PRIESTESS OF THE FOUR GODS
******************************
The world is underneath my feet,
The country's seal is in my hands.
No-one dares to raise their voice against me.
Since the time of legend there have been six kingdoms,
I united them into one.
Who is greater than me?
I occupy the highest peak,
I rule with an iron fist.
We made the country as beautiful as a painting. (Note: Imperial "we" here)
We can climb the highest mountain,
Not even heaven dares to laugh at me.
Who dares to oppose me now?
Chin is the first of the people of the world,
My dynasty will last ten thousand years.
I carve soldiers out of earth that will last an eternity,
My name will be remembered forever.
(based upon the opening song from "The First Emperor of China". I say based upon because its been years since I heard this song, my Cantonese has never been that good and I took quite a lot of liberties to make it sound reasonable in English)
They burnt the scrolls. All of them. The accumulated knowledge of thousands of years of tradition reduced to ash. But not in mere minutes. There were so many scrolls being burnt that night that the bonfire lasted until the first rays of the Sun melded with the dying flames of the funeral pyre of history.
In many ways it was an appropriate metaphor - the dying of the age of our ancestors being greeted with the birth of the age of Chin.
As High Priestess of the Four Gods I was in the capital of Chin to give an accounting of my temple's books to the First Emperor Chin Chi Huang-Ti. No. It wasn't just the capital of Chin anymore, but the capital of the country - the one country, the only country. It feels...strange - I know that hundreds of years ago, the land, the people were as one, ruled by the Son of Heaven. However for hundreds of generations we have been divided into many warring states. Just before Unification there were six.
It was from my country that came the legendary swordsman who fell in love with a princess. He brought to the Emperor who was then only a King, a map showing the routes into my country. The other price of his entry was the head of my country's most trusted general - a man who willingly knelt down and allowed the swordsman to cut off his head. For in the map was hidden a sword and when the scroll was laid down on the table in front of the King of Chin, the swordsman pulled out the sword - Ahhh. He shouldn't have survived you know, but he did...Is this pain, is this destruction truly the will of the Gods? Genbu, Seiryuu, Suzaku, Byakko...Why do you not answer me? Have you become deaf to my laments?
Ahhh...when Heaven breaths, we can do naught but to withstand the typhoon. Heaven has given the Middle Kingdom to Chin and that is something we must learn to accept. The Age of the Warring States, the Age of Autumn, the Age of Blood is over and we have a new king. No. Not just a king. The King of Chin is now Chih Huang-ti, the First Emperor, a title he picked out of the legendary past. Huang-ti was the first emperor of China and was elevated to his position by Heaven and granted immortality. Our new ruler did not choose this name for nothing - he fully intends to follow in Huang-ti's footsteps - to have the history of future generations begin with him - hence the Burning of the Books - and to achieve the blessed stated of immortality.
Now Imperial messengers are being sent out to all the villages and towns, to all the temples and shrines- including this one, the Temple of the Four Gods. Their task is twofold - to search for all books and scrolls and destroy them - except for those pertaining to agriculture - the Emperor is after all a practical man - and the mystical arts, in search of the Elixir of Life.
I stand at the temple door, awaiting our fate. No matter what happens I cannot let them burn this book. The book that my mother and her mother before her for a thousand generations have kept safe. I am the Priestess of the Four Gods. That is my privilege and my burden. The heads of all the other temples shake their wise old heads and say that it is impossible to defy the Emperor. In a few minutes I will know whether this is true. For this book cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the Emperor, for it out of all the mystic books in the country, alone truly does contain the secret of immortality. So either this book remains hidden from the sight of the Emperor or it will be destroyed along with myself. After all, what use do I, the Priestess of the "Universe of the Four Gods" have to live if it is destroyed? After all I have no other identity, no other purpose to breathe and to live except to protect this book.
The messenger approached the gate. My attendants and I went out to greet him. Climbing out of his sedan he unrolled a scroll which contained the words of the Emperor. We knelt down before him, our hands clasped out front in the sign of supplication, our heads lowered respectfully.
"Hereby are the words of the Emperor. You will treat these words as if they had come out of the mouth of our glorious ruler, the Son of Heaven, the Sun that shines on all of the land under Heaven and above Earth. All books, scrolls and other records of the time before our great benefactor united the six kingdoms and brought peace and prosperity to the land are to be given up to the Emperor's messenger. They will then be burnt to ashes. This is except for any books pertaining to agriculture or other practical arts or those concerned with the mystic arts which will confiscated and taken into Imperial custody. Any who disobey this command or resist it will be drawn, quartered, decapitated and torn apart by wild horses."
I remain silent. At this point I was supposed to acknowledge his words, the words of the Emperor but I stay silent. My silence speaks more than any words could acknowledge. Was I going to give the book to this despot?
"I obey his Majesty."
One of my attendants brought out the scroll, wrapped in a red silk cloth.
"Is this a book to be burnt or confiscated?" the messenger asked.
"Burnt."
I had been foolish. I had assumed that the messenger would be foolish and naive, that he would accept my words on face value. That he wouldn't know the true importance of the book.
I was wrong.
As I slowly brought the flame closer and closer to the bamboo strips his hand suddenly grabbed my wrist roughly. I resisted the urge to grimace or make a cry even though his grip was so tight as to bruise my skin.
I turned my head and met his grimly smiling eyes. "Really. The Universe of the Four Gods to be burnt? The book that promises three wishes from the Rulers of Heaven themselves. I think not - Priestess of the Four Gods."
I stifled another cry as he grabbed my hair and hauled me to my feet. He brought his face so close to mine that I could almost see the scars and pores of his skin. "And why didn't you burn it earlier I wonder? Could it be because you knew there was noway to replicate the distinctive design on the cover of the book which was written by the Four Gods themselves? Did you think that I was so foolish as to not realise this book's IMPORTANCE?"
He threw me to the ground roughly. Turning to his attendants he stated, "Kill her. Now."
As he was distracted I grabbed the still burning torch on the ground and with one thrust set the "Universe of the Four Gods" alight.
It was an almost frozen tableau in the courtyard as we all watched the bamboo quickly burn into ash.
"You bitch," the messenger ground out through gritted teeth. "Die!"
As he brought the sharp blade of his sword towards me I ripped apart my robe to reveal my body - the body which was tattooed from head to toe with the Universe of the Four Gods. The blade stopped barely a hair's breath from my heart.
His smile turned nasty. "Why shouldn't I just kill you and take your skin to the Emperor? In fact why should I take it to the Emperor at all, when I can keep it for myself?"
"You could - but the only books that can be used to translate these ancient characters have all been burnt and all the scholars who could have deciphered it have all been killed. I am the only one left who can read this book."
He looked at my attendants. "What about them?"
"They are not of my line. The secrets of the Book have not been passed to them."
"That wasn't what I meant." He smiled at me - the smile of death. I knew he could see the growing horror and comprehension in my eyes as I suddenly realised what he did mean.
He grabbed the nearest of the girls and put a sword at her throat. The rest of his guards grabbed the other girls and did the same. "Translate the book or they will all die."
The young girls and I stared into each other's eyes searching for an answer. However as usual in such circumstances there were no easy ones. I looked at each of the ten girls, one by one. All of them had been orphans, abandoned at birth and whom I had raised as my own daughters. Into each pair of dark eyes I looked. One by one. And one by one their eyes closed in acceptance. I turned mine away unable to look at them.
The one who the messenger held started speaking. "Mother... You took us in when no one else would. You raised us and brought us up like your own daughters. Now is the time for us to repay you for your...kindness." The girl's voice broke. "Mother. Maybe we can meet again in the next life. Pray for us at the tablet of your ancestors. Mother - GOODBYE!"
As I heard the slashing sounds I turned by head around - but it was too late. On the ground laid my ten daughters - nothing more now than bodies.
"Impossible..." the messenger breathed, dropping his blade onto the ground with a clatter. "She, they just grabbed the blade and sliced their own throats. Impossible..."
I knelt on the ground next to the girl who had spoken to me. I touched her cheek gently, just as I had 10 years earlier whenever she had had a nightmare and had asked me to stay with her until she slept. I passed my hand over her wide staring eyes, closing them. This was a sleep from which she and her sisters will never awaken from.
Why did I not cry? Why could I not cry?
Because I had a duty to fulfil.
They understood. They forgave me.
But could I ever forgive myself?
"Genbu, Byakko, Seiryuu, Suzaku..." I started to mumble the incantation.
The messengers and the soldiers started to back away as my body started to glow with an incandescent light.
"Kajin! I command you to destroy them all!"
******************************************************************************
I finally arrived. In the land that my country called Jih-pen, sun-rise, for us it is where the sun rises each day.
The boat is wrecked, unusable now but I have no intention of ever returning to my land of birth.
The bag that I carry with me always rattles. In it are ten urns, for even the Four Gods cannot bring back the dead. Only a petition to the Gods of the Northern and Southern Dippers, the Gods of Life and Death can do that and I have no idea where to find them, except that it is at the end of the world and ever since that day I have had no wish to speak to the Four Gods again - that is if they would speak to me about it at all.
The Universe of the Four Gods, my privilege...my burden.
It is still my duty to make sure that it is kept safe.
******************************************************************************
"So this is the skin of the female shaman who ruled the land of Wa?"
Okuda Einosuke flashed his lantern on the preserved skin, which was stretched over the stone slab in the middle of the tomb. His glasses reflected the light in a mad cacophony of colours.
"The Universe of the Four Gods...At last.."
****************************************************************************
NOTES:
"The empire's seal" - the emperor had a jade seal which he used to sign documents. Basically a document with his seal on it had the force of law.
"Chin" - the country at the time had spent several hundred years divided into six. This was the time of the Warring States and was also the time of the great philosophers such as Confucius, his disciple Mencius and the founder of Taoism, Lao Tze. The First Emperor's country was called Chin hence the name China which Westerners gave the empire later.
"the soldiers out of earth" - refers to the terracotta soldiers he built (yes *those* terracotta soldiers). He also built the Great Wall of China BTW.
The book-burning and killing of the scholars were real historical events. Confucianism was a fairly new thing at this time as noted above so it was basically a battle of competing philosophies at this time. Strangely enough the Chinese written language as we know it was invented at this time as well (so all those people who have tortured themselves learning kanji, blame him). It's also known that the one thing that the First Emperor feared most was death (actually there's a weird legend about Japan in relation to this).
Jih-Pen is the ancient Chinese name for Japan given for precisely the reason I stated. The Japanese later took this name and made it Nihon. Westerners took Jih-Pen and made it Japan.
The Land of Wa or the Land of the Dwarves was sort of legendary Japan, the first power centre in Japan to be in historical archives. It was chronicled in Chinese travellers' journals of the Wei dynasty. Japanese scholars have been trying to find it for ages but for some reason they usually end up in all different places...several times in the middle of the sea! Anyway apparently the Wa were ruled by a priestess called Himiko or Pimiko which means sun-daughter and she was elderly and unmarried and kept her position by magic. Ruled between 183AD to 248AD. She was served by 1000 women and one man her brother. Since the First Emperor ruled in about 200BC would you accept that the Universe of the Four Gods granted her a really, really, really long life? ^_^;
******************************
The world is underneath my feet,
The country's seal is in my hands.
No-one dares to raise their voice against me.
Since the time of legend there have been six kingdoms,
I united them into one.
Who is greater than me?
I occupy the highest peak,
I rule with an iron fist.
We made the country as beautiful as a painting. (Note: Imperial "we" here)
We can climb the highest mountain,
Not even heaven dares to laugh at me.
Who dares to oppose me now?
Chin is the first of the people of the world,
My dynasty will last ten thousand years.
I carve soldiers out of earth that will last an eternity,
My name will be remembered forever.
(based upon the opening song from "The First Emperor of China". I say based upon because its been years since I heard this song, my Cantonese has never been that good and I took quite a lot of liberties to make it sound reasonable in English)
They burnt the scrolls. All of them. The accumulated knowledge of thousands of years of tradition reduced to ash. But not in mere minutes. There were so many scrolls being burnt that night that the bonfire lasted until the first rays of the Sun melded with the dying flames of the funeral pyre of history.
In many ways it was an appropriate metaphor - the dying of the age of our ancestors being greeted with the birth of the age of Chin.
As High Priestess of the Four Gods I was in the capital of Chin to give an accounting of my temple's books to the First Emperor Chin Chi Huang-Ti. No. It wasn't just the capital of Chin anymore, but the capital of the country - the one country, the only country. It feels...strange - I know that hundreds of years ago, the land, the people were as one, ruled by the Son of Heaven. However for hundreds of generations we have been divided into many warring states. Just before Unification there were six.
It was from my country that came the legendary swordsman who fell in love with a princess. He brought to the Emperor who was then only a King, a map showing the routes into my country. The other price of his entry was the head of my country's most trusted general - a man who willingly knelt down and allowed the swordsman to cut off his head. For in the map was hidden a sword and when the scroll was laid down on the table in front of the King of Chin, the swordsman pulled out the sword - Ahhh. He shouldn't have survived you know, but he did...Is this pain, is this destruction truly the will of the Gods? Genbu, Seiryuu, Suzaku, Byakko...Why do you not answer me? Have you become deaf to my laments?
Ahhh...when Heaven breaths, we can do naught but to withstand the typhoon. Heaven has given the Middle Kingdom to Chin and that is something we must learn to accept. The Age of the Warring States, the Age of Autumn, the Age of Blood is over and we have a new king. No. Not just a king. The King of Chin is now Chih Huang-ti, the First Emperor, a title he picked out of the legendary past. Huang-ti was the first emperor of China and was elevated to his position by Heaven and granted immortality. Our new ruler did not choose this name for nothing - he fully intends to follow in Huang-ti's footsteps - to have the history of future generations begin with him - hence the Burning of the Books - and to achieve the blessed stated of immortality.
Now Imperial messengers are being sent out to all the villages and towns, to all the temples and shrines- including this one, the Temple of the Four Gods. Their task is twofold - to search for all books and scrolls and destroy them - except for those pertaining to agriculture - the Emperor is after all a practical man - and the mystical arts, in search of the Elixir of Life.
I stand at the temple door, awaiting our fate. No matter what happens I cannot let them burn this book. The book that my mother and her mother before her for a thousand generations have kept safe. I am the Priestess of the Four Gods. That is my privilege and my burden. The heads of all the other temples shake their wise old heads and say that it is impossible to defy the Emperor. In a few minutes I will know whether this is true. For this book cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the Emperor, for it out of all the mystic books in the country, alone truly does contain the secret of immortality. So either this book remains hidden from the sight of the Emperor or it will be destroyed along with myself. After all, what use do I, the Priestess of the "Universe of the Four Gods" have to live if it is destroyed? After all I have no other identity, no other purpose to breathe and to live except to protect this book.
The messenger approached the gate. My attendants and I went out to greet him. Climbing out of his sedan he unrolled a scroll which contained the words of the Emperor. We knelt down before him, our hands clasped out front in the sign of supplication, our heads lowered respectfully.
"Hereby are the words of the Emperor. You will treat these words as if they had come out of the mouth of our glorious ruler, the Son of Heaven, the Sun that shines on all of the land under Heaven and above Earth. All books, scrolls and other records of the time before our great benefactor united the six kingdoms and brought peace and prosperity to the land are to be given up to the Emperor's messenger. They will then be burnt to ashes. This is except for any books pertaining to agriculture or other practical arts or those concerned with the mystic arts which will confiscated and taken into Imperial custody. Any who disobey this command or resist it will be drawn, quartered, decapitated and torn apart by wild horses."
I remain silent. At this point I was supposed to acknowledge his words, the words of the Emperor but I stay silent. My silence speaks more than any words could acknowledge. Was I going to give the book to this despot?
"I obey his Majesty."
One of my attendants brought out the scroll, wrapped in a red silk cloth.
"Is this a book to be burnt or confiscated?" the messenger asked.
"Burnt."
I had been foolish. I had assumed that the messenger would be foolish and naive, that he would accept my words on face value. That he wouldn't know the true importance of the book.
I was wrong.
As I slowly brought the flame closer and closer to the bamboo strips his hand suddenly grabbed my wrist roughly. I resisted the urge to grimace or make a cry even though his grip was so tight as to bruise my skin.
I turned my head and met his grimly smiling eyes. "Really. The Universe of the Four Gods to be burnt? The book that promises three wishes from the Rulers of Heaven themselves. I think not - Priestess of the Four Gods."
I stifled another cry as he grabbed my hair and hauled me to my feet. He brought his face so close to mine that I could almost see the scars and pores of his skin. "And why didn't you burn it earlier I wonder? Could it be because you knew there was noway to replicate the distinctive design on the cover of the book which was written by the Four Gods themselves? Did you think that I was so foolish as to not realise this book's IMPORTANCE?"
He threw me to the ground roughly. Turning to his attendants he stated, "Kill her. Now."
As he was distracted I grabbed the still burning torch on the ground and with one thrust set the "Universe of the Four Gods" alight.
It was an almost frozen tableau in the courtyard as we all watched the bamboo quickly burn into ash.
"You bitch," the messenger ground out through gritted teeth. "Die!"
As he brought the sharp blade of his sword towards me I ripped apart my robe to reveal my body - the body which was tattooed from head to toe with the Universe of the Four Gods. The blade stopped barely a hair's breath from my heart.
His smile turned nasty. "Why shouldn't I just kill you and take your skin to the Emperor? In fact why should I take it to the Emperor at all, when I can keep it for myself?"
"You could - but the only books that can be used to translate these ancient characters have all been burnt and all the scholars who could have deciphered it have all been killed. I am the only one left who can read this book."
He looked at my attendants. "What about them?"
"They are not of my line. The secrets of the Book have not been passed to them."
"That wasn't what I meant." He smiled at me - the smile of death. I knew he could see the growing horror and comprehension in my eyes as I suddenly realised what he did mean.
He grabbed the nearest of the girls and put a sword at her throat. The rest of his guards grabbed the other girls and did the same. "Translate the book or they will all die."
The young girls and I stared into each other's eyes searching for an answer. However as usual in such circumstances there were no easy ones. I looked at each of the ten girls, one by one. All of them had been orphans, abandoned at birth and whom I had raised as my own daughters. Into each pair of dark eyes I looked. One by one. And one by one their eyes closed in acceptance. I turned mine away unable to look at them.
The one who the messenger held started speaking. "Mother... You took us in when no one else would. You raised us and brought us up like your own daughters. Now is the time for us to repay you for your...kindness." The girl's voice broke. "Mother. Maybe we can meet again in the next life. Pray for us at the tablet of your ancestors. Mother - GOODBYE!"
As I heard the slashing sounds I turned by head around - but it was too late. On the ground laid my ten daughters - nothing more now than bodies.
"Impossible..." the messenger breathed, dropping his blade onto the ground with a clatter. "She, they just grabbed the blade and sliced their own throats. Impossible..."
I knelt on the ground next to the girl who had spoken to me. I touched her cheek gently, just as I had 10 years earlier whenever she had had a nightmare and had asked me to stay with her until she slept. I passed my hand over her wide staring eyes, closing them. This was a sleep from which she and her sisters will never awaken from.
Why did I not cry? Why could I not cry?
Because I had a duty to fulfil.
They understood. They forgave me.
But could I ever forgive myself?
"Genbu, Byakko, Seiryuu, Suzaku..." I started to mumble the incantation.
The messengers and the soldiers started to back away as my body started to glow with an incandescent light.
"Kajin! I command you to destroy them all!"
******************************************************************************
I finally arrived. In the land that my country called Jih-pen, sun-rise, for us it is where the sun rises each day.
The boat is wrecked, unusable now but I have no intention of ever returning to my land of birth.
The bag that I carry with me always rattles. In it are ten urns, for even the Four Gods cannot bring back the dead. Only a petition to the Gods of the Northern and Southern Dippers, the Gods of Life and Death can do that and I have no idea where to find them, except that it is at the end of the world and ever since that day I have had no wish to speak to the Four Gods again - that is if they would speak to me about it at all.
The Universe of the Four Gods, my privilege...my burden.
It is still my duty to make sure that it is kept safe.
******************************************************************************
"So this is the skin of the female shaman who ruled the land of Wa?"
Okuda Einosuke flashed his lantern on the preserved skin, which was stretched over the stone slab in the middle of the tomb. His glasses reflected the light in a mad cacophony of colours.
"The Universe of the Four Gods...At last.."
****************************************************************************
NOTES:
"The empire's seal" - the emperor had a jade seal which he used to sign documents. Basically a document with his seal on it had the force of law.
"Chin" - the country at the time had spent several hundred years divided into six. This was the time of the Warring States and was also the time of the great philosophers such as Confucius, his disciple Mencius and the founder of Taoism, Lao Tze. The First Emperor's country was called Chin hence the name China which Westerners gave the empire later.
"the soldiers out of earth" - refers to the terracotta soldiers he built (yes *those* terracotta soldiers). He also built the Great Wall of China BTW.
The book-burning and killing of the scholars were real historical events. Confucianism was a fairly new thing at this time as noted above so it was basically a battle of competing philosophies at this time. Strangely enough the Chinese written language as we know it was invented at this time as well (so all those people who have tortured themselves learning kanji, blame him). It's also known that the one thing that the First Emperor feared most was death (actually there's a weird legend about Japan in relation to this).
Jih-Pen is the ancient Chinese name for Japan given for precisely the reason I stated. The Japanese later took this name and made it Nihon. Westerners took Jih-Pen and made it Japan.
The Land of Wa or the Land of the Dwarves was sort of legendary Japan, the first power centre in Japan to be in historical archives. It was chronicled in Chinese travellers' journals of the Wei dynasty. Japanese scholars have been trying to find it for ages but for some reason they usually end up in all different places...several times in the middle of the sea! Anyway apparently the Wa were ruled by a priestess called Himiko or Pimiko which means sun-daughter and she was elderly and unmarried and kept her position by magic. Ruled between 183AD to 248AD. She was served by 1000 women and one man her brother. Since the First Emperor ruled in about 200BC would you accept that the Universe of the Four Gods granted her a really, really, really long life? ^_^;