166 



park with some servants in order to sprinkle water on the 

 stones near the pond (this was, of course, a kind of sympathetic 

 magic) and to cry with loud voices the following words: "Give 

 rain, o Sea-dragon-king" '. This was the custom in the author's 

 time, but not before that age. When this ceremony had no 

 success within seven days, other Court-oflBcials took their place. 

 When their work was crowned with success, i.e. when it rained, 

 they reported this to the Emperor and obtained food and clothes 

 as a reward, whereupon they danced in the court-yard or at the 

 entrance of the Palace. As to other rites, the Kimpisho mentions 

 the praying for rain at the Imperial tombs ^, and the reading 

 of sutras in the Taikyokuden, a building of the Palace ^ or in 

 the seven great Buddhist temples of Nara (Todaiji, Kofukuji, 

 Genkoji, Daianji, Yakushiji, Seidaiji and Horyuji), or in the 

 different Shinto temples. In the Buddhist shrines the Seiukyo, 

 i. e. the Mahamegha suira ^, in the Shinto sanctuaries the Kongo- 

 hannya-kyo, i. e. the Vajra-prajnaparamita ^sutra ^, were recited. 

 Sometimes, for instance in the Owa era (961 — 963), the Great 

 Bear was worshipped in the Sacred Spring Park, in order to 

 obtain rain. 



An interesting legend is told about the Dragon of the Sacred 

 Spring Park in the Taiheiki ". Although it has nothing to do 

 with rain, we may mention this tale here in connection with 

 the other stories concerning the same dragon. It runs as follows. — 

 In 1335 the Emperor Godaigo was invited by the Dainagon 

 Saionji Kimmune, one of the Pujiwara, to come to his house in 

 order to see a new bathroom. This invitation was given with 

 the intention to kill His Majesty, who would have stepped upon 

 a loose board of the floor and dropped down upon a row of 

 swords, put upright with the points upwards. Fortunately the 

 Emperor was saved by the dragon of the pond in the park, who 

 in the night before he intended to go to the fatal house appeared 

 to him in a dream in the shape of a woman, clad in a red 

 hakama and light-coloured garments. - She said to him: "Before 

 you are tigers and wolves, behind you brown and spotted bears. 

 Do not go to-morrow". At his question as to who she was, she 

 answered that she had lived for many years in the Sacred Spring 

 Park. Then she went away. When the Emperor awoke, he 



1 Apparently the legend concerning the Anavatapta pond was forgotten, otherwise 

 they would not have called him a sea-dragon. 



2 Cf. above, p. 158 sq. 3 Cf. above, ibidem. 



4 Cf. above, ibidem, and p. 162. 5 Cf. above, p. 34 (Nanjo, nrs 10 — 12). 



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