Twice ToldShiryō gedatsu monogatari kikigaki (1690): the opening, the register entry, the headman's regret, the closing note and the colophon
- Language
- Japanese
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 10 October 2026
Shiryō gedatsu monogatari kikigaki (死霊解脱物語聞書, “A record of what was heard about the freeing of a dead spirit”) is a Japanese woodblock-printed book in two volumes, printed in Genroku 3 (1690) in Edo by Yamagataya Kichibei. It is signed in catalogues by a compiler named Zanju (残寿). This copy is in the Kano Collection of the Tohoku University Library (call number 4/11444/2, 71 images, CC BY 4.0). The text is kana-majiri in a running hand with readings printed beside the characters. The five passages below are the opening, the line on Hōzōji’s register, the village headman’s regret, the compiler’s note on the stories already circulating, and the colophon.
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死霊解脱物語聞書上 累が最後之事 過にし寛文十二年の春。下総国岡田郡羽生村と云里に。与右衛門と聞ゆる濃民の一子。菊と申娘に。かさねといへる先母の死霊とりつき。因果の理を顕し。天下の人口におちて。万民の耳おどろかす事侍りし。
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女を川中へつきこみ。男もつゞゐてとび入。女の胸板をふまへ。口へは水底の砂をおし込。眼をつつき咽をしめ。忽ちせめころしてけり。すなはち死骸を川にてあらひ。同村の浄土宗法蔵寺といふ菩提所に負ひゆき。頓死とことはり土葬し畢ぬ。戒名は妙林信女。正保四年八月十一日と。慥に彼寺の過去帳に見へたり。
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そのうへ此霊付しよりこのかた。村中の者共親兄弟の悪事をかたられ。隣郷他郷の聞所證拠たゞしきはぢをさらす。しかれども今までは。死さりたるものゝ悪事なれば。子孫の面をよごす分にして。當時させる難義なし。此うへにまたいかなる悪事をかいゝ出し。生たるものゝ身のうへ。地頭代官へももれ聞え。一一詮義に及ぶならば。村中滅亡のもとひならんもいさしらず。せんなき事に懸り合。村中へも苦労をかけ。我等も難義を仕ると。くどきたてゝぞ後悔す。
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右此かさねが怨霊得脱の物語。世間に流布して人の口に在といへとも。前後次第意詞色〻に乱れ。其事慥かならす。爰に某。彼死霊の導師顕誉上人拝顔の砌。度々懇望仕。直の御咄を深く耳の底にとゞむといへとも。本より愚癡忘昧の身なれば。かく有難き現證不思議の事ともを。日を經んまゝあとなく廃忘せんほいなさに。詞のつたなきをかへりみず書記し置者也。猶此外にも累と村中との問答には聞落したる事あるべきか。
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[preceding lines not transcribed] 直の御物語を再三聴聞仕り。其外羽生村の者共の咄しをも粗聞合せ書記す者ならし。 元禄三年午十[一?]月廿三日 本石町三丁目山形屋吉兵衛開板
Translation
1. Opening (image 2, left page). Heading: “A record of what was heard about the freeing of a dead spirit, first volume”; chapter heading: “The death of Kasane”. Text: In the spring of Kanbun 12, in a village called Hanyū in Okada district, Shimōsa, the dead spirit of a woman called Kasane, the girl’s father’s earlier wife (the book’s word is 先母, “former mother”), took hold of a girl named Kiku, the one child of a farmer named Yoemon. It showed the working of cause and effect, was on everyone’s lips throughout the land, and astonished everyone who heard of it.
2. The register entry (image 3, left page). He thrust her into the river. The man jumped in after her, trod on her chest, forced sand from the river bed into her mouth, jabbed at her eyes and strangled her, tormenting her to death on the spot. He washed the body in the river and carried it on his back to the family temple of the same village, the Pure Land temple Hōzōji, and, explaining that she had died suddenly, had her buried. Her posthumous name was Myōrin shinnyo. It can be seen without doubt, the book says, in that temple’s register of the dead, as “Shōhō 4, the eleventh day of the eighth month”.
3. The headman’s regret (image 38, right page, last lines, into the left page). And since this spirit attached itself, the village’s people have had the wrongdoing of their parents and siblings told aloud, and the shame is made plain, with proof, to the neighbouring villages near and far. Until now it was the wrongdoing of the dead, which only soils their descendants’ faces, and there has been no real trouble. But what if it goes on to say what wrongs the living have done, and word reaches the local lord and the local administrator, and every case is looked into? That might be the root of the whole village’s ruin, who can tell. We have got ourselves into a pointless affair, we have brought trouble on the village, and we are in difficulty ourselves, he said, going on and on, and regretted it.
4. The compiler’s note (image 51, left page, last three lines, and image 52, right page). The story of this release of Kasane’s vengeful spirit is going about and is on people’s lips, but its order, meaning and wording have become confused in many ways, and the facts are not sure. So I, when I had the honour of meeting the Venerable Kenyo, the guide of that spirit, earnestly begged him again and again, and have kept his own telling deep in my ears. But I am a foolish and forgetful man, and I could not bear to see such blessed and wondrous events, which provide manifest proof, forgotten without a trace as the days go by, so I wrote them down, careless of my poor words. There may well be parts of the exchange between Kasane and the village that I missed.
5. Colophon (image 70, right page). I listened to his own account several times, and roughly asked around among the people of Hanyū about it, and wrote it down. Genroku 3, year of the horse, [eleventh?] month, twenty-third day. Printed by Yamagataya Kichibei, Hongoku-chō 3-chōme.
Notes
The characters are given in modern forms where the print uses variants (靈, 國 and the like are given in modern form; 濃民 is kept as printed). Punctuation is the print’s own small circles, here given as full stops. The readings beside the characters are not transcribed. Uncertain: the 十 and 一 of the month in passage 5 run together in the print, so the month is probably the eleventh; the first words of passage 1 (“過にし”) and the closing “か” of 侍りし are not certain; passage 5 omits the lines before the last long line.
“Kenyo” (顕誉) is the name Yūten (祐天) bears in the closing note. 先母, literally “former mother”, is the wife of Kiku’s father before her own mother. Yoemon is both Kasane’s husband and Kiku’s father; in the section about the boy Sukē the book calls Kasane’s own father “the earlier Yoemon”.
The note in passage 4 is the compiler’s own statement of method. It says that tellings of the story were already circulating and were unreliable, and that his version rests on what Yūten told him and on what he heard at Hanyū. It does not say when he heard it, and it does not name him. Catalogues give the compiler’s name as Zanju; the Tohoku record gives the author as unknown, and we did not find the name in the leaves we read.
The register line is the book’s own claim about Hōzōji’s records. We have not seen the register.