Onmoraki Legend

The Onmoraki tradition is the tale of a bird-form entity said to rise as gathered yin vapor from the corpse of one for whom the rite is neglected. In Kyoto, when a monk drowses over the recitation in a hall where a coffin is set, a black bird is said to fly up from the coffin, circle the hall, kick the dozing monk in the face, and vanish. Onmoraki has its origin in Buddhist tales of Song China, and from the Heian period in Japan was told as a warning against negligent monks. After it was given pictorial form in Toriyama Sekien's yokai picture scrolls, the figure was fixed within Edo yokai culture. The story has three stages: the body of the newly deceased and the place of its keeping, the monk's lapse in chanting and the gathering of yin vapor into the bird, and its flight and warning to the monk. The figure stands in the same lineage of Buddhist-warning entities as the Tenome of Amida-ga-mine: "do not neglect the recitation," "do not handle the dead carelessly," the religious ethic that the entity's appearance secures. The center is around Amida-ga-mine and Higashiyama in Kyoto, in temples descending from the medieval period; the figure is also told in old burial grounds of Toribeno in Kyoto and Saho in Nara. The Song-period Seizon-roku (Qingzunlu) preserves the prototype; medieval Buddhist tales such as Genko Shakusho and Shasekishu collect related stories. Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki (Anei 8, 1779) "Onmoraki" carries the picture and inscription.