I'm positing the ayakashi as victim to take the natural progression one step further, but I wouldn't say the series necessarily designates anyone as the 'only' victim... just that the one in the group that would (per western standards) be the 'bad guy' also receives compassion.
Most of what I've been reading through hasn't been popular folklore like what became basis for plays or stories, but instead Buddhist traditions. Time and again, the Buddha, or KwanYin, or Fugo, or any of the rest are shown having compassion for an attacking demon and by that force, calming it, if not enlightening it at the same time. A number of the Japanese boddhisattvas have their origins in demon-hood (when they're not imported Shinto gods, at that).
Even Fugo (or Fudo? can't recall right this moment) who brandishes a knife and is said to quell demons by slicing them free of the negative emotions that have trapped them. I can't ever find any folklore that carries the story on enough to say what happens to the demon, then, not counting those stories where the demon instantly attains enlightenment -- and even then, either it's left at that, or the demon-boddhisattva is promptly hired to act as guard for a temple or a particular boddhisattva. So either they're incorporated into buddhism, or, uh, forgotten.
The folklore ranges all over the place, and I wonder how much of the demon = external = evil is also impacted by the introduction of Jesuits starting in the 1600s. Christianity has done its usual butchering on native traditions (though the brunt of that was in the Meiji period onward), and given what I know of other countries in the wake of Xtian influence, I wonder how much of the current/long-standing folklore is twisted around by force.
Plus, I also wonder how much of interpretations are colored by the fact that a helluva lot of the first wave of translators/collectors were non-Japanese xtians who (invariably, I would expect, having seen it done for so many other cultures) laid their own expectations on top of things. How much does that come back around to the interpreted culture, as a "this is who you are, now"?
Overall, though, it's why I think this series is a distinctly and thoroughly Buddhist set of stories. Whether or not it's necessarily true to popular Japanese folklore, well, I dunno. But over and over in watching the stories and picking up on the symbolism, it's got Buddhism (and especially compassion) written all over it.
But I'll go through that in another post and you can help me pick at every little detail, see if we can't get this sucker beaten down into something comprehensible. Hyah.
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Date: 26 Nov 2008 10:49 pm (UTC)Most of what I've been reading through hasn't been popular folklore like what became basis for plays or stories, but instead Buddhist traditions. Time and again, the Buddha, or KwanYin, or Fugo, or any of the rest are shown having compassion for an attacking demon and by that force, calming it, if not enlightening it at the same time. A number of the Japanese boddhisattvas have their origins in demon-hood (when they're not imported Shinto gods, at that).
Even Fugo (or Fudo? can't recall right this moment) who brandishes a knife and is said to quell demons by slicing them free of the negative emotions that have trapped them. I can't ever find any folklore that carries the story on enough to say what happens to the demon, then, not counting those stories where the demon instantly attains enlightenment -- and even then, either it's left at that, or the demon-boddhisattva is promptly hired to act as guard for a temple or a particular boddhisattva. So either they're incorporated into buddhism, or, uh, forgotten.
The folklore ranges all over the place, and I wonder how much of the demon = external = evil is also impacted by the introduction of Jesuits starting in the 1600s. Christianity has done its usual butchering on native traditions (though the brunt of that was in the Meiji period onward), and given what I know of other countries in the wake of Xtian influence, I wonder how much of the current/long-standing folklore is twisted around by force.
Plus, I also wonder how much of interpretations are colored by the fact that a helluva lot of the first wave of translators/collectors were non-Japanese xtians who (invariably, I would expect, having seen it done for so many other cultures) laid their own expectations on top of things. How much does that come back around to the interpreted culture, as a "this is who you are, now"?
Overall, though, it's why I think this series is a distinctly and thoroughly Buddhist set of stories. Whether or not it's necessarily true to popular Japanese folklore, well, I dunno. But over and over in watching the stories and picking up on the symbolism, it's got Buddhism (and especially compassion) written all over it.
But I'll go through that in another post and you can help me pick at every little detail, see if we can't get this sucker beaten down into something comprehensible. Hyah.