Jinenkoji

自然居士 Jinen the Lay Monk

1 Source and/or Related Material

Based on the rumor about the lay monk Jine-koji

2 Author

Kannami

3 Repertoire

Kanze, Hōshō, Komparu, Kongō, Kita

4 Synopsis

A man (ai) who lives near the Unkoji Temple in Higashiyama, Kyoto, announces that today is the final day of a seven-day series of sermons by Jinen the lay priest (koji). A large audience gathers, and Jinen is about to preach when a child (kokata—a girl in the Kanze and Hōshō, a boy in the others) appears and offers Koji a robe and the text of a prayer for consoling spirits, asking him to pray for her/his deceased parents. Suddenly, slave traders from the East (waki, wakitsure) arrive at the temple, searching for the child, whom they recently bought. They take the child away, and the local man informs Koji that the child sold herself into slavery to buy the robe she brought as an offering for her parents. Koji stops his sermon and chases after the slavers, robe in hand. Koji stops their ferry as it is about cast off onto Lake Biwa, urging them to return the child in exchange for the robe. One of the slavers begins beating the child with an oar, so Koji pulls her away and declares that he is taking her to safety, arguing passionately for her freedom. Overwhelmed, the slavers ask Koji to do some of his street preacher tricks for them, and in exchange they will let the child go. Koji performs all the arts he knows, including a kuse dance on the theme of boats, the double-sided kakko drum, and a rattle called the sasara. In this way he saves the child, and they return to the city together.