The Tale of the Heike recounts the passing of Emperor Antoku in these poignant words:
“The child Emperor Antoku looked up and asked, ‘Grandmother, whither do you bear me?’ The nun, his grandmother, restrained her tears and replied, ‘Your Majesty, turn your heart toward the Western Paradise where the Buddha abides, and invoke His sacred name. We shall leave behind this world of sorrow and journey together to the Pure Land of Perfect Bliss.’ Obediently, the young emperor folded his tiny hands in prayer and softly recited the nembutsu. Then the nun, clasping him close, whispered, ‘Under the waves, too, there lies a capital,’ and, with the child still in her embrace, cast herself into the sea at Dan-no-ura(壇ノ浦).”
Thus perished Emperor Antoku, the only sovereign in the unbroken history of Japan’s Imperial House to lose his life amid the turmoil of war. He was but eight years of age.
As noted above, The Tale of the Heike was not originally a written text but a work preserved through oral tradition. Its story was entrusted to the biwa hōshi(琵琶法師)—blind minstrel-monks who transmitted it from generation to generation. The biwa(琵琶), a four- or five-stringed lute, served as the instrument that accompanied their recitations.
Much like the troubadours and wandering minstrels of medieval Europe, the biwa hōshi journeyed throughout Japan with their instruments in hand, singing of the fierce lives and tragic, fleeting deaths of the warriors who brought Japan’s ancient age to its close.
Out of this living tradition of oral recitation grew the spirit of medieval Japan’s greatest dramatic art—Noh(能)—brought to perfection by Zeami(世阿弥). The song of the biwa hōshi did not fade with the passing of the warriors; it lived on, transformed into an art that still resonates across the centuries.
