蜘蛛の糸 English

I

One day, something came to pass.

The Venerable Buddha was strolling alone along the edge of the lotus pond in Paradise.

The lotus blossoms blooming in the pond were all pure white as pearls, and from the golden stamens at their centers, an indescribably sweet fragrance drifted ceaselessly into the surrounding air.

It must have been morning in Paradise.

After a time, the Venerable Buddha paused at the edge of the pond and, peering between the lotus leaves that covered the surface of the water, happened to glance down at what lay below.

Since the bottom of this lotus pond in Paradise lies directly above the very floor of Hell, one can see through the crystal-clear water — just as if looking through a magnifying glass — the landscape of the Sanzu River and the Mountain of Needles, perfectly distinct.

There at the bottom of Hell, a man called Kandata, writhing together with the other sinners, caught His eye.

This man Kandata was a great thief who had committed all manner of evil deeds — killing people, setting fire to houses — yet there was one good deed he could remember having done.

Which is to say: one time, as this man was passing through a deep forest, he noticed a small spider crawling along the roadside.

Kandata promptly raised his foot to crush it to death, but then suddenly thought: "No, no — small as it is, this too must be a living creature. To take its life so recklessly — that would be pitiable, no matter what."

With that sudden change of heart, he ended up sparing the spider's life rather than killing it.

As the Venerable Buddha gazed upon the state of Hell, He recalled that Kandata had once spared a spider.

And He thought that, as a reward for that one good deed, He would, if possible, save this man from Hell.

Fortunately, glancing to the side, He saw on a lotus leaf the color of jade a spider from Paradise, spinning a beautiful silver thread.

The Venerable Buddha gently took that spider's thread in His hand and let it down straight through the pearl-white lotus blossoms, all the way to the floor of Hell far below.

II

Now we come to Kandata, who was floating and sinking in the pool of blood at the bottom of Hell, together with the other sinners.

In every direction it was utterly dark, and the only things that dimly emerged from that darkness were the gleaming needles of the dreadful Mountain of Needles — so that the desolation of it was beyond all telling.

Moreover, all around was hushed and still as the inside of a grave, and the only sound one ever heard was merely the faint sighs breathed by the sinners.

Those who had fallen so far as this place were, by then, utterly exhausted from the countless torments of Hell, and had lost even the strength to weep.

So even the great thief Kandata could do nothing but writhe there, choking on the blood of the pool of blood, like a frog on the verge of death.

But then, on a certain occasion:

Kandata happened to raise his head and looked up at the sky above the pool of blood — and there, descending through the hushed darkness from far, far above in the heavens, a single silver spider's thread came glimmering thinly, as if fearful of being noticed, slipping down straight toward him.

When Kandata saw this, he involuntarily clapped his hands with joy.

If he clung to this thread and climbed as high as he could, he was certain to escape from Hell.

Indeed, if things went well, he might even be able to enter Paradise.

If that were so, he would no longer be driven up onto the Mountain of Needles, nor ever be sunk in the pool of blood again.

With this thought in mind, Kandata gripped the spider's thread firmly with both hands and began climbing upward with all his might, hand over hand.

Being a great thief, of course, he was well accustomed to this sort of thing from long before.

Yet the distance between Hell and Paradise is many tens of thousands of leagues, and no matter how desperately he tried, he could not easily make his way up.

After climbing for quite some time, Kandata finally grew so weary that he could not pull himself up even one more length.

There was nothing for it, so, intending to rest a while, he hung from the middle of the thread and looked far down below him.

And he saw that his desperate climbing had paid off: the pool of blood where he had been until a moment ago had already vanished somewhere into the depths of the darkness below.

Even the dreadful Mountain of Needles that had glimmered so faintly was now beneath his feet.

If he kept climbing at this rate, escaping from Hell might prove unexpectedly easy.

Kandata, his hands wound around the spider's thread, laughed in a voice he had not raised in all the years since falling into this place: "Got it. Got it."

And he laughed.

But then, glancing downward, he noticed that on the spider's thread below him, countless sinners, following the path he had climbed, were clambering upward just like a column of ants, with fierce determination.

Kandata, seeing this, was so startled and terrified that for a moment he could only hang there with his mouth gaping open like a fool, his eyes alone moving.

This thin spider's thread, which looked as though it might break even under his weight alone — how could it possibly bear the weight of so many people?

If it were to snap in the middle, then even he himself, the most important one, who had climbed all this way at such pains, would have to plummet headlong back down to the Hell he had come from.

If that were to happen, it would be a disaster.

Yet even as this passed through his mind, the sinners — hundreds upon hundreds, thousands upon thousands — came swarming up from the bottom of the dark pool of blood, crawling upward in a single line along the faintly gleaming spider's thread, steadily, without pause.

Unless something were done right away, the thread would surely snap in two from the middle and he would fall.

So Kandata shouted out in a loud voice: "Hey, you sinners! This spider's thread is mine! Who gave you lot permission to climb up? Get down. Get down!"

And he shrieked.

At that very instant:

The spider's thread, which until now had been perfectly fine, snapped with a sharp twang precisely at the spot where Kandata was hanging.

And so Kandata could not hold on.

Before he could cry out, he was slicing through the air, spinning round and round like a top, and in the blink of an eye plunged headlong down into the depths of the darkness.

Behind him, only the spider's thread from Paradise hung there, glittering thinly and faintly, short and trailing, in a sky without moon or stars.

III

The Venerable Buddha stood at the edge of the lotus pond in Paradise and had been watching all of this from beginning to end; and when Kandata had sunk like a stone to the bottom of the pool of blood, He resumed His unhurried stroll with a look of sorrow upon His face.

Kandata's pitiless heart — his desire to escape from Hell for himself alone — and then the fitting punishment he received for that heart, plunging back into Hell, must have seemed wretched in the eyes of the Venerable Buddha.

Yet the lotus blossoms of the lotus pond in Paradise were not in the least concerned with any of this.

Those pearl-white flowers swayed their calyxes gently around the feet of the Venerable Buddha, and from the golden stamens at their centers, an indescribably sweet fragrance drifted ceaselessly into the surrounding air.

It must have been drawing close to noon in Paradise.

(April 16, Taisho 7)