Dead Body (hotoke)

[ . BACK to TOP . ]
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dead body, deceased person (hotoke)

***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Non-seasonal Topic
***** Category: Humanity

*****************************
Explanation

Death can happen at any time during the year.

Although winter strongly reminds us of death, the word DEATH (shi 死) itself is NOT a kigo for that season only but a haiku topic during all seasons.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


This discussion started with a famous death haiku by Shiki.

hechima saite tan no tsumarishi hotoke kana

Masaoka Shiki

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

dead body, deceased person, hotoke 仏　
... (lit. Buddha)

..... shisha 死者
..... corpse, shitai 死体

To translate HOTOKE in these circumstances as "BUDDHA" would be too much of an exoticism.

death and death haiku

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Quoted from:
Gabi Greve about the use of HOTOKE in Japanese

Any deceased person or dead body is referred to as HOTOKE　仏, but that does not carry the strong implication of BUDDHA, rather what it is, a deceased;
dead body, shitai 死体 is not used in colloquial language. Shisha 死者 is another word for a dead person in the news or legal proceedures.

Let me tell you a story.

Once I was called deep inside our woods to inspect a suicide, a farmer dead in his car. He had put a hose from the gas exhaust to the front room and choked ... (I am a specialist of legal medicine, so I know what I am doing in this case ..)

We wanted to make sure it was not murder, so here comes Gabi san and gives instructions to the Japanese local policeman (he had only seen two dead bodies (hotoke) in his whole career ..) and checks it all out, all the time talking about the HOTOKE SAN in his car.

We were just talking about the dead body, die Leiche, believe me, not about the BUDDHA.
It would never have occured to me to translate our conversation of this day as :

Look, the Buddha took his shoes off before entering his car. See how the Buddha was spitting slime in his last minutes? What shall we say to the wife of the Buddha when we have to tell her? (the poor local policeman had never have to do this duty before ...)
and so on, just to show you that the translation of HOTOKE has its problems when it comes to a dead body in a real life situation.

Shiki seems not to have lost his humor, even in the last minute. Talking about himself as already dead !
Just a few weeks ago, in the NHK Haiku program, the sensei talked about this haiku in connection with examples for HUMOUR in haiku !

June 2006

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The use of "hotoke" in Japan
by Larry Bole

From a paper by David Reid, "Japanese Christians and the Ancestors"
(Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 1989):

"Japan is unique among countries that honor the Buddhist tradition in calling any dead person hotoke ('buddha or 'enlightened one')..."
[Reid attributes this observation to someone named Eliot]
http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/jjrs/pdf/301.pdf


From a paper by Nara Yasuaki, "The Soto Zen School in Modern Japan:"

"This is related to another interesting Japanese innovation, which is not confined to the Soto school but used broadly through Japanese Buddhism, which is the convention of calling the deceased a hotoke (literally, a Buddha). Obviously, there is no doctrinal basis for calling the dead a Buddha.
This folk convention had its roots in indigenous ideas about the dead turning into deities. Buddhism naturally and skillfully incorporated this and other folk ideas into its vocabulary within the dynamic process of its enculturation into Japan.

Sasaki Kokan has recently discussed the flexibility of the term "hotoke" which he suggests should neither be completely thought of as equivalent to the Buddhist "Buddha" nor to the indigenous notion of a deified soul (tama). However, the term includes a combinative dimension and enjoys a flexibility to approximate both the Buddhist "Buddha" and the indigenous "tama."(26)
Future discussions of the relationship between funerals and Buddhism will need to account for the emergence of terms like this."
http://scbs.stanford.edu/calendar/1999-00/dogen_zen/papers/nara.html


From "Gleanings in Buddha-Fields" by Lafcadio Hearn, Ch.
VIII: "Buddhist Allusions in Japanese Folk-Song:"

"Hotoke" means a dead person as well as a Buddha. (See my Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan: "The Household Shrine")."
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/gbf/gbf09.htm


From an online Japanese glossary of terms:
"Hotoke is a word used by the police. It means a dead person."
http://www.moka-h.ed.jp/guide/dictionary.html


An Issa haiku translated by David G. Lanoue:

asu wa soru hotoke ga kao ya yuuzumi

tomorrow
Buddha will be shaved...
evening cool

"'I originally believed that Issa was the 'Buddha' in the haiku, reflecting on shaving his own head. However, Shinji Ogawa warns that 'Buddha' can also mean a dead person. He writes, 'It is possible that Issa was to shave some dead person's face the next day. In the context, the evening cool is not a pleasant pastime but a soul- searching time.'"

http://haikuguy.com/


I think, appreciating Shiki's often dry, ironic sense of humor, that he means us to think of hotoke as both him being (or becoming) a Buddha, and describing himself as simply a dead man.

Larry Bole.
Quoted from Translating Haiku

*****************************
Worldwide use


*****************************
Things found on the way



a pair of shoes
in a lone forest -
the Japanese soul

Why the Japanese take off their shoes before committing suicide ...
by Gabi Greve　
　　　　　　　　　
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Death Poems, Death Haiku
by Nicole Silverman, Millikin University, Spring 2005

In every culture there is deep ceremony surrounding death. Every religion is entrenched with its own set of beliefs regarding death and the after-life. The Japanese are no exception. As in many cultures, it has become customary in Japan to write a will outlining how things are to be settled after your death; however, a more unique custom has taken root as well. With a final will it has become popular to also write a jisei , or a "farewell poem to life" .

To some, this death poem is seen as a sort of final salutation, continuing the tradition of social propriety that is held so highly in Japan. However, as Yoel Hoffman asserts in his book Japanese Death Poems , it seems that these poignant glimpses into a person's last moments or days seem to break the restraints of everyday politeness, allowing a raw view into the private, spiritual environment of the poet.

Despite the highly personal nature of these haiku, the Japanese culture remains rich in these final poems. There are many recurring images, themes, and ideas that relate directly to Japanese religious beliefs regarding death and the after-life. Through these recurring images and themes the haiku are able provide insight into, not only the poets mind and spirituality, but also views into the feelings and philosophy surrounding death that are particular to the Japanese as a culture.

To read the full essay click HERE !

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

MODERN PASSINGS
Death Rites, Politics, and Social Change in Imperial Japan

Traditional Japanese Funerals, by Andrew Bernstein


*****************************
HAIKU

糸瓜咲いて痰のつまりし仏かな
hechima saite tan no tsumarishi hotoke kana

Masaoka Shiki

sponge gourds in bloom -
choked with phlegm,
this dead body

(Tr. Gabi Greve)
Shiki's Death Poems, Hechima


The snake gourds are blooming:
here, choked with phlegm, lies a Buddha.

Tr. Hugh Bygott

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


shunsho ya/tsuma no shinigao/uruwashiki

early spring night
my wife's dying face
so elegant

Susumu Takiguchi
©　Daily Yomiuri, August 9, 2007



*****************************
Related words

***** Shiki's Death Poems, Sponge Gourd, Hechima

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


Write each haiku as if it was your last one !
There is no tomorrow to reach,
there is only NOW to write.

My LAST haiku
Gabi Greve


:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


................................... Postscript

a frog farting -
this too is the
voice of Buddha

a frog farting -
this too is the
voice of God

When I wrote the first haiku, people liked it for its exoticism. With the Buddha, anything goes, it seems.
The second one drew strong chriticims. God, oh no, we can't say that about the great old man in heaven !

Here you feel the cultural bias we have, regarding the meaning of words we know from childhood and use every day and others we learned a lot later in different circumstances and from different cultures.

Gabi Greve, June 2006


:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


Back to the Worldkigo Index
http://worldkigodatabase.blogspot.com/