely observing one’s love interest

167
168 Glossary

kanjō  灌頂 the esoteric initiation ritual

kannō  感応 sympathetic responses
kasshiki  喝食 chigo for Zen temples
keppatsu  結髪 styling one’s hair into an updo
ko-shunga  古春画 erotica created before the seventeenth
century
ma  魔 evilness, evil beings
mamako banashi  継子話 stepchild tales
Mappō  末法 Age of the Final Dharma
menoto  乳母 a (former) wet nurse; a nursemaid
menoto  傅 a tutor
menotogo  乳母子 a menoto’s child, who serves their mutual
charge
meshūdo  召人 female attendants who provide sexual labor
mizura  角髪 a hairstyle with twin loops
mogi  裳着 the coming-of-age ceremony for girls
monogatari  物語 vernacular tales
mujō  無常 impermanence
nanshoku  男色 male-male love (usually transgenerational)
nenbutsu  念仏 chanting of Amida Buddha’s name
nurigome  塗籠 a windowless retreat
nyobon  女犯 breach of celibacy vow with a woman
ōjō  往生 rebirth into the Pure Land
otogi zōshi  御伽草子 medieval short stories, aka “medieval
novels”
renga  連歌 linked verse, the game of linking verses
sei  性 gender, sexuality, sex
sekkan seiji  摂関政治 regency politics
setsuwa  説話 anecdotal tales (often religious and/or
didactic)
 Glossary 169

shirabyōshi  白拍子 a type of entertainers (usually women

dressed as men)
shudō  衆道 the way/art of loving youths
Shugendō  修験道 Mountain Asceticism
shunga  春画 pre-1600 erotica of East Asian origin
-tan  譚 -story
tengu  天狗 bird-faced flying goblins
waka  和歌 Japanese poetry with thirty-one syllables
warawa  童 children; servants
yamabushi  山伏 practitioners of Shugendō, mountain ascetic
zoku  俗 vulgar and comedic ethos
 Notes

Abbreviations
NET  Nihon emaki taisei
MJMT  Muromachi jidai monogatari taisei
SNKBT  Shin Nihon koten bungaku taikei
SNKBZ  Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū
ZNET  Zoku Nihon emaki taisei

Prelude
1. Rita Felski, The Limits of Critique (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 2015), 12.
2. See, for example, Kaneko Matabei, “Nyake kanjinchō to Kokkei shibun:
Nihon nanshoku bungaku bunken kaisetsu 1,” Kokubungaku 19 (1957): 36;
Ichiko Teiji, Chūsei shōsetsu no kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai,
1955), 137; Araki Yoshio, ed., Chūsei Kamakura Muromachi bungaku jiten
(Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1955), 242–243.
3. See, for example, Gregory M. Pflugfelder, Cartographies of Desire: Male-
Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600–1950 (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1999), 146–234; Mark McLelland, Queer Japan from the Pacific
War to the Internet Age (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 15–24.

Introduction: Becoming a Chigo

1. Gregory M. Pflugfelder, “The Nation-State, the Age/Gender System, and
the Reconstitution of Erotic Desire in Nineteenth-Century Japan,” Journal of
Asian Studies 71, no. 4 (2012): 965.
2. Matsuoka Shinpei, Utage no shintai: Basara kara Zeami e (Tokyo: Iwa-
nami Shoten, 1991), 118–122. See also Christine M. E. Guth, “The Divine Boy
in Japanese Art,” Monumenta Nipponica 42, no. 1 (1987): 1–23.
3. Matsuoka, Utage no shintai, 118.

171
172 Notes to pages 4–8

4. Nihon kokugo daijiten, s.v. “chigo.”

5. This does not mean that clergymen were not allowed to wear caps.
Rather, my point here is that clergymen were not required to wear caps at all
times, unlike their secular counterparts.
6. For further discussions of the eboshi cap, see chapter 2.
7. For further discussion of head hair, see chapter 3.
8. Ikegami Ryōta, Zukai Nihon no shōzoku (Tokyo: Shinkigensha, 2008),
134. Curiously, around the thirteenth century, a special type of banquet called
bureikō 無礼講 (“gatherings with no proprieties”) was frequently held. During a
bureikō, men of all ranks removed their social markers (eboshi caps, topknots,
and garments) and socialized. See, for example, Hasegawa Tadashi, ed., Shinpen
Nihon koten bungaku zenshū (hereafter SNKBZ), vol. 54, Taiheiki 1 (Tokyo:
Shōgakukan, 1994), 34–35. The custom of wearing a cap had subsided by the
seventeenth century, although the topknot and shaved crown remained the stan-
dard adult male hairstyle until the late nineteenth century.
9. Nihon kokugo daijiten, s.v. “warawa.”
10. Katō Osamu, “Chigo” to “warawa” no seikatsushi (Tokyo: Keiō Gi-
juku Daigaku Shuppankai, 1994), 27–28.
11. Ibid., 31–33. The conflation of children and servants is not limited to
premodern Japan. For instance, in his seminal work Centuries of Childhood,
Philippe Ariès notes, “The idea of childhood was bound up with the idea of de-
pendence: the words ‘sons,’ ‘varlets,’ and ‘boys’ were also words in the vocabu-
lary of feudal subordination” in seventeenth-century France. See Philippe Ariès,
Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life, trans. Robert Baldick
(New York: Vintage Book, 1962), 26.
12. Another term that referred to “attendants/servants” during the time of
Man’yōshū is “ko” 児/子, which came to mean “children” by the mid-Heian pe-
riod. See Katō, “Chigo” to “warawa,” 7.
13. See Komatsu Shigemi, ed., Zoku Nihon emaki taisei (hereafter ZNET),
vol. 17, Zen-kunen kassen ekotoba, Heiji monogatari emaki, Yūki kassen eko-
toba (Tokyo: Chūōkōron-sha, 1989); Komatsu Shigemi, ed., ZNET 1–3, Hōnen
shōnin eden, vols. 1–3 (Tokyo: Chūōkōron-sha, 1981).
14. SNKBZ 50, Uji shūi monogatari, 49–50.
15. Kuroda Hideo, “Emaki” kodomo no tōjō: Chūsei shakai no kodomo-
zō (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 1989), 97–100.
16. Amino Yoshihiko, Igyō no ōken (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1986), 49.
17. Tsuchiya Megumi, Chūsei jiin no shakai to geinō (Tokyo: Yoshikawa
Kōbunkan, 2001), 130–177.
18. J. L. Austin, “A Plea for Excuses,” in Philosophical Papers, ed. J. O.
Urmson and G. J. Warnock (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 182.
19. Tateishi Kazuhiro, “Hōyō to dōmyō: Utsuho monogatari shinsei no
seiiku girei,” in Seiiku girei no rekishi to bunka, ed. Fukutō Sanae and Kojima
Naoko (Tokyo: Shinwasha, 2003), 186–196.
 Notes to pages 9–11 173

20. The suffix “-maru” or “-maro” can be omitted from a dōmyō. For in-
stance, “Ushiwaka-maru” (the child name of Minamoto no Yoshitsune [1159–
1189]) is probably the most recognizable dōmyō in today’s Japan, but in The
Tales of the Heike (ca. fourteenth century) and A Record of Yoshitsune (fifteenth
century), Yoshitsune’s child name without the suffix (i.e., Ushiwaka) is more
common. Also, of the six acolyte tales this book will examine, only two works
reveal the chigo’s names: Umewaka (A Long Tale for an Autumn Night) and
Hanamatsu (The Tale of Genmu), abbreviated from Umewaka-maru and Hana-
matsu-maru, respectively. In the case of the protagonist of The Mountain, the
younger protagonist is addressed as “Wakagimi” (Young Lord).
All the other acolyte characters are referred to by their titles such as “the
chigo” and “the warawa.”
21. Nihon daihyakka zensho, s.v. “o-maru.”
22. The adaptation of the Chinese-style names was propagated during the
reign of Emperor Saga (809–823). See Tateishi, “Hōyō to dōmyō,” 186.
23. Amino Yoshihiko, Nihon no rekishi o yominaosu (Tokyo: Chikuma
Shobō, 2009), 110–115.
24. Ibid., 112–116.
25. Kanjō refers to the climactic part of esoteric initiation ceremonies, in which
the anointer pours holy water onto the head of the recipient of consecration.
26. See Tsuji Shōko, “Chigo kanjō no kisoteki kōsatsu: Giki no shōkai to
seiri,” Nara Joshi Daigaku Ningen Bunka Kenkyūka nenpō 27 (2012): 274–278.
The modern figure who has single-handedly popularized these obscure docu-
ments is the novelist Mishima Yukio (1925–1970), through his famous work
Forbidden Colors (Kinjiki, 1951). The Tendai priest and writer Kon Tōkō
(1898–1977), however, has accused Mishima of plagiarizing a portion of Kon’s
short story “Chigo” (1947) to compose Forbidden Colors. Kon reportedly re-
ferred to the Private Record of the Chigo kanjō to write the chigo kanjō scene of
“Chigo.” Although he had the special privilege of viewing this document as a
Tendai priest, Kon argues, Mishima could not have known about the existence of
this text, let alone its contents. See Tsuji Shōko, “Kon Tōkō ‘Chigo’ to ‘Kō chigo
shōgyō hiden shi,’ ” Josetsu 38 (2011): 215.
27. Enryakuji is Japan’s first Tendai (Ch. Tientai) temple complex, built on
Mount Hiei, near Kyoto. The colophon of the 1450 copy of the chigo kanjō
manual attributes its original authorship to Genshin (942–1017), the renowned
Tendai master and author of The Teachings Essential for Rebirth (Ōjōyōshū,
985), although this is probably anachronistic.
28. Tsuji, “Kon Tōkō ‘Chigo,’ ” 215.
29. According to Tsuji Shōko, Ennin was the first priest to conduct the
chigo kanjō. If this claim holds true, the tradition of the chigo system began as
early as the ninth century. See Tsuji, “Giki no shōkai to seiri,” 276.
30. Teeth blackening (ohaguro or kane) became popular among court
women during the Heian period. This beautification practice was adopted by
174 Notes to pages 11–14

aristocratic men and elite warriors from the late Heian through the Muromachi
period. See Chris Nelson and Kyōko Selden, “The Tale of Oan,” Review of Japa-
nese Culture and Society 16 (2004): 1–2.
31. Tsuji, “Giki no shōkai,” 274–278.
32. Kuroda Hideo, Sugata to shigusa no chūseishi: Ezu to emaki no fūkei
kara (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2002), 30–45. See also Tsuchiya, Chūsei jiin,
158–166.
33. One of the most reliable ways to distinguish a chigo from a highborn
woman is the position of the ponytail. An elite-class woman’s ponytail tends to
be tied at a lower point (close to the middle of her back) than that of a chigo or
a lower-class woman.
34. Nevertheless, as I will discuss in chapter 2, some literary and artistic con-
ventions for portraying chigo seem to borrow from the preexisting custom of rep-
resenting young women. As for the chigo’s makeup (face powder, teeth blackening,
artificial eyebrows, and rouge), it also appears to emulate women’s makeup.
35. Kōhara Yukinari, Kao to hyōjō no ningengaku (Tokyo: Heibonsha,
1995), 40–41.
36. Sachi Schmidt-Hori, “The Boy Who Lived: The Transfigurations of
Chigo in the Medieval Short Story Ashibiki,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
75, no. 2 (2015): 321.
37. The idea that adult men are seen as unmarked “people” has been con-
firmed in many fields of social science. One of the most obvious illustrations of this
tendency is the ways we linguistically express gender and age in the Japanese and
English languages (and numerous others). For instance, a group of warawa can in-
clude both male and female children/servants, but a warawa is defaulted to a male.
To emphasize the female gender of a warawa, one must say “me no warawa” (a fe-
male warawa). Similarly, until recently, the word “men” in English was used inter-
changeably with “people.” Furthermore, synonyms of “people” in both Japanese
and English could technically include people of all ages, but without a qualifier, they
are generally assumed to be between ages twenty and fifty. To emphasize the two
ends of the age spectrum, one must use adjectives (e.g., “young,” “old”) to modify
“people,” or use different terms (e.g., “the elderly,” “infants,” “children”).
38. Nomura Ikuyo, Jendaa no chūsei shakaishi, Dōseisha chūseishi sensho,
vol. 22 (Tokyo: Dōseisha, 2017), 103.
39. According to Katō Osamu, during the time of Man’yōshū, “ko” re-
ferred to both “loved ones” and “attendant/servants” (cf. note 12 of this chap-
ter). However, by the mid-Heian period, “ko” had come to mean “a child/chil-
dren” exclusively. See Katō, “Chigo” to “warawa,” 4–6.
40. In premodern Japan, transgenerational male-male love was common
outside Buddhist communities as well. Nonetheless, as a matter of literary con-
vention, the romantic and/or erotic connotation is much more automatic and
robust when men gaze upon chigo than upon adolescent boys or young men who
are not acolytes.
 Notes to pages 14–18 175

41. Higuchi Yoshimaro, ed., Nara-no-ha wakashū to kenkyū (Toyohashi,

Japan: Mikan kokubun shiryō Kankōkai, 1959). See also Kaneko Matabei,
“Nara-no-ha wakashū: Nihon nanshoku bungaku bunken kaisetsu 2,” Kokubun-
gaku (1958): 27–39.
42. Nara-no-ha (no. 689). See Higuchi, Nara-no-ha, 107. All translations
are mine unless otherwise noted.
43. Go-shūi (no. 733). See Tsukamoto Tetsuzō, ed., Shūi wakashū, Go-shūi
wakashū (Tokyo: Yūhōdō, 1926), 439.
44. Here, the intersection of sexuality and social hierarchy in a master-dis-
ciple relationship subverts the convention that normally renders the suitor as the
visitor. In fact, plate 7 depicts a chigo (i.e., the visitor) waiting for the door to his
master’s bedroom to open (see chapter 2). In most romantic acolyte tales, how-
ever, the relationship between the two main characters is similar to heterosexual
love, in which the suitor (a young monk who is not the chigo’s master) visits his
love interest (chigo from a different temple).
45. See Gunsho ruijū 154:10, Shoku mon’yō wakashū, 304.
46. Matsumura Yūji, Hayashi Tatsuya, and Furuhashi Nobutaka, eds.,
Nihon bungeishi: Hyōgen no nagare, vol. 3, Chūsei (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō,
1987), 150–151.
47. See Hanawa Hokiichi, ed., San’eki enshi, Zoku gunsho ruijū, vol. 345,
San’eki enshi (Tokyo: Zoku gunsho ruijū Kanseikai, 1932), 500.
48. Tamamura Takeji, ed., Gozan bungaku shinshū bekkan, vol. 1, Shinden
shikō (Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1977), 866.
49. Tamamura Takeji, ed., Gozan bungaku shinshū, vol. 1, Senpukushū
(Tokyo: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppankai, 1967), 867. The Chenxiang Pavilion was
located in Emperor Xuanzong’s (685–762) palace. It is known as the place where
Li Bo (701–762) composed three verses praising the beauty of the peonies and
Yang Guifei. Another connection between this femme fatal and a chigo is found
in A Record of Yoshitsune, in which the young Yoshitsune, a chigo, is compared
to Yang Guifei and other legendary beauties. See SNKBZ 62, Gikeiki, 53, and my
forthcoming article: Sachi Schmidt-Hori, “Yoshitsune’s Transformation from
‘Small but Beautiful’ to ‘Small but Mighty’: National and Gender Identities in the
Cultural History of Japan,” Journal of Japanese Studies (forthcoming).
50. Love poems composed by chigo for their lovers also exist. For exam-
ples, see Nara-no-ha (nos. 734 and 735).
51. SNKBZ 44, Tsurezuregusa, 122–125.
52. For a comprehensive study of kannō, see Charlotte Eubanks, “Sympa-
thetic Response: Vocal Arts and the Erotics of Persuasion in the Buddhist Litera-
ture of Medieval Japan,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 72, no. 1 (2012):
43–70.
53. SNKBZ 36, Konjaku monogatari-shū 2, 403–409.
54. For instance, in the “Molted Cicada Shell” chapter of The Tale of Genji,
the hero accidentally sleeps with the stepdaughter (Nokiba no Ogi) of his love
176 Notes to pages 18–23

interest (Utsusemi). Though Genji admits that Nokiba no Ogi is much more
physically attractive than her stepmother, he finds the girl’s enthusiasm off-put-
ting and idealizes Utsusemi, who manages to rebuff his advances. See SNKBZ 20,
Genji monogatari 1, 115–132.
55. For a book-length study of shirabyōshi in English, see Roberta Stripp-
oli, Dancer, Nun, Ghost, Goddess: The Legend of Giō and Hotoke in Japanese
Literature, Theater, Visual Arts, and Cultural Heritage (Leiden, Netherlands:
Brill, 2017).
56. See SNKBZ 45, Heike monogatari 1, 35.
57. Abe Yasurō, “Sei no ekkyō: Chūsei no shūkyō, geinō, monogatari ni okeru
ekkyō suru sei,” in Onna no ryōiki, otoko no ryōiki, ed. Akasaka Norio, Nakamura
Ikuo, Harada Nobuo, and Miura Sukeyuki (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2003), 204.
58. Ibid.
59. Takigawa Seijirō, Senshōshimi (Tokyo: Seiabō, 1965), 22.
60. Abe, “Sei no ekkyō,” 205–206. For the typeset text of this anecdote,
see, for example, Tsukamoto Tetsuzō, ed., Kokon chomonjū (Tokyo: Yūhōdō,
1914), 270–272. Kakushō is also famous for being the master of Taira no Tsun-
emasa (?–1184), the subject of the “Tsunemasa’s Flight from the Capital” (7:17)
and “Concerning Seizan” (7:18) chapters of the Heike (Kakuichi-bon) and the
noh play Tsunemasa.
61. See SNKBZ 45, Heike monogatari 1, 34–50. For an English translation,
see, for example, Royall Tyler, trans., The Tale of the Heike (New York: Penguin
Books, 2014), 15–28.
62. Abe, “Sei no ekkyō,” 206.
63. Ibid.
64. Kimura Saeko, Koi suru monogatari no homosekushuariti: Kyūtei
shakai to kenryoku (Tokyo: Seidosha, 2008), 17–30, 224–248; Onna-tachi no
heian kyūtei: Eiga monogatari ni yomu kenryoku to sei (Tokyo: Kōdansha,
2015), 232–238.
65. Kimura, Koi suru monogatari, 24–50.
66. In the end, the half-brother and half-sister switch positions and enter
into the “heteronormative” sexual politics at court.
67. Kimura, Koi suru monogatari, 243.
68. See Higuchi, Nara-no-ha.
69. Haruko Wakabayashi, The Seven Tengu Scrolls: Evil and the Rhetoric
of Legitimacy in Medieval Japanese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i
Press, 2012), 104.
70. For example, The Tale of Flowering Fortunes (Eiga monogatari, ca.
1030) lists a number of women whom Prince Atsuakira (also Koichijō-in, 994–
1051) loved. His favorite was Ruri, a daughter of the governor of Shimotsuke.
She originally served Atsuakira’s wife as her lady-in-waiting but became his
meshūdo and bore him many children. The narrator calls her “saiwai-bito” (a
person of extraordinary fortune). See SNKBZ 33, Eiga monogatari, 238–239.
 Notes to pages 24–27 177

71. Paul S. Atkins, “Chigo in the Medieval Japanese Imagination,” Journal

of Asian Studies 67, no. 3 (2008): 951.
72. Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or
How Love Conquered Marriage (New York: Viking, 2005), 5–6.
73. When considering the literary history of Japan, it is critically important
to understand how the intersection of gender, sexuality, and politics influenced
the production and circulation of literature. Ninth- and tenth-century Japan wit-
nessed the world’s first surge in literary production by women as a by-product of
the Fujiwara’s regency politics. Most famously, each of the Ichijō emperor’s
(980–1011) two Fujiwara consorts (Shōshi, 988–1074; Teishi, 976–1000) set up
a literary salon in court, where many talented ladies-in-waiting honed their skills
in composing poetry and prose texts. This means that a single family’s political
ambition trickled down to people of the provincial governor class, whose own
daughters’ education was also proven to be a valuable investment of time and
resources. This is because there was a constant demand for talented ladies-in-
waiting to serve, educate, and entertain the imperial consorts. Murasaki Shibu
(ca. 978–1014), the author of The Tale of Genji, was recruited for her literary
genius to serve Shōshi as a lady-in-waiting. See, for example, H. Richard Okada,
Figures of Resistance: Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of Genji and
Other Mid-Heian Texts (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1992), 159–164.
74. SNKBZ 46, Heike monogatari 2, 77–82. Though historically inaccu-
rate, the Heike reads as if Shukaku, rather than Kakushō, were Tsunemasa’s
master. Further, a variant of the Heike, the Rise and Fall of the Minamoto and
the Taira (Genpei jōsuiki, Kamakura period), presents the monk Gyōkei as a
former lover of Tsunemasa. See Kokumin bunko Kankōkai, ed., Genpei jōsuiki
(Tokyo: Kokumin bunko Kankōkai, 1912), 805.
75. See Kuroda Toshio, Kenmon taisei-ron, Kuroda Toshio chosakushū,
vol. 1, ed. Tanaka Fumihide (Tokyo: Hōzōkan, 1994).
76. Mikael S. Adolphson, The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers, and War-
riors in Premodern Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2000), 1–20.
77. The Sinified pronunciation (on-yomi) of the character Minamoto is
“gen,” and Genji is a common appellation for the family.
78. This points to the fact that women’s desire was, for the most part, out-
side people’s consciousness, and when it did enter their perception, it entailed
excessive sexual desire. This taboo on women’s enthusiastic sexuality is indicated
in the genesis story of Japan. The husband-and-wife kami, Izanagi and Izanami,
failed to produce proper offspring at first, because the female god initiated the
process by praising the appearance of her husband. The couple was able to create
the islands of Japan only after they repeated the process with the male god initi-
ating. See SNKBZ 1, Kojiki, 31–42; SNKBZ 2, Nihon shoki 1, 25–35.
79. See Shannon Weber, “ ‘Born This Way’: Biology and Sexuality in Lady
Gaga’s Pro-LGBT Media,” in Queer Media Images, ed. Jane Campbell and The-
resa Carilli (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013), 111. See also Lisa Duggan,
178 Notes to pages 28–30

The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberalism, Cultural Politics, and the Attack on

Democracy (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2003), 50. The nanshoku-joshoku para-
digm can deepen our understanding of the significant role that culture plays in
shaping the human sexual desire.
80. The database is available through the website for the Chinese Text Proj-
ect, www.ctext.org.
81. SNKBT 41, Kojidan, Zoku kojidan, 828.
82. This well-known anecdote is the source of the Chinese idiom “duan
xiu” (断袖, Jp. danshū), a euphemism for male-male love. In the Continued Dis-
cussions, however, the person who was asked about the instance mentions a dif-
ferent emperor, Emperor Cheng of Former Han (r. 33–37 BCE), from whom
Emperor Ai inherited the throne.
83. In the Senjūshō Kenkyūkai version of the text, based on the Matsud-
aira-bon manuscript, the term is “onna no iro” (女の色) with the same meaning
as its Sinified counterpart, joshoku. See Senjūshō Kenkyūkai, ed., Senjūshō zen
chūshaku, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 2003), 617.
84. This is Shikishō (1477), which is the Zen monk Tōgen Suizen’s (1430–
1489) commentary on the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji).
85. Japan had a long tradition of male-male intimacy before the dawn of
modernity even outside the monasteries, which J. Keith Vincent construes as the
“male heterosocial continuum” that fluidly combines “a heterosexual male’s
friendship with another male” and “male homosexuality.” See J. Keith Vincent,
Two-Timing Modernity: Homosocial Narrative in Modern Japanese Fiction
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2012), 6–15. See also Paul
Gordon Schalow, A Poetics of Courtly Male Friendship in Heian Japan (Hono-
lulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2007); and Gustav Heldt, “Between Followers
and Friends: Male Homosocial Desire in Heian Court Poetry,” U.S.-Japan Wom-
en’s Journal 33 (2007): 3–32. There are also books on the topic for general audi-
ences, including Takemitsu Makoto, ed., Nihon nanshoku monogatari: Nara
jidai no kizoku kara Meiji no bungō made (Tokyo: Kanzen, 2015); and Tsuneo
Watanabe and Jun’ichi Iwata, Love of the Samurai: A Thousand Years of Japa-
nese Homosexuality, trans. D. R. Roberts (London: Gay Men’s Press, 1989).
86. See SNKBZ 1, Kojiki, 31–35. The birth of the country as the result of
sexual intercourse between a male and a female deity is also depicted in the other
imperially commissioned record of history, A Chronicle of Japan (Nihon shoki,
720). See SNKBZ 2, Nihon Shoki 1, 25–35.
87. In some cases, the taboo on blood evolved into a taboo on women (es-
pecially those of reproductive age), due to their association with menstruation
and childbirth. Even in today’s Japan, many religious sites and objects (e.g.,
mountain peaks, sumo rings, palanquins for Shinto festivals) are off-limits to
women to ensure their “purity.”
88. See Janet R. Goodwin, Selling Songs and Smiles: The Sex Trade in
Heian and Kamakura Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2007), 84–
 Notes to pages 30–31 179

111. During the Heian period, the most dangerous defilement was that of death.
This is why those from the outcast class, who were considered immune to the
pollution of death, were in charge of disposing of corpses and skinning animals.
89. Tōji Kamata, Myth and Deity in Japan: The Interplay of Kami and
Buddhas, trans. Geynor Sekimori (Tokyo: Japan Publishing Industry Foundation
for Culture, 2017), 37–42. Depending on the school of Buddhism and the time
period, the idea of “enlightenment” is also referred to, with slightly varying nu-
ances, as “rebirth in the Pure Land” (Jp. ōjō), “salvation,” “Nirvana,” and
“buddhahood.”
90. Knowing that extinguishing all amorous feelings toward women was a
challenge even for some of his primary disciples, the Buddha frequently preached
about the defilement of the human body, especially that of women. The following
verse from the Sutta Nipata (1:11) exemplifies this idea: “The body which is put
together with bones and sinews, plastered with membrane and flesh, and covered
with skin, is not seen as it really is [. . .]. Then in nine streams impurity flows al-
ways from it; from the eye the eye-excrement, from the ear the ear-excrement,
mucus from the nose, through the mouth it ejects at one time bile and . . . it ejects
phlegm, and from (all) the body come sweat and dirt [. . .].” F. Max Muller,
trans., Sacred Books of the East 10, part 2 (London: Oxford University Press,
1924), 32–33.
91. The oldest extant text that unambiguously condemns male-male sex for
the sake of same-sex-ness comes from the influential Buddhist text Essentials for
Rebirth (Ōjōyōshū, 985), penned by Genshin (942–1017). In this text, Genshin
preaches about a special inferno called takunō 多苦悩 (numerous agonies) just
for men who had sex with other men. Ishida Mizumaro, trans., Ōjōyōshū: Nihon
Jōdokyō no yoake, vol. 1, Tōyō bunko, vol. 8 (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1963), 17–18.
This is unmistakable evidence that at least some clerics opposed nanshoku, puta-
tively irrespective of lay/ordained status, although adherents to the Buddhist
ideal of renouncing carnal attachment should not see nanshoku any differently
from joshoku. In this regard, Genshin’s preaching against nanshoku appears to
be a rare example of overt homophobia against male-male love in premodern
Buddhist discourse, for he does not denounce joshoku or female homoeroticism.
92. For instance, after the monk Saichō (767–822) returned from Tang in
804, he reformed Japanese Buddhism by establishing a home of the Japanese
Tendai School, Enryakuji, on Mount Hiei, replacing the Theravāda-based Four
Part Vinaya, originally brought from Tang by Ganjin (Ch. Jianzhen, 688–763),
with the apocryphal Brahmā Net Bodhisattva Vinaya of the Mahāyāna tradition.
Saichō also constructed a new ordination platform at Enryakuji to produce
wholly Mahāyāna-based ecclesiastics in Japan. See Paul Groner, Saichō: The Es-
tablishment of the Japanese Tendai School (Berkeley: Center for South and South
East Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley, 1984).
93. See, for example, Ishida Mizumaro, Nyobon: Hijiri no sei (Tokyo: Chi-
kuma Shobō, 1995); and Lori Meeks, “The Priesthood as a Family Trade: Recon-
180 Notes to pages 31–34

sidering Monastic Marriage in Premodern Japan,” in Family in Buddhism, ed.

Liz Wilson (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2013), 253–276.
94. Meeks, “Priesthood as a Family Trade,” 254.
95. Ibid.
96. Matsunami Kikusui, Kaishū to Shinran (Sakugi-son, Japan: Sakugi-son
Seinendan, 1923), 57. On the reception of this anecdote in academic discourse,
see Galen Amstutz, “Sexual Transgression in Shinran’s Dream,” Eastern Bud-
dhist, New Series 43, no. 1/2 (2012): 225–269. The fact that the chigo kanjō
ritual in the Tendai tradition symbolically transforms the youth into an avatar of
Kannon may have been inspired by the legend of Shinran, although this hypoth-
esis would be at odds with Tsuji’s claim that the chigo kanjō goes back to the
ninth century. See Tsuji, “Giki no shōkai to seiri,” 276. We need more research
into how the chigo kanjō developed over time and took the shape recorded in the
extant manual from the Muromachi period.
97. Eubanks, “Sympathetic Response,” 50.
98. Ibid., 47–49.
99. SNKBZ 36, Konjaku monogatari-shū 2, 409–411.
100. For a comprehensive study of upāya, see Michael Pye, Skilful Means:
A Concept in Mahayana Buddhism, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2003).
101. Ibid., 370–382.
102. Rajyashree Pandey, “Desire and Disgust: Meditations on the Impure
Body in Medieval Japanese Narratives,” Monumenta Nipponica 60, no. 2
(2005): 197.
103. Ibid., 213–214.
104. Bernard Faure, The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 182.
105. Bernard Faure, The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity, and Gender
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 205–206; emphasis mine.
106. According to Kadokawa kogo daijiten, the classical Japanese verb犯す
(okasu or sometimes bonsu) carries numerous meanings, ranging from “to break
a rule,” “to invade someone else’s space,” and “to transgress” to “to have sex in
a sacred place” and many more. While the act of okasu/bonsu is inherently trans-
gressive, it is not always negative, immoral, or criminal. For instance, the noble-
man Fujiwara no Yorinaga (1120–1156) wrote in his diary, Taiki, about the plea-
sure of a particular transgression: receiving anal sex from his lover, Fujiwara no
Tadamasa, who was four years his junior. Yorinaga wrote, “彼人始犯余, 不敵不
敵” (He fucked me for the first time. How bold of him!). See Kurokawa Mayori,
ed., Shiryō taikan, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Tetsugaku Shoin, 1898), 134.
107. Yorinaga actually used the term “nanbon” 男犯 in his diary to de-
scribe his sexual adventures with his male lovers, though it does not seem to have
become an idiomatic expression. Because he was not a priest, the “transgression
via having sex with another male” did not constitute a breach of the celibacy
vow. Yorinaga’s transgression may refer to intercourse between two males who
 Notes to pages 34–36 181

are close in age, receiving anal sex from a lower-ranking partner, or having wild
sex for purely somatic pleasure.
108. See, for example, Gary P. Leupp, Male Colors: The Construction of Ho-
mosexuality in Tokugawa Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995),
28–31; Koishikawa Zenji, ed., Danshoku no minzokugaku. Rekishi minzokugaku
shiryō sōsho (dai 2-ki, no. 3) (Tokyo: Hihyōsha, 2003); Kurushima Noriko, Nagano
Hiroko, and Osa Shizue, eds., Jendaa kara mita Nihonshi: Rekishi o yomikaeru
(Tokyo: Ōtsuki Shoten, 2015); and Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhist Eth-
ics: Foundations, Values, and Issues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
109. See, for example, Leupp, Male Colors, 28–31.
110. See Nakae Katsumi, Sei no Nihonshi (Tokyo: Kawade Bunko, 1985),
67–68.
111. Watanabe and Iwata, Love of the Samurai, 31.
112. Paul Gordon Schalow, “Kūkai and the Tradition of Male Love in Jap-
anese Buddhism,” in Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender, ed. José Ignacio Cabezón
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 215.
113. Leupp, Male Colors, 11–12.
114. See Paul Gordon Schalow, trans., The Great Mirror of Male Love
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990); Paul Gordon Schalow, “The
Invention of Literary Tradition of Male Love: Kitamura Kigin’s Iwatsutsuji,”
Monumenta Nipponica 48, no. 1 (1993): 1–31; and Hayakawa Monta, Ukiyoe
shunga to nanshoku (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 2018).
115. For instance, a headline in the Japan Times from May 6, 2016, reads,
“Bullying of LGBT Students at ‘Epidemic’ Levels in Japan: Human Rights
Watch.” Another example, from the August 4, 2018, Daily Beast, is “They Said
What?! Anti-LGBT Prejudice Reigns in Japan’s Ruling Party.”
116. Richard M. Jaffe, Neither Monk nor Layman (Honolulu: University of
Hawai`i Press, 2011), 4.
117. Ibid., 205.
118. Pflugfelder, Cartographies of Desire, 159.
119. Maekawa Naoya, “Dansei dōseiai-sha” no shakaishi: Aidentiti no
juyō, kurōzetto e no kaihō (Tokyo: Sakuhinsha, 2017), 28.
120. The effects of the modern regime’s effort to marginalize homoeroti-
cism sometimes manifested in unexpected ways. For instance, during the Taishō
period (1912–1926), the people of Japan (re)discovered dōsei-ai (homosexual
love) through the translations of European sexology journals, and they found
this phenomenon exotic and fascinating. This sensationalization of the notion of
same-sex love, now largely absent from the collective consciousness of the people
of the Taishō period, spawned a “sexology boom” (seiyokugaku būmu), culmi-
nating in the births of numerous sexology journals and magazines. See Kawagu-
chi Kazuya, Kuia sutadiizu (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2003), 28–34. Further-
more, beginning in the early postwar period, several popular magazines that
targeted sexual minorities were published, including Search for Humanity (Nin-
182 Notes to pages 37–38

gen tankyū, 1950–1952), Adonis (Adonisu, 1952–1962), and The Rose Tribe
(Barazoku, 1971–). See Maekawa, “Dansei dōseiai-sha,” 62–204.
121. Ichiko, Chūsei shōsetsu, 131. It is clear that Ichiko’s homophobic view
was not an exception but the rule of the time. Three years before his book came out,
Furukawa Kiyohiko published a short article on The Tale of Genmu and The Tale of
Ben. In this essay, Furukawa describes chigo monogatari as stories “featuring per-
verted love [hentai ren’ai], born out of the peculiar social structure of the warrior-
dominated era.” See Furukawa Kiyohiko, “Nikko-zan no sōbō bungaku: Genmu
monogatari to Ben no shōshi,” Kokugo to kokubungaku 29, no. 8 (1952): 10.
122. Ibid., 137.
123. Kaneko, “Nyake kanjinchō,” 36. Higuchi Kiyoyuki’s Sei to Nihonjin
is an example of quasischolarly writing that continued to exhibit an overtly ho-
mophobic interpretation of nanshoku into the 1980s. See Higuchi Kiyoyuki, Sei
to Nihonjin (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1985), 184–189.
124. Margaret H. Childs, in a 1980 article, aptly contests the homophobic
remarks made by Ichiko Teiji and Araki Yoshio. In this piece, Childs argues
against the scholars’ presumption that the religious ending is a convenient cover
for the main focus of the tales (i.e., male homosexuality). She points out that
chigo tales normally end with the priest’s religious awakening (hosshin) and the
negation of carnal desire, exemplifying that “the only happy ending was the vic-
tory of religion.” See Margaret H. Childs, “Chigo Monogatari: Love Stories or
Buddhist Sermons?,” Monumenta Nipponica 35, no. 2 (1980): 127–129.
125. See, for example, Iwata Jun’ichi, Honchō danshokukō, Danshoku
bunken shoshi: Gappon (Tokyo: Hara Shobō, 2002); Inagaki Taruho, Shōnen-ai
no bigaku (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō, 2005); and Dōmoto Masaki, Danshoku
engeki-shi (Tokyo: Shuppansha, 1976).
126. Joseph J. Fischel, Sex and Harm in the Age of Consent (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2016), 8–9. Although “sex offenders” certainly
include those who are attracted to young children, Fischel’s primary focus is
adults who develop mutual attractions and form sexual relationships with teen-
agers. His analysis on the recent shift in the American legal system and media
representations (positive portrayals of LGBTQ individuals and the demonization
of transgenerational sexuality) is applicable to how contemporary scholarship on
the chigo system and chigo tales switched its focal point from the same-sex-ness
of the relationships to the age difference.
127. Ibid., 9.
128. See, for example, Hosokawa Ryōichi, Itsudatsu no Nihon chūsei:
Kyōki, tōsaku, ma no sekai (Tokyo: JICC Shuppan-kyoku, 1993); Tokue Gensei,
Muromachi geinōshi ronkō (Tokyo: Miyai Shoten, 1984); Faure, Red Thread,
1998; Kanda Tatsumi, “Chigo to tennō: Dajōtennō Go-Sukōin to chigo monoga-
tari,” in Seikatsu sekai to fōkuroa, Tennō to ōken o kangaeru, vol. 9, ed. Amino
Yoshihiko (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2003), 155–180; Saeki Junko, “Shunga no
‘shōnen-ryoku’: Miwaku to iu kenryoku,” Eureka: Poetry and Criticism 47, no.
 Notes to pages 38–42 183

20 (2015): 135–145; and Ri Yonmi, “Chigo monogatari ni okeru yokubō to sei-

gensō no shikumi,” in Etoki to denshō soshite bungaku, ed. Hayashi Masahiko
(Tokyo: Hōjōdō, 2016), 529–545.
129. Faure, Red Thread, 265. This line of argument is identical to Ichiko’s
aforementioned claim: “Buddhist priests [. . .] must have been aware that nan-
shoku was an immoral, unnatural act. This is why they invented the plot where
the chigo turns out to be an avatar of the Buddha or a bodhisattva” (Ichiko,
Chūsei shōsetsu, 137). Their remarks seem to be driven by confirmation biases
that pick out specific parts of a text that are useful to “prove” their predeter-
mined conclusion and dismisses any details that may weaken the goal. This is the
antithesis of “postcritical reading.”
130. Hosokawa, Itsudatsu no Nihon chūsei, 73–74.
131. Kanda, “Chigo to tennō,” 158.
132. Ibid.
133. Jim Reichert, In the Company of Men: Representations of Male-Male
Sexuality in Meiji Literature (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 4.
134. This type of hyperbolic language devoid of intellectual curiosity and of
efforts to provide evidence invites comparison with the hyperhomophobic lan-
guage of pre-1980s scholarship on chigo monogatari and the chigo system.
135. Fischel, Sex and Harm, 8–9.
136. On the intersection of secularism and liberal Western political dis-
courses, see Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, and Saba Mahmood, Is
Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech (Berkeley: Townsend Cen-
ter for the Humanities, University of California, 2009).
137. Scholars have criticized transgenerational male-female sexual relation-
ships in which the younger female partners show distress, such as the marriage
between Genji and Murasaki in the Tale of Genji and between Retired Emperor
Go-Fukakusa and Lady Nijō in The Confession of Lady Nijō (Towazugatari, ca.
1306). I am exploring this topic in my current research.
138. Gayle S. Rubin warns us that the hierarchies of sexual value “function
in much the same ways as for ideological systems of racism, ethnocentrism, and
religious chauvinism. They rationalize the well-being of the sexually privileged
and the adversity for the sexual rabble.” See Gayle S. Rubin, “Thinking Sex:
Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” in Deviations: A Gayle
Rubin Reader (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 150–151.

Chapter 1: Chigo Monogatari

1. For a study of chigo characters in noh plays, see William MacDuff,
“Beautiful Boys in Nō Drama: The Idealization of Homoerotic Desire,” Asian
Theatre Journal 13, no. 2 (1996): 248–258.
2. This list is taken from Aoki Yūko, “Chigo mono ‘Matsuho monogatari’
no hōhō,” Denshō bungaku kenkyū 56 (2007): 85–96.
184 Notes to pages 42–48

3. For an in-depth discussion of engi and engi literature, see Abe Ryūichi,
“Revisiting the Dragon Princess: Her Role in Medieval Engi Stories and Their
Implications in Reading the Lotus Sutra,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies
42, no. 1 (2015): 27–32.
4. ZNET 20, Ashibiki-e, 102–103.
5. See Kondō Heijō, ed., Chigo monogatari burui, Zoku shiseki shūran 6
(Tokyo: Kondō Shuppanbu, 1917–1930), 485–615. The six works included in
the Chigo monogatari burui are A Long Tale for an Autumn Night; A Teaching
for Chigo (Chigo kyōkun), a text attributed to the renowned renga master Sōgi
(1421–1502); The Tale of Matsuho; The Tale of Genmu; The Tale of Mount To-
ribe; and The Tale of Saga. All but A Teaching for Chigo are included on the
“List of Extant Chigo monogatari” in this book. For a study of A Teaching for
Chigo, see Or Porath, “Nasty Boys or Obedient Children? Childhood and Rela-
tive Autonomy in Medieval Japanese Monasteries,” in Child’s Play: Multi-Sen-
sory Histories of Children and Childhood in Japan, ed. Sabine Frühstück and
Anne Walthall (Oakland: University of California Press, 2018), 17–40.
6. In the introduction of his book, Ichiko explains why he prefers the term
“medieval novels” (chūsei shōsetsu) over otogi zōshi to refer to medieval short
vernacular tales. See Ichiko, Chūsei shōsetsu, 1–22.
7. The original terms are kuge shōsetsu, sōryo/shūkyō shōsetsu, buke
shōsetsu, taishū shōsetsu, ikoku shōsetsu, and irui shōsetsu.
8. See, for example, Furukawa, “Nikko-zan no sōbō bungaku”; Nishizawa
Masaji, “Genmu monogatari to Sangoku denki to no kankei,” Kokubungaku: Kai-
shaku to kyōzai no kenkyū 15, no. 16 (1970): 218–221; Konno Tōru, “Chūsei
shōsetsu: Aki no yo no nagamonogatari,” Iwanami kōza: Nihon bungaku to
Bukkyō, vol. 9 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1995), 257–282; Yamada Shōsen, “Genmu
monogatari o yomu,” in Nikkō: Sono rekishi to shūkyō, ed. Sugawara Shinkai and
Tanabe Saburōsuke (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2011), 149–168; Sachi Schmidt-Hori, “The
New Lady-in-Waiting Is a Chigo: Sexual Fluidity and Dual Transvestism in a Medi-
eval Buddhist Acolyte Tale,” Japanese Language and Literature 43, no. 2 (2009):
383–423 and “Boy Who Lived”; and Ri, “Chigo monogatari ni okeru yokubō.” For
example, an encyclopedia entry on chigo monogatari reads as follows: “A subgenre
of otogi zōshi; generally centered on monks’ romantic relationships with Buddhist
acolytes. Since women were not allowed into medieval monasteries, boys replaced
their role as attendants for high priests. ­Consequently, romantic relationships be-
tween monks and chigo, among chigo themselves, and between chigo and women
who resided outside the monastery were fairly common. The chigo monogatari genre
employs these concepts as its basis and further develops religious, mysterious, and
tragic plots. In these stories, the chigo is aesthetically idealized and treated as an ava-
tar of a deity.” See Nihon daihyakka zensho, s.v. “chigo mono.” Although calling
chigo monogatari a subgenre of otogi zōshi or “medieval novels” adds little sub-
stance to our knowledge of these tales, it is customary for scholars to do so in their
writings, possibly as a way to increase the audience’s sense of familiarity with the
 Notes to pages 48–50 185

texts. Nonetheless, the formation of a literary genre is “a process, not a determinate

category” (Ralph Cohen and John L. Rowlett, Genre Theory and Historical Change:
Theoretical Essays of Ralph Cohen [Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press,
2017], xiv), not to mention that neither “otogi zōshi” nor “medieval novels” as a
category existed at the time of the creation of the fourteen chigo monogatari. There-
fore, it is useful to keep in mind that these labels are mere expedients, and it is impor-
tant to resist the temptation to fit texts into these categories.
9. See Minobe Shigekatsu, “Otogi zōshi no koshō to han’i,” Kokubungaku:
Kaishaku to kanshō 61, no. 5 (1996): 26–35. Even though chigo monogatari are
conventionally classified as a subgenre of otogi zōshi, this does not mean that all
chigo tales belong to the otogi zōshi category. Among the fourteen works in-
cluded in the “List of Extant Chigo monogatari” appended to this book, A
Booklet of Acolytes and Excerpts of Dust and Thorns are not otogi zōshi. The
first is a collection of five erotic short stories with highly graphic illustrations (see
chapter 2), and the second is an eleven-volume collection of anecdotal tales, one
of which is about two Buddhist acolytes on Mount Hiei.
10. Ichiko, Chūsei shōsetsu, 131. 
11. Ibid., 137–138. Ichiko attributes the tragic fate of the lovers to the “unnat-
uralness” of nanshoku: “Because chigo monogatari depict nanshoku, which is un-
natural, they never have a ‘happily ever after’-type of ending.” Ichiko, Chūsei
shōsetsu, 137.
12. Nihon daihyakka zensho, s.v. “chigo.”
13. Izumi Shikibu’s poem and an English translation by R. Keller Kim-
brough are as follows: Kuraki yori / kuraki michi ni zo / irinubeki / haruka ni
terase / yama no ha no tsuki (From darkness / into a path of darkness / I must
enter / shine your light afar / moon on the mountain ridge!). See R. Keller Kim-
brough, Preachers, Poets, Women, and the Way: Izumi Shikibu and the Buddhist
Literature of Medieval Japan (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, Univer-
sity of Michigan, 2008), 42.
14. See Atkins, “Medieval Imagination,” 964–967; and Faure, Red Thread,
274. Although they do not mention Girard’s scapegoat theory by name, Abe and
Hamanaka both link chigo’s suffering to their sacrality. See Abe Yasurō, “Jidō
setsuwa no keisei (ge): Tendai sokuihō no seiritsu o megutte,” Kokugo kokubun
53, no. 9 (1984): 30–56; and Hamanaka Osamu, Muromachi monogatari ronkō
(Tokyo: Shintensha, 1996), 15–24.
15. Vignette 2 of A Booklet of Acolytes is the exception, as the narrator men-
tions that the chigo later took the tonsure. Also, the Shōren-in is missing the ending.
16. Konno, “Chūsei shōsetsu,” 268.
17. Though this legend and its variants are included in several collections of
Buddhist tales, the summary is based on the version included in A Collection of
Old Didactic Anecdotes (Kohon setsuwa-shū, ca. twelfth century). See Kawagu-
chi Hisao, ed., Koten shiryō ruijū, vol. 6, Umezawa-bon Kohon setsuwa-shū
(Tokyo: Benseisha, 1977), 206–212.
186 Notes to pages 51–53

18. Encyclopedia of Buddhism, s.v. “bodhisattva.”

19. Encyclopedia of Japan, s.v. “bodhisattva.” Despite the common percep-
tion that the concept of “bodhisattva” is a distinctively Mahāyāna doctrine,
­according to Y. Krishan, this notion emerged as a discursive tactic used to propa-
gate Mahāyāna Buddhism during the sixth century CE. Krishan writes, “The
concept of bodhisattva is common in Hīnayāna [lesser vehicle] literature [. . .].
[T]he term ‘bodhisattva’ did not have one fixed meaning [. . .] [and it] was con-
tinuously interpreted and re-interpreted and clothed with different meanings in
the different texts of the various schools of the Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna.” See Y.
Krishan, “The Origin and Development of the Bodhisattva Doctrine,” East and
West 34, no. 1/3 (1984): 199–200.
20. Leon Hurvitz, trans., Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine
Dharma, rev. ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 287–288. To
find corresponding passage in Kumārajīva’s Chinese translation, see the Chinese
Electric Tripiṭaka Collection (CBETA) database, http://tripitaka.cbeta.org/.
21. SNKBZ 36, Konjaku monogatari-shū 2, 149–291.
22. See Chün-fang Yü, Kuan-yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalok-
itesvara (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 407–486. According to
Reiko Ohnuma, throughout Indian Buddhist literature, the vast majority of bod-
hisattvas are known to be male. This includes Kannon, as attested by Kannon-
gyō, in which his Sanskrit name with the male suffix -īśvara (Avalokiteśvara) is
explained as “He Who Observes the Sounds of the World.” This, however, is not
to say that the gender of Kannon or any other bodhisattvas is rigidly fixed. Reiko
Ohnuma, “Woman, Bodhisattva, and Buddha,” Journal of Feminist Studies in
Religion 17, no. 1 (2001): 63–83.
23. Yamamoto Yōko, Zuzōgaku nyūmon: Gimonfu de yomu Nihon bijutsu
(Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan, 2015), 24. The feminine image of Kannon is probably
the reason Childs, in her translation of Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth, uses
the feminine pronoun for this bodhisattva.
24. The potential connection between the chigo kanjō ritual and Shinran’s
dream legend needs to be investigated further. Even though the initiation ritual of
chigo was likely established before the time of Shinran (1173–1262), the story
may have influenced the development of the idea that the chigo is an avatar of
Kannon in particular.
25. Hurvitz, Lotus Blossom, 288.
26. Hiramatsu Ryūen, “Nihon Bukkyō ni okeru sō to chigo no nanshoku,”
Nihon kenkyū 34 (2007): 94.
27. SNKBZ 66, Ihara Saikaku-shū 1, 332n4. The cultural association be-
tween nanshoku and Monju is seen in Ihara Saikaku’s collection of five semific-
tional tragicomedies, Five Sensuous Women (Kōshoku gonin onna, 1686). After
a merchant’s wife named Osan elopes with one of her male employees, the cou-
ple spends the night at a temple. That night, Monjushiri appears in Osan’s dream
and sternly demands that she repent of her sin by becoming a nun. Osan, how-
 Notes to pages 53–56 187

ever, sassily responds, “Please don’t worry about what may happen to me in the
future. [. . .] Monju, you are an expert on the art of loving the youth, but you
have no clue when it comes to love between men and women!” See SNKBZ 66,
Ihara Saikaku-shū 1, Kōshoku gonin onna, 331–332.
28. See, for example, Jackie Stone, “Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age:
Mappō Thought in Kamakura Buddhism, Part I,” Eastern Buddhist, New Series
18, no. 1 (1985): 28–31.
29. Yoshiko K. Dykstra, trans., “Tales of the Compassionate Kannon: The
Hasedera Kannon Genki,” Monumenta Nipponica 31, no. 2 (1976): 113.
30. For an English translation, see Margaret H. Childs, trans., “The Story
of Kannon’s Manifestation as a Youth,” in Parting at Dawn: An Anthology of
Japanese Gay Literature, ed. Stephen D. Miller (San Francisco, CA: Gay Sun-
shine Press, 1996), 31–35.
31. For a facsimile of the illustrated handscroll and a typeset text, see Kom-
atsu Shigemi, ed., Taima mandara engi, Chigo Kannon engi, Nihon emaki taisei
(hereafter NET), vol. 24 (Tokyo: Chūōkōron-sha, 1979). Bodai-in is formally
known as Bodai-in ō-midō, part of the Kōfukuji complex.
32. Tagawa Fumihiko, “Jisha engi no saiseisan to sono henyō: Chigo Kan-
non engi o megutte,” Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū 52, no. 1 (2003): 234–235.
A typeset version of A Collection of Miraculous Stories of Hasedera can be found
in Bussho Kankōkai, ed., Dai Nihon Bukkyō zensho, vol. 118 (Tokyo: Bussho
Kankōkai, 1913), 334–418, available at the National Diet Library Digital Col-
lection, http://dl.ndl.go.jp. For the source story of Kannon’s Manifestation as a
Youth, see 398–400. A similar anecdote is also included in A Record of Famous
Sites of Nara (Nanto meisho-ki, 1730) and A Record of the Origin of Kōfukuji
(Kōfukuji ranshō-ki, after 1717).
33. The text says, “He firmly prayed for a religious awakening” (hosshin
kakko to inori). See Bussho Kankōkai, Dai Nihon Bukkyō zensho, 399.
34. It is not clear whether the word “warawa” means “a child” or “a ser-
vant.” The boy describes himself as “having no relations and no one to rely on”
(muen ni shite tasuke shitashimu beki mono nashi). If he is a regular child, this
means that he has no parents or guardians. If he is a servant, this means that he
has no parents, guardians, or employers. See Bussho Kankōkai, Dai Nihon
Bukkyō zensho, 399.
35. However, the narrator of this text implies the potentially romantic and/
or sexual nature of Chogon’s six-year relationship with his warawa, stating that
they “became extremely familiar” (warinaku nareshi) and “became intimate”
(ainareshi). See Bussho Kankōkai, Dai Nihon Bukkyō zensho, 400.
36. Childs, “Kannon’s Manifestation,” 32.
37. Ibid.
38. Kimura, Koi suru monogatari, 153.
39. See NET 24, Chigo Kannon engi, 54–55, 66.
40. Ibid., 67.
188 Notes to pages 56–61

41. Childs, “Kannon’s Manifestation,” 35.

42. Heather Blair and Tsuyoshi Kawasaki, “Editors’ Introduction to Engi:
Forging Accounts of Sacred Origins,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 42,
no. 1 (2015): 11.
43. See, for example, Nomura Hachirō, Monogatari bungaku kenkyū
sōsho, vol. 26, Muromachi jidai shōsetsu-ron (Tokyo: Kuresu Shuppan, 1999);
Hirasawa Gorō, “Aki no yo no nagamonogatari kō,” Bulletin of Shindō Bunko
Institute 3 (1964): 297–298; Nishizawa, “Genmu monogatari” and “Chigo mo-
nogatari Aki no yo no nagamonogatari no sekai,” Kokugo to kokubungaku 57,
no. 5 (1980): 38–51; Ōkura Ryūji, “Eisei bunko zō Aki no yo no nagamonoga-
tari emaki,” Bijutsushi 33, no. 2 (1984): 97–120; and Konno, “Chūsei shōsetsu.”
Within Anglophone scholarship, Richard K. Payne has written the only article
dedicated solely to Autumn Night. See Richard K. Payne, “At Midlife in Medi-
eval Japan,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 26, no. 1/2 (1999): 135–157.
44. For a typeset text of Iwatsutsuji, see Asakura Haruhiko, ed., Kana zōshi
shūsei, vol. 5 (Tokyo: Tōkyodō Shuppan, 1984), 351–366. See also note 114 of
the introduction of this book.
45. Nihon jinmei daijiten, s.v. “Sensai.”
46. Yoshiko Kurata Dykstra, trans., The Senjūshō: Buddhist Tales of Early
Medieval Japan (Honolulu, HI: Kanji Press, 2014), 68–70. See also Nakamura
Hajime and Masutani Fumio, eds., Bukkyō setsuwa taikei, vol. 37, Nihon no
koten 2, Chūsei-hen (Tokyo: Suzuki Shuppan, 1985), 107–109.
47. SNKBZ 43, Shin kokin wakashū, 194, 573.
48. Childs, “Chigo monogatari,” 150.
49. Depending on the variant, the story may be set during the reign of Em-
peror Ichijō or of Emperor Nijō. See Ōkura, “Eisei bunko zō,” 97. Childs does
not mention any imperial reign in her 1980 translation.
50. For a typeset text of Autumn Night, see, for example, Ichiko Teiji, ed.,
Nihon koten bungaku taikei 38, Otogi zōshi (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1986),
460–485. For an English translation, see Childs, “Chigo monogatari,”
132–151.
51. Its official name is Onjōji.
52. The scale of the skirmish seems to have been exaggerated, perhaps be-
cause of the narrative style of military epic storytelling.
53. The Arabic numerals in the text come from Nishizawa, “Aki no yo no
sekai,” 42. A typeset text of The Rise of Conflicts between Enryakuji and Mi-
idera is included in Kondō Heijō, ed., Shiseki shūran, vol. 12 (Tokyo: Kondō
Shuppanbu, 1926), 256–272, available at the National Diet Library Digital Col-
lections, http://dl.ndl.go.jp.
54. See Konno, “Chūsei shōsetsu,” 260–261.
55. Nishizawa, “Aki no yo no sekai,” 41.
56. SNKBT 41, Kojidan, Zoku kojidan, 486–487. The same story is also
found in A Collection of Prayers to God (Shojin hongai-shū, 1324).
 Notes to pages 61–68 189

57. Nomura, Monogatari bungaku kenkyū sōsho, 391.

58. Nishizawa, “Aki no yo no sekai,” 43.
59. Ibid., 43–44.
60. Konno, “Chūsei shōsetsu,” 270.
61. Ibid.
62. William R. LaFleur, The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary
Arts in Medieval Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 21. See
also Rajyashree Pandey, Writing and Renunciation in Medieval Japan: The
Works of the Poet-Priest Kamo no Chōmei (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese
Studies, University of Michigan, 1998), 30–34.
63. Konno, “Chūsei shōsetsu,” 277.
64. For a typeset text of The Tale of Genmu, see, for example, Yokoyama
Shigeru and Matsumoto Ryūshin, eds., Muromachi jidai monogatari taisei (hereaf-
ter MJMT), vol. 4 (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1981–1988), 398–416. For an Eng-
lish translation, see Margaret H. Childs, trans., “The Tale of Genmu,” in Parting at
Dawn: An Anthology of Japanese Gay Literature, ed. Stephen D. Miller (San Fran-
cisco, CA: Gay Sunshine Press, 1996), 36–54. The same translation is included in
Margaret H. Childs, Rethinking Sorrow: Revelatory Tales of Late Medieval Japan
(Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1991), 31–52.
65. Scholars have noted the significance of the protagonist’s name, Genmu,
which is often written with a combination of the “illusion” and “dream” characters
(幻夢). Nevertheless, different variants use different compounds, such as 源夢 (“ori-
gin” and “dream”) and 玄無 (“darkness” and “nothingness”). For this reason, I
have some reservations about emphasizing the symbolic meaning of his name.
66. Childs, “Tale of Genmu,” 43.
67. Ibid., 47.
68. In regard to this issue, Gotō Tanji suggests that due to the tendency for
a narrative to become more elaborate over time, it is more likely that the Satake
story was the main source of The Tale of Genmu than the other way around.
Even in the event that the Satake is proven to have come later than The Tale of
Genmu, Gotō argues, it would probably be because the Satake’s article was a
copy of The Tale of Genmu’s source story, now lost. See Gotō Tanji, Chūsei
kokubungaku kenkyū (Tokyo: Isobe Kōyōdō, 1943), 92–95.
69. Nishizawa, “Genmu monogatari,” 218–221.
70. Childs, “Tale of Genmu,” 43.
71. Ibid., 45.
72. Ibid., 51.
73. Childs, Rethinking Sorrow, 90.
74. Childs, “Tale of Genmu,” 53.
75. Ibid.
76. Hamanaka Osamu states that the flute was a “liminal musical instru-
ment” (kyōkai-teki na gakki) that resonated with the chigo’s liminal status and
the liminal locations (such as the foothill of a mountain). In addition to Kannon’s
190 Notes to pages 68–76

Manifestation as a Youth, chigo characters play the flute in The Tale of Genmu
and the Saga. See Hamanaka, Muromachi monogatari ronkō, 25–38.
77. For a discussion of the “stolen glimpse” (kaimami) trope, see chapter 4.
78. In the Stories of Hasedera version, Chogon’s age is unknown.
79. Catherine Hakim, Erotic Capital: The Power of Attraction in the
Boardroom and the Bedroom (New York: Basic Books, 2011), 16–21.
80. Childs, “Tale of Genmu,” 48.
81. Ibid., 50.
82. Edward R. Drott, Buddhism and the Transformation of Old Age in
Medieval Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2016), 5.
83. Ibid., 7.
84. Ibid., 73.
85. Childs, “Tale of Genmu,” 34.
86. Ibid., 51.
87. The acolyte tale genre’s tendency to undercut the sexuality of the master-
chigo dyads can be contrasted to the representations of monastic nanshoku in
Chinese-style poetry composed by Zen priests. As mentioned in the introduction
of this book, sensual Chinese-style poems tend to highlight the gap in erotic capital
between the poet (i.e., an aged Zen monk) and his young disciple and to connect it
to the rejuvenating power of having sex with kasshiki (Zen acolytes). In the Zen
literary tradition, kasshiki is associated with a red flower with a long, skinny stem
called sennō 仙翁 (“old hermit”; in English, this flower is called “ragged-robin”)
because of its resemblance to adolescent boys’ rosy cheeks and thin, ­underdeveloped
(“green”) physique, and this plant was believed to be an ingredient of the elixir of
immortality. See, for instance, ZGR 345, San’eki enshi, 500. For an essay series on
the sennō flower as a trope of the nanshoku Zen poem, see Yoshizawa Katsuhiro,
“Sennōke—Muromachi bunka no yokō 1–15,” originally published in the journal
Zen bunka, vol. 185–187 (2002–2003). Available on the website of the Interna-
tional Research Institute for Zen Buddhism, http://iriz.hanazono.ac.jp.
88. Some of the most salient examples of power-generating artistic creation in
premodern Japan include court compilations of mythohistories and imperial po-
etry anthologies, religious arts (e.g., texts, paintings, statues), and the Muromachi
shoguns’ patronage of noh theater, the tea ceremony, kōwaka dance, and so on.
89. Eva Illouz, Why Love Hurts: A Sociological Explanation (Malden, MA:
Polity Press, 2012), 159–160.
90. Ibid., 161.
91. SNKBZ 17, Ochikubo monogatari, 17–343.
92. Genji’s mother, a lesser consort of Emperor Kiritsubo, indeed died as a
result of having been viciously tormented by the primary wife of the emperor, the
Kokiden consort.
93. In a heterosexual union, the birth of a child can be a double-edged
sword; it is often a blessing to a good marriage, but it can also trap a woman in
a bad marriage.
 Notes to pages 77–80 191

94. The Bakhtinian concept of “carnival” refers to extraordinary cultural

spaces and occasions where “inversions in social hierarchy, suspension of sexual
restrains, and the possibility of playing new and different roles” occur. See, for
example, Katerina Clark and Michel Holquist, Mikhail Bakhtin (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 251.

Chapter 2  Booklet of Acolytes

1. The catalogue of premodern Japanese paintings An Addendum to the
Picture Album of Ancient Objects (Zōho kōko gafu, 1901) lists Daigoji’s Illus-
trations of Male-Male Love as follows: “One scroll. Hashimoto Tsuneakira
[1755–1805] attributes the images of this work to Toba Sojō [also Kakuyū,
1053–1140]. A source says it belongs to one of the Daigoji cloisters. According
to Itabashi Tsurao [1809–1872], it is stored in Rishō-in, though he has not seen
it himself. Another says it is located at Sanbō-in.” See Kurokawa Harumura, ed.,
Zōho kōko gafu, vol. 7 (Tokyo: Yūrindō, 1901), 59. According to Ozaki Kyūya
(1890–1972), Kuroita Katsumi (1874–1946), who used to own a copy of this
scroll, came up with the new title, Chigo no sōshi. See Ozaki Kyūya, Kinsei sho-
min bungaku ronkō, ed. Nakamura Yukihiko (Tokyo: Chūōkōron-sha, 1973),
191–192. Toba Sōjo was an abbot of Enryakuji and a famous painter, but it is
unlikely that the Booklet of Acolytes dates back to his time. For a monochromic
variant, see Fukuda Kazuhiko, ed., Enshoku ukiyoe zenshū, vol. 1, Nikuhitsu
emaki-sen, vol. 1 (Tokyo: Kawade Shobō, 1995), 30–45.
2. See the British Museum’s exhibition catalogue by Timothy Clark, Akiko
Yano, Andrew Gerstle, and Aki Ikegami, eds., Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japa-
nese Art (London: British Museum Press, 2013), 66; 78–79.
3. The use of the term “shunga” to refer to premodern erotic arts of East
Asian origin in general is a recent phenomenon. Until the modern period,
“shunga” normally referred to erotica imported from China, whereas their na-
tive counterparts were called “osoku-zu” 偃息図 (illustrations of resting),
“makura-e” (pillow pictures), and “warai-e” (smile-inducing pictures).
4. No Japanese shunga from the Heian period, if any were created, have
survived, including copies. Also, the three extant ko-shunga are copies from the
late Muromachi or Tokugawa periods. The nanshoku-themed Zen poems men-
tioned in the introduction and chapter 1 clearly exhibit Daoist interpretations of
sexuality: sex as a spiritual or even medicinal practice.
5. Ishigami Aki, Nihon no shunga ehon kenkyū (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2015), 42.
6. Hayakawa Monta, “Kyōto to ko-shunga,” Eureka: Poetry and Criticism
47, no. 20 (2016): 84.
7. Toward the end of the Muromachi era, erotic art replaced the narrative form
of ko-shunga with a newly standardized structure: an album of twelve discrete im-
ages of sex acts. Given that the production of narratives with illustrations requires a
complex coordination between the author and the artist, this standardization can be
understood as a simplification of the shunga production process. This process may
192 Notes to pages 80–84

have accelerated the mass production of shunga prints during the Tokugawa period,
or, conversely, the high demand for larger-scale, rapid production of shunga among
the merchant class with disposable income may have necessitated the simpler album
format (or perhaps both forces were at play). See Shirakura Yoshihiko, ed., Bessatsu
Taiyō: Nikuhitsu shunga (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 2009), 5.
8. Nariko and Munemitsu’s affair is chronicled in such texts as Nihon
kiryaku (late Heian period), Honchō seiki (mid-twelfth century), and Jikkinshō
(mid-thirteenth century). The account of this incident in Jikkinshō, however, in-
dicates that Nariko was dismissed from her position due to the scandal.
9. See Motohashi Hiromi, “Hanpuku sareru saigū to mittsū no katari: Ko-
shibagaki zōshi ga kataru kinki no koi o chūshin ni,” Monogatari kenkyū, no. 15
(2015): 1–13.
10. Although this is the standard plot summary of the Bagged Monk given
by scholars (e.g., Hayakawa, “Kyōto to ko-shunga,” 82–83; Hayashi Yoshikazu
and Richard Lane, eds., Higa emaki: Koshibagaki zōshi, Teihon ukiyoe shunga
meihin shūsei, vol 17 [Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 1997], 20–21), Yoshi-
hashi Sayaka and Iguro Kahoko each reports that she was unable to locate the
specific variant with this didactic ending. See Yoshihashi Sayaka, “Tokyō Koku-
ritsu Hakubutsukan shozō Fukuro hōshi emaki ni tsuite,” Rikkyō Daigaku
Daigakuin Nihon bungaku ronsō 11 (2014): 49–67; Iguro Kahoko, “Fukuro
hōshi ekotoba denpon no hensei ni tsuite,” Ukiyoe geijutsu 171 (2016): 5–29.
11. Hayashi and Lane, Higa emaki, 19.
12. See, for example, Takagishi Akira, “Chūsei ni okeru emaki no shūshū
kyōju to kenryoku,” in Ōchō bungaku to monogatari-e, ed. Takahashi Tōru
(Tokyo: Chikurinsha, 2010), 75–90.
13. This is an intriguing conundrum, and we need more research before we
can begin to solve it. In many ways, these elaborate and costly hand-painted/-
copied ko-shunga stand in stark contrast to the erotic prints of the Tokugawa
period, which were mass-produced and commercially traded.
14. For a replica of the scroll with censored images, see Inagaki Taruho, ed.,
Taruho-ban “Nanshoku ōkagami” (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 1977). This de-
luxe box set includes a booklet, consisting a typeset text of the five vignettes and
an introduction to this work. See Miya Tsugio, Chigo no sōshi emaki kaidai, in
Inagaki, Taruho-ban “Nanshoku ōkagami.”
15. In this emaki, the chigo’s secret lovers are usually their colleagues, be-
cause A Booklet of Acolytes is inviting the viewers to focus on the tragicomedic
position of the master priests. As discussed in the previous chapter, in most chigo
monogatari, the youths fall in love with clerics from faraway (or even rival) tem-
ples, which keeps the audience’s attention away from the chigo system.
16. See Miura Osamu and Tsukamoto Tetsuzō, eds., Kin’yō wakashū, Shika
wakashū, Senzai wakashū (Tokyo: Yūhōdō Shoten, 1913), 397. This poem relies
on the homophones shinobu (“to endure” or “to suppress one’s feelings”) and
Shinobu, a place name in Michinoku (the present-day Tohoku region).
 Notes to pages 84–89 193

17. Ibid., 400.
18. Saeki, “Shōnen-ryoku,” 135.
19. Ibid., 140–141. Brian Fair observes the existence of a quasiuniversal hier-
archy that divides “male homosexuals” into two camps: dominant, masculine pen-
etrators and effeminate and degraded penetrates. He calls the narrative based on
this hierarchy “penetration discourse.” See Brian Fair, “Constructing Masculinity
through Penetration Discourse: The Intersection of Misogyny and Homophobia in
High School Wrestling,” Men and Masculinities 14, no. 4 (2011): 492.
20. Saeki, “Shōnen-ryoku,” 141. As discussed in the introduction of this
book, the verb okasu in modern Japanese carries significantly negative, violent
connotations. When the direct object of this verb is a person, as in “chigo o
okasu,” the phrase means “to sexually assault/rape the chigo,” which does not
accurately describe any of the vignettes in the Booklet of Acolytes.
21. Ibid.
22. As noted in chapter 1, a nanshoku relationship between a layman and
his younger attendant counts as a motif of chigo monogatari.
23. Charlotte Eubank, who read an earlier version of this chapter, suggested
that the tugging of the rosary and the subsequent spilling of the beads may have
been a “visual pun” on masturbation and ejaculation. Although no published
scholarly writing appears to have discussed this particular representation, I find
her theory convincing.
24. It was standard for low-ranking clergymen to speak in honorifics to
acolytes. A comical story included in the collection of anecdotes Gleanings from
the Tales of Uji Dainagon (1:12) illustrates this point. One evening, a group of
monks on Mount Hiei decided to make rice cakes. A chigo who had already gone
to bed overheard this and was thrilled, though he pretended to be asleep so he
would not seem vulgar. When the rice cakes were ready, one monk came to wake
up the chigo by saying, “Pardon me for disturbing you. Would you please wake
up?” (Mono mōshi saburawan. Odorokase tamae). But the chigo thought it
might look more believable if he did not wake immediately; he hoped the monk
would try again. Then another monk yelled, “Hey, do not disturb him. The
young lord has already fallen asleep” (Ya, na okoshi tatematsuri so. Osanaki hito
wa neiri tamai ni keri). The youth was dumbfounded. Finally, after a long pause,
he answered “Yeees?” so all the monks chuckled. The first monk used a humble
verb to lower his action of speaking (mono mōshi saburō) and an honorific verb
to elevate the chigo’s action of waking up (odorokase tamae). The second monk
also used a humble verb to denote his colleague’s action of waking (okoshi
tatematsuru), while using an honorific verb for “falling asleep” (neiri tamō). See
SNKBZ 50, Uji shūi monogatari, 45–46.
25. Much as female attendants at the court or at noblemen’s households
were able to gain upper social mobility through an intimate connection with
their employers, some women earned social currency by serving families as men-
oto. See Thomas D. Conlan, “Thicker Than Blood: The Social and Political Sig-
194 Notes to pages 89–95

nificance of Wet Nurses in Japan, 950–1330,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies

65, no. 1 (2005): 159–205.
26. Sawayama Mikako, Edo no chichi to kodomo: Inochi o tsunagu
(Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 2017), 162–171.
27. In reality, menoto sometimes referred to personal attendants of children
(as in “nursemaids”), and an ability to provide breast milk was not always re-
quired. There are also cases in which noble people and their menotogo did not
have a shared childhood for a variety of reasons. For instance, a menoto some-
times hired another menoto for her biological child and kept him or her at home
while she lived in the home of her employer. Nonetheless, in a fictional tale, the
notion of menotogo evokes the stereotypical image of pseudosiblings who are
more intimate than biological siblings.
28. See Tyler, Tale of the Heike, 468. By the late Heian period, menoto
could also mean “male attendants for young charges.” This is true for Kiso Yo-
shinaka’s male menoto, Nakahara Kanetō (?–1181), the father of Imai Kanehira.
For this reason, it is questionable whether Yoshinaka and Kanehira shared the
breast milk of the latter’s mother. Nonetheless, such complexities in the notion of
menotogo do not seem to have affected the literary representations of foster sib-
ling characters. For more discussions of menoto, see chapter 4. Also see my
forthcoming article on menoto and menotogo: Sachi Schmidt-Hori, “The Erotic
Family: Structures and Narratives of Milk Kinship in Premodern Japanese Tales,”
Journal of Asian Studies (forthcoming in 2021).
29. See Kokumin bunko Kankōkai, Genpei jōsuiki, 870.
30. See, for example, Virginia Skord Waters, “Sex, Lies, and the Illustrated
Scroll: The Dōjōji engi emaki,” Monumenta Nipponica 52, no. 1 (1997): 67.
31. Even when a chigo speaks in deferential language, he uses masculine-
style speech. In Gikeiki, when Yoshitsune’s primary vassal, Benkei, coaches his
lord’s wife to disguise herself as a chigo, he instructs, “[P]lease be sure to practice
male speech, keep your attire in order, and act like a chigo at all times. If you
continue to be so dainty and bashful, you won’t be able to fool our enemies.” See
SNKBZ 62, Gikeiki, 384.
32. Kaoru’s biological father is Kashiwagi, the son of Genji’s best friend, Tō
no Chūjō.
33. This action of Ukifune’s, of course, cannot be simply reduced to her lack of
strength or agency. She chooses the only way she knows to escape an impossible situ-
ation without disgracing the noblemen, neither of whom has any intention (or means)
of taking her as an official wife due to her low birth. After her failed attempt to
drown herself, she initially resents the fact that her life has been spared. Nevertheless,
through her strong will to renounce the world, she becomes untouchable, and with
that, this tale ends rather abruptly, without offering the readers a clear catharsis.
34. Both images of erotica come from the Enbon Database of the Interna-
tional Research Center for Japanese Studies, available at http://db.nichibun.ac.jp.
35. Nihon daihyakka zensho, s.v. “Tachikawa-ryū.”
 Notes to pages 96–100 195

36. Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (Princeton, NJ: Princ-
eton University Press, 1956), 3.
37. Philippa Levine, “States of Undress: Nakedness and the Colonial Imagi-
nation,” Victorian Studies 50, no. 2 (2008): 189.
38. Kuroda, Sugata to shigusa, 178–179. For instance, in the Ochikubo,
one of the forms of revenge that the hero Michiyori schemes to exact from the
evil stepmother’s uncle (an old doctor who attempted to sexually assault Lady
Ochikubo) is to humiliate him by knocking off his eboshi in public. See SNKBZ
17, Ochikubo monogatari, 206.
39. Larissa Bonfante, “Nudity as a Costume in a Classical Art,” American
Journal of Archeology 93, no. 4 (1989): 543–570. Although Bonfante’s paper
focuses solely on the nudity of young male subjects in ancient Greek arts, her
theory that the stylized, artistic representations of unclothedness can be con-
strued as a culturally constructed “costume” is applicable beyond the context of
ancient Greek arts.
40. In the case of vignette 1 of the Booklet of Acolytes, as well, the illustra-
tions exclude the impotent high priest and depict only the sexual acts of the chigo
and Chūta.
41. Kuroda, “Emaki” kodomo no tōjō, 96.
42. Hashidate Ayako, “Chigo no sei,” Tōkyō Joshi Daigaku kiyō 60, no. 2
(2010): 51–52.
43. Ichiko, Chūsei shōsetsu, 131; Higuchi, Sei to Nihonjin, 184–185.
44. Tanaka Takako, “Tomo ni seichō suru ai: Muromachi jidai Ashibiki o
megutte,” Kokubungaku: Kaishaku to kanshō 50, no. 3 (2005): 91.
45. The relative lack of interest in women’s breasts in erotica continued
throughout the Tokugawa period. Nakano Akira writes, “For the people of
Japan, the chest was not a source of embarrassment [. . .]. Because women’s
breasts were deemed so mundane that [Edo shunga] artists obviously did not
delineate them in detail.” See Nakano Akira, Hadaka wa itsu kara hazukashiku
natta ka (Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 2010), 215.
46. Andrew Lear and Eva Cantarella, Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty:
Boys Were Their Gods (London: Routledge, 2008), xv. In this study, Lear and
Cantarella survey Athenian pederastic arts from the sixth through the fourth
centuries BCE and discuss the iconography of the older and younger male
subjects.
47. Ibid., 25.
48. Ibid., 27.
49. See, for example, Chino Kaori, “Nihon bijutsu no jendaa,” Bijutsu-shi
43, no. 2 (1994): 235–246; and Maeda Kazuo, Otoko wa naze keshō o shitagaru
no ka (Tokyo: Shūeisha, 2009). The idea of linking feminine attributes to Japane-
seness (vis-à-vis Sino-Chinese sensibility) was central to Motoori Norinaga’s
(1730–1801) conceptualization of the “pathos of things” (mono no aware), the
supreme aesthetics of the Heian culture, most ideally embodied by The Tale of
196 Notes to pages 100–110

Genji. See, for example, Yamaguchi Shigio, trans., Genji monogatari tama no
ogushi: Mono no aware-ron (Tokyo: Tsūshinsha, 2013), 190–191.
50. This phenomenon invites a parallel to the fact that in Heian and medi-
eval times, the hypermasculinity of the samurai culture was often associated with
coarseness and provinciality.
51. Ozaki, Kinsei shomin bungaku ronkō, 175.

Chapter 3  The Mountain

Portions of this chapter appeared in an earlier form in “The Boy Who Lived:
The Transfigurations of Chigo in the Medieval Japanese Short Story Ashibiki,”
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 75, no. 2 (2015): 299–329.
1. The Japanese title Ashibiki (“feet-dragging”) comes from “ashibiki no.” This
conventional epithet (makura kotoba or “pillow word”) is used in waka poetry to
modify the word yama (mountain) and its synonyms. In The Mountain, the chigo asks
his unknown suitor where he came from, to which Jijū responds “Ashibiki no,” indi-
cating Mount Hiei. This exchange signifies the level of the monk’s and the chigo’s
knowledge of courtly culture (the youth is a talented player of the Chinese lute as well).
2. For a typeset text, see, for example, SNKBT 54, Muromachi monogatari-
shū jō, 4–83.
3. According to Ichiko Teiji’s annotation, the location of Tōnan-in is un-
known. Given that Wakagimi’s father is attached to Kōfukuji, Ichiko suggests
Tōnan-in is a cloister of the Kōfukuji complex. My reading of The Mountain in
this chapter is also premised upon this highly reasonable assumption. Kōfukuji
and Mount Hiei are 65.8 kilometers (40.8 miles) apart.
4. Although the narrator calls him Shōshō no Kimi once, even after he be-
comes a monk (p. 51), outside of this one time, he is constantly referred to as
Zenji, until he is promoted to the rank of gon-no-risshi (p. 70).
5. Nihon koten bungaku daijiten, s.v. “Ashibiki.”
6. Nishizawa Masaji, ed., Chūsei ōchō monogatari  /  otogi zōshi jiten
(Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan, 2002), s.v. “Ashibiki.”
7. SNKBT 54, Muromachi monogatari-shū jō, 4.
8. Yaguchi Yūko, “Chigo monogatari Ashibiki kō,” Kokubun mejiro, no.
44 (2005): 37.
9. Tanaka, “Tomo ni seichō suru ai,” 86–93. In this paper, Tanaka mistakes
Tokugō (the chigo’s father) for the youth’s master and bases her analysis on this
mix-up.
10. Ibid., 87–88.
11. Ibid., 89.
12. For an in-depth analysis of mamako banashi, see Sachi Schmidt-Hori,
“Symbolic Death and Rebirth into Womanhood: An Analysis of Stepdaughter
Narratives from Heian and Medieval Japan,” Japanese Language and Literature
54 no. 2 (2020): 448–475.
 Notes to pages 110–114 197

13. Matsumoto Ryūshin, “Sumiyoshi Monogatari igo: Mamako ijime-tan

no ruikei ni kansuru ichi kōsatsu,” Geibun kenkyū 3 (1954): 18.
14. Ōchi Yuriko, Nihon no mamako banashi no shinsō: Otogi zōshi to mu-
kashi banashi (Tokyo: Miyai Shoten, 2006), 8–9.
15. For a typeset text for Lady Hanayo, see, for example, MJMT 10:515–
559. For an English-language essay and translation of this text, see Noriko T.
Reider, Seven Demon Stories from Medieval Japan (Logan: Utah State University
Press, 2016), 156–201. An English translation of the Bowl Bearer is available:
Chigusa Steven, “Hachikazuki: A Muromachi Short Story,” Monumenta Nip-
ponica 32, no. 3 (1977): 303–331. For an analysis of this otogi zōshi from the
perspective of Buddhism, see Monika Dix, “Hachikazuki: Revealing Kannon’s
Crowning Compassion in Muromachi Fiction,” Japanese Journal of Religious
Studies 36, no. 2 (2009): 279–294. Keller Kimbrough’s translation of the Hag
Robe is found in Keller Kimbrough and Haruo Shirane, eds., Monsters, Animals,
and Other Worlds: A Collection of Short Medieval Japanese Tales (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2018), 265–272.
16. Ōchi, Nihon no mamako banashi, 115–118.
17. SNKBT 54, Muromachi monogatari-shū jō, 4. Ichiko’s caption for the
illustration of the attack (plate 14 in this book) provides no more information
than his plot summary: “One night, the stepmother cut off the hair of Wakagimi
while sleeping. Saddened by this event, he departed from home the following
evening and wandered about in the mountains, where he joined a group of yama-
bushi traveling to Kumano” (p. 40).
18. Nishizawa, Chūsei ōchō monogatari, s.v. “Ashibiki.”
19. Komatsu Shigemi, ed., ZNET 20, Ashibiki-e, 34–35. None of the illus-
trations in the emaki version of The Mountain accompany gachūshi; Wakagimi’s
utterance has been added to the caption by Komatsu to explicate the situation to
the readers.
20. SNKBT 54, Muromachi monogatari-shū jō, 40.
21. Penny Howell Jolly, Hair: Untangling a Social History (New York: John
C. Otto, 2004), 7.
22. It reads, “From now on, all men and women must wear their hair up.
They must complete the hairdressing before the thirtieth day of the twelfth
month.” See SNKBZ 4, Nihon shoki 3, 418.
23. SNKBZ 4, Nihon shoki 3, 418n1.
24. Another group of people exempted from the keppatsu law of 683 was
religious professionals, such as Shinto priests, diviners, and mediums (see SNKBZ
4, Nihon shoki 3, 436–437). This is because their long, unrestrained hair was be-
lieved to possess spirit-channeling powers, and they needed to keep their hair un-
bound to conduct rituals and exorcisms. According to Nakayama Tarō, the belief
that the hair of the head held special power stemmed from its three unique traits:
the head hair continues to grow throughout one’s lifetime; its color changes drasti-
cally from jet black to snow white; and the hair of a corpse remains intact long
198 Notes to pages 114–118

after the flesh decomposes. See Nakayama Tarō, Nihon fujo-shi (Tokyo: Parutosu-
sha, 1984), 564. Not only is white hair a sign of aging (as in the eyebrows of Hana-
matsu’s master priest in The Tale of Genmu and the hair of the Zen priests in
Chinese-style nanshoku poems), it is also a sign of eerie alterity (e.g., the beard of
the tutelary god of Miidera, the hair/facial hair of the yamabushi leaders in The
Mountain and The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie [see chapter 4]).
25. Around the time of the Ōnin War (1467–1477), the capping rule be-
came relaxed among the samurai class. See Hirokawa Jirō, “Fukushoku to chūsei
shakai: Bushi to eboshi,” in Emaki ni chūsei o yomu, ed. Fujiwara Yoshiaki and
Gomi Fumihiko (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1995), 87–98.
26. During the Tokugawa period, adolescent boys (wakashu) wore a transi-
tional coiffure to visibly mark their in-between status, which required a youth’s
forehead to be “partially indented at the temples to give it a more angular ap-
pearance, called “putting in corners” (kado o iru). See Pflugfelder, “Reconstitu-
tion of Erotic Desire,” 967.
27. SNKBZ 1, Kojiki, 55–57.
28. W. G. Aston, trans., Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest
Times to A.D. 697 (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1924), 228.
29. SNKBZ 2, Nihon shoki 1, 423–424. According to the Chronicle of
Japan, when Empress Jingū and her troops swiftly traveled to Silla by sea, thanks
to the aid of the god of wind, the king and his people immediately surrendered
and became the subjects of Jingū (pp. 427–428).
30. Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
(New York: Routledge, 1990), 43–44.
31. Abe Yasuhiro, “Chūsei shakai ni okeru ‘kami-kiri’ o megutte: Kashiteki
mibun hyōshikiron ni yosete,” Chiba shigaku 14 (1989): 41–43.
32. Ibid., 47.
33. See NET 12, Obusuma Saburō ekotoba, Ise shin-meisho e-utaawase,
45. The only surviving texts of the Obusuma Saburō are fragments. In the NET
version, the illustration of Nenohi (formerly Jihi) laboring as a lowly servant is
missing, but another fragment includes an image of Nenohi with very short hair
and her mother (the mother’s hair, too, has been cropped to the middle of her
back) drawing water from a well (p. 108). A digitized version of the Obusuma
Saburō scroll is available at the website of National Treasures and Important
Cultural Properties of National Museums, Japan, http://www.emuseum.jp.
34. SNKBZ 32, Eiga monogatari 2, 19.
35. SNKBZ 45, Heike monogatari 1, 431–441.
36. According to Katsuura Noriko, severing the hair was a customary
method of punishing a female adulterer. See Katruura Noriko, “Amasogi-kō,” in
Siriizu josei to Bukkyō, vol. 1, Ama to Amadera, ed. Ōsumi Kazuo and Nishigu-
chi Junko (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1989), 32. For an English translation of this study,
see Katsuura Noriko, “Tonsure Forms for Nuns: Classification of Nuns Accord-
ing to Hairstyle,” in Engendering Faith: Women and Buddhism in Premodern
 Notes to pages 118–124 199

Japan, ed. Barbara Ruch (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of
Michigan, 2003), 109–130.
37. The association between tengu and mountain ascetics is extremely prev-
alent. Roald Knutsen remarks, “The common characteristics demonstrate that
both the yamabushi and the tengu were, from the moment they each appeared in
the written or iconographic record, thought of as almost completely identical.”
See Roald Knutsen, Tengu: The Shamanic and Esoteric Origins of the Japanese
Martial Arts (Folkestone, UK: Global Oriental, 2011), 101. Umewaka’s kidnap-
per in Autumn Night and the abductor of the hero of Miss Rookie (chapter 4) are
also represented as yamabushi-tengu.
38. Although the stepmother’s action is by no means justifiable, to regard Wak-
agimi as someone who committed sexual impropriety is not completely baseless and
is far more reasonable than treating either Genshi or Kogō as such. It is only due to
the tradition of the chigo monogatari genre that the readers normalize an acolyte’s
infidelity toward his master. In reality, acolytes were expected to be sexually faithful
to their teachers during their tenure. Nonetheless, not only did Wakagimi begin his
love affair with Jijū while he was under the care of the Tōnan-in abbot, but he was
about to terminate this formal union unbeknownst to his master.
39. In the Heian tale The Tale of the Hollow Tree (Utsuho [also Utsubo]
monogatari, ca. tenth century), the main character of the second chapter, Tada-
koso, is a beautiful adolescent boy. His stepmother develops romantic feelings
for Tadakoso, but when he rejects her, the angry woman slanders him to her
husband. The youth, in despair, leaves home, follows a traveling mountain as-
cetic, and at last becomes a recluse. See SNKBZ 14, Utsuho monogatari 1, 236–
241. It is highly likely that The Mountain was alluding to The Hollow Tree.
40. For a more detailed discussion of tengu, see chapter 4.
41. Leupp, Male Colors, 38.
42. See, for example, Jay Rubin, Tashiro Keiichirō, and Nishino Haruo,
eds., Katsurazaka yōkyoku dangi: Takasago, Teika, Miidera, Yoroboshi, Kurama
tengu (Kyoto: Kokusai Nihon Bunka Kenkyū Sentaa, 2006), 140–143.
43. SNKBZ 62, Gikeiki, 384.
44. SNKBT 54, Muromachi monogatari-shū jō, 45.
45. Ibid., 48–49.
46. Katsuura, “Amasogi-kō,” 25–26. Though not as commonly, some high-
born women took the full tonsure, as shown in the Illustrated Tale of a Bagged
Monk (see chapter 2). The most famous historical example of a fully tonsured
highborn nun is Empress Shōshi (988–1074). On aristocratic women’s ordina-
tion processes, see Lori R. Meeks, “Reconfiguring Ritual Authenticity: The Ordi-
nation Traditions of Aristocratic Women in Premodern Japan,” Japanese Journal
of Religious Studies 33, no. 1 (2006): 51–74.
47. Katsuura, “Amasogi-kō,” 26.
48. Ibid., 25.
49. Ibid., 25–16.
200 Notes to pages 124–134

50. Ibid., 27. The belief that women were unable to attain enlightenment
(or buddhahood, ōjō, Nirvana, etc.) and a counternarrative suggesting otherwise
coexisted in premodern Japan. For instance, in the Kakuichi-bon version of the
Tales of the Heike, the four shirabyōshi dancers achieve ōjō at the end of the
“Giō” chapter, and so is Empress Kenreimon’in Noriko at the end of the final
chapter. Just as entering into the Age of the Final Dharma compelled the people
of medieval Japan to turn to Buddhist practices, the ambiguous state of their af-
terlife motivated at least some women to devote themselves to Buddhism with
increased rigor. To put it differently, declaring the absolute impossibility of wom-
en’s salvation would have driven all female believers away from the faith, which
would have been detrimental to the survival of Buddhist institutions.
51. SNKBZ 54, Muromachi monogatari-shū jō, 39.
52. Matsumoto, “Sumiyoshi monogatari igo,” 19.
53. Yaguchi, “Ashibiki kō,” 39.
54. SNKBT 54, Muromachi monogatari-shū jō, 11–12. The original poems
are Tamadare no/ mizushirazu toya/ omouramu/ hayakumo kakeshi/ kokoro
narikeri and Obotsukana/ ikanaru hima ni/ tamadare no/ tareka kokoro o/ kake
mo somubeki, respectively.
55. SNKBT 54, Muromachi monogatari-shū jō, 20.
56. Ibid., 20–21. This segment alludes to a famous waka poem by Taira no
Kanemori (?–990): Shinoburedo / iro ni idenikeri / waga koi wa / mono ya omou
to / hito no tou made (Even though I hide it / it shows all over my face / such is my long-
ing / so that people ask me / “What are you thinking about?”), Shūishū, no. 622 and
Ogura hyakunin isshu, no. 40. See Joshua Mostow, Pictures of the Heart: The Hyakunin
Isshu in Word and Image (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 1996), 260.
57. This can be contrasted to a similar situation with a different result in Miss
Rookie, which I will examine in chapter 4. In Miss Rookie, the male protagonist, a
Hiei chigo, is an orphan and has been raised by his menoto. While the chigo en-
gages in a love affair with an aristocratic lady in the capital, the master priest
nudges the menoto (who is supposedly caring for the sick chigo in her home) to
send the chigo back his way, and she eventually gives in to the pressure.
58. The title does not translate into meaningful English. Shukaku basically
authored a two-volume work and named the first volume Saki, “a document of
the left” and the second volume Uki, “a document of the right.” Saki stipulates
rules regarding religious rites and Uki concerns non-religious matters.
59. Ueda Kazutoshi, ed., Shinkō guisho ruijū, vol. 19, Uki (Tokyo: Naigai
Shoseki, 1932), 321.
60. SNKBT 54, Muromachi monogatari-shū jō, 79–80.

Chapter 4: The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie

1. See, for example, Someya Hiroko, “Emaki ni okeru honbun to gachūshi
hikaku no kokoromi: Chigo Imamairi monogatari emaki no baai,” Gobun 121
 Notes to pages 134–138 201

(2005): 132–141; Melissa McCormick, “Mountains, Magic, and Mothers: Envi-

sioning the Female Ascetic in a Medieval Chigo Tale,” in Crossing the Sea: Essays
on East Asian Art in Honor of Professor Yoshiki Shimizu, ed. Gregory P. A. Levine
et al. (Princeton, NJ: P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art and De-
partment of Art and Archeology, Princeton University, 2012), 107–133; Shikatani
Yūko, “Otogi zōshi Chigo ima no Kashiwagi monogatari juyō,” Nagoya Daigaku
kokugo kokubungaku 106 (2013): 1–15; Suematsu Misaki, ed., Chigo ima zen
chūshaku: Nagoya Daigaku Hikaku-jinbungaku kenkyū nenpō bessatsu (Nagoya,
Japan: Nagoya Daigaku Bungaku Kenkyūka, Hikaku-jinbungaku Kenkyū-shitsu,
2012); Kataoka Asami, “Chigo imamairi monogatari seiritsu shikō: Waka juyō no
sokumen kara,” Kenkyū to shiryō no kai 70 (2013): 21–36, and “Chigo imamairi
monogatari ni okeru Kohata no shigure juyō hokō,” Kenkyū to shiryō no kai 70
(2013): 37–40. For an English translation of the narae-bon text with annotations
and a brief introduction, see Schmidt-Hori, “The New Lady-in-Waiting Is a
Chigo.” For a typeset text and modern Japanese translation, see Eguchi Keiko,
Shikatani Yūko, Suematsu Misaki, and Hattori Yuka, eds., Muromachi jidai no
bōi miitsu gaaru: “Chigo ima” monogatari no sekai (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 2019).
According to Eguchi et al., so far five copies of Miss Rookie have been discovered,
two of them as recently as 2016: (1) the Kōshien Gaikuin-bon (two scrolls, callig-
raphy attributed to Awataguchi Hōgen, Muromachi era, hakubyō koe 白描小絵
[small-sized scrolls with monochromic images], no gachūshi); (2) the narae-bon
version (three booklets, early Tokugawa era, polychromic, early modern–styled
­illustrations, no gachūshi); (3) a personal collection (fragments, Muromachi era,
hakubyō koe); (4) the former Hosomi Collection version (two scrolls, Muromachi
era, polychromic); and (5) the Empukuji-bon (fragments, calligraphy attributed to
Nakayama Nobuchika, late Muromachi era, polychromic). See Eguchi et al., Mu-
romachi jidai no bōi miitsu gaaru, 216.
2. Nishizawa, Chūsei ōchō monogatari, s.v. “Chigo Imamairi.”
3. Ichiko Teiji, Mikan chūsei shōsetsu kaidai (Tokyo: Rakurō Shoin,
1942), 130.
4. The high priest’s rank differs depending on the text.
5. This tale reminds us of the absence of “sexual orientation” as a frame-
work of human sexuality in premodern Japan. The chigo’s erotic labor for his
master and his desire for Himegimi are presented matter-of-factly, with no autho-
rial attempt to expound upon this phenomenon, because people of medieval
Japan did not interpret the hero as “being forced into nanshoku despite his ap-
parent heterosexual orientation,” “awakening to his ‘true’ sexual orientation,”
or “awakening to his bisexuality.”
6. His name is Ōmine-bō in different versions of the text.
7. The center of Uji and the capital are 17.7 kilometers (11 miles) apart.
8. From Mount Hiei to Uji is a distance of 27.4 kilometers (17 miles).
9. This is probably the former crown prince, to whom Himegimi was origi-
nally engaged.
202 Notes to pages 139–143

10. These richly layered meanings are lost when one reads typeset texts
with no illustrations (e.g., MJMT, Koten bunko versions).
11. To illustrate this point, when Himegimi and the former chigo have two
more children after moving to the capital, the narrator remarks, “After this
event, one wakagimi and one himegimi, both equally radiantly adorable, were
born.” See Eguchi et al., Bōi miitsu gaaru, 207–208.
12. Ibid., 207.
13. Abe Yasurō, “Chigo ima kara e-monogatari no sekai o hiraku,” in Mu-
romachi jidai no bōi miitsu gaaru: Chigoima monogatari emaki no sekai, ed.
Eguchi Keiko, Shikatani Yūko, Suematsu Misaki, and Hattori Yuka (Tokyo:
Kasama Shoin, 2019), 258. In the same paragraph, Abe describes the hero of
Miss Rookie as “serving the bishop at Mount Hiei and being controlled/domi-
nated by him” (Yama no zasu ni tsukae, shihai sareru chigo). This description
does not fit in with this tale, however. The chigo never behaves as if he is being
controlled or dominated by his master (for instance, the chigo refuses to return to
the mountain after falling in love with Himegimi). If anything, the chigo and his
menoto seem to think the bishop is simple-minded and gullible.
14. See McCormick, “Mountains, Magic, and Mothers,” 120; Abe, “Chigo
ima kara,” 259.
15. After the ama tengu promises Tarō-bō that she will care for the chigo,
the narrator states that “each tengu returned his own home” (ono-ono kaerinu).
See Eguchi et al., Bōi miitsu gaaru, 189.
16. Also known as The Tale of the Major Counselor (Dainagon monoga-
tari). For a typeset text, see, for example, MJMT 10.
17. Also known as The Dragon King’s Palace (Ryūgū). For a typeset text,
see Eva Kraft, ed., Nishi Berurin-bon otogi zōshi emaki-shū to kenkyū, Mikan
kokubun shiryō (Toyohashi, Japan: Mikan kokubun shiryō Kankōkai, 1981),
1–37.
18. Eguchi et al., Bōi miitsu gaaru, 147. As mentioned in chapter 1, the nar-
rator of a romantic tale often “indexes” a character as an object of male desire by
describing his/her age and attractiveness at the same time. Here, the narrator of
Miss Rookie neither praises the chigo’s appearance nor mentions his age until he
becomes Miss Rookie, whereas Himegimi’s age and beauty are described at her
first appearance in the narrative.
19. Ibid.
20. Melissa McCormick comments on this unusual composition as follows:
“Rather than the usual voyeur’s pose turned away from the scroll’s viewer, the
boy is depicted with his face to us and situated between a profusion of flowering
cherry trees. [. . .] The viewer assumes the role of the spying monk and enjoys a
clear look at the ethereal chigo, who is at once a spectator and the spectacle. The
chigo’s typical identity as an object of desire thus remains intact as a female audi-
ence takes ownership over this character.” See McCormick, “Mountains, Magic,
and Mothers,” 120–121.
 Notes to pages 145–151 203

21. In this story, the monk-nun is called “imamairi” (rookie). In the end,
the couple become husband and wife and they live a happy life together. For a
typeset text, see Tsukamoto Tetsuzō, ed., Kokon chomonjū, 501–504.
22. Eguchi et al., Bōi miitsu gaaru, 159.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., 162.
26. Ibid., 167. For the illustration, see 56–57. For the former Hosomi Col-
lection version of the same image, see McCormick, “Mountains, Magic, and
Mothers,” 108.
27. Dennis Washburn, trans., The Tale of Genji (New York: W. W. Norton,
2015), 26.
28. Although the expression “I wish to see him as a woman” may not have
been coined by Murasaki Shikibu, the Genji certainly made it popular. In the
post-Genji literary tradition, too, this remained a standard expression to praise a
nobleman’s handsomeness.
29. For a more comprehensive study of the trope of “I wish to see him as a
woman,” see Sachi Schmidt-Hori, “Non-Binary Genders in the Genji, the New
Chamberlain, and Beyond,” in The Tale of Genji : A New Translation, Contexts,
Criticism, ed. Dennis Washburn (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2021),
1282–1295.
30. Eguchi et al., Bōi miitsu gaaru, 68–69, 174. In many monogatari, illicit
affairs result in pregnancy. When this happens, characters above all fear the po-
tential political repercussions and damage to their personal reputations, although
they also typically accept the outcome as a predetermined fate. It is uncommon
for them to express guilt for betraying their spouses or their illicit lovers’ spouses,
however. In the case of Himegimi, too, she never expresses a sense of guilt vis-à-
vis her fiancé. Rather, her concerns are mostly about her family’s and her own
reputations. On representations of illicit affairs in Heian literature, see Masuda
Shigeo, Heian kizoku no kekkon, aijō, seiai: Tasai-sei shakai no otoko to onna
(Tokyo: Seikansha, 2009), 160–203.
31. According to the Encyclopedia of Japan, there are sixteen unique arti-
cles that Shugendō practitioners typically wear or use during ascetic training,
which are thought to “symbolically transform the disciple from a profane to a
sacred state.” The items that are not visible in plate 15 include a collar with six
colored tufts (yugesa), a Buddhist rosary (nenju), a conch-shell trumpet (hora), a
staff with rings (shakujō), and a fur rug hanging down from the waist in the back
(hishiki). See Encyclopedia of Japan, s.v. “yamabushi.”
32. McCormick, “Mountains, Magic, and Mothers,” 109.
33. Ibid., 129.
34. Ibid.
35. For in-depth studies of menoto and menotogo in Heian monogatari, see
Yoshikai Naoto, Genji monogatari no menotogaku: Menoto no iru fūkei o yomu
204 Notes to pages 151–157

(Kyoto: Sekai shisō-sha, 2008); and Furuta Masayuki, Heian monogatari ni

okeru jijo no kenkyū (Tokyo: Kasama Shoin, 2014).
36. In Nihon kokugo daijiten, the earliest example of a male menoto is
from The New Mirror (Ima kagami, 1170). Whereas a female menoto is nor-
mally denoted with a compound of the “milk” and “mother” characters (i.e., 乳
母) a male menoto is with a compound of “milk” and “father” (乳父) or a single
character 傅. Interestingly, to emphasize the breastfeeding role of a female men-
oto, a new term, ochi no hito 御乳人 (“the person with milk”) was coined around
the same time. (In Nihon kokugo daijiten, the earliest use of ochi no hito is also
from the New Mirror.)
37. Eguchi et al., Bōi miitsu gaaru, 191.
38. Ibid.
39. SNKBZ 37, Konjaku monogatari-shū 3, 40–41. It is clear that an ama
tengu is, on the simplest level, a “gobliness,” or the female counterpart of the
yamabushi tengu. That is, being an ama does not mean that she is a Buddhist
nun. Nevertheless, in the case of this particular ama tengu, she clearly identifies
herself as a Buddhist nun, as indicated in her self-identification as an “ama” dur-
ing her conversation with Tarō-bō.
40. The pictorial renditions of the tengu vary widely depending on the art-
ist. In the narae-bon version, the ama tengu is drawn as if she is a human nun. In
the Empukuji-bon, the bird-looking tengu resemble sparrows rather than hawks
or crows.
41. Nihon daihyakka zensho, s.v. “tengu.”
42. SNKBZ 4, Nihon shoki 3, 46–47. In this version, the ruby (phonetic
guide) for 天狗 is ama tsu kitsune.
43. Mori Masato, Konjaku monogatari-shū no seisei (Tokyo: Izumi Shoin,
1986), 215–216.
44. Washburn, Genji, 1310.
45. Eguchi et al., Bōi miitsu gaaru, 186.
46. Ibid., 100–101, 190.
47. Ibid., 189.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid., 187.
50. Ibid., 186.
51. Ibid., 93, 128.
52. Kimura Saeko notes that rebirth into the Inner Sanctum of the Fourth
Heavenly Realm (Tosotsuten ōjō) was “imagined at court circles in medieval Japan
as a scene of women’s salvation.” See Kimura Saeko, “The Confessions of Lady
Nijō as a Story for Women’s Salvation,” Aspects of Classical Japanese Travel Writ-
ing, special issue of Review of Japanese Culture and Society 19 (2007): 98. This
way, in Miss Rookie, the ama tengu subverted two constraints imposed on women,
the enactment of the Shugendō rite and the attainment of ōjō.
53. Eguchi et. al., Bōi miitsu gaaru, 171.
 Notes to pages 158 205

54. Ibid., 193.
55. Ibid., 33–34, 153.
56. Ibid., 64–65, 171.
57. Ibid., 71–73, 176.
58. Put another way, the unexpected coupling of the highborn lady and the
orphaned chigo was made possible by the combination of their caregivers:
Himegimi’s inattentive, gamble-loving menoto and the chigo’s highly attentive
and competent menoto.
59. Ibid., 110–11, 194.
60. Ibid., 142.

Epilogue
1. Haruo Shirane, ed., Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Be-
ginnings to 1600 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 1098–1099.
2. R. Keller Kimbrough, “Late Medieval Popular Fiction and Narrated
Genres: Otogizōshi, Kōwakamai, Sekkyō, and Ko-jōruri,” in The Cambridge
History of Japanese Literature, ed. Haruo Shirane, Tomi Suzuki, and David Lurie
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 358.
3. Ibid.
4. Felski, Limits of Critique, 12.
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 Index
Bold page numbers refer to images or tables.
Abe Yasurō, 18–19, 20, 139
acolyte tales. See chigo monogatari
acolytes. See chigo
Aimitsu-maru, 37, 38
Aki no yo no nagamonogatari. See Long
Tale for an Autumn Night
ama tengu (nun goblin), 151, 153,
154–156, 160, 204nn39–40
Amaterasu, 115, 116, 124
Amida Buddha: nenbutsu practice, 48, 66,
67, 68, 70, 72, 154–155, 162, 164;
Ungoji statue, 57
Amino Yoshihiko, 7, 8
anecdotal tales (setsuwa), 15–16, 18–19,
41, 79
animism, 7–8, 28
Ansen wakashū. See Poetry Collection of
Anshōji
Aoki Yūko, 44
ascetics. See mountain ascetics
Ashibiki. See Mountain, The
Atkins, Paul S., 22, 48
Austin, J. L., 7, 8
Autumn Night. See Long Tale for an
Autumn Night
Bagged Monk. See Illustrated Tale of a
Bagged Monk
Ben no sōshi. See Tale of Ben
“black-figure” vase painting, 100, 101
Bodai-in, Kōfukuji, 53–55, 56, 187n31
bodhisattvas (bosatsu): in Buddhist Triad,
52; chigo as avatars of, 9–10, 22, 36,
52, 66, 69, 180n96; genders, 186n22;
Kokūzō, 31; Maitreya (Miroku), 155,
223
156, 160; Monjushiri (Monju), 50,
52–53, 57, 66, 186n27; nanshoku and,
52–53, 186n27; origins of concept,
185–186n19; worship in medieval
Japan, 51–53, 63. See also Kannon
bodies: aged, 71–72; of chigo, 3, 8, 15,
96–99, 144; colonial nakedness, 96;
female, 98–99, 150, 195n45; nudity in
visual arts, 96–100; sei and, 131–132;
senses, 95
Bonfante, Larissa, 97, 195n39
Book of Hell, A (Jigoku sōshi), 96–97
Book of the Small Brushwood Fences, A
(Koshibagaki zōshi), 78, 80, 81, 95,
98–99, Plates 11, 13
Booklet of Acolytes, A (Chigo no sōshi): as
chigo monogatari, 104, 185n11;
comical elements, 84, 85–86, 87, 89,
102, 103, 128; commissioner, 82–83,
102; extant copies, 78, 95, 191n1;
images, 79, 83, 86, 90–91, 95, 96–99,
102, Plates 1–10; in-picture dialogues
(gachūshi), 78–79, 85, 90, 91, 95;
language used, 79; as multimedia
work, 78–79; narratives, 79, 83–95,
192n15; original title, 78, 81; places
mentioned, 81; scholarship on, 82,
84–85, 102; sensory experiences,
95–96; significance, 102; structure, 83;
uniqueness, 79; Vignette 1, 83, 88–94,
92, 97–99, 151, Plates 5–7, 13;
Vignette 2, 83–86, 125, 185n15, Plate
1; Vignette 3, 83, 86–87, Plate 2;
Vignette 4, 83, 87–88, 98, Plates 3–4;
Vignette 5, 83, 94–95, Plates 8–10
224 Index
bosatsu. See bodhisattvas
Bowl Bearer, The (Hachi-kazuki), 111,
112
“boy power” (shōnen-ryoku), 84–85
boys: coming-of-age rites (genpuku), 4, 8,
11–12, 115; hairstyles, 4–5, 115,
198n26. See also chigo; children
Brushwood Fences. See Book of the Small
Brushwood Fences
Buddhism: attitudes toward sex, 28, 29–34,
178n87, 179nn90–91; Final Dharma
Age (Mappō), 53, 63, 161; in Meiji
period, 35; vinaya, 29–30, 179n92. See
also chigo system; nuns; priests
Buddhist acolytes. See chigo
Butler, Judith, 115–116
Cantarella, Eva, 99
celibacy, clerical, 29–31, 32–33
chigo (Buddhist acolytes): addressing with
honorific language, 193n24; androg-
yny, xiii, 11–16, 100, 144, 146; as
avatars of bodhisattvas, 9–10, 22, 36,
52, 66, 69, 180n96; benefits for, xviii,
25; bodies, 3, 8, 15, 96–99, 144; child
names (dōmyō), 2, 7–9; dance
performances, 18, 19–20, 21; entrance
into priesthood, 125, 132; erotic labor,
18, 102, 129; etiquette manuals, 132;
femininity, 98, 148; gender construc-
tion, 98, 100; hairstyles, 2, 3–5, 116,
174n33; heterosexual relationships,
141–144; hierarchical status in
monasteries, 7, 22; language used,
194n31; liminality, 2, 7, 8, 9, 11, 16,
98, 189n76; masculinity, 144;
meanings of term, 3, 47; nonadultness
and symbolic childness, 2–5, 7–9, 115;
as objects of sexual desire, 16, 22,
70–71, 72, 140–141, 142–143;
physical appearances, xiii, 3, 8, 11, 15,
116; social status, 75–76, 157; as
temporary status, 20, 48, 103,
132–133; tragic deaths, 48–49; visual
similarities to women, 11, 15, 18,
98–99. See also chigo monogatari;
master-chigo relationship
Chigo Imamairi. See Chigo Known as Miss
Rookie
chigo kanjō ritual, 9–10, 52, 69, 173n25,
173n27, 173n29, 180n96, 186n24
Chigo Kannon engi. See Story of Kannon’s
Manifestation as a Youth
Chigo Known as Miss Rookie, The (Chigo
Imamairi): banquet scenes, 136, 137,
140–141, Plates 17, 19; Buddhist
principles, 162–163; as chigo
monogatari, 134–135; comparisons to
The Mountain, 140–141, 151–152,
154; ending, 156; extant copies,
200–201n1; female characters, 143,
144, 145, 148–153, 154–156,
159–160; female readers, 144, 148,
150–151; heterosexual relationship,
134, 142–144, 149, 156–157;
illustrations, 139, 140–141, 143–144,
146, 158–159, 202n20, Plates 16–19;
in-picture dialogues (gachūshi), 139,
145–146, 149–150, 158–159; kaimami
scene, 143–145, 160; master-chigo
relationship, 136, 138, 140–141, 143,
151–153, 202n13; peripheral voices,
158–159; plot, 16–17, 47, 135–138,
159–160; protagonist, 134, 139–147,
148, 149–150, 151–153, 200n57;
satire in, 134, 143–144, 147–148,
157–158; subversive ethos, 134,
156–159
chigo monogatari (acolyte tales): arche-
types, 16–17, 42, 76–77, 102, 108;
audiences, xiv, 41, 82–83; authors,
xiii–xiv, 41; Buddhist principles,
63–64, 67–68, 70, 73, 76, 130, 156,
162–163; circulation, 41; compared to
romantic tales, 16–17, 49, 156–157;
endings, 36, 48–49, 182n124; “flow
chart,” 46; fourteen extant, 41, 46–49;
as literary genre, 42–43, 184–185n10;
plots, 43, 46–49; popularity, 156;
protagonists, 46–49; scholarship on,
xiv, xviii, 35–36, 37–40, 42–46, 43–45,
108, 163–164. See also master-chigo
relationship
Chigo monogatari burui. See Collection of
Chigo monogatari
Chigo no sōshi. See Booklet of Acolytes
chigo system: bystanders, 130–131;
coalition of Buddhist institutions and
families, 20, 23–25, 102, 132;
compared to arranged marriages,
75–76; inconvenient truths, 69, 77,
102–103, 129, 130; marriage analogy,
 Index 225
22–23, 25; modern views of, 38, 40;
power relations, 76, 77, 129–130;
romance and, 73–76; social function,
103
Chikō, legend of, 50, 63–64
child emperors, 3, 23
child names (dōmyō), 2, 7–9, 12, 173n20
children: as attendants, 3, 5; chigo as
symbolic, 2–5, 7–9, 115; hairstyles, 114;
o-chigo-san, 1, 2; sacralization, 3; sexual
abuse, xviii, 37, 38, 39; wet nurses for,
89, 145–146, 151–153, 193n25,
194n27, 204n36. See also boys; girls
Childs, Margaret H., 182n124
Chinese shunga, 79–80
Chronicle of Japan, A (Nihon shoki), 71,
115, 153, 198n29
Chūsei ōchō monogatari / otogi zōshi jiten
(Dictionary of medieval courtly tales
and otogi zōshi), 108, 113
Clark, Kenneth, 96
clerics. See nuns; priests
clothing: caps, 4, 17, 90, 97, 114, 172n7,
198n25; of mountain ascetics, 150;
robes, 9; of women, 12; worn by
shirabyōshi dancers, 17, 18
Collection of a Myriad Leaves, A
(Man’yōshū), 4–5
Collection of Chigo monogatari, A (Chigo
monogatari burui), 42, 47
Collection of Excerpts, A (Senjūshō), 27,
57
Collection of Miraculous Stories of
Hasedera, A (Hasedera reigenki),
55–56, 187nn34–35
Collection of Notable Tales Old and New,
A (Kokon chomonjū), 18–19, 144–145
Collection of Oak Leaves of Nara, A
(Nara-no-ha wakashū), 12–13, 21–22
Collection of Tales of Religious Awaken-
ing, A (Hosshinshū), 32
Collection of Tales of Times Now Past, A
(Konjaku monogatari-shū), 15–16, 31,
47–48, 51, 60, 153
coming-of-age rites (genpuku), 4, 8,
11–12, 115
coming-of-age rites (mogi), 12
Companion in Solitude, A (Kankyo no
tomo), 32
Continued Discussions of Ancient Matters
(Zoku kojidan), 27, 178n82
Coontz, Stephanie, 22
cultural capital, 69, 71, 93
daidōji (“large children”; lowly servants),
5–7
Daigoji, 7, 12, 78, 81, 82, 95, 102, 191n1
Daigoji’s Illustrations of Male-Male Love
(Daigo nanshoku-e). See Booklet of
Acolytes
Daikoku Dance, The (Daikokumai), 161,
162
danshoku. See nanshoku
Daoism: attitudes toward sex, 29, 191n4;
hermits, 15; sexual treatises, 79–80;
Shugendō and, 150
death: in chigo monogatari, 48–49;
perceptions in medieval Japan, 49;
shaving head on deathbed, 123–124
Discussions on Ancient Matters (Kojidan),
60–61
Documents of the Satake Family (Satake-
shi monjo), 66, 189n68
Dōmoto Masaki, 36
dōmyō. See child names
Drott, Edward R., 71
Eiga monogatari. See Tale of Flowering
Fortunes
emaki (handscrolls), 47, 81–83, 91, 96–97.
See also Booklet of Acolytes
enchanted love, 73–75, 147
Ennin, 173n29
Enryakuji (Mount Hiei), 9–10, 47, 64,
109–110, 173n27, 179n92
erotic capital, 71, 76, 118, 140–144,
190n87
erotica. See ko-shunga; shunga
Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa), 15
Eubanks, Charlotte, 31, 193n23
Excerpts of Dust and Thorns (Jinkenshō),
47–48, 185n11
expedient means. See skillful means
Fair, Brian, 193n19
families: chigo system and, 20, 23–25,
102, 132; function of marriages for,
22–23
Faure, Bernard, 32, 37, 48
Felski, Rita, xiv, 164
Final Dharma Age (Mappō), 53, 63, 161
Fischel, Joseph J., 37, 182n126
226 Index
Fugen Bosatsu (Ch. Puxian, Sk. Samantab-
hadra), 52
Fujiwara family, 3, 23, 177n73
Fujiwara no Genshi, 117
Fujiwara no Sanesuke, 124
Fujiwara no Seishi, 124
Fujiwara no Senshi, 123–124
Fujiwara no Yorinaga, 180–181nn106–107
Fujiwara no Yukinari, 123–124
Fukuro hōshi ekotoba. See Illustrated Tale
of a Bagged Monk
Furukawa Kiyohiko, 182n121
Fushiminomiya Sadafusa, Prince, Kanmon
gyoki, 41
gekokujō (overthrowing of the upper by
the lower), 161–162, 165
gender: as continuum, 115, 132, 144–145;
in language, 174n37; nonbinary, 11,
16, 21, 98, 100; performativity, 115.
See also men; sei; women
Genji monogatari. See Tale of Genji
Genmu monogatari. See Tale of Genmu
Genpei jōsuiki. See Rise and Fall of the
Minamoto and the Taira
genpuku. See coming-of-age rites
Genshin: chigo kanjō manual, 173n27;
Essentials for Rebirth (Ōjōyōshū),
179n91
Gikeiki. See Record of Yoshitsune
Girard, René, 48, 49
girls: coming-of-age rites (mogi), 12; in
Fujiwara family, 23; stepchild tales,
110–111
Gleanings from the Tales of Uji Dainagon
(Uji shūi monogatari), 5–6, 193n24
Goblin at Mount Kurama, The (Kurama
Tengu), 119
goblins (tengu): admirers of chigo, 119,
140–141; ama tengu (nun goblin), 151,
153, 154–156, 160, 204nn39–40;
associations with yamabushi, 58, 118,
119, 153, 154, 199n37; in Autumn
Night, 58, 60; birds and, 153, 154;
history of concept, 153–154; in Miss
Rookie, 136–137, 140–141, 154–156;
in The Mountain, 118, 154
Go-Shirakawa, Cloistered Emperor, 81
Gotō Tanji, 189n68
Greece, ancient: eromenoi, 99–100, 101;
pederasty, 99–100
Hachi-kazuki. See Bowl Bearer
Hag Robe, The (Ubakawa), 111, 112
hairstyles: of boys, 4–5, 115, 198n26; of
chigo, 2, 3–5, 116, 174n33; cutting hair
without permission, 116–119, 131,
198n36; of men, 114, 115, 172n7; of
mountain ascetics (yamabushi), 118,
123; of nuns, 123; partial tonsure, 123;
of priests, 15; regulations, 4, 114, 116;
of servants, 5; shaving head on
deathbed, 123–124; social meanings,
113–114, 115–116; spirituality and,
197–198n24; of women, 12, 114,
117–118, 123–124, 146, 174n33
Hakim, Catherine, 71
Hamanaka Osamu, 189n76
Hanamitsu and Tsukimitsu (Hanamitsu
Tsukimitsu), 47, 48, 125
Hanayo no hime. See Lady Hanayo
Hanyū no monogatari. See Tale of a
Humble Hut
happiness and success, 164–165
Hasedera reigenki. See Collection of
Miraculous Stories of Hasedera
Hashidate Ayako, 98
Hayakawa Monta, 80
Heiji monogatari. See Tale of Heiji
Heike monogatari. See Tales of the Heike
heterosexual relationships: of chigo,
141–144; courtship, 17, 68; joshoku,
18, 25–28, 33; with meshūdo, 20–21,
22; in Miss Rookie, 134, 142–144,
149, 156–157; nyobon (breaking
celibacy vow with woman), 30, 32–33.
See also marriages; romantic tales
Hiei, Mount, 41, 58, 60. See also
Enryakuji
Higuchi Kiyoyuki, 98
hōben. See skillful means
hōben-tan. See skillful means stories
homoerotic relationships: in ancient Greece,
99–100; binaries, 84–85, 193n19; in
premodern Japan, 178n85; stigma in
Meiji period, 35; in Tang China, 34;
transgenerational, 37–39; twentieth-
century views, 35–37, 181–182nn120–
121. See also nanshoku
homophobia, xiv, xviii, 36, 39, 163–164,
179n91, 182n121
homosexuality, 82, 98. See also homo-
erotic relationships; nanshoku
 Index 227
Hori Masana, xiv–xviii, 164–165
Hōryūji, 3
Hosokawa Ryōichi, 37–38
Hosshinshū. See Collection of Tales of
Religious Awakening
Ichijō, Retired Emperor, 117, 177n73
Ichiko Teiji, 35–36, 37, 42, 43, 98, 108,
112–113, 134
Ihara Saikaku, 34, 186n27
Illouz, Eva, 73–74
Illustrated Scroll of the Acolyte at
Shōren-in (Shōren-in chigo no sōshi
emaki), 47
Illustrated Tale of a Bagged Monk, An
(Fukuro hōshi ekotoba), 78, 80–81, 95,
99, 199n46, Plate 12
Illustrated Tale of Obusuma Saburō, The
(Obusuma Saburō ekotoba), 117–118,
198n33
Imai Kanehira, 90, 194n28
imperial family: associations with erotic
scrolls, 81; child emperors, 3, 23;
consorts, 123–124, 177n73; divine
origins, 28, 35, 177n78; members as
nuns or priests, 24; mothers of
emperors (kokubo), 157; sekkan seiji
(regency politics), 3, 23, 177n73;
shinseki kōka, 24
impermanence (mujō), 20, 50, 63
Inagaki Taruho, 36
Iwashimizu monogatari. See Tale of
Iwashimizu
Iwata Jun’ichi, 34, 36
Iwatsutsuji. See Wild Azaleas
Izanagi and Izanami, 28, 177n78
Izumi Shikibu, 48
Jaffe, Richard M., 35
Jakuzen, 84
Jigoku sōshi. See Book of Hell
Jingū, Empress, 115, 124, 198n29
Jinkenshō. See Excerpts of Dust and Thorns
Jolly, Penny Howell, 114
joshoku (male-female love), 18, 25–28, 33.
See also heterosexual relationships;
nanshoku-joshoku paradigm
kaimami (stolen glimpse), 142–145, 160
Kakushō, Cloistered Prince, 18, 23, 24,
176n60
Kamo no Chōmei, 32
Kanda Tatsumi, 38
Kaneko Matebei, 36
Kankyo no tomo. See Companion in
Solitude
Kannon: appearance to Shinran, 30, 32,
52; Bodai-in statue, 53–55, 56; chigo
as avatars of, 10, 22, 69, 180n96;
compassion, 51; gender, 52, 186n22;
manifestations, 52; miracles, 51;
skillful means, 52, 63; worship of, 10,
63. See also Story of Kannon’s
Manifestation as a Youth
kasshiki. See Zen acolytes
Katō Osamu, 4–5
Katsuura Noriko, 123
Keikai. See Senzai
Keisei, 32
Kikuchi Yōsai, 17
Kimura Saeko, 20–21, 56, 204n52
Kiso Yoshinaka, 90, 194n28
Kitamura Kigin, Wild Azaleas (Iwatsut-
suji), 34, 57
Kitano Tenjin engi. See Origin of Kitano
Tenjin
Kōfukuji: Bodai-in, 53–55, 56, 187n31;
characters in The Mountain associated
with, 105, 118, 129, 196n3; rivalry
with Enryakuji, 109
Kojidan. See Discussions on Ancient
Matters
Kojiki. See Record of Ancient Matters
Kokon chomonjū. See Collection of
Notable Tales Old and New
Kokūzō (Sk. Ākāśagarbha), 31
Komatsu Shigemi, 113
Kon Tōkō, 173n26
Konjaku monogatari-shū. See Collection
of Tales of Times Now Past
Konno Tōru, 49–50, 63
Koshibagaki zōshi. See Book of the Small
Brushwood Fences
ko-shunga (medieval shunga), 78, 80–81,
82–83, 192n13
Kōzuke no Kimi shōsoku. See Letter from
Lord Kōzuke
Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi), 33–34
Kurama Tengu. See Goblin at Mount
Kurama
Kuroda Hideo, 6–7, 96, 98
Kuroda Toshio, 23
228 Index
Kyoto: Daigoji, 7, 12, 78, 81, 82, 95, 102,
191n1; elite culture, 81, 100; Gion
Festival, 2; as setting for ko-shunga,
81; Ungoji, 57
Lady Hanayo (Hanayo no hime),
111–112, 119, 120, 121, 121–122,
124–125, 131, 151
Lazy Tarō (Monogusa Tarō), 161, 162
Lear, Andrew, 99
Letter from Lord Kōzuke, The (Kōzuke no
Kimi shōsoku), 47, 48, 53, 63–64, 130
Leupp, Gary P., 34
Long Tale for an Autumn Night (Aki no
yo no nagamonogatari): authorship,
109; Buddhist principles, 63–64, 70,
73, 76, 162; as chigo monogatari, 46,
61–62, 76, 102, 108; comparisons to
The Mountain, 104, 108–110,
126–127, 131; fame, 57; major events,
62, 62; master-chigo relationship, 58,
62–63, 64, 72–73, 74; plot, 57–59, 64,
72–73, 109–110; protagonists, 57,
58–59, 64, 70, 71, 126, 173n20;
source texts, 60–61, 62; themes, 61–62
Lord Kōzuke. See Letter from Lord
Kōzuke
Lotus Sutra, 51, 52, 54
love, enchanted, 73–75, 147. See also
romantic tales
love triangles, 91–94, 92
Mabukuda-maro, 50, 63
Maitreya (Miroku), 155, 156, 160
Makura no sōshi. See Pillow Book
mamako banashi (story of a stepchild),
110–113, 117–118, 119, 120–122,
124–125, 131. See also Tale of
Ochikubo
manhood. See men
Man’yōshū. See Collection of a Myriad
Leaves
Mappō. See Final Dharma Age
marriages: arranged, 22–23, 25, 75–76; of
Buddhist priests, 30, 32, 35; social
function, 22–23
masculinity, 144, 163, 196n50
master-chigo relationship: age differences,
69–70, 71–72, 77; in Autumn Night,
58, 62–63, 64, 72–73, 74; contracts,
132; distinctive characteristics, 22;
infidelity, 58–59, 64, 72, 77, 83,
88–89, 91–94, 102–103, 199n38; in
Miss Rookie, 136, 138, 140–141, 143,
151–153, 202n13; in The Mountain,
105, 128, 129–130, 132, 199n38;
power relations, xviii–xix, 37–39,
70–71, 91; roles of chigo, xiii, 21;
romantic poetry, 12–15, 21–22; sexual
activity, 10, 17; in Story of Kannon’s
Manifestation as a Youth, 55–56,
63–64, 68–70, 71, 74, 77; in The Tale
of Genmu, 127–128. See also chigo
system
Matsuho no ura monogatari. See Tale of
Matsuho Bay
Matsuoka Shinpei, 3
McCormick, Melissa, 150, 202n20
Meeks, Lori R., 30
Meiji period, xviii, 1–2, 35, 163
men: adult names, 8; caps worn by, 4, 17;
facial changes over time, 11; hairstyles,
114, 115, 172n7; masculinity, 144,
163, 196n50; as menoto, 204n36; wish
to see as woman, 147–148. See also
boys; gender; priests
menoto (wet nurses), 89, 145–146,
151–153, 193n25, 194n27, 204n36
menotogo (foster siblings), 89–90, 91, 93,
97, 151, 194nn27–28
meshūdo (“those who are beckoned”),
20–21, 22
Miidera, 58–59, 60–61, 64, 109–110
Minamoto no Arifusa, 84
Minamoto no Yoshitsune, 119–120,
173n20, 194n31
Miroku (Maitreya), 155, 156, 160
Mishima Yukio, 173n26
misogyny, xiv, 163–164
Miss Rookie. See Chigo Known as Miss
Rookie
monasteries, status hierarchies, 7, 22, 69,
73
Monjushiri Bosatsu (Monju Bosatsu), 50,
52–53, 57, 66, 186n27
monks. See priests
Monogusa Tarō. See Lazy Tarō
Motoori Norinaga, 195n49
Mountain, The (Ashibiki): authorship,
109, 130–131; Buddhist principles,
162; as chigo monogatari, 104;
comparisons to Autumn Night, 104,
 Index 229
108–110, 126–127, 131; comparisons
to Miss Rookie, 140–141, 151–152,
154; ending, 104, 110, 133; female
characters, 106, 107, 112–113, 118,
124–125, 126; hair-cutting by
stepmother, 106, 110, 112–113, 116,
118–119, 122–123, 124, 126, 131;
illustrated scrolls, 41, Plates 14–15;
major events, 121–122; male-male love
in, 126–129; as mamako banashi
variant, 119, 120–122; master-chigo
relationship, 105, 128, 129–130, 132,
199n38; menoto, 131, 151; mixed-
gender domestic settings, 104–105,
125–126; plot, 105–107, 120–122,
131; protagonists, 104, 105–107,
125–127, 132–133, 173n20; readers,
41, 113, 121, 125–126, 144–147;
scholarship on, 108–109, 112–113;
significance, 104–105
mountain ascetics (yamabushi): admirers
of chigo, 119; in Autumn Night, 58;
clothing, 150; goblins and, 58, 118,
119, 153, 154, 199n37; hairstyles, 118,
123; in The Mountain, 106, 119,
120–121, 128–129, 141; nanshoku
relationship with, 128–129, 141. See
also Shugendō
Murasaki Shibu, 177n73. See also Tale of
Genji
Nakayama Tarō, 197n24
nanshoku (male-male love): bodhisattvas
and, 52–53, 186n27; in chigo
monogatari, 68–70, 72–73; female
criticism, 148; Genshin’s preaching
against, 179n91; “origin” of, 33–34; in
poetry, 21–22, 190n87; popularity in
Edo period, 34; religious and societal
tolerance, 25–28, 33; scholarly use of
term, 45; stigma in modern Japan,
35–36, 37–38, 39; transgenerational,
xviii–xix, 37–39, 56, 70–71, 72–73,
174n40, 190n87; transgressive,
180–181nn106–107. See also
homoerotic relationships; master-chigo
relationship
nanshoku-joshoku paradigm, 25–28, 33,
35, 143–144, 163, 201n5
Nara-no-ha wakashū. See Collection of
Oak Leaves of Nara
Nariko, Princess, 80, 81, 192n8
New Collection of Poems Ancient and
Modern (Shin-kokin wakashū), 57
Nihon daihyakka zensho, 45
Nihon kokugo daijiten, 27, 45
Nihon koten bungaku daijiten (Great
dictionary of classical Japanese
literature), 108
Nihon shoki. See Chronicle of Japan
Ninnaji, 15, 18, 23, 24, 88, 153
Nishizawa Masaji, 43, 61, 62, 108, 113
noh plays, 20, 37, 41, 71, 119
nonadults, 2–9
nonduality, 64, 68
nonproductivity, 20–21
nudity: performative, 97–99; in visual arts,
96–100
nun goblin. See ama tengu
nuns: hairstyles, 123; imperial family
members, 24; sexual relationships, 33,
144–145; tonsure, 123, 199n46
nyobon (breaking celibacy vow with
woman), 30, 32–33
Obusuma Saburō ekotoba. See Illustrated
Tale of Obusuma Saburō
Ōchi Yuriko, 110–111
o-chigo-san (children in religious
processions), 1, 2
Ochikubo monogatari. See Tale of Ochikubo
okasu (to violate [a rule], to sexually
assault [someone]), 32, 109, 180n106,
193n20
Old Pine (Oimatsu), 71–72
Origin of Kitano Tenjin, The (Kitano
Tenjin engi), 96–97
Ōsen Keisan, 15
Ōta Nanpo, A Collection of Chigo
monogatari, 42, 47
Otogi bunko (Companion Library), 42
otogi zōshi (medieval novels): chigo
monogatari as subgenre of, 184–
185nn10–11; mamako banashi (story
of a stepchild), 110, 112; power
relations in, 161–162, 165; romances
between women and chigo, 141–142;
The Three Priests (Sannin hōshi),
67–68; use of term, 42–43
outcast class, 8, 38, 40, 114, 116,
178–179n88
Ozaki Kyūya, 102
230 Index
Pandey, Rajyashree, 32
Pflugfelder, Gregory M., 2
Pillow Book (Makura no sōshi), 5
poetry: Chinese-style (kanshi), 14–15,
190n87; waka, 12–14, 21–22, 49, 57,
83–84
Poetry Collection of Anshōji, A (Ansen
wakashū), 12
Poetry Competition of Artisans during the
Hōjō Rite at Tsuruoka Shrine (Tsuruoka
hōjō-e shokunin uta-awase), 18
power relations: in Booklet of Acolytes,
85; desirability hierarchy, 70–71;
fathers versus masters, 129–130;
gekokujō (overthrowing of the upper
by the lower), 161–162, 165;
hierarchical status in monasteries, 7,
69, 73; in master-chigo relationship,
xviii–xix, 37–39, 70–71, 91; in otogi
zōshi, 161–162, 165; political blocs in
medieval Japan, 23–25; social
hierarchy, 139–140, 156–157
priests: celibacy, 29–31, 32–33; in erotic
tales, 80–81; imperial family members,
24; marriages, 30, 32, 35; old, 68,
69–70, 71–72, 77, 87–88, 93, 103;
poetry by, 14–15, 190n87; readers of
chigo monogatari, 41; Zen, 14–15,
190n87. See also master-chigo
relationship
Private Record of the Chigo kanjō, A
(Chigo kanjō shiki), 9–10
Record of Ancient Matters, A (Kojiki), 28,
71, 115, 116
Record of Shinran’s Dream, A (Shinran
muki), 30–31
Record of Yoshitsune, A (Gikeiki),
119–120, 173n20, 175n49, 194n31
Records of the Three Countries (Sangoku
denki), 67
Reichert, Jim, 38
Ri Yonmi, 44
Rinzai Zen monks, poetry by, 14–15
Rise and Fall of the Minamoto and the
Taira (Genpei jōsuiki), 90, 177n74
Rise of Conflicts between Enryakuji and
Miidera, The (Sanmon Mii kakushitsu
no okori), 60, 62, 62
romantic tales: compared to chigo
monogatari, 16–17, 49, 142, 156–157;
courtship, 68; enchanted love theme,
73–75, 147; heroines, 16–17, 72, 75,
148–149; illicit affairs, 203n30;
menoto characters, 151
Saeki Junko, 84–85
Saga monogatari. See Tale of Saga
Saigyō, 27
San’eki Eiin, 14
Sangoku denki (Records of the Three
Countries), 67
Sanmon Mii kakushitsu no okori. See Rise
of Conflicts between Enryakuji and
Miidera
Sannin hōshi. See Three Priests
Satake-shi monjo. See Documents of the
Satake Family
scapegoat theory, 48, 49
Schalow, Paul Gordon, 34
Second Collection of the Shared Lineage,
A (Shoku mon’yō wakashū), 12
sei (“gender,” “sexuality,” and “sex”):
androgyny, xiii, 11–16, 100, 144, 146;
of chigo, 11–22, 98; embodiment,
131–132; epistemological shift, 1–2;
fluidity, 132, 144; of women, 12,
16–22. See also gender; sexuality
Sei Shōnagon, Pillow Book (Makura no
sōshi), 5
sekkan seiji (regency politics), 3, 23, 177n73
Senjūshō. See Collection of Excerpts
Senzai (Sensai and Sensei), 57, 64, 70. See
also Long Tale for an Autumn Night
setsuwa. See anecdotal tales
sexual orientation paradigm, 25–26
sexuality: nanshoku-joshoku paradigm,
25–28, 33, 35, 143–144, 163, 201n5;
nonproductivity, 20–21, 22; religious
context, 28–34; scholarship on, 163;
transgenerational, xviii–xix, 37–39; of
women, 17, 177n78. See also
heterosexual relationships; homoerotic
relationships; nanshoku; sei
Shinden Seiha, 14–15
Shingon Buddhism: Kūkai as transmitter,
33; Tachikawa-ryū school, 95–96, 102
Shin-kokin wakashū. See New Collection
of Poems Ancient and Modern
Shinran, 30–31, 32, 52, 186n24
Shinran muki. See Record of Shinran’s
Dream
 Index 231
shinseki kōka, 24
Shinto, 28–29, 35, 197n24
shirabyōshi (“white tempo”) dancers,
17–20, 17
Shōkaku, 95
Shoku mon’yō wakashū. See Second
Collection of the Shared Lineage
Shōren-in chigo no sōshi emaki. See
Illustrated Scroll of the Acolyte at
Shōren-in
Shōtoku, Prince, 3
Shugendō (Mountain Asceticism), 128,
141, 150, 154, 155, 203n31. See also
mountain ascetics
Shukaku, Cloistered Prince, 132, 200n58
shunga (“spring pictures”), 78, 79–81,
82–83, 191nn3–4, 191–192n7
skillful means (Jp. hōben, Sk. upāya),
31–32, 49–50, 52, 63
skillful means stories (hōben-tan), 49–50,
63, 69, 76, 110, 141–142
social hierarchy. See power relations
speech act theory, 7, 8
stepchildren. See mamako banashi
Story of Kannon’s Manifestation as a
Youth, The (Chigo Kannon engi):
Buddhist principles, 162; as chigo
monogatari, 46, 55–56; illustrations,
55–56; master-chigo relationship,
55–56, 63–64, 68–70, 71, 74, 77; as
origin story of statue, 53–54, 56–57;
plot, 16, 17, 53–54; source, 54–56
Sullivan, Nikki, 132
Sumiyoshi monogatari. See Tale of
Sumiyoshi
sympathetic response (kannō), 15–16, 31,
50, 56, 69, 70, 160
Tachikawa-ryū school, 95–96, 102
Taira no Kanemori, 200n56
Taira no Munemitsu, 80
Taira no Noriko (Empress Kenreimon-in),
81, 117, 199–200n50
Taira no Shigeko, 81
Taira no Tsunemasa, 23, 37, 176n60,
177n74
Takeuchi Machiko, 43
Takigawa Seijirō, 18
Tale of a Humble Hut, The (Hanyū no
monogatari), 141–142, 143, 151
Tale of Ben, The (Ben no sōshi), 46–47
Tale of Flowering Fortunes, The (Eiga
monogatari), 117, 118, 176n70
Tale of Genji, The (Genji monogatari):
author, 177n73; hero, 24, 90, 147,
175–176n54; “I wish to see him as a
woman,” 147, 203n28; marriages, 75,
183n1; menotogo character, 90;
primary wife characters, 75, 190n92;
Uji chapters, 92, 154, 194n33
Tale of Genmu, The (Genmu monogatari):
Buddhist principles, 67–68, 70, 73,
162; as chigo monogatari, 46, 67;
master-chigo relationship, 127–128;
plot, 64–66, 72–73, 74; protagonists,
52, 64, 65–66, 67, 70, 71–73, 173n20,
189n65; source texts, 66–68, 189n68
Tale of Heiji (Heiji monogatari), 5, 6
Tale of Iwashimizu, The (Iwashimizu
monogatari), 21
Tale of Matsuho Bay, The (Matsuho no
ura monogatari), 46–47, 125
Tale of Mount Toribe, The (Toribeyama
monogatari), 46–47
Tale of Ochikubo, The (Ochikubo
monogatari), 74–75, 110, 195n38
Tale of Saga, The (Saga monogatari), 47
Tale of Sumiyoshi, The (Sumiyoshi
monogatari), 110
Tale of the Hollow Tree, The (Utsuho
[also Utsubo] monogatari), 199n39
Tale of Tsukiō and Otohime, The (Tsukiō
Otohime monogatari), 142, 143
Tales of the Heike, The (Heike monogatari):
chigo character, 23, 37, 176n60, 177n74;
child name of Yoshitsune, 173n20;
“Giō” chapter, 19, 20, 199–200n50;
“Kogō” chapter, 117, 118; menotogo
characters, 90; violence in, 40; women
attaining enlightenment, 199–200n50
Tanaka Takako, 98, 108–109, 112
Tendai school. See chigo kanjō ritual;
Enryakuji
tengu. See goblins
Tenmu, Emperor, 114
Three Priests, The (Sannin hōshi), 67–68
Times Now Past. See Collection of Tales of
Times Now Past
Tomoe, 90
tonsorial regulations. See hairstyles
Toribeyama monogatari. See Tale of
Mount Toribe
232 Index
Torikaebaya, 21
Tsuchiya Megumi, 7
Tsuji Shōko, 9
Tsukiō Otohime monogatari. See Tale of
Tsukiō and Otohime
Tsurezuregusa. See Essays in Idleness
Tsuruoka Hachiman Shrine, 18
Tsuruoka hōjō-e shokunin uta-awase. See
Poetry Competition of Artisans during
the Hōjō Rite at Tsuruoka Shrine
Ubakawa. See Hag Robe
Uji shūi monogatari. See Gleanings from
the Tales of Uji Dainagon
Uki, 132, 200n58
Ungoji, Kyoto, 57
United States, anxieties about transgenera-
tional sexual relationships, 37,
182n126
Utsuho [also Utsubo] monogatari. See Tale
of the Hollow Tree
waka. See poetry
Wakabayashi Haruko, 22
Waka Collection of One Thousand Years,
A (Senzai wakashū), 84
warawa, 4–7, 6, 55, 174n37, 187nn34–35
Weber, Shannon, 25
wet nurses. See menoto
Wild Azaleas (Iwatsutsuji), 34, 57
women: ability to attain enlightenment,
199–200n50; breasts, 99, 195n45;
characters in Miss Rookie, 143, 144,
145, 148–153, 154–156, 159–160;
chigo resembling, 11, 15, 98–99;
clothing, 12; commonalities and
differences with chigo, 11–22;
courtesans, 18; disguised as chigo,
15–16, 120, 194n31; femininity, 100;
hairstyles, 12, 114, 117–118, 123–124,
146, 174n33; heroines of romantic
tales, 16–17, 75, 148–149; imperial
court members, 81; in imperial family,
123–124, 157; impure bodies, 150;
menstruation, 178n87; meshūdo,
20–21, 22; names, 12; as objects of
men’s sexual desire, 12; readers of Miss
Rookie, 144, 148, 150–151; sexual
desire, 17, 177n78; shirabyōshi
dancers, 17–20, 17; stepmothers,
110–113, 117–118; violating, 32,
193n20; warawa, 174n37; wet nurses
(menoto), 89, 145–146, 151–153,
193n25, 194n27, 204n36; writers,
177n73. See also gender; girls;
heterosexual relationships; marriages;
nuns
Yaguchi Yūko, 44, 108, 112, 125
yamabushi. See mountain ascetics
Yamamoto Yōko, 52
Yang Guifei, 15, 175n49
Yasaka Shrine, Kyoto, Gion Festival, 2
Zeami, Old Pine (Oimatsu), 71–72
Zen acolytes (kasshiki), 14–15, 190n87
Zen priests, poetry by, 14–15, 190n87
Zoku kojidan. See Continued Discussions
of Ancient Matters
 About the Author

Sachi Schmidt-Hori is assistant professor in Japanese literature at

Dartmouth College. Her research focuses on the intersections of gen-
der, sexuality, corporeality, and class depicted in pre-1600 Japanese
tales. Her second monograph will investigate the literary representa-
tions of nonbiological familial relations in ancient and medieval narra-
tives, including “milk kinship” and stepparent-stepchild relationships.
Plate 1.  Vignette 2, Booklet of Acolytes. Courtesy of the British Museum.
 onk: My longtime wish has just come true. This must be due to the power of the Buddha statue I
M
worship. How else could I have made my secret known to you? It was unbearable to keep my feelings
concealed. Or is it because of this beautiful landscape? Chigo: Although there were times when I could
have spoken to you, I was unable to bring myself to do so, since people’s hearts are fickle. Now that we
are no strangers to each other, let’s meet again when the right opportunity returns like an ocean wave.
Junior chigo: The poignant autumn winds seem to know now is their season.

Plate 2.  Vignettes 3.1 (left) and 3.2 (right), Booklet of Acolytes. Courtesy of the British Museum.
( 3.1) Monk: What is going on? I cannot believe this is for real. This kind of fortunate event has never
happened to me before. But it feels even more regrettable to think how aloof you were toward me all
this time. Ah, how much I was thinking about you! Chigo: Indeed. But, since you are not blaming me
for my rudeness in the past, I won’t say anything. I am just so glad you have not forgotten about me.
(3.2) Monk: There is a thing called spirit (tamashii; “tama” is homophonous with the word for
“beads”). People are afraid of having their spirit stolen. That’s why we monks must thrust and pierce
the tama (the spirit/beads of a rosary). Chigo: This is so scandalous. Please try not to surprise anyone
by making a loud noise. How incredibly frightening. Please come closer. I will embrace you tightly.
Plate 3.  Vignette 4.1, Booklet of Acolytes. Courtesy of the British Museum.
Chigo: (to Young Monk 1) Please come visit me for a minute. Don’t be unseemly; what’s the rush for?
Young Monk 1: (to the youth) Are you serious? Old Monk: How appalling. I am so jealous that the boy
invited just him! Young Monk 2: That’s heartless. Let’s just go.

Plate 4.  Vignettes 4.2 (left) and 4.3 (right), Booklet of Acolytes. Courtesy of the British Museum.
( 4.2) Chigo: Where are you touching? That’s not my foot, Silly. What do you think you are doing?
Monk: Because my old eyes can’t see well, I have to rely on my heart. Please don’t mind it and just pity
me. Could you please tell me how you felt about me all this time? (4.3) Chigo: Monk, what are you
doing without washing my feet first? It is so darling of you to have felt so deeply about me. Monk:
Months and years were flying by and I thought your heart was fleeting, too. But I longed for you and
came here despite my fears. This is so unexpected.
Plate 5.  Vignettes 1.1 (left) and 1.2 (right), Booklet of Acolytes. Courtesy of the British Museum.
( 1.1) Chūta: Because you occasionally reward me by allowing me to do this as much as my heart de-
sires, my faith for you grows stronger and stronger. When you treat me coldly, however, I don’t feel
validated. Let me take advantage of this chance and satisfy my needs. Chigo: If this is all you want,
sure. I was just going to visit my master sometime this evening before he falls asleep, but it’s still bright
outside. You are so impatient! Fine, just screw me all you want! (1.2) Chūta: Alas, it is so regrettable.
Although there is the other type of service, I have been getting a hard-on every night and, when it hap-
pens, I cannot help but jerk off. My junk has gotten so feeble due to the nightly masturbation. . .
Chigo: If that’s the case, shove the dildo deep into my bottom once again!

Plate 6.  Vignettes 1.3 (left) and 1.4 (right), Booklet of Acolytes. Courtesy of the British Museum.
( 1.3) Chūta: It is so fragrant. Sir, you have such a stubborn, tight bottom. You probably won’t give me
that wonderful reward, but I wish I could thrust my penis into here until it loosens up! Chigo: Dip that
brush in the clove oil very well and twist it into my buttocks, five inches or so. (1.4) Chigo: Ouch,
watch how you blow the fire.
Plate 7.  Vignette 1.5, Booklet of Acolytes. Courtesy of the British Museum.
Plate 8.  Vignette 5.1 (left) and 5.2 (right), Booklet of Acolytes. Courtesy of the British Museum.
(5.1) Chigo: Now let’s do it facing each other. Monk: No, I will please you like this a little longer. After
that, I will flip you over and pound hard. (5.2) Chigo: You are such a show-off, as if people were watch-
ing. Monk: If people were watching, what would I do? Aw, aw!

Plate 9.  Vignette 5.3 (left) and 5.4 (right), Booklet of Acolytes. Courtesy of the British Museum.
(5.3) Chigo: Oh no, what’s happening? Monk: There is no way I would pass up such a delicious treat.
When my mouth is not as busy, I will explain what’s happening in detail. (5.4) Monk: Ah, tasty. Slightly
bitter. Chigo: This tastes good, too, but a little salty.
Plate 10.  Vignette 5.5, Booklet of Acolytes. Courtesy of the British Museum.
Chigo: Oh no, it’s so bright. What is going on? Monk: I have never seen anything like this before.
Seems like a great habit to keep.

Plate 11.  Ending of the Brushwood Fences. Courtesy of Nichibunken.

Plate 12.  Ending of the Bagged Monk. Courtesy of Nichibunken.

Plate 13.  Vignette 1.2 (left), Booklet of Acolytes, and scene from the Brushwood Fences (right). Cour-
tesy of the British Museum and Nichibunken.
Plate 14.  The stepmother cuts off Wakagimi’s hair while he sleeps. In the adjoining room, ladies-in-
waiting are sewing robes and sashes for the procession. Courtesy of Itsuō Art Museum.

Plate 15.  Wakagimi follows a group of mountain ascetics. Courtesy of Itsuō Art Museum.
Plate 16.  The Hiei acolyte stealing a look at the minister’s daughter. Painting 3 of the former Hosomi
Collection version of The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie. Current location unknown.

Plate 17.  The banquet on Mount Hiei. Painting 14 of the former Hosomi Collection version of The
Chigo Known as Miss Rookie. Current location unknown.
Plate 18.  Himegimi encounters the ama tengu in the mountains. Painting 16 of the former Hosomi
Collection version of The Chigo Known as Miss Rookie. Current location unknown.

Plate 19. The banquet at the ama tengu’s home. Clockwise from the upper-left corner: the chigo,
Tarō-bō (Ōmine-bō), the ama tengu, and the zushi, in which Himegimi is hiding, behind the half- bird-
half human tengu. Painting 17 of the former Hosomi Collection version of The Chigo Known as Miss
Rookie. Current location unknown.