198 



reason why the dragon was reborn as Antoku Tenn5. The retired 



Emperor Go-Shirakawa, thus we read there, sought in vain the 



Kusanagi sword \ one of the three treasures of the Imperial 



family, which Susanowo no Mikoto had found in the tail of the 



eight-headed serpent Tamato no orochi/ After having prayed for 



seven days in the temple of Kamo, he received a divine revelation 



in a dream, to the effect that the sword was to be found at 



the bottom of the sea at Dan-no-ura, and that two female divers 



of that place, Oimatsu and Wakamatsu, a mother and her 



daughter, were to be ordered to seek it. In consequence of this 



dream Yoshitsune was despatched to Dan-no-ura, and the two 



women were told to dive for the sword. They obeyed and 



remained under water for a whole day (!) Then they returned 



to the surface, and the mother said that down there was a very 



strange place, which she could not enter without Buddha's powerful 



assistance ; therefore she wanted the Nyoho^kyo ^, a stitra, to be 



copied and wound around her body. Immediately a large number 



of venerable priests assembled and copied the sutra; the woman 



wound this round her body and dived again. This time it lasted 



no less than one day and one night before she came up, without 



the sword. Yoshitsune asked her what she had seen, but she 



answered that she could tell only the Emperor himself. So he 



took her to Kyoto, where she reported the following to the 



Emperor. She had entered the gate of a magnificent building, 



apparently the Dragon-king's palace, and when she had told that 



she came as a messenger from the Emperor of Japan, to ask for 



the precious sword, two women led her into the garden, to an 



old pine tree, where from under a half-raised blind (sudare) she 



could look into a room. There she saw a big serpent, twenty 



shaku long, with a sword in its mouth and a child of seven or 



eight years within its coils. The monster's eyes were large and 



glittered like the sun and the moon, and its red tongue incessantly 



moved up and down. The serpent said to the woman: "Tell the 



Emperor, that this sword does not belong to Japan, but to the 



Dragon -palace. My second son ^ driven out of my palace on 



account of some evil deed, changed into the eight-headed serpent 



of the head-waters of the River Hi in Izumo (the Yamato no 



orochi), and was killed by Susanowo, who took the sword out of 



the snake's tail and gave it to Amaterasu. Under the reign of 



the Emperor Keiko (71^ — 130 A. D.), when Prince Yamatd-dake 



1 Kusanagi no tsUrugi, ^ ^ ^^' ^ ^H ^ ^ • 



3 In the other versions of the legend it was his daughter. 



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