The is a Japanese anthology of ''
setsuwa
Setsuwa (, ja, 説話, setsu wa) is an East Asian literary genre. It consists of myths, legends, folktales, and anecdotes.
''Setsuwa'' means "spoken story". As one of the vaguest forms of literature, setsuwa is believed to have been passed down ...
'' stories compiled by the monk Taira no Yasuyori in 1179. The same monk in the tale of the heike from the
shishigatani incident who was exiled temporarily.
The stories take the form of a series of discussions between a
Zen monk and an audience, and are intended to guide the reader towards
satori
is a Japanese Buddhist term for awakening, "comprehension; understanding". It is derived from the Japanese verb satoru.
In the Zen Buddhist tradition, ''satori'' refers to a deep experience of '' kenshō'', "seeing into one's true nature ...
.
Among the subjects covered are the stories of
Rama
Rama (; ), Ram, Raman or Ramar, also known as Ramachandra (; , ), is a major deity in Hinduism. He is the seventh and one of the most popular '' avatars'' of Vishnu. In Rama-centric traditions of Hinduism, he is considered the Supreme Bein ...
, derived from Indian and Chinese sources,
and the fate of
Murasaki Shikibu
was a Japanese novelist, poet and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court in the Heian period. She is best known as the author of '' The Tale of Genji,'' widely considered to be one of the world's first novels, written in Japanese between abou ...
, whom Taira no yasuyori condemns to hell for publishing fiction and even wrote the genji Sutra a Buddhist prayer for those that read genji monogatari and Murasaki Shikibu herself for salvation out of Buddhist hell.
References
Setsuwa
Zen texts
{{Zen-stub