'''The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter''' (Japanese: 竹取物語; '''Taketori Monogatari''') is a
10th century Japanese folktale, also known as '''The Tale of Princess Kaguya''' (かぐや姫の物語, ''Kaguya-hime no Monogatari''). It is considered the oldest Japanese narrative.
[1]
It primarily details the life of a mysterious girl called ''Kaguya-hime'' who was discovered as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing
bamboo plant. She is said to be from Tsuki-no Miyako (月都, "The Capital of the Moon") and has unusual hair that "shines like gold".
Narrative
One day while walking in the bamboo forest, an old, childless bamboo cutter called Taketori-no Okina (竹取翁, "the Old Man who Harvests Bamboo"), comes across a mysterious, shining stalk of bamboo. Cutting it open, inside he finds a baby, the size of his thumb. Rejoicing to find such a beautiful girl, he takes her home and he and his wife raise her as their own child, naming her Kaguya-hime (かぐや姫, Princess Kaguya, ''"radiant night princess"''). Thereafter, Taketori-no Okina found that whenever he cut down a stalk of bamboo, inside he found a small nugget of
gold. Soon, he was rich, and Kaguya-hime grew from a small baby into a woman of usual size and extraordinary beauty. At first, Taketori-no Okina tries to sequester her from outsiders, but over time, the news of her beauty spreads.
Eventually, five princes come to Taketori-no Okina's residence to ask for Kaguya-hime's hand in marriage. The princes eventually persuade Taketori-no Okina to tell a reluctant Kaguya-hime to choose from one of the five princes. To this, Kaguya-hime concocts impossible tasks for the princes to accomplish. She will agree to marry the prince who manages to bring her a specified item.
That night, Taketori-no Okina tells the five princes what each of them must bring. The first is told to bring her the holy basin of the
Buddha. The second is told to retrieve a legendary azalea made of silver and gold. The third is told to seek the legendary robe of the fire-rat of China. The fourth must retrieve a colored jewel from a
dragon's neck. The final prince is told to find the seashell treasure of the swallows.
Realising that it was an impossible task, the first prince returns with an expensive bowl, but noticing that the bowl does not glow with
holy light, Kaguya-hime sees through his deception. Two other princes likewise attempt to deceive her with fakes but also fail. The fourth gives up after encountering a storm, while the final prince loses his life in his attempt to retrieve the object.
After this, the Emperor of Japan, called
Tennō in Japanese, comes to see the strangely beautiful Kaguya-hime and upon falling in
love asks her to marry him. Although he is not subjected to the impossible trials that thwarted the princes, Kaguya-hime rejects his requests for marriage as well, telling him that she was not of this country and thus could not go to the palace with him. She stays in contact with the Emperor but continues to rebuff his requests.
That summer, whenever Kaguya-hime would see the full
moon her eyes filled with tears. Though her adopted parents worry greatly and question her, she is unable to tell them what was wrong. Her behavior becomes increasingly erratic until she reveals that she is not of this world and must return to her people on the moon. In some versions of this tale, it is said that she was sent to the earth as a temporary
punishment for some crime, while others say it is because she was sent to earth for safety during a celestial war.
As the day for her to return approaches, the Emperor sets many guards around her house to protect her from the moon people, but when an embassy of "Heavenly Beings" arrives at the door of the Bamboo Harvester's house, the many guards are blinded by the strange light. Kaguya-hime announces that though she loves her many friends on earth, she must return with the moon people to her true home. She write sad notes of apology to her parents and to the Emperor, then gives her parents her own robe as a memento. She then takes a small taste of the
elixir of life, attached it to her letter to the Emperor, and gives it to a guard officer. As she hands it to him, the feather robe is placed on her shoulders, and all of her sadness and compassion for the people of the Earth are forgotten. The heavenly entourage takes Kaguya-hime back to Tsuki-no Miyako (''the capital of the moon'') against her will, leaving her earthly foster parents in tears.
The parents become very sad and were soon put to bed sick. The guard officer returns to the Emperor with the items Kaguya-hime had given him as her last mortal act, and reported what had happened. The Emperor reads her letter and is overcome with sadness. He asks his servants "Which mountain is the closest place to heaven?", to which one replies that the Great Mountain of
Suruga Province is the closest place to heaven. The Emperor orders his men to take the letter to the summit of the mountain and burn it, with the hope that his message would reach the now distant princess. The men are also commanded to burn the pot of elixir of immortality since the Emperor did not desire to live forever without being able to see her. The legend has it that the word became the name of the mountain,
Mount Fuji. It is also said that the
kanji for the mountain, 富士山 (literally "Mountain Abounding with Warriors") is derived from the Emperor's army ascending the slopes of the mountain to carry out his order. It is said that the smoke from the burning still rises to this day. (In the past, Mount Fuji was much more volcanically active than today.)
Literary connections
The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is nearly identical in form to a
Tibetan tale of a similar name, and some researchers believe that the Japanese legend may have been drawn from the Tibetan one, perhaps through ancient contacts with China. The part of the legend that relates to the name of Mt. Fuji is unique to the Japanese version. However, this Tibetan tale appears only in a collection of Tibetan stories published in 1950s and similar stories are nonexistent in regions between Japan and Tibet. Thus, some researchers believe that Japanese explorers venturing into Tibet introduced the Japanese tale where it became a classic.
There have also been suggestions that it is related to the tale of
Swan Lake. This probably is due to Princess Kaguya-hime wearing the ''hagoromo'' 羽衣 "feather robe" when she ascends to her homeland. But the feather robe figures more famously in a group of tales known as the ''hagoromo densetsu'' (in one example recorded in the ''Ohmi-no-kuni Fudo ki'' tells of a man who instructs his dog to steal the feather garments of eight heavenly maidens while they were bathing, forcing one of them to become his bride). And the latter is remarkably similar to the tale of how Völundr the Smith and his brothers wedded the swan-maidens.
In popular culture
Movies
★ In
1987, ''Taketori Monogatari'' (international English title: ''Princess from the Moon'') by
Kon Ichikawa was released. It stars
Yasuko Sawaguchi,
Toshiro Mifune,
Ayako Wakao and
Megumi Odaka, in her first role. The song "Stay with me" is by
Peter Cetera.
★
Big Bird attends a play of schoolchildren performing the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter in the TV movie ''
Big Bird in Japan''. The woman who helps Big Bird throughout the movie is named Kaguya-hime, and a connection is implied.
Anime and manga
★ The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is used as a base for the plot in the second
InuYasha movie ''The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass''. However in the movie it is said that the film's Kaguya-hime is not the real celestial being but a demon that has likely devoured the true Kaguya and so has gained her power. She was later sealed by a spell to the moon for destroying men. The only way to free her was to collect the five items that was told in the story. The items each represent wood (the Jeweled Sprig), earth (the Stone Bowl of the Buddha), fire (Cloth of the Fire Rat), metal (Crystal from the Dragon's neck), and water (Swallow's Cowrie Shell). The five elements, collectively represented as the
pentagram, make recurring appearances.
★ In
Naruto one of the sound 5 is Kimimaro Kaguya.
★ The full title of the
Leiji Matsumoto series and movie "Queen Millennia" is "Shin Taketori Monogatari: 1000 (Sen) nen Jo ou", which translates to "New Tale of the Bamboo Cutter: 1000-year Queen"
★ The
manga ''
Kaguyahime'' by
Reiko Shizumi is based on the Kaguya-hime story.
★ ''
Planet Ladder'' by
Yuri Narushima has a similar story centered around a girl named Kaguya who discovers that she is a long-lost princess destined to save one of nine worlds.
★ In the ''
Sailor Moon'' S movie ''
Hearts in Ice'', a scientist and astronomer named Kakeru, who comes into contact with
Luna, tells Luna that he has had dreams about a Princess Kaguya existing on the Moon since he was a child. As the senshi battle the main evil forces of the movie, a very weak Kakeru - who actually possesses the crystal that the villain left on Earth in order to cast the planet into an icy sleep - goes out with thoughts of the princess, and his girlfriend Himeko, but collapses in the snow, and Luna finds him. Having fallen in love with him, Luna had told
Usagi that she wanted to transform into a human and pretend to be Princess Kaguya so Kakeru could confirm his belief that a Moon princess existed. As Usagi saves the world with the power of the
Silver Crystal, she also uses her powers to allow Luna to become a human for one night in order to do this. Luna transforms, tells Kakeru that she is the princess, and takes him into space, showing him the moon. He then sees that she is actually Luna, though. Meanwhile Himeko, who works as an astronaut, who is currently in space, sees them whirl by and realizes that there must be a Princess Kaguya, having once been completely skeptical (which almost destroyed her and Kakeru's relationship). Upon returning to Earth, Himeko tells reporters that while in space, she saw Princess Kaguya on the Moon.
[2]
In ''Sailor Moon'' number eleven of the manga the story has the same references to Princess Kaguya.
[3]
★ In
Gundam Seed and
Gundam Seed Destiny the
Orb Union massdriver is called Kaguya which it names comes from Kaguya-hime and the story how she is from the moon.
★ The
Tsukihime anime and
Visual novel are based (very loosely) off of this story.
★ In an episode of ''
Yakitate!! Japan'', the story was referenced and Tsukino was depicted as the real Kaguya and Yukino as a fake Kaguya. However, it was also mixed in with a
Gundam reference.
★ In the second season of the anime series ''
Yaiba'', Princess Kaguya invades the
Earth along with an army of moon rabbits. Though, in this version, Kaguya is more of a
gaki, or 'Hungry Ghost' - She hungers for the youth of young beautiful women, draining them into crones. All of her minions are actually
anthropomorphic rabbits, while she herself dresses like a
Playboy Bunny, complete with fake rabbit ears and tail.
★ In episode 8 of the
anime and volume 2 of the
manga ''
Pita-Ten'', the characters put on a play of Princess Kaguya's story.
★ In eps. 76 of
Keroro Gunsou, when Keroro and his plantoon go off to the moon, they meet Kaguya-hime as an alien, where she has been looking for 5 minerals, like the items she sought in the folktale, to repair her spaceship.
Games
★ The story of the
Japanese
doujin game ''
Imperishable Night'' is heavily based on this story. The final boss is Kaguya herself.
★ In the
Sega CD and
PlayStation game '', there is a very similar story involving one of the main characters, Lucia, but with Earth and the Moon switched. Lucia comes to the "Silver Star" (the world of Lunar, which is
the moon) while her home is experiencing a great ice storm. The main character finds her in a great blue spire, which is the "tallest tower in the world", akin to both
Mt. Fuji in size, and a
bamboo stalk in shape. At the end of the game, Lucia returns to
Earth (called the "Blue Star" in the game), leaving the main protagonist heartbroken, akin to the Emperor in the original tale.
★ In ''
Wild Arms 3'', the guardian called Celesdue is based after Kaguya who is complete with a moon themed attack.
★ The
Nintendo game ''
Shin Oni Ga Shima'' is a combined telling of Princess Kaguya (called Hikari) and
Momotarou (called Donbe). Along with Matsunosuke the
monkey, Ohana the
pheasant, and Ringo the
dog the pair travels to the
Oni Island and fights for the lives of their village.
★ OF-5 Kaguya from ''
R-Type Final'' is named after Princess Kaguya. The OF-5's description in the game itself suggests that it was named for her because the shots of the Green Pod (which only the OF-5 can use) look like bamboo. It stresses, however, that this is merely speculation.
★ In the
PlayStation 2 game ''
Ōkami'', the player must rescue a girl named Kaguya, who is the Old Bamboo Cutter's granddaughter. After rescuing her, she returns to the spaceship (referred in the game as a huge metal bamboo stalk) the Old Bamboo Cutter found her in and flies away. In a sort of visual joke, Kaguya is depicted as wearing a glass dome over her head attached to a bamboo stalk that encompasses her upper body; it is meant to look like a cross between a bamboo stalk and a modern-day astronaut's suit. To further the ironic juxtaposition, under the bamboo stalk/helmet she wears a simple cloth
kimono.
Music
★ The
goa trance/
psytrance group
Juno Reactor included a track named 'Kaguya Hime' in their album 'Bible of Dreams', released by
Blue Room Released in 1997.
★ In 2006, Japanese musician
Namie Amuro released a video for the song "Ningyo" based on the Kaguya-hime legend.
Others
★ In the live-action TV series ''
Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon'', a little girl named Erika wants to ''be'' the moon princess. She believes that her deceased
mother is on the
Moon.
★ The 1999 and 2004-05
Seramyu (Sailor Moon musicals) contain references to the Kaguya-hime legend.
★ The
tokusatsu series
Gougou Sentai Boukenger has an episode based around this tale (Task 13: The Treasures of Princess Kaguya).
★ The
webcomic "
Get Medieval" has as a subplot a story bearing some similarities to the Kaguya-hime folktale, wherein a young alien seismologist crash-lands in medieval Japan, and the residents of the nearby village conclude that she must be Kaguya-hime.
★ Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency renames the SELenological and ENgineering Explorer (
SELENE) probe KAGUYA.
References
★
Donald Keene (translator), ''The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter'', ISBN 4-7700-2329-4
★ ''Japan at a Glance'' Updated, ISBN 4-7700-2841-5, pages 164—165 (brief abstract)
★ Fumiko Enchi, "Kaguya-hime", ISBN 4-265-03282-6 (in Japanese
hiragana)
★
''Taketori monogatari'', Japanese Text Initiative, Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
★
Kaguya-hime subplot from "
Get Medieval" webcomic.
See also
★
Thumbelina - another folktale involving a tiny girl found in vegetation
★
Kaguya, the mouse born by quasi-
parthenogenesis, and the asteroid
7991 Kaguyahime are among the many things named after the Princess Kaguya in the tale.
★
Kaguyahime (disambiguation)
External links
★
a picture book at Ryukoku University exhibition
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