Episode 5: Setsuwa and Medieval Japanese Buddhism

Check out Episode 5 of the Read Japanese Literature podcast.

Enjoy the story of a vengeful would-be lover who turns into a 40-foot snake, a sharp-witted woman with criticisms of her husband’s equipment, and a curmudgeonly Buddhist priest who learns to love poetry. In this episode, we’re talking about setsuwa—medieval Japanese anecdotes. Many of them originate as Buddhist preaching, so we’ll also take a look at “Kamakura Buddhisms”: Pure Land, Zen, and Nichiren.

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Shirane, Haruo, ed. Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600. Columbia, 2008.

Tales of Times Now Past, translated by Marian Ury, U of Michigan, 1992.

• Also available for free via JSTOR open access

Find Out More

“Smartening Up” by Aoko Matsuda

• A modern reimagining of the tale of the snake-woman Kiyohime and the monk Anchin. (Read the whole collection, Where the Wild Ladies Are.)

History of Japan Podcast, hosted by Isaac Meyer

Linfamy’s Japanese History and Folktales YouTube Channel

“Literature” at Japanese Wiki Corpus

Understanding Japan: A Cultural History by Professor Mark J. Ravina. Produced by The Great Courses, 2015.

• Pure Land Buddhism and Zen Buddhism

Japanese Literature at Facebook

Selected Sources

Childs, Margaret H. “Kyōgen-Kigo: Love Stories as Buddhist Sermons” in Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (1985).

Dykstra, Yoshiko K. “Miraculous Tales of the Lotus Sutra: The Dainihonkoku Hokkegenki” in Monumenta Nipponica (1977).

De Bary, Theodore, et. al, eds. Sources of Japanese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600, Columbia, 1964.

Marcus, Marvin. Japanese Literature from Murasaki to Murakami. Association for Asian Studies, 2015.

Shirane, Haruo, ed. Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600. Columbia, 2008.