Mongaku's Mighty Austerities

Mongaku, previously known as Endō Morito before taking his vows, is a particularly strange monk that first appears in the Tale of the Heike during Chapter 5. Mongaku originally becomes a monk out of curiosity, and these challenges serve to help him discern both his fortitude and the difficulty associated with maintaining the lifestyle of a monk. “Then, in his nineteenth year, he aspired to enlightenment, left the world, and set out to follow the path of stern practice.”(273). From the beginning, Mongaku is portrayed as a strange character that pursues his bizarre and often impulsive desires with an unrivaled sense of dedication and authenticity. Our first glimpse of him is as he performs his “Mighty Austerities”, which are self-imposed challenges that he forces himself into.

While Mongaku’s first austerity is not as impressive as the second, it nonetheless paints a perfect portrait of his character:

“’Let’s just see how hard ascetic practice really is,’ he said to himself. Under the blazing sixth-month sun, without a breath of air stirring, he entered a hillside thicket and lay down on his back. Noxious insects – horseflies, mosquitoes, wasps, ants, and so on – bit and stung him, but he never moved, nor rose again for seven days. On the eighth day he got up. ‘So,’ he said, ‘is that about what ascetic practice amounts to?’ Came the answer, ‘if that’s what it took, no one would even survive it!’. ‘Fine,’ Mongaku concluded, ‘no problem, then.’ And off he went to practice in earnest.”(273)

Here, in an unbelievable feat of endurance, Mongaku endures the summer heat and a relentless onslaught of insects for a week straight and walks away completely undeterred. As remarkable of a feat as it is, it does not come close in scale and determination to that of the second Austerity, and arguably the most famous one: the Nachi waterfall.

During the winter while on a pilgrimage in Kumano, Mongaku goes to the Nachi waterfall where he decides to stand under the famed waterfall in effort to test both his faith and resolve. Emerging himself in a pool up to his neck in the frigid water, he chants prayers to Lord Fudō, a god in Japanese Buddhism associated with waterfalls. After the fourth or fifth day (the text does not commit to either), Mongaku is overpowered by the flow of water, loses his footing, and floats downstream only to be saved by a youth and onlookers light a fire to warm the freezing monk. When Mongaku wakes up, he is upset and blames them for carrying him away before he could accomplish his task. With this, he heads back to his waterfall to renew his goal. After a few more days, two “celestial youths”, named Kongara and Seitaka who do not want Mongaku to die in the pool and ruin the water, descend down the waterfall and inform him that they are sent from Lord Fudō himself to assist in his quest. Feeling renewed by this, Mongaku completes his trial with ease and conquers his 21^st day unharmed shortly thereafter.

While Mongaku’s Austerities are most likely fictitious, they serve to characterize Mongaku and his role to come later in the chapter. He interrupts Go-Shirakwa’s court, earns himself an exile, incites Yoritomo to start his rebellion, and violates his own exile to head back to the capital to secure Yoritomo a pardon. While Mongaku undeniably has a vested interest in seeing a successful Yoritomo to help him rebuild Jingo-ji, Mongaku’s core role as an instigator revolves around his unpredictable and yet oddly dedicated nature.

Activity: Discuss and explain what an austerity means when speaking about Buddhism. Allow students to ask questions about the gods that appear to Mongaku, as well as general questions concerning Mongaku's austerities.