Akira tells me that in the book called Jizo-kyo-Kosui, this legend
is related of the great statue of Jizo in this same ancient temple of
Ken-cho-ji.
Formerly there lived at Kamakura the wife of a Ronin [4] named Soga
Sadayoshi. She lived by feeding silkworms and gathering the silk. She
used often to visit the temple of Ken-cho-ji; and one very cold day
that she went there, she thought that the image of Jizo looked like one
suffering from cold; and she resolved to make a cap to keep the god's
head warm--such a cap as the people of the country wear in cold weather.
And she went home and made the cap and covered the god's head with it,
saying, 'Would I were rich enough to give thee a warm covering for all
thine august body; but, alas! I am poor, and even this which I offer
thee is unworthy of thy divine acceptance.'
Now this woman very suddenly died in the fiftieth year of her age, in
the twelfth month of the fifth year of the period called Chisho. But
her body remained warm for three days, so that her relatives would not
suffer her to be taken to the burning-ground. And on the evening of the
third day she came to life again.
Then she related that on the day of her death she had gone before the
judgment-seat of Emma, king and judge of the dead. And Emma, seeing her,
became wroth, and said to her: 'You have been a wicked woman, and have
scorned the teaching of the Buddha. All your life you have passed in
destroying the lives of silkworms by putting them into heated water. Now
you shall go to the Kwakkto-Jigoku, and there burn until your sins shall
be expiated.' Forthwith she was seized and dragged by demons to a great
pot filled with molten metal, and thrown into the pot, and she cried out
horribly. And suddenly Jizo-Sama descended into the molten metal beside
her, and the metal became like a flowing of oil and ceased to burn; and
Jizo put his arms about her and lifted her out. And he went with her
before King Emma, and asked that she should be pardoned for his sake,
forasmuch as she had become related to him by one act of goodness. So
she found pardon, and returned to the Shaba-world.
'Akira,' I ask, 'it cannot then be lawful, according to Buddhism, for
any one to wear silk?'
'Assuredly not,' replies Akira; 'and by the law of Buddha priests are
expressly forbidden to wear silk. Nevertheless,' he adds with that quiet
smile of his, in which I am beginning to discern suggestions of sarcasm,
'nearly all the priests wear silk.'