A Study of Shizuo Fujieda's 'Denshin Yuraku'
I am a Shino-ware cylindrical sake cup living at the bottom of a pond. (Omitted) I am a creature who was tossed into the pond at the entrance and has lived there ever since.
Pottery submerged in a pond tells its life story, mates with goldfish to produce offspring, and attempts to deceive the gods by transforming into a human. 'Denshin Yuraku', written by Shizuo Fujieda, is an extraordinary tale spun with an absurdity that rivals the insight of Soseki and the Tutuola of 'The Palm-Wine Drinkard'.
However, when we position this work within the coordinates of Fujieda's literature, it appears not merely as animism, but rather as an antithesis to himself, or even a revenge from the objects he has cherished.
For example, a persimmon calyx (a Goryeo tea bowl) that has transformed into a human named Kasumi looks at a towering giant tree and says the following:
"If there are things that perish and return to the earth, there are also surely things that attain new life and fill the world. It is through encountering the ever-flowing, ever-changing state of this world that humans summon courage or attain an enlightenment of impermanence, isn't it?"
However, the Maitreya Bodhisattva, who endures the present world as the unlicensed antique dealer Roku Okuyama, dismisses this:
"What are you talking about? Whether old or new, trees don't care about humans. They grow on their own deep in the mountains and die on their own when the time comes. They have nothing to do with humans. Besides, aren't you yourself a piece of pottery?"
He dismisses it with a wave. As long as one exists in this world with an ego, the values of humans—who can only perceive things from their own perspective (self-centeredness)—are nothing more than being intoxicated by one's own selfish interpretations. Could this not be called a scathing rebuttal from the side of 'objects' against his I-novel?
Furthermore, Ikku Nishikawa's 'Eight Years of Undercover Travel in the Secret Regions of the Western Regions', cited as reference material for this work, seems to form the basis for the Tibetan culture and history recalled by the Tanba ware, as well as the episodes involving the Saiken Lama and the mountain village, but it does not delve into indigenous religious precepts.
Rather, like the ancient Indian surgery found in the 'Sushruta Samhita' that Maitreya Bodhisattva (Okuyama) reads as a sleeping aid, or the Fudaraku Tokai and the Heart Sutra which he dismisses by saying, 'That philosophy, too, will eventually wear thin and be destroyed by the next law that appears' (p. 108), these are all positioned equally as incomplete things lacking universality (in this world, which takes a reincarnationist stance, they are positioned at the bottom).
Then, what is the perfect philosophy that captures the essence of the world? In this world where reincarnation keeps spinning and spinning, no such thing exists.
In the first place, even those who chant 'All things are born and perish from the same root' under the pond, and those who are outside human values, are always looking toward the next life and the future, seeing the present only as something metaphysical to be struggled with.
However, only the Bodhisattva disguised as an antique dealer is exhausted by these worldly activities, and while pulling at his withered testicles, he mutters, 'Ekel, Ekel.' If one were to name something closest to the truth, this would be it.
He creates a microcosm called a pond, eighty centimeters square, by enclosing a two-tsubo depression with granite, and cares for the antiques and goldfish that settle there. He can also be said to be a presence that creates the 'festive repetition of sound' in Fujieda's literature by blowing a bone flute with 'Pupu, Pupupu' and chanting 'Pei'.
I will touch upon this function later, but I believe the essential beauty of 'Denshin Yuraku' is that the tea cup, the Tanba ware, and even the master of the Ajari Pond are all fakes, all existing as 'imitations.' This is far from what is called straightforward pure literature, and it also resonates with the authorship of Shizuo Fujieda, who devoted himself to the 'I-novel' that never saw the light of day.
Unlike our human lives, which are conducted only among the same species, there is a thorough class difference among them, and the gap between these beings creates a hidden agenda akin to a coup d'état.
However, on the other hand, the Bodhisattva Roku Okuyama wishes to quit being a human who must be self-sufficient to live and grow old, and instead be reborn as a tea bowl. To him, humans are inferior to tea bowls.
Of course, this does not fall into easy nihilism because their existence is allegorized by the pottery that appears with personalities just like him.
When he finally begins to move toward reincarnation, his old acquaintances Myomi Bodhisattva and Daikoku appear, extending into a polyphony of higher beings that encompasses the final life and non-life, the fake and the real.
Here, like the end of 'Ikka Danran', through the moving repetition of 'sound', everyone is reduced to a homogeneous existence enclosed in brackets that have no personhood (and since there is no speaker to narrate this meta-textually, the brackets themselves fall away). Therefore, the shouted call of 'Pei' and the 'Om Mani Padme Hum' are released from their meaning—their efficacy—and become mere vibrations of air, resonating with the instruments, and their class differences melt away into that.
Even so, the pottery will likely continue to seek the ideal image, like the great serpent of Ajari Pond, which gains offerings and respect (status) without moving and possesses semi-permanent life. But Maitreya Bodhisattva knows full well that such things are futile. Even if he lives for another 5.65 billion years, by that time, the Earth itself will be gone.