The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (????, Taketori Monogatari) is a 10th-century Japanese monogatari (fictional prose narrative) containing Japanese folklore. It is considered the oldest extant Japanese prose narrative although the oldest manuscript dates to 1592.
The tale is also known as The Tale of Princess Kaguya (???????, Kaguya-hime no Monogatari), after its protagonist. It primarily details the life of a mysterious girl called Kaguya-hime, who was discovered as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant.
Video The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
Narrative
One day, while walking in the bamboo forest, an old, childless bamboo cutter called Taketori no Okina (???, "the Old Man who Harvests Bamboo") came across a mysterious, shining stalk of bamboo. After cutting it open, he found inside it an infant the size of his thumb. He rejoiced to find such a beautiful girl and took her home. He and his wife raised her as their own child and named her Kaguya-hime (???? accurately, Nayotake no Kaguya-hime, "Shining princess of the supple bamboo"). Thereafter, Taketori no Okina found that whenever he cut down a stalk of bamboo, inside would be a small nugget of gold. Soon he became rich. Kaguya-hime grew from a small baby into a woman of ordinary size and extraordinary beauty. At first, Taketori no Okina tried to keep her away from outsiders, but over time the news of her beauty spread.
Eventually, five princes came to Taketori no Okina's residence to ask for the beautiful Kaguya-hime's hand in marriage. The princes eventually persuaded Taketori no Okina to tell a reluctant Kaguya-hime to choose from among them. Kaguya-hime concocted impossible tasks for the princes, agreeing to marry the one who managed to bring her his specified item. That night, Taketori no Okina told the five princes what each must bring. The first was told to bring her the stone begging bowl of the Buddha Gautama Shakyamuni from India, the second a jeweled branch from the mythical island of H?rai, the third the legendary robe of the fire-rat of China, the fourth a colored jewel from a dragon's neck, and the final prince a cowry shell born of swallows.
Realizing that it was an impossible task, the first prince returned with an expensive stone bowl, hoping that Kaguya-hime would believe it to be real, but after noticing that the bowl did not glow with holy light, Kaguya-hime saw through his deception. Likewise, two other princes attempted to deceive her with fakes, but also failed. The fourth gave up after encountering a storm, while the final prince lost his life (severely injured in some versions) in his attempt.
After this, the Emperor of Japan, Mikado, came to see the strangely beautiful Kaguya-hime and, upon falling in love, asked her to marry him. Although he was not subjected to the impossible trials that had thwarted the princes, Kaguya-hime rejected his request for marriage as well, telling him that she was not of his country and thus could not go to the palace with him. She stayed in contact with the Emperor, but continued to rebuff his requests and marriage proposals.
That summer, whenever Kaguya-hime saw the full moon, her eyes filled with tears. Though her adoptive parents worried greatly and questioned her, she was unable to tell them what was wrong. Her behaviour became increasingly erratic until she revealed that she was not of this world and must return to her people on the Moon. In some versions of this tale, it is said that she was sent to the Earth, where she would inevitably form material attachment, as a temporary punishment for some crime, while in others, she was sent to Earth for her own safety during a celestial war. The gold that Taketori no Okina had been finding had in fact been a stipend from the people of the Moon, sent down to pay for Kaguya-hime's upkeep.
As the day of her return approached, the Emperor sent many guards around her house to protect her from the Moon people, but when an embassy of "Heavenly Beings" arrived at the door of Taketori no Okina's house, the guards were blinded by a strange light. Kaguya-hime announced that, though she loved her many friends on Earth, she must return with the Moon people to her true home. She wrote sad notes of apology to her parents and to the Emperor, then gave her parents her own robe as a memento. She then took a little of the elixir of life, attached it to her letter to the Emperor, and gave it to a guard officer. As she handed it to him, her feather robe was placed on her shoulders, and all of her sadness and compassion for the people of the Earth were apparently forgotten. The heavenly entourage took Kaguya-hime back to Tsuki no Miyako (???; lit. "the Capital of the Moon"), leaving her earthly foster parents in tears.
The parents became very sad and were soon put to bed sick. The officer returned to the Emperor with the items Kaguya-hime had given him as her last mortal act, and reported what had happened. The Emperor read her letter and was overcome with sadness. He asked his servants, "Which mountain is the closest place to Heaven?", to which one replied the Great Mountain of Suruga Province. The Emperor ordered his men to take the letter to the summit of the mountain and burn it, in the hope that his message would reach the distant princess. The men were also commanded to burn the elixir of immortality since the Emperor did not wish to live forever without being able to see her. The legend has it that the word immortality, ?? (fushi), became the name of the mountain, Mount Fuji. It is also said that the kanji for the mountain, ??? (literally "Mountain Abounding with Warriors"), are derived from the Emperor's army ascending the slopes of the mountain to carry out his order. It is said that the smoke from the burning still rises to this day. (In the past, Mount Fuji was much more volcanically active and therefore produced more smoke.)
Maps The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter
Literary connections
Elements of the tale were drawn from earlier stories. The protagonist Taketori no Okina, given by name, appears in the earlier poetry collection Man'y?sh? (c. 759; poem# 3791). In it, he meets a group of women to whom he recites a poem. This indicates that there previously existed an image or tale revolving around a bamboo cutter and celestial or mystical women.
A similar retelling of the tale appears in the c. 12th century Konjaku Monogatarish? (volume 31, chapter 33), although their relation is under debate.
Banzhu Guniang
In 1957, Jinyu Fenghuang (????), a Chinese book of Tibetan tales, was published. In early 1970s, Japanese literary researchers became aware that "Banzhu Guniang" (????), one of the tales in the book, had certain similarities with The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Initially, many researchers thought that "Banzhu Guniang" must be related to Tale of Bamboo Cutter, although some were skeptical.
In 1980s, studies showed that the relationship is not as simple as initially thought. Okutsu provides extensive review of the research, and notes that the book Jinyu Fenghuang was intended to be for children, and as such, the editor took some liberties in adapting the tales. No other compilation of Tibetan tales contains the story.
A Tibet-born person wrote that he did not know the story. A researcher went to Sichuan and found that, apart from those who had already read "Jinyu Fenghuang", local researchers in Chengdu did not know the story. Tibetan informants in Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture did not know the story either.
Adaptations
The 1975 Japanese TV series Manga Nihon Mukashi Banashi (Cartoon Tales of Old Japan) contains a 10-minute adaption of the story, directed by Takao Kodama with animation by Masakazu Higuchi and art by Koji Abe.
Kon Ichikawa made a film of the story in 1987 entitled Princess from the Moon. Composer Robert Moran saw it and composed an opera based on it, From the Towers of the Moon.
The tale was also featured in the 1989 film Big Bird in Japan, where Big Bird first is told the tale as folklore, and later realizes that his guide, named Kaguya, is the girl from the tale, but he is too late to see her return to the moon, and assumes that his imagination got away from him again.
In 1988, Japanese composer Maki Ishii asked Czech choreographer Ji?í Kylián to produce a ballet for his musical work bearing the name Princess Kaguya. The product was a contemporary ballet named Kaguyahime the Moon Princess, where elements of Western and Japanese cultures combine.
Kaguya is an antagonist in Inuyasha the Movie: The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass.
Studio Ghibli released in November 2013 in Japan an anime film based on the folktale under the title of The Tale of the Princess Kaguya.
In Touhou Project, the Character Houraisan Kaguya is a princess born over a thousand years ago on the moon. She was raised with utmost care as a princess, thus she eventually became selfish and managed to convince Yagokoro Erin to illegally create the Hourai Elixir (Elixir of Life) out of self-interest and consumed it. Kaguya was executed again and again but as an immortal, she could not die. Hence, the Lunarians exiled her to Earth and she was found in the Shining Bamboo by her adopted father. Kaguya's backstory then follows the original folktale of The Bamboo Cutter. The name of her theme in-game is called "Flight of the Bamboo Cutter ~ Lunatic Princess" and the five Impossible Requests she requested of the five princes are revealed to already be in her possession as she attacks the player with them as the final boss in Imperishable Night.
Kaguya Ootsutsuki is the main antagonist in the popular manga and anime series Naruto and is also descended from the Ootsutsuki clan which in the movie The Last: Naruto the Movie are revealed to live in the moon. She is also a playable character in Naruto: Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4.
Notes
References
- Katagiri Y?ichi, Fukui Teisuke, Takahashi Seiji and Shimizu Yoshiko. 1994. Taketori Monogatari, Yamato Monogatari, Ise Monogatari, Heich? Monogatari in Shinpen Nihon Koten Bungaku Zensh? series. Tokyo: Shogakukan.
- Donald Keene (translator), The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, ISBN 4-7700-2329-4
- Japan at a Glance Updated, ISBN 4-7700-2841-5, pages 164--165 (brief abstract)
- Fumiko Enchi, "Kaguya-hime", ISBN 4-265-03282-6 (in Japanese hiragana)
- Horiuchi, Hideaki; Akiyama Ken (1997). Shin Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei 17: Taketori Monogatari, Ise Monogatari (in Japanese). T?ky?: Iwanami Shoten. ISBN 4-00-240017-4.
- Satake, Akihiro; Yamada Hideo; Kud? Rikio; ?tani Masao; Yamazaki Yoshiyuki (2003). Shin Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei 4: Man'y?sh? (in Japanese). T?ky?: Iwanami Shoten. ISBN 4-00-240004-2.
- Taketori monogatari, Japanese Text Initiative, Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
- Yamada, Yoshio; Yamda Tadao; Yamda Hideo; Yamada Toshio (1963). Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei 26: Konjaku Monogatari 5 (in Japanese). T?ky?: Iwanami Shoten. ISBN 4-00-060026-5.
External links
- Ryukoku University exhibition
- Tetsuo Kawamoto: The Moon Princess (translated by Clarence Calkins)
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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