No. 52 — The tale of Tamaichi
A childless couple prayed to Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion, and were granted a son. As the oracle had foretold, the child lost his father at seven, and his mother went blind. When the son grew up, he took as his wife a woman he had met by the riverside, and the household prospered. A child named Tamaichi was born, but the wife revealed her true form, and in order to cure the mother's eyes, she prepared, in accordance with Kannon's oracle, to offer up Tamaichi's liver. In fact the wife was a tennyo, a celestial maiden, sent down from heaven, and in her place the statue of Kannon took the wound, so the child was saved unharmed, and after the mother's eyes were healed too, the tennyo finished her task and returned to heaven.
- Land
- Shiwa District
- Beings
- Kannon, tennyo
This is an English rendering of our short Japanese summary of the source tale — a summary translated from the Japanese, not a translation of the original text. The summary was drafted and translated with AI assistance, and names and numbers were checked against our records. Tale numbers for this book follow the order in which the tales appear; they are ours, not the book's.