Refuge in the Past during the Final Age
65
lar imagination
as reflected in the
Tales
and presumably in the elite
choice of pilgrimage destinations, Hasedera was significant as a location
with prestigious beginnings and contemporary cultural capital. Thus, de-
spite its geographical remove from the court, it enjoyed a cultural prox-
imity that connected it intimately to the world of elite society. Given this,
whatever the leanings
The Great Mirror
has with regard to central author-
ity,
The New Mirror
is unequivocally oriented toward the court in its site
selection.
CONTINUING KARMA: THE NEW MIRROR’S GUIDING
HISTORICAL PRINCIPLE
To return to the preface,
The New Mirror
is soon shown to be a faithful
heir to
The Great Mirror
in terms not only of its court focus and cast of
characters, but also of its specific commitment to karmic causation. The
winding path the preface takes first establishes
its social and literary
worlds, deferring the revelation of its cosmological commitments to af-
terwards. After a lengthy exchange in which the old woman’s
age is
discussed without arriving at any resolution beyond the fact that she is
over 150, the conversation shifts to her lineage. When pressed for infor-
mation, she responds: “My grandfather truly was a menial. He was em-
ployed in the empress’s palace. His name was Yotsugi. You may per-
chance have heard of him. That story he blathered out is still around, it
seems.”
98
The old woman then reveals that in her youth, she was in service at
the palace in the retinue of one “Lady Shikibu.” She reminisces about how
Lady Shikibu inquired into the circumstances of her attendant’s birth and
considered various nicknames for her, including “little mirror” and “new
mirror,” the latter based on Bai Juyi’s (772–846) poetry.
99
Here,
The New
Mirror
seems to be marshaling a new type of authority—namely, a rich
literary pedigree rather than the sermon parallels of
The Great Mirror
.
Even though the pilgrimage setting continues to lend a sort of spiritual
98. Takehana,
Imakagami
, 1:31.
99. Takehana,
Imakagami
, 1:32. I have relied on Takehana’s additional annotation
regarding the poem (ibid., 1:43). While a more literal translation of Bai’s line would be
“reflecting on the past and reflecting on the present,” having deferred to the conven-
tional translation of
Imakagami
as “The New Mirror,” I have rendered the poem reference
in a way that reflects the allusion.