Saturday, October 12, 2013

Konjaku Monogatarishū Vol. 2, Tale 1: Śuddhodana's Death #1 (part 9)

Fig. 2:
阿羅漢
來テ海
ノ邊リ
ニ流レ
寄タル
栴檀ノ
木ヲ拾
ヒ集メ
And now the final part of this tale:
Fig. 1: 霊鷲山ニ
入ムト為ル時ニ
霊鷲山ニはいらムトル時ニ、阿羅漢あらかん來て海ノほとリニ流レよせタル栴檀ノ木ヲ拾ヒ集メテ、大王ノ御身ヲ焼キ奉ル。
When [they] were about to arrive at at Vulture Peak (fig. 1), arhat came [to Śuddhodana]. [They] picked up and gathered chinaberry wood drifting along the side of the sea (fig. 2), and burned the Great King's body (fig. 3).
The only thing that tripped me up in fig. 1 was the verb 「入ム」. I'm guessing the meaning is the same as 「入る」, but I couldn't find any dictionary entries to prove this. So I just assumed that was the meaning, and got the reading from an unrelated entry, for 「見に入む」, where 「入」 was read as 「し」.

Edit: as Chris has mentioned in the comments, 「むとす」 is a phrase which has the same meaning as 「しようとする」 in modern Japanese (see entry 2 here). In this case, the interpretation "to be about to do X" is the more likely one. 「為る」 is 「す」 in the attributive form (連体形).

Fig. 3: 大
御身ヲ
焼キ奉ル
We previously encountered (fig. 1) the term 「阿羅漢果」, meaning "arhathood." Here we see the truncated term 「阿羅漢」, which means just "arhat."

In fig. 2, we see the verb 「寄タル」. This can be parsed as the verb 「寄す」 (with the okurigana folded into the furigana) in the realis form (已然形) followed by the auxiliary verb 「たり」 (indicating resultativeness) in the attributive form (連体形).

くうヲ響カス。
The emptiness reverberated (fig. 4).
Fig. 4: 空ヲ
響カス
The first kanji we see here, 「空」, has a Buddhism-specific interpretation. It refers to śūnyatā, which has many differing meanings related to emptiness. I don't know much about the topic, so I'm not sure of the exact religious significance of the sentence in fig. 4.
Fig. 5: 其ノ
ニ佛
无常ノ文
ヲ說給フ

其ノ時ニ佛、无常むじょうノ文ヲとき給フ。
At that moment, the Buddha preached the writings on transience (fig. 5).
The first thing to note here is the use of the word 「無常」 with an alternate kanji, 「无」.

The reading for the kanji 「說」 was just a guess, based on the verb 「説く」.

Edit: as Chris has suggested, the reading for the kanji 「說」 is most likely 「とき」, another case where the okurigana from 「説く」 has been folded into the furigana.

As with fig. 4, I'm not too sure of the religious significance of fig. 5.

焼キおわり奉リツレハ舎利ヲ拾ヒ集メテ、金ノ箱ニ入レテ塔ヲたつテ置キたてまつりケリトナム語リつたヘタルトヤ。
When [the body] had finished burning, the remaining bones were picked up and gathered (fig. 6), then placed in a golden box. A stūpa was constructed [there], or so the story is told (fig. 7).
First of all, note the verb 「畢る」, in fig. 6. Once again, the okurigana have been folded into furigana. It is followed by the phrase 「奉リツレバ」 (the dakuten on 「バ」 are omitted in the original manuscript). This can be broken down as the verb 「奉る」 in the continuative form (連用形), followed by 「ツレ」, which is the realis form of the auxiliary verb 「つ」, which makes the preceding verb perfective in this case. Finally, we have the conjunctive particle (接続助詞) 「バ」, which provides a temporal logical connection ("when") here.
Fig. 6: 焼キ
畢奉リツレ
ハ舎利ヲ拾
ヒ集メテ

Fig. 7: 金
ノ箱ニ入
レテ塔ヲ
立テ置キ
奉ケリト
ナム語り
傳ヘタル
トヤ
The term 「舎利」 also has a Buddhism-specific meaning, referring to the bones remaining after a body is cremated.

Moving on to fig. 7, there is the kanji 「塔」, which also takes on a Buddhism-specific meaning, this time stūpa, which is a type of burial mound that often contains the ashes of Buddhist monks. This kanji used by itself is an abbreviation of the terms 「卒塔婆」 and 「塔婆」.

A third instance of the okurigana being folded into the furigana is seen with 「奉ケリ」. The ending construct 「ケリトナム語リ傳ヘタルトヤ」 seems to be common to all stories in Konjaku, and likely in other works of this genre/time. 「ケリ」 indicates hearsay, while 「ナム」 emphasizes the preceding content. I translated it as "or so the story is told," but there are probably a lot of alternate translations, both more and less direct (in terms of meanings).

13 comments:

  1. Re: 入(し)ム
    Couldn't it as equally be はいらム or maybe even いらム?
    Did you make your choice of しas a reading because of the other entry you mentioned? Also what is your parsing for this?. Thanks again for very interesting post!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmm, I hadn't considered treating 「ム」 as an auxiliary verb. But what function would it have? 「ム」 can be used for speculation, intention, appropriateness, urging, circumlocution, and hypothetical, according to my 古文 grammar. None of those seem to fit particularly well here.

      Delete
    2. I feel that your reading is more likely but I am not sure why. It's true that ム doesn't make a whole lot of sense but if your reading and previous readings like it within the same source text are right, what is it? An irregular orthography or a slip or a scribal peculiarity?

      Delete
    3. ~むとす is "Try to do X" or "Be about to do X".

      I think the later 説給ふ is ときたまふ.

      Delete
    4. > ~むとす is "Try to do X" or "Be about to do X".

      Huh, I've never seen that pattern before, but it definitely makes sense here.

      > I think the later 説給ふ is ときたまふ.

      Haha, I should've caught that, seeing as the same thing happened in 3 other instances in this same post.

      Delete
    5. It's basically the same as modern ~ようとする; む leads to よう through sound changes.

      Koujien has an entry for むとす on its own, though.

      Delete
    6. BTW する is just the 連体形 of す (to modify 時), so it's exactly the same as むとす.

      Delete
    7. Oh, my bad, I was reading 「為る」 as 「なる」. It makes complete sense now.

      Delete
  2. I also have a feeling that 'When [they] arrived at Vulture Peak ' could read as when he/his body (ie Suddhodana) reached/went to Vulture Peak, and be a sort of euphemistic phrase meaning 'die' or shuffle the coil, which is then burnt according to the following procedure described after. This depends on how we read the first verb and what subject predicate we ascribe to it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've never heard of that usage for 入る before. Have you seen it used that way somewhere else? The reason I went for the former interpretation was because in the previous post, the Buddha and the Four Heavenly Kings were transporting the coffin to the graveyard on Vulture Peak. And a few posts before that, they did mention Śuddhodana actually dying.

      Delete
    2. No its just a feeling, other than that I have read somewhere that 'jumping off Vulture peak' is a Buddhist euphemism for killing onself. I think what lead me in that direction was your initial reading of しfor 入 and the linked source for that. Just musing aloud I guess!

      Delete
    3. There is a very interesting post on Vulture's Peak over at Flower Ornament Depository (http://huayanzang.blogspot.co.uk/) where reference is made to a section of te Lotus Sutra (CBETA, T09, no. 262, p. 43, b24-c5) which does seem to imply that the Holy mountain 'absorbs' the Buddha's non corporeal element in some way in order to be eternally present and emerge at will so it may not be too far fetched to suggest that there are shades of similar significance in the death ritual of Suddhodana.

      Delete
    4. I came across that blog a few days ago, it looks very interesting. Could provide some background info to make Konjaku easier to understand.

      Delete