Once upon a time, during the reign of Emperor Shōmu, there stood a clay statue of Kichijōten at Chinokami-dera in Izumi District, Izumi Province (present-day Izumi City, Osaka Prefecture). Around that time, a lay ascetic from Shinano Province (present-day Nagano Prefecture) happened to come to that region.
Makio-san Shippō-ji, a temple believed to be the former Chinokami-dera.
The ascetic entered the mountain temple and saw the statue of Kichijōten. Instantly, he became filled with desire for her. His thoughts remained fixed on the image; day and night he longed for her and prayed:
“Please grant me a woman as beautiful as this heavenly maiden.”
One night, he had a dream. In it, he went to the mountain temple and united with the goddess statue. When he awoke, he found the dream strange and went to the temple. Looking at the statue, he saw that the waist of its skirt-like garment was stained with semen.
Seeing this, the ascetic was overcome with remorse and wept bitterly.
“I conceived lustful thoughts toward the goddess statue and prayed, ‘Please grant me a woman like this heavenly maiden.’ Out of her boundless compassion, the goddess herself used her own body to unite with me. How awe-inspiring and fearsome this is!”
Ashamed of what had happened, he never spoke of it to anyone. However, one of his disciples secretly learned of the incident.
Some time later, that disciple behaved disrespectfully toward his master and was expelled. After reaching another village, he slandered his former teacher and told the story. The villagers heard the tale and went to question the ascetic about whether it was true. When they asked about the defilement found on the goddess statue, he could no longer conceal the matter and recounted everything in detail.
Everyone who heard the story regarded it as a most extraordinary event.
Surely the goddess responded because the ascetic had prayed with genuine intensity and complete sincerity. It is indeed a mysterious matter.
Therefore, even if a person is strongly lustful and becomes enamored of a woman upon seeing her, one should not dwell upon such desires with excessive intensity. This is said to be of no benefit at all.
Standing Statue of Kichijōten at Jōruri-ji.
[Translation]
Shinichi Kusano / Siro Inuzuka
This text was created by using chatGPT and Gemini to translate a modern Japanese translation into English, and then making some modifications. There may be errors in the English expressions. Please correct any mistakes.
●Japanese
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