Kiyohime and the Bell of Dojoji: A Story Passed from Picture Scrolls to Noh and Kabuki

Kiyohime's story is still alive today because it has been told, performed, and danced, changing shape over many centuries. The tale of one young woman, born along the pilgrimage road to Kumano, was told at a temple with picture scrolls, turned into an "afterward" story on the Noh stage, and became a dazzling dance in Kabuki. Let's follow how a single story branched out into so many performing arts.

A story born on the road to Kumano

You'll find the outline of the story on Kiyohime's Yokaipedia page. Kiyohime falls in love with Anchin, a young monk on a pilgrimage to the Kumano shrines. When she learns he has broken his promise, she chases him, turns into a great serpent at the Hidaka River, and burns the bell of Dojoji Temple, with Anchin hiding inside.

An early form of the tale was written down in story collections such as the Konjaku Monogatari, as the story of a nameless woman and a young monk. There, it ends with the two of them being saved after death through the power of the Lotus Sutra. In other words, it was originally also a Buddhist teaching tale about the blessings of the sutra. The names "Anchin" and "Kiyohime" are said to have settled in later, as the story was retold over time.

Etoki: telling the story with pictures

Dojoji Temple in Wakayama Prefecture keeps picture scrolls of the "Dojoji Engi," the temple's illustrated legend. Scene by scene, they show Kiyohime gradually transforming into a great serpent.

Dojoji is known for "etoki," in which a monk unrolls the scrolls and tells the story aloud. Even people who couldn't read could follow along as the teller pointed to each picture. Looking with their eyes and listening with their ears, people must have taken to heart both the fierceness of Kiyohime's feelings and the long road to her salvation.

The Noh play "Dojoji": what happened next

The Noh play "Dojoji" doesn't simply stage Kiyohime's story. It's set much later.

Dojoji, long without a bell, has finally received a new one, and a ceremony is being held to dedicate it. A shirabyoshi, a woman who dances for a living, arrives and asks to perform a dance for the ceremony. As she dances, she seizes her moment, brings the bell crashing down, and vanishes inside it. The dancer, it turns out, was the serpent that once burned the old bell.

The moment the bell drops, called "kane-iri" (entering the bell), is famous as the high point of the play. As the dancer leaps into the prop bell hanging over the stage, the audience holds its breath. When the monks pray, a woman in serpent form emerges from the bell, and in the end she departs into the Hidaka River.

The Kabuki dance and the scale pattern

From the Noh play came the Kabuki dance "Kyoganoko Musume Dojoji" (The Maiden at Dojoji). The shirabyoshi Hanako performs one dance after another at the bell ceremony, and its charm lies in portraying the many moods of a young woman in love. It is one of the most treasured dance pieces for onnagata, the male actors who play women's roles in Kabuki.

So many performing arts grew from Kiyohime's tale that they're known together as "Dojoji-mono," the Dojoji plays. On these stages, a pattern of rows of triangles, like scales, has been used in costumes as a sign of a woman turned serpent. That pattern is why Pixel Yokai drew scales on its white serpent.

The story of a young woman who chased the one she loved has been lived again and again on stage, not only for its terror but for the sheer force of her feelings. For another story of a woman's feelings turning her into a demon, see Hashihime in the Yokaipedia. On the Yokai Map, you'll find Kiyohime at Dojoji in Wakayama.