Urashimataro and the Undersea Palace

Recently, while listening to JapanesePod101.com’s intermediate series, they covered the famous story of Urashimatarō. Wikipedia does a nice job of summarizing the story I think:

The legend of Urashima Tarō (浦島太郎) is a Japanese legend about a fisherman who rescues a turtle and is rewarded for this with a visit to the Palace of the Dragon God (or Ryūgū-jō) under the sea. He stays there for three days and, upon his return to his village, finds himself three hundred years in the future.

I have heard the story probably a dozen times now and don’t get tired of it. I first read the story as part of level 2 of White Rabbit Press’s Grader Reader Series, but have heard more detailed, advanced versions since. Somehow, the whole story of time lost while in the Dragon God’s undersea palace really fascinates me.

Also, the Dragon God’s Undersea Palace itself, called ryūgūjō (竜宮城) is a point of interest for me. The palace exists in a number of other folk tales that we have at home and read to my daughter, so it’s part of the larger Japanese myth, though I suspect it has a Chinese origin to it, or even Indian origin.

For example, take a look at this excerpt from the 12th chapter of the Lotus Sutra, a Buddhist text:

At that time Manjushri [Bodhisattva] was seated on a thousand-pedaled lotus blossom big as a carriage wheel, and the bodhisattvas who had come with them were also seated on jeweled lotus blossoms. Manjushri had emerged in a natural manner from the palace of the dragon king Sagara in the great ocean and was suspended in the air.

Now, the term dragon here may actually be found in the Chinese text only, whereas in India, they might have described nāgas instead. This is just a guess though on my part. But the idea of a great undersea palace for the king of serpents/dragons, seems to exist in Indian myth, and may have migrated along with Buddhism into China and then Japan.

Separately, the notion of time passing quickly in the realm of the gods is nothing new to Buddhism either. In Pali Canon, a collection of Buddhist sutras in the Theravada branch of Buddhism, and in particular the Visakhuposatha Sutta, the Buddha describes the heaven realm of Tushita, or Tosotsuten (兜率天) in Japanese Buddhism, and how time passes there:

“That which among men is four hundred years, Visakha, is one night and day of the Tusita devas, their month has thirty of those days, their year twelve of those months; the lifespan of the Tusita devas [divine beings, gods] is four thousand of those heavenly years…”

So, it seems that the story of Urashimataro is possibly inspired by Indian-Buddhist culture that came to Japan both from the idea of the Dragon God’s palace, and maybe even the notion of time passing quickly in the realm of the gods. It’s just a theory of mine, though, and could simply be a case of convergent cultural ideas. Either way, the similarities are fascinating to me.

In any case, one of the hosts of that lesson on Japanese101.com had a nice, down-to-earth interpretation of the story: too much time spent idling can bring sorrow later.

Good advice to live by.