Botan Doro (牡丹どろう) is a Japanese ghost story that is both romantic and horrific, involving sex with the dead and the consequences of loving a ghost. Mostly commonly translated as Tales of the Peony Lantern, it is one of the most famous kaidan in Japan.
History
Botan Doro entered the Japanese psyche in the 1600s, through a translation of a book of Chinese ghost stories called Jian Deng Xin Hua (New Tales Under the Lamplight). The collection was didactic in nature, containing Buddhist moral lessons on karma.
Author Asai Ryoi, responding to the Edo period craze for kaidan spawned largely by the popular game Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, adapted the more spectacular tales from Jian Deng Xin Hua into his own book Otogi Boko (Hand Puppets). At the time, Japan was a closed society, and very little was known outside of its own borders, including its closest neighbor China, which was viewed as a mysterious and exotic nation. Asai removed the Buddhist moral lessons and gave the stories a Japanese setting, placing Botan Doro in the Nezu district of Tokyo.
Otogi Boko was immensely popular, spawning imitative works such as Zoku Otogi Boko (Hand Puppets Continued) and Shin Otogi Boko (New Hand Puppets), and is considered the forerunner of the literary kaidan movement that resulted in the classic Ugetsu Monogatari.
In 1884, Botan Doro was adapted by famous storyteller Encho Sanyutei into a rakugo, which increased the popularity of the tale. In order to achieve a greater length, the story was fleshed out considerably, adding background information on several characters as well as additional subplots.
From the rakugo, a kabuki play and a noh play were written. Lafcadio Hearn, with the help of a friend, translated Botan Doro into English in 1899 for his book In Ghostly Japan. He titled his adaptation A Passional Karma, and based it on the kabuki version of the story.
Story
Otogi Boko version
On the first night of Obon, a beautiful woman and a young girl holding a peony lantern stroll by the house of the widowed samurai Ogiwara Shinnojo. Ogiwara is instantly smitten with the woman, named Otsuyu, and vows an eternal relationship. From that night onward, the woman and the girl visit at dusk, always leaving before dawn. An elderly neighbor, suspicious of the girl, peeks into his home and finds Ogiwara in bed with a skeleton. Consulting a Buddhist priest, Ogiwara finds that he is in danger unless he can resist the woman. Placing a protection charm on his house, the woman is unable to enter his house, but calls him from outside. Finally, unable to resist, Ogiwara goes out to greet her, and is lead back to her house, a grave in a temple. In the morning, Ogiwara’s dead body is found entwined with the woman’s skeleton.
Rakugo version
Influences
Botan Doro establishes the theme “sexual encounter with a woman’s ghost,” which would be encountered in numerous Japanese ghost stories to follow.
See also
External Links
References
- Addiss, Steven, Japanese Ghosts and Demons, USA, George Braziller, Inc., 1986, ISBN 0807611263
- Ross, Catrien, Supernatural and Mysterious Japan, Tokyo, Japan, Tuttle Publishing, 1996, ISBN 4900737372
- "A Passional Karma". Hearn's In Ghostly Japan. Retrieved July 6.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=(help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|work=(help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - "The Peony Lantern". Willamette University. Retrieved July 8.
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