The Tale of the Fivefold Amulet: The Fivefold Prayer — The 'Anjo Shujo Ki' Exorcism — There is an app for it too

The Fivefold Prayer — The 'Anjo Shujo Ki' Exorcism

Introduction

There is a single amulet.

On a black background, twenty-five characters are inscribed in gold paint.

At the center, there is but one character.

'Prayer'

Is this a charm to erase calamity?

Or perhaps—

Is it a charm to ensure that, amidst calamity, a person does not become a calamity themselves?

The Fivefold Prayer

June 2nd, the tenth year of Tensho.

The sky over Kyoto was red.

Even in a small village on the outskirts of Yamashiro Province, rumors of something having happened at Honno-ji reached them before noon.

Oda Nobunaga had been struck down.

Akechi's forces were blocking the roads.

Defeated soldiers were raiding the villages.

The peasants could not tell what was true and what was a lie.

All they knew was that when a war began, the ones who started it were never the first to die.

That evening, a traveling monk entered the village.

He did not answer when asked his name.

Tonight, soldiers will come to this village.

The monk said this.

The village headman turned pale.

Are they from the Akechi side? Or the Oda side?

I do not know.

The monk replied.

To starving soldiers, banners mean nothing.

The villagers tried to flee.

But there were old people. There were infants.

If they fled to the mountains, night would fall.

The headman clung to the monk.

Monk, is there... is there no way to ward off this calamity?

The monk was silent for a while.

Before long, he took a single sheet of black paper from his robe.

Inside a vermilion border, twenty-five characters were written in gold paint.

Only the 'Prayer' in the center was large.

The village headman tilted his head.

'How do you read this?'

The monk pointed to the center.

'Read from the inside out.'

'From the inside?'

'Pray.'

The finger moved one step outward.

'Purify.'

Further outward.

'Protect.'

Further still.

'Remove.'

Finally, he pointed to the four corners.

'Find peace.'

The village headman muttered.

'Pray, Purify, Protect, Remove, Peace...'

'When disaster strikes, people first try to remove it.'

The monk said.

But you must not begin by casting things out.

Why not?

Because if you begin with fear, only fear will remain until the end.

The monk posted the amulet on the village gate.

And then he said,

Close the doors. However, I do not say that you must not open them if someone asks for help.

The village headman could not understand the meaning of those words.

At midnight.

The sound of horse hooves was heard.

Sure enough, soldiers had come.

There were about ten of them.

Their armor was stained with mud and blood, and they carried no banners.

The villagers held their breath.

Before long, there was a knocking at the door.

Water.

It was the voice of a young man.

Please, give us water.

No one moved.

The village headman was also trembling.

On the gate, there was that amulet.

Peace, Removal, Protection, Purification, Prayer.

The village headman realized it.

If read from the outside, the order is reversed.

Seek peace, remove calamity, protect the body, purify the heart—and finally, pray.

But the monk had said,

"Read it from within."

He said.

The headman opened the door.

His wife grabbed his sleeve.

"You will be killed."

"Perhaps."

The headman replied.

Then he took a water bucket and went outside.

What was there were not soldiers.

No, they were soldiers.

But at the same time, they were exhausted young men, perhaps seventeen or eighteen years old.

The headman offered them water.

The young men drank without saying a word.

One drank, two drank, and eventually, they all drank.

None of them attempted to enter the village.

The last person returned the bucket.

"I am grateful."

And then they vanished into the darkness.

The next morning.

The traveling monk was gone.

Only the amulet remained on the gate.

The villagers rejoiced.

"The amulet drove away the soldiers."

"It is a miracle."

"What a blessed charm."

But the village headman alone did not think so.

The amulet did not drive away the soldiers.

It did not call down lightning either.

It did not summon demons either.

Not a single miracle occurred.

Just one man,

before the fear took hold,

chose to pray.

The village headman did not peel off the amulet.

Before long, the war ended.

The era of Nobunaga ended, the era of Hideyoshi came, and that era, too, came to an end.

The village gate was also rebuilt.

Even so, the amulet alone was moved to the new gate.

The gold paint faded, the vermilion darkened, and the characters became almost unreadable.

Only the single character in the center remained strangely clear.

Prayer.

In the village, long after, this charm was called a 'ward against evil'.

But in truth,

perhaps it was not a charm to ward off calamity.

When calamity came,

it was a charm to ensure that you yourself would not become the calamity.

Amulet Explanation

The Fivefold Meaning Embedded in 'Anjo Shujo Ki'

The amulet appearing in the story has twenty-five characters arranged in a five-by-five grid.

It appears as a grid that is symmetrical vertically, horizontally, and diagonally.

However, what is important about this amulet is not just its shape.

There is a specific way to read it.

Not from the outside,

but reading from the center outward.

At the center is placed the 'Prayer'.

Moving outward one layer at a time from there,

Prayer → Purification → Protection → Exorcism → Peace

is the order.

Prayer — Everything begins here

The fact that the center is not 'Exorcism' is the essence of this amulet.

When we hear the word 'exorcism,' we usually think of 'getting rid of misfortune.'

However, in this amulet, there is a prayer before that.

Not driving anything away yet.

Not fighting anything yet.

First, confirm what it is you are wishing for.

For the village headman in the story, that was not simply a wish to 'drive away the soldiers.'

What he truly wanted to protect were the lives and livelihoods of the villagers.

Purification — Not being consumed by fear

Following the prayer is 'Purification'.

Purification here does not mean washing the body.

Fear, anger, and doubt.

It is to clear the heart that has been clouded by such things.

If armed soldiers knock on your door in the middle of the night, it is only natural to be afraid.

That is precisely why you must not let fear itself make your decisions.

After you pray, purify your heart.

Only then does the 'protection' begin.

Protection - What are you protecting?

The third layer is 'protection'.

It is here that concrete action is born for the first time.

However, to protect does not necessarily mean to close the gates.

The village headman tried to protect the village.

But at the same time, if he were to cut down the life of a young man begging for water before his eyes as an enemy, he would be creating a different kind of disaster himself.

That is why he opens the door.

This is not about becoming defenseless.

'What is it that I truly want to protect?'

This is the moment to choose.

Exorcism - After that, remove the disaster

In the fourth layer, 'exorcism' finally appears.

This order is important.

Pray, purify, determine what to protect, and then remove the disaster.

If you exclude something starting only from fear, you may end up treating people themselves as 'misfortune'.

The soldiers who appear in the story are also symbols of this.

They carry weapons.

However, the ones who appeared before the village headman that night were also exhausted young men seeking water.

What the village headman should have warded off was not the men themselves.

An (Peace) - What Remains at the End

And on the outermost perimeter, there is 'An' (Peace).

Tranquility.

Peace.

Serenity.

This is the final destination of the amulet.

In other words, what this amulet wishes for is,

not the defeat of an enemy.

It is that even after the calamity has passed, people and their lives remain, and they can return to a quiet daily life once more.

That is why 'An' is placed on the outermost edge, not in the center.

Why Read from the Inside Out?

If you read these five characters as a single sentence,

it means: purify the heart through prayer, protect what must be protected, ward off calamity, and reach peace.

And there is one more trick to the story.

When the village headman looks at the amulet posted on the gate, his consciousness naturally moves from the outside toward the center.

This is the final piece of the puzzle.

Peace → Ward → Protect → Purify → Pray

I want peace.

Therefore, I want to ward off misfortune.

Therefore, I want to protect myself.

And finally, I pray to the gods and Buddhas.

This is a very natural order for a human being.

However, the monk says:

"Read it from the inside."

You must reverse the order.

You do not demand "peace" first.

You do not seek to "ward off" first.

You begin with the "prayer" at the center of your being.

Therefore, in this story, no light shines from the amulet, nor does lightning strike.

Soldiers are not driven away by mysterious powers.

What the amulet changed was,

not the outside world, but the choices made by the people who saw the amulet.

Amulet for Warding Off Evil: "Anjoshojoki"

If one were to name this amulet from the outside,

it would be Anjoshojoki.

That is what I decided.

However, contrary to its name, the amulet itself is read from the center.

Prayer → Purification → Protection → Removal → Peace.

The name visible from the outside and the way it is read hidden within.

The fact that these two are in opposite directions is also a mechanism of this amulet.

Perhaps warding off evil is not about erasing the calamity itself from this world.

Calamities are, at times, unavoidable.

Wars, illnesses, partings, and misfortunes will come.

Even so,

Not letting yourself, while in the midst of calamity, become a calamity for someone else.

That is the wish imbued in this fictional amulet.

Afterword

This amulet is not a reproduction of amulets or religious practices from existing temples or shrines.

It is a fictional amulet created from a five-by-five symmetrical grid and

Prayer, Purification, Protection, Removal, Peace

the five characters mentioned above.

Rather than arranging characters as mere decoration,

a single wish is completed as one progresses from the center to the outside.

Could I create such a 'readable amulet'?

That is how this fivefold amulet was born.

And when I gave the amulet a story, a question was born from what had been only twenty-five characters.

What does it mean to ward off evil?

I believe the answer can be different for every reader.

However, for the village headman in this story, the amulet was not...

a magic charm to keep disaster at bay,

but a token to ensure he would not forget how to conduct himself amidst disaster.

#ShortStory #FlashFiction #CreativeWriting #HistoricalFiction #SengokuPeriod #Amulet #Exorcism #Charm #JapaneseFantasy #FivefoldPrayer #TaleOfTheFivefoldAmulet #AICreation

Planning and Composition: Mugen Natto

Short Story and Amulet Setting: Mugen Natto × ChatGPT

Image Generation: ChatGPT

Writing Collaboration: ChatGPT / Claude

I've turned it into an app ⬇️

I have created a mini web app where you can actually touch and experience the amulet introduced in this article.

No registration required, completely free of charge.
You can play it right in your browser, so please feel free to give it a try 😊

When you tap the amulet, you can read through it in the order of Prayer → Purification → Protection → Exorcism → Peace from the center outward.

It is an amulet that you experience by touching it, rather than just reading it.