Anchin and Kiyohime

Anchin and Kiyohime is a tale of obsessive attachment and serpentine transformation preserved in the founding history of Dōjō-ji Temple in Kii Province. Around 928, a young monk named Anchin, traveling from Ōshū to visit Kumano Shrine, lodges at the mansion of a provincial administrator in Masa district, Muro county. The administrator's daughter, Kiyohime, becomes enamoured of Anchin and demands he pledge marriage vows. Anchin deceives her, claiming he will visit on his return journey, and flees by an alternate route. Betrayed and consumed by obsession, Kiyohime transforms into a great serpent and pursues him, crossing the Hidaka River in serpent form. Anchin takes refuge inside the bronze bell of Dōjō-ji Temple, but Kiyohime coils around the bell, breathes flame, and burns him to death along with it. Later, two serpents appear in the dreams of the temple monks and request memorial rites. Through the merit of the Lotus Sutra, both are said to have been reborn as celestial beings and ascended to heaven.

The narrative unfolds in four movements: Anchin's lodging and Kiyohime's infatuation; his betrayal and flight; her transformation and crossing of the river; and the bell's burning and salvation through the Lotus Sutra. This story exemplifies medieval Buddhist narrative teaching, integrating motifs of obsessive attachment, betrayal, transformation into inhuman form, the sacred bell, and redemptive Buddhist merit. While the serpent-transformation theme echoes the snake-deity marriage at Mount Miwa and the slaying of the eight-headed serpent, Kiyohime's tale presents a distinct subject: how human emotional obsession occasions bodily metamorphosis. The tale was repeatedly reimagined in later performance arts, notably in the Noh play *Dōjō-ji* and the Kabuki work *Kyōgaki Musume Dōjō-ji*.

The temple itself, located in Kanemaki, Hidaka Town, Hidaka County, Wakayama Prefecture, is said to have been founded in 701 and ranks among the oldest temples in Kii Province. Its principal image, a thousand-armed Avalokiteśvara, is designated a National Treasure. Within the precincts stand monuments to Anchin and the site of the bell's burning; the temple preserves the *Anchin Kiyohime Picture Scroll*, designated a prefectural cultural property. The original bell, after being burned, was remade but again brought calamity; it was subsequently transferred to Myōman-ji Temple in Kyoto, where it remains. The Hidaka River, which flows through southern Wakayama, is the setting for Kiyohime's crossing.

Early textual sources include the *Record of Lotus Sutra Miracles of Japan* (compiled by Chingen, 1040–1044), in its lower fascicle, and the *Tale of Times Now Past*, fascicle fourteen, third tale, *'The Monk of Dōjō-ji in Kii Province: How the Lotus Sutra Rescued the Serpents'* (late Heian period). Kamakura-period sources such as the *Records of Eminent Monks of the Yuan and Flourishing Eras* and the Muromachi-period *Dōjō-ji Founding History Picture Scroll* (designated an Important Cultural Property, housed at the temple) stand as principal resources for the transmission. Numerous derivative works follow, including the Noh play *Dōjō-ji* (traditionally attributed to Zeami or Kanze Kojirō Nobumitsu), the Kabuki *Kyōgaki Musume Dōjō-ji*, and modern literary adaptations by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō and Funabashi Seichi.