You may wonder that I, a priest, would continue to so express myself. Yet it is something akin to this feeling I have been describing that I expect to discover in myself as I enter the blessed land—this sense of being whole, this miracle of the sundered parts together assembled.
I remember the forty-eight vows of Amida Buddha and dwell upon the eighteenth, the Namu Amida Butsu, Amida's "Original Vow." It is this I invoke to allow me passage. And it is I who opened this very road to those whom I bested in battle. My ambition to stay behind and guide the dead is perhaps best understood when one remembers that I have already led so many.
* * *
There followed a long era of peace—a full decade. It was, to be sure, an uneasy one, but I wonder if there is any other kind. These years of Taira peace were so filled with dissent and intrigue that I was not surprised the other day to hear one of our ballad-making novices singing away about the bad old times of which I am now writing.
Back then, sang this young voice, men both high and low lived with no peace of mind, lived as though walking always upon the thinnest ice or treading the narrow ledge above a precipice. The world had waxed corrupt and lax, and vice had outstripped virtue.
And so it had. To begin at the very top, there was an unusual discord between the retired emperor and the Emperor Nijō. The younger would not defer to the older, and Go-Shirakawa in turn could not countenance such disrespect in the younger.
The retired emperor would deprive the reigning emperor of several of his most trusted officers. Nijō would retaliate by decimating the attendants of Go-Shirakawa. This intercine and largely bureaucratic warfare made life difficult for those in the imperial service. A lord one day, banished the next, men's fortunes so fluctuated that great houses came tumbling down, whole families were sent weeping into the wilds, and suicides grew common.
With imperial bickering in plain view, political machinations, usually decently hid, slid into sight. The customary intrigues and maneuverings of the court cast off their shrouding layers of ceremony and flaunted themselves. One result was that the imperial house lost an amount of respect. Another was that the court of Kiyomori, himself so carefully circumspect, gained a like amount.
At the same time, though the Taira had supported the now-retired emperor against his elder brother during the Hōgen War of five years before, Lord Kiyomori presently desired that Go-Shirakawa should be deprived of some of that new power. Consequently, the imperial sniping pleased him.
Not that his pleasure was obvious. No one was more solicitous of both emperors than was Kiyomori, no one more punctilious in regard to visits and presents, no one more patient during long, closeted sessions than he.
I was often a member of the retinue that accompanied our lord on these imperial visits. We used to believe that our accompanying throng was so large because we had little else to do and so had somehow to be given employment, but I now think the real reason was that our numbers were meant to intimidate the court and to impose upon their majesties.
We would stand around in the grounds of the new palace while Lord Kiyomori was being entertained by the retired emperor. The sun hot on our helmeted heads, we waited, our noses filled with the smell of freshly cut lumber, which this modest little palace still exuded. Nor were we allowed to amuse ourselves. No talking, neither with each other, nor with the sometimes pretty palace servants who came to gawk. We stood or squatted or knelt, holding our flags and halberds and making a fine show while the higher officers were offered refreshment in one of the outer rooms where the future was being decided.
All to the Taira advantage. In recognition of our great service against the insurgents, Kiyomori was elevated to the senior grade of the third court rank. And over the years further promotions came fast; he was made member of the court council, then captain of the police commissioner's division, then vice-councilor, councilor, and finally state minister. Further, upon entering palaces he was no longer required to dismount from his carriage—a grand if cumbersome affair drawn on these occasions by a large ox, on others by us.
His privileges were those of premier, though that title was still withheld him. It was one he wanted because it promised ulti-mate power. In practice, however, the position was vacant. It was waiting for the proper person to be found. Since this person— someone capable of instructing the young emperor, someone who could govern in his stead, someone who was a model to the people—was scarcely ever found, the title usually went empty.
I well understood our Kiyomori's ambitions and his irritation at having the title withheld. After all, it was the ultimate indication that he had made something of himself. This was also my intention. And I too had my share of irritations.
My small platoon, originally boys from Musashi, now included city youths as well, and all had in this lazy peace grown insubordinate. They could not accustom themselves to being supervised by someone as rustic as myself. Their leader—me— they said, was such a country boy that he could not read even the simplest Chinese character. Jocular remarks about radishes were made, horse manure as well. And cow patties. Even my father's bear was joshed over.
I caught one of the men at such pleasantries and had him publicly flogged. The gathered men stared at the red muscle as a buttock split and there was a respectful hush—disturbed to be sure by the culprit's screams. Though this display muffled the ridicule, it did not increase my popularity.
Since I was determined to make something of myself, however, a good reputation was called for and so I continued to enforce discipline. I detained the entire group for the remark of a single man and had numbers of them locked up, beatings were common. During such sessions I became terrible in my wrath, and thus, in a modest way, emulted our respected Lord Kiyomori.
* * *
Our Taira policies were successful. In less than two years, by the second year of Ninnan [1167], Lord Kiyomori had assumed the highest position in the civil government and had finally received the coveted premiership. And in the years to come he would marry his daughter, Tokuko, to the new emperor, Takakura, and their son, the child-emperor Antoku, would be our lord's own grandchild.
In this our leader proved that he had learned well from our former foe, the now much diminished Fujiwara, for it had long been their policy to so intermarry their women with the imperial house that relations of fealty became those of family.
The resemblance of the new Taira clan to the old Fujiwara was openly commented upon. It was said Premier Kiyomori and his family controlled almost half the country. At that time the land was divided into sixty-six provinces and those governed by the Taira certainly numbered more than thirty. Too, Kiyomori's sons were all ministers, all of his daughters were married to royalty, sixteen of his close relatives were nobles, and thirty more were courtiers, while others—his was a large family—were made provincial governors or the heads of imperial guards.
He became as grand as he was powerful. Our Rokuhara fortress was transformed into a palace, at night as bright as day, lanterns everywhere. The most brilliant was the chamber housing our master's gem collection. It was so stuffed that there was no room for further offerings, though such appeared daily. People said the place shone even in the dark.
In the corridors the attendents were so brilliantly costumed that the popular song of the day called the palace a garden and these servants butterflies. The splendor spilled into the courtyards, which swarmed with horses and carriages, visitors and petitioners. And in the apartments were rare woods, incenses, spices, brocades, embroideries, jewels, gold, silver. By comparison the imperial palaces, homes of the emperors Go-Shirakawa and Nijō, were shabby. It was in regard to this successful splendor that Lord Kiyomori's brother-in-law, Tokitada, famously said: If one is not a Taira, one is not a man.
This was a sentiment to which the general populace enthusiastically subscribed. A rage for things Taira swept the capital. Our winning color (red—the Minamoto color was white) was everywhere: red flags, red bunting, even a few red robes on the more patriotic wives of merchants. There were also a number of fads—a way of wrapping the kimono sash, of doing the hair, of twisting