Lecture 2
Japanese Ghosts
Review: How do you become a
ghost?
• 1. Die a sudden or violent death, accidental
(eg. drowning) or murder
• 2. Die with deep passion in your heart (in
Buddhism, regardless whether good
emotions or bad emotions)
• 3. Leave unfinished business to attend to
• 4. The proper religious rituals haven't been
performed
What happens if any of these four
things occur?
• Tama will not proceed as it should towards
becoming a Kami or Buddha, but instead
remains tied to this world, to the suffering
of the flesh.
• The tama, no longer attached to a living
being, but not deified and enlightened
either, becomes what we would call a ghost,
caught between two worlds.
• The mechanism by which ghosts come into
existence stays pretty much the same
throughout Japanese history (and actually
stays pretty consistent across cultures)
• However, what ghosts look like and how
they are pacified is culturally specific and
even within Japan changes a lot from
800.C.E. to the 20th century.
What do ghosts mean?
Ghosts and other supernatural beings both
in the premodern and modern period, in the
West and in Asia, dramatically reenact both
publicly and privately the failure of
political, social, and religious structures.
Ghosts as expression of
cultural anxieties
• So one thing we think about when we see a
ghost is: what is going wrong in society?
• e.g. How do ghosts relate to contemporary
anxieties and fears?
Critical Analysis: Analyzing
Ghost Stories
1) Who is the author/creator? Male or female?
Socio-economic class?
2) Who is the patron responsible for having
the image/story created?
3) Who is the intended audience? Male or
female? Socio-economic class?
4) What is the religious belief system and
historical context framing it?
• For example:
– Christian attitude toward ghosts
– Japanese religion’s attitude toward ghosts
5) How is the story or image supposed to
affect that audience; i.e. what is the goal of
the story? Didactic? Entertainment?
6) Are there any political and economic
issues at stake? Who benefits from this
version?
7) Genre: History? Fiction? Play? Image?
Anime? Movie?
Encouraging Critical Thinking
• How are images and stories being used to
manipulate people?
• How do ghosts and the supernatural relate
to contemporary anxieties and fears?
• X Files (paranoia: the truth is out there)
• Alien abduction
• Horror movies (“Last Girl” phenomenon)
Function of Angry Ghosts in 9th11th c. Japan
1) Explanatory (rational, “scientific”)
2) Political issues/class oppression
3) Issues of gender oppression
4) Religious Issues
Explanatory Function
• Natural disasters
• Epidemic and individual disease
th
9-11
Political Situation in
c.
Japan (Heian period)
• How does political situation contribute to
development of belief in angry ghosts?
• Heian aristocratic politics
• Northern branch of the Fujiwara clan killing
off their rivals
– What are political rivals likely to become?
Social Situation of
• Urbanization
• Social problems
–
–
–
–
Overcrowding
Bad water (cholera)
Malnutrition
Increase in crime
th
9-11
c. Japan
Political Function of Angry
Ghosts
• How did angry ghosts and disease deities
become tied to social protest/unrest?
• One reason: underlying belief in harmony
between virtuous ruler and state of nature
• "Disasters of all kinds were a barometer of
social injustices" (Neil McMullin)
• Second reason for ghosts being tied to
problems in political and social context:
• Ghosts hold grudges
• So they are often used as symbols of
political rebellion and subversion
Angry ghosts become rallying
points for protest
• Peasant rebellions
– Peasant martyrs as angry ghosts
– e.g. Sakura Sôgorô
• Exiled/murdered aristocrats
– Used by aristocratic families opposing the
ruling faction
Examples of Exiled Aristocrats
• Prince Sawara (died 785)
• Sugawara no Michizane (died 903)
– First raijin (thunder deity)
– After pacification: Tenman Tenjin
How Ghosts Get Power
•
•
•
•
Two major correlates to power in ghosts:
1) The level of political ranking in life
2) The level of anger just before death
The more public political power they control in life, the
more dangerous they are to the general public after death.
• Sugawara no Michizane (845-903): very high ranking
minister, died in exile
• Became God of Thunder after death; caused epidemics,
earthquakes etc.
• Eventually was pacified as Tenma Tenjin, the deity of
scholarship
Social Issues: Oppression of
Women
• Female ghosts often represent suppressed
anger about how society treats women
• Female ghosts who appear battered and
disfigured reveal the mistreatment of
women (e.g. Oiwa)
• Women who have been abandoned by their
husbands can turn into very horrific,
vengeful ghosts.
• Anxiety about pregnancy
Power and Gender
• Women rarely have political power
• Therefore female ghosts are not usually
understood as causing disasters on a
national level, but tend to cause problems
only for the men who mistreated them.
• Nevertheless, they can become voices of
dissent within the narrower realm of gender
politics
Summary
• In 9-12th century Japan, angry ghosts
function in a number of useful ways to deal
with social and political issues
• Next section: look at examples from 10th
century and 15th century Japan to see how
female ghosts were functioning in
premodern Japanese society
Lady Rokujô of The Tale of
Genji: historical context
• Written around 1000 C.E.
• Society: about 10,000 literate aristocrats
living in Kyoto.
• Social structure: Polygamy (men can have
as many wives and mistresses as they wish
or as many as they can afford)
• Women sit at home waiting for their
husbands or lovers to come visit them (very
passive and frustrating)
Critical Analysis Questions
• 1) Who wrote the story?
– Lady-in-waiting at court, Murasaki Shikibu
• 2) Who was her patron?
– Main patron was the Consort she served and
the Consort's father, Fujiwara Michinaga, the
most powerful man at court.
– Marriage politics are important reason for MS
being able to write
3) Intended audience besides Empress and her
father?
– Very high class: other ladies-in-waiting; the
Emperor, other male courtiers
4)What is the religious belief system and
historical context framing it?
--Belief in angry ghosts, possession illness,
esoteric Buddhist rituals of exorcism
--marriage system of the time
• 4) What was her goal? Entertainment alone?
5) Are there any political and economic issues
at stake? Who benefits from this version?
– MS keeps her job; Empress Shoshi’s salon is
made more attractive so Emperor will spend
time with her and prefer her and her children
6) Genre: “novel” with illustrations (read
aloud or, more rarely, privately)
Main Characters
• Prince Genji (about 18-19 years old)
• Main Wife: Aoi (or Aoi no Ue) is about 8-9
months pregnant with their son
– pregnancy a very dangerous time for women,
easily susceptible to possession (real life
example from Murasaki Shikibu’s diary)
• Neglected Mistress: Rokujô, about 25 years
old, the widow of a Crown Prince
Basic Plot
•
•
•
•
•
Carriage incident at Kamo Parade
Rokujô is infuriated, hurt pride
In dreams she attacks her rival, beating her
She suspects that her tama leaves her body
Wakes up with her clothes and hair smelling
like burnt mustard seeds used in exorcism
• Aoi no Ue is indeed very ill and exorcists
are called in to try and find out who is
possessing her
Tale of Genji Exorcism Scene
• In Tale of Genji Buddhist priests fail to
exorcise or even identify Rokujô
• Instead Rokujō reveals herself to Genji
directly and tells him how angry she is
• Rokujô manages to kill Aoi just after Aoi
gives birth to a son
– anxiety about dangers of pregnancy
Rokujô as a “living spirit”
• Rokujô very ambivalent -- her torment
causes her tama to wander and attack others
• As a woman with no public office, her
angry spirit can only cause personal anguish
to Genji and his family
• Nevertheless, Rokujô functions as a voice
of dissent, a dramatic means of expressing
for all Heian women the pain and
resentment caused by polygamy.
What happens to Rokujô later in
the book?
• Meets Genji one last time before she goes to Ise
Shrine with her daughter (Chapter 6, “The Sacred
Tree”)
• Dies four years later, after her return to the capital.
Entrusts her daughter and her estate to Genji (her
estate funds Genji’s political ascent)
• Many years later, after her daughter has become
Empress through Genji’s support, she attacks
Genji’s current wife through possession illness
after he slights Rokujô in conversation.
• Angry voice of dissent to the very end of the book,
even after death.
Summary
• What might the author Murasaki Shikibu’s
goal be in Tale of Genji?
• What does Rokujô serve as?
– “Madwoman in the Attic” concept developed
by scholars Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar
from studying Jane Eyre
– Rochester’s mad wife in the attic is able to
express anger over gender oppression that the
“good heroine” wouldn’t be allowed to state
What Rokujō represents
Rokujô as male ideal’s antithesis
Her negative qualities: jealous, resentful,
strong-willed and destructive, ambivalent
How she fares in the novel:
Within the structure of the narrative, she is
condemned for her behavior -- she loses Genji,
leaves the capital, and dies early in the story.
negative: Rokujo's inability to suppress those
forbidden emotions turns her into a symbol
of excessive attachment and an emblem of
chaos and destruction.
positive: Her spirit becomes a dramatic means
of expressing for all Heian women the pain
and resentment caused by the marriage
system.
Psychological Complexity
Very complex character psychologically. Her
wandering spirit expresses
• 1) her own repressed and ambivalent
feelings
• 2) the guilt and unconscious fears of the
hero, Genji, who caused those conflicts.
• 3) the feelings of her victims, who remain
silent but are inwardly tortured.
Rokujō 400 Years Later:
Aoi no Ue (Noh play)
• Noh theater: highly refined form of masked
dance-drama that had its origins in
theatricalized shamanic rituals (Carmen
Blacker, The Catalpa Bow, pp. 19-20, 31)
• Aoi no Ue is a reenactment of a dramatic
exorcism and pacification of the angry spirit
of Rokujô
Noh Theater
•
•
•
•
•
Plots often involve ghosts:
•1) Ghost appears as an ordinary person (usually
to a wandering priest)
•2) Turns out to be a ghost, who has returned to
this place because they have an attachment to it -this is where they have died, or where some
important event (good or bad) occurred
•3) Returns in true form and re-enacts traumatic
events (dance/song)
• 4) Priest recites Lotus Sutra and performs rituals
etc.
• 5) Ghost achieves enlightenment and vanishes
What Noh ghosts want:
Release from their passionate attachment
Appearance as ghost is therapeutic:
– Re-enactment through dance and song is
cathartic
– Prayers of priest are ritually effective
Politics/Economics
• Is Noh subversive/critical of social issues?
Why?
• Patronage:
– Early: Buddhist temples
– Late: Samurai warriors
What female supernatural
beings look like in Noh
• First half: ordinary people/villagers (often
very young or very old)
• Second half: appear in true form (deity,
benign ghost, demon or demonic ghost)
Ordinary village
woman
Here, very young,
in the prime of her
beauty
100 year-old
woman poet, Ono
no Komachi
Mask: Rōjō
Komachi (Aged
Komachi)
Benign Ghost
Ghost of an
aristocratic woman
longing for longlost love
Supernatural
Beauty
Heavenly Maiden
from Hagoromo
(The Feathered
Robe)
This mask is also
sometimes used for
Rokujō in the first
half of another
play, Nonomiya
(The Shrine in the
Fields)
Symbolic features of
Female Demonic
(Angry) Ghosts
Horns = jealousy
and lust
Bulging gold eyes,
mouth etc. =
supernatural power
Deep red
color=carnal
attachments
Demon stick =
torimono (used to call
down possessing
spirit by shamans)
Wild red hair =
tangled emotions
Triangle scales on
robe = serpent scales
Long red hakama
(split) trousers
= serpent-like, but
also worn by female
shamans
Noh Play: Aoi no Ue
• Basic Plot: Rokujô, Aoi no Ue, shamaness
(Teruhi); famous mountain priest
• Exorcism of the spirit of Lady Rokujô, who
is attacking Genji's wife Aoi no Ue for
having humiliated her at the Kamo Festival
parade.
First Half
• Shamaness (Teruhi) is asked to come and
see if she can find the source of Aoi no Ue's
sickness; when she strums her catalpa
(birch) bow, a beautiful woman (Rokujô)
appears in a carriage
Why does Rokujô appear?
• A. Sound of the catalpa bow pulls her
from the other world to this one
• B. She wants to vent her anger on Aoi no
Ue, but also wants help with her
passionate anger which is torturing her
Rokujo’s entrance scene
• Note: Teruhi describes her entrance as
riding in a carriage with a maid servant
clinging to the side
• Not portrayed this way in current stage
performances, but probably was
originally
Rokujo’s entrance speech
“Riding the Three Vehicles of the Law
Others may escape the Burning House.
Mine is but a cart
In ruins like Yugao’s house;
I know not how to flee my passion.
Like an ox-drawn cart, this weary world
Rolls endlessly on the wheels of retribution.
Like wheels of a cart forever turning
Are birth and death in all living things;
Six Worlds and Four Births
You must journey;
Strive as you will, there is no escape.” (p.
93)
Imagery
• Burning House from the Lotus Sutra
• Allusion to Yugao: another of Genji’s
mistresses who Rokujō killed in an
abandoned mansion
• Three vehicles of the Law
Law= dharma, the teachings of Buddha
• Carts/carriages/vehicles/wheels
Meaning of Carriage
imagery
Trapped in the broken
carriage = her
resentment and anger,
she cannot reach
detachment and
enlightenment
This world = a
carriage whose wheels
of karmic retribution
turn round and round.
No escape except
through the Mahayana
vehicle of Buddhist
enlightenment
Story Continued
• Teruhi tries to argue with her, that she's
only hurting herself by giving in to her
anger. But she has no power to get Rokujo
to listen.
• Instead Rokujo tries to strike at Aoi with
her fan.
• Rokujô wants to grab Aoi and make her ride
in her broken carriage, so Aoi can feel the
humiliation that she felt.
Rokujō striking Aoi no
Ue
Aoi no Ue is
represented simply by
a robe placed at the
front of the stage
Teruhi, the shamaness,
is seated at back
Female Shaman vs. Male
Mountain Priest
• Female shaman is passive; can only become
possessed, cannot exorcise or pacify
• Have to call in a male exorcism specialist
(mixture of shamanism and Buddhism)
• Mountain priests have performed special
austerities to gain their powers
• Calls on Fudô Myôô: "He who heeds my
sermon attains perfect wisdom, he who
knows my mind attains the Buddha form."
Second Half
• Having identified herself, Rokujō returns in
a demonic form
• Exorcism scene
• At the end Rokujō accepts enlightenment
Rokujō accepting enlightenment and bowing to
the priest to indicate that she will not return
Why these differences between
two versions?
•
•
•
•
•
Authorship
Patronage
Audience
Religious and historical context
Goals
Authorship:
• ToG: Heian period aristocratic female;
Murasaki Shikubu, lady-in-waiting to
Empress Shôshi (1000 CE)
• AnU: Medieval male actor/playwright
(lower class); anonymous probably around
late 14th century. Used “Cliffs notes”
handbook rather than original text.
Patronage:
• TofG: Fujiwara no Michinaga/ marriage
politics
• AnU: probably patronized by a temple
Audience:
• TofG: small group of literate aristocrats
surrounding Empress Shôshi
• AnU: probably illiterate commoners but
also courtiers/samurai
Religious Context:
• TofG: aristocratic attitude toward
Buddhism somewhat detached. Not MS’s
major concern.
•
AnU: Newer sects of Buddhism (Pure
Land, Nichiren, Zen) argue for Universal
Salvation, that even women can attain
enlightenment.
Historical Context:
• TofG:
– aristocrats in power
– Fujiwara marriage politics
• AnU:
– aristocrats have lost power to samurai
– System of marriage politics ends (and with it
female authorship)
Major differences between Noh
play and original story
• 1. What is the main conflict in the story? In the play? What
does Rokujô want in each?
• 2. Is Rokujô alive or dead in each version?
• 3. Is Rokujô conscious of what she is doing? Why would
this be different?
• 4. Does Rokujô manage to kill Aoi no Ue? Why the
difference?
• 5. Who does Rokujô appear to? What is the role of the
priests? Why doesn’t Genji appear in the play?
• 6. Does Rokujô get enlightenment in the book? In the
play?
Section Discussion
• Given you the basic historical context for
each text
• How do you think the differences in the two
texts reflect those differing historical
contexts? That is, given what you know
about the changed historical context,
authorship, goals etc., why did the Noh
playwright change so much of the story?
What is the main conflict in the
story? In the play? What does
Rokujô want in each?
ToG: Rokujô's ambivalent feelings about
Genji, her anger at Aoi no Ue, her
embarrassment about the public humiliation
at the Kamo festival; all clearly related to
issues of the marriage system at the time,
that allowed one man to have a number of
women as wives and lovers.
•
• ►AnU: whether she'll give up her anger at
Aoi no ue and accept Buddhist
enlightenment or not.
Ambivalence: The personality characteristic
of being ambivalent in Tale of Genji -- not
being able to decide how she should feel
about Genji -- now becomes her inability to
decide between her desire for revenge and
her desire for enlightenment and release
from her passions.
•
• Summary of conflict difference: The play
is not concerned about whether Rokujō is
justified in her feelings or not; not interested
in the gender issues of Heian period. Only
concerned with whether Rokujō will get
release from her anger.
•
Is Rokujô alive or dead?
ToG: clearly alive
AnU: not clear, but apparently dead:
pg. 95: I am the ghost of Princess Rokujô. In those olden
days when I walked the world, on spring mornings I
was invited to the flower feasts of the Palace, and on
autumn nights I viewed the moon in the royal
garden….Fallen in life, I am today no more than a
morning-glory that withers with the rising of the
sun.”
• p. 97: “Even were I living, our love is already an old
tale, never to be revived even in a dream.”
Is Rokujô conscious of what she is doing?
ToG: She's unconscious of what she is doing
-- her living spirit is attacking Aoi no Ue
without her conscious volition
AnU: She's conscious of what she is doing
and knows it is wrong
Summary: Why the difference?
In ToG important that Rokujō’ not be
conscious so we are sympathetic
In AoU enlightenment is central to the play.
Rokujō must be fully aware that she's caught in a
delusory passion that goes against Buddhist
teachings. Otherwise she won't be able to
consciously choose enlightenment.
In Noh, Rokujô gets salvation in the end -- she
becomes symbol of possibility of Universal
Salvation.
Does she kill Aoi no Ue?
ToG: yes
AnU: no
Summary: Why the difference?
ToG: need to get Aoi out of the story to make
way for another woman who will be Genji’s
wife
AnU: Noh has to demonstrate power of
Buddhism
Who does Rokujô appear to? What is the role of
the priests?
ToG:
a. She only appears directly to Genji
b.Very little interest in the exorcists, who are
basically treated as having little or no power
over Rokujō
c. All emphasis is on the triangle between Aoi,
Genji and Rokujō
d. The exorcism scene is just there to further
the plot
AnU:
Genji doesn't even appear on stage
Aoi is reduced to a robe
All emphasis is placed on the power of the
mountain priest: focus of the play is now on
the struggle between a powerful priest and a
malevolent spirit which he attempts to
subdue and convert to Buddhist
understanding.
Does she get Enlightenment?
• ToG: She definitely doesn't get
enlightenment. Remains a voice of dissent.
• AnU: She gets enlightenment in the end.
• Didactic goal: a spirit that has been
enlightened won't come back so
demonstrates power of shamanic Buddhism.
• Whether her anger is justified or not, is not
considered particularly important.
BUT NOTE: A woman’s salvation, her
ability to choose enlightenment, is taken
seriously, so Rokujō’s complex psychology
remains
Summary:
This Rokujo is fully aware of what she's
doing. She's a vengeful ghost (dead) and she
knows that what she's doing is completely
against the Buddhist path to enlightenment.
She's torn between gaining enlightenment
and getting revenge -- and typically human
she goes after revenge. The other Rokujô
was unconscious. Didn't think about it in
Buddhist terms at all.
• Novel and play: women, in their demonic
rage, are very powerful indeed. Treat them
with respect!
• Gender issues around marriage no longer
considered important, BUT women are not
discounted completely. The fact that a
woman's spiritual struggles were important
enough to write a play around them would
be out of the question in the western
medieval period.
Images from Aoi No Ue
• Looking at the symbolic meaning of the
costumes
Comparison of two demonic women:
Rokujo and Dojoji serpent woman
Why are Noh ghosts so embodied
compared to Heian period
ghosts?
• A. Genre differences
• B. Historical differences (change in attitude
towards visibility of ghosts btw 11th and
14th centuries)
• C. Concept of inherent carnality of women
Why are these fantasy women so
powerful?
• Psychoanalytic issues? Revenge of the
repressed?
• Entertainment
• Buddhist didacticism
– Carnality of women
– Universal Salvation