The Bell - Five Wisdom Kings (五大明王) - Five Fingers
This was written before part 2 of Canto IX. AND VERY LONG (almost 7k words), brace yourself. (somewhat with Silent Hill F ref)
Note: 🐱(me) 🦐 (my partner)
As you know, Jigokuhen is the shortest of the thirteen works that PM chose as references for the sinners lineup. Because it’s so brief, people tend to skim through it rather than truly read it.
This piece is one where we go into the details of the bell.
The context is that, in that scene, there’s a detail tied to the red thread from Jigokuhen: it is the red cord used to fasten the golden bell onto Saruhide—an item that was originally given to her by the young lady, the daughter she served.
while 🦐was writing analysis about our husband's Great Trichiliocosm E.G.O. (Ryoshu, we call her as our husband), and 🦐 came across the detail about the red thread in the original book, 🦐casually asked🐱
🦐 "Hey, why did Hinako give the bell to her older sister?"
娘は御姫様から頂戴した黄金の鈴を、美しい真紅の紐に下げて、それを猿の頭へ懸けてやりますし、猿は又どんな事がございましても、滅多に娘の身のまはりを離れません。
“The girl hangs the golden bell she received from the young princess on a beautiful deep-crimson cord, and places it over the monkey’s head; and the monkey, no matter what happens, almost never leaves the girl’s side.”
Coincidentally, around that time 🦐had just dragged herself through the first ending of Silent Hill f (while🐱 was watching) , and it stirred a memory there was also a detail about giving a bell. That made 🦐 wonder what it actually meant.
And this is the answer 🦐got from🐱:
“That’s called a bell charm, basically a type of good-luck talisman. There are three kinds of wearable charms: omamori, suzu, and ema. Hinako’s a teenager, so giving something like that makes sense.”
🦐 “What does being a teenager have to do with choosing a bell, though—?”
🐱 “It’s because teenagers back then liked wearing that kind of thing. It’s small, cute, and it makes a clear, ringing sound. That chiming is also meant to ward off evil spirits.”
🐱 “Basically, osuzu bells were pretty popular with younger people. Omamori pouches feel old and traditional, and ema are too big. A bell is more compact, and since it’s always making a sound, it gives this sense of not being alone. It’s like saying, ‘Keep this with you and think of me whenever you feel lonely.’ ”
🐱 “That’s why they chose something that makes a sound instead of a silent charm. In the past, there was this quietly romantic idea: ‘When you hear this sound, think of me—take it as me being by your side.’”
(Just a small sound cutting through silence, carrying presence where the body cannot be. is what🐱 meant)
at that moment I went full galaxy brain.
🦐 had this gut reaction, like, “Whoa, the bell-giving scene is actually really meaningful and sweet,” and then, slowly, something started to click her.
What if the scene where the bell is given to the monkey in Jigokuhen carries the same kind of meaning?
And from what was supposed to be just a casual question, something to spin into maybe a 2,000-word piece about bells 🦐ended up digging out an entire layer of meaning from other details I’d brushed past before, written off as mere exaggeration by an unreliable narrator.
And just like that, this essay grew longer.
A. A protective charm to ward off evil spirits
II. The Supernatural Element
A. From being possessed by a fox to becoming a god
C. The Two Myōō (Wisdom Kings): Horikawa and Yoshihide
III. Weaving All of This into Limbus Company
A. The Five Fingers – the Five Great Wisdom Kings
B. The Father of the Index – Fudō Myōō
C. Dihui Star and Horikawa
D. Dihui Star / Yoshihide and Fuku / Akutagawa
A. A protective charm to ward off evil
The bell that Yoshihide’s daughter hangs on the monkey was a gift bestowed by the young lady she served. At that point in time, the matter of the monkey and the girl had not yet developed into something openly known, so it cannot be dismissed as a bell meant merely for a pet. It must be the same kind of object as the one Hinako gives to her elder sister.
Now imagine this: you are given, by your mistress, a golden bell—precious as hell, and doubled as a protective talisman. Who would you pass it on to?
– The father who has always doted on you, indulged you, loved you.
– Or some random monkey you happened to save.
Even though Yoshihide is described as eccentric, arrogant, and broadly detested, the narrator explicitly tells us that while he is miserly, he never begrudges money when it comes to his daughter. Over and over again, the text drives home phrases that revolve around “loving his child.” Paired with that, the girl herself is described as deeply filial.
と申しますのは、良秀が、あの一人娘の小女房をまるで気違ひのやうに可愛がつてゐた事でございます。先刻申し上げました通り、娘も至つて気のやさしい、親思ひの女でございましたが、あの男の子煩悩は、決してそれにも劣りますまい。
“What I mean to say is this: Yoshihide cherished that sole daughter of his, that young maiden, as though he were quite out of his mind. As I mentioned earlier, the daughter herself was an exceedingly gentle woman, deeply mindful of her parent; yet that man’s infatuation, his obsession with his child was in no way inferior even to that.”
Given how much karmic filth Yoshihide accumulates through his work, it would frankly make more sense for this “filial” daughter to give the bell to him. I mean—come on. With that kind of life, he’s basically guaranteed to get haunted or possessed by some demon or yokai sooner or later.
That choice can be explained in two ways, either one of them, or both at once:
The daughter does not love her father that much. Not that she feels nothing for him, but not to the exalted degree people praise her for. She fulfills her duties as a daughter, and her good reputation inflates that image in the eyes of outsiders.
She believes the bell would only get in his way. Yoshihide delights in extracting beauty from what people call ugly demons and monsters included. Moreover, he can only paint what he sees, even if that sight comes from dreams. If a chiming bell drives evil spirits away from him, then how is he supposed to paint demons at all?
Whatever the reason, she chooses to give it to the monkey—the creature she saves because she “feels as though her father must be suffering punishment.”
When the lord praises her as “filial” upon hearing that reasoning, it adds yet another layer of anthropomorphism to the monkey. As if the monkey is Yoshihide. And this exchange of positions truly does take place.
From the moment the gift tied with the red cord is handed over, the monkey gradually becomes Yoshihide, while the real Yoshihide comes to be called Saruhide (“Monkey Hide.”)
Season 7’s title places emphasis on The Red Thread. Seen through that lens, the only bond formed by that thread is between the daughter and the monkey. The man called her father has no such connection.
That bond is so strong that the monkey charges into death alongside her, what one might, if feeling sentimental, call “not parted even by death.” It dies while being called Yoshihide.
Meanwhile, the one who chooses to paint, at all costs, a vision of hell born from his daughter’s suffering rather than rushing to die with her in that moment is whispered about behind people’s backs as Saruhide.
Now, circling back to Canto VIII, to the detail where Ryōshū lets slip information about her “old men”—something later confirmed in Canto IX.
One could explain it simply as a reference to Ryūnosuke being taken in by the Akutagawa side of the family, resulting in two father figures. But if you inhale just a bit more metaphorical grass, then all this talk of humanizing the monkey analyses calling it the “good” part of Yoshihide starts to look less like invention.
In The Hell Screen, there was more than one father to begin with. That said, if you ask me, the monkey looks less like an embodiment of a man past fifty and more like a child.
The idea that hearing the bell eases loneliness does not apply to the monkey it applies to the daughter.
Yes. I’m saying the daughter is the one who feels lonely. And I have proof for that proof that the English translation quietly drops, and because later translations lean on it, they end up losing the same nuance.
All the textual “evidence” of Yoshihide’s supposed love for his child sounds convincing at first. But once you place it beside what the monkey actually does, you start to see that this love is mostly surface-deep.
After the red-threaded bell is given to the monkey:
As a protective charm: the monkey stops being bullied; people gradually grow fond of it.
As relief from loneliness: the monkey never leaves the girl’s side, and when she falls ill, it stays there, keeping watch.
Meanwhile, Yoshihide whenever he paints doesn’t even spare his daughter a glance. Beyond cementing his place in the eternal hall of Terrible Parents of the Year, this detail directly undermines the claim that “Yoshihide loved his child.”
Even the narrator remarks on how strange it is that a man famed for doting on his daughter would fail to so much as look at her while working.
A parent who claims to love their child, yet buries themselves in work and leaves that child alone there’s nothing rare or extraordinary about that. It happens all the time.
Love spoken aloud is cheap. Love that stays, listens, keeps watching you through sickness that’s the one that rings.
良秀はそれから五六箇月の間、まるで御邸へも伺はないで、屏風の絵にばかりか、つて居りました。あれ程の子煩悩がいざ絵を描くと云ふ段になりますと、娘の顔を見る気もなくなると申すのでございますから、不思議なものではございませんか。
“For the next five or six months, Yoshihide scarcely even visited the lord’s residence, devoting himself entirely to the paintings on the folding screen. That a man so exceedingly doting on his child should, the moment he set himself to painting, lose even the desire to look upon his daughter’s face—does that not strike one as strange?”
その位でございますから、いざ画筆を取るとなると、その絵を描き上げると云ふより外は、何も彼も忘れてしまふのでございませう。昼も夜も一間に閉ぢこもつたきりで、滅多に日の目も見た事はございません。――殊に地獄変の屏風を描いた時には、かう云ふ夢中になり方が、甚しかつたやうでございます。
“That being the case, once he took up the brush, he would forget everything else but the completion of the painting itself. He shut himself up in a single room day and night, and rarely ever saw the light of day. — And when he was painting the Hell Screen in particular, this state of total absorption was said to be especially severe.”
What’s more, when the girl fell ill, it is only the monkey that is mentioned as staying by her side and showing distress. Where, at that crucial moment, was Yoshihide—the man famed for his love of his child? This is then reinforced later by the passage stating that he paints without even looking at her face, creating a stark contrast: the monkey’s closeness and care set against Yoshihide’s ‘strange’ distance.
From this detail, you can recognize that Yoshihide possesses what I would call a ‘painter-slave mode.’ It is akin to an extreme state of focus, where one task consumes the mind so completely that everything else ceases to exist.
Once again, I offer Yoshihide a raised middle finger for allowing that painter-slave mode to overwhelm what little humanity he had left. As a father, he is a failure.
Now, returning to the main point: in the scene where she rescues the monkey, when asked about its name, the author describes the girl’s reply to the young lord as follows:
娘はもう一度かう繰返しましたがやがて寂しさうにほほ笑みますと、
「それに良秀と申しますと、父が御折檻を受けますやうで、どうも唯見ては居られませぬ。」
“The girl repeated herself once more, but then, smiling with a look of loneliness, she said:
‘And when I hear the name Yoshihide, it feels as though my father himself is being punished somehow, I simply cannot bear to stand by and watch.’”
In this section, the English translation:
And then, smiling sadly, she added, 'His name is Yoshihide, after all. I can't just stand by and watch “my father” being punished.'
The Vietnamese translation is almost identical:
Cô gái nhắc lại điều đó thêm một lần nữa rồi mỉm cười buồn, nói dứt khoát:
"Con vật này tên là Yoshihide nên nhìn nó tiểu nữ cảm thấy như cha mình phải chịu tội vậy."
The common point between the English and Vietnamese versions is that both describe the girl at that moment as “smiling sadly.”
From there, one might imagine her as a Snow White or Cinderella-like figure, feeling sorrow upon witnessing an animal being abused...which would also seem to fit the image commonly painted of her.
However, the original text describes this detail in a different direction.
The word used to describe the girl’s “sad smile” is in fact 寂しさ (sabishisa), which means loneliness. In its full sense, the passage describes her as smiling with a loneliness held within.
What deserves attention here, beyond Akutagawa’s choice of the word 寂しさ (sabishisa), is that he places this description precisely at the moment Yoshihide is mentioned.
When the girl reaches out to save the monkey, her emotion is described as “pity” (可哀). But when she explains her reasoning when Yoshihide’s name comes up the word used shifts to “loneliness” (寂しさ).
If you only read the current context of that passage, you really wouldn't know why the girl is “lonely”; only after reaching part 7 of the story does the reason gradually become clear.
II. The Supernatural Element
A. From being possessed by a fox to becoming a deity
Since we’re already talking about the supernatural elements involving foxes—Wait. Hold on. There are foxes in Silent Hill f too. What the hell.
On one side, there’s a marriage between a fox god and a human; on the other, fox possession. Oh shit—
Previously, when we wrote a post dissecting breadcrumbs back in Canto VIII, I took a jab at Yoshihide at one point. Someone reblogged it and said,
“Maybe Yoshihide went mad, rather than truly feeling joy at watching his daughter burn to death.”
Alright. I’ll debunk that now, even if it’s a bit late.
In the passage quoted above, roughly the beginning of Chapter 7 there is mention of Yoshihide’s so-called “painter-slave mode,” something observers described as him being possessed by a fox.
先刻申し上げました弟子の話では、何でもあの男は仕事にとりかへりますと、まるで狐でも憑いたやうになるらしうございます。 いや実際当時の風評に、良秀が画道で名を成したのは、福徳の大神に祈誓をかけたからで、その証拠にはあの男が絵を描いてゐる所を、そつと物陰から覗いて見ると、必ず陰々として霊狐の姿が、一匹ならず前後左右に、群つてゐるのが見えるなどと申す者もございました。
According to what his apprentice mentioned earlier, it seems that once that man gets down to work, he becomes as if possessed by a fox. In fact, people used to say that the only reason Yoshihide was able to make such a name for himself in art was that he had made a solemn vow to the great god of fortune; what proved it was that if you peeked in on him when he was painting, you could always see shadowy fox spirits swarming all around him.
In the passage describing Yoshihide as he watches his daughter being swallowed by the flames, the narrative again employs supernatural imagery to portray him this time in a heightened form.
しかも不思議なのは、何もあの男が 一人娘の断末魔を嬉しさうに眺めてゐた、そればかりではございません。その時の良秀には、何故か人間とは思はれない、夢に見る獅子王の怒りに似た、怪しげな厳さがございました。でございますから不意の火の手に驚いて、啼き騒ぎながら飛びまはる数の知れない夜鳥でさへ、気のせるか良秀の揉烏帽子のまはりへは、近づかなかつたやうでございます。恐らくは無心の鳥の眼にも、あの男の頭の上に、円光の如く懸つてゐる、不可思議な威厳が見えたのでございませう。
“And what is more uncanny is that it was not merely that the man gazed upon the death throes of his only daughter with something like delight. At that moment, there was about Yoshihide a strange severity, for some reason no longer human—resembling the wrath of a Lion King seen in a dream. Because of this, even the countless night birds that had been startled by the sudden outbreak of fire, crying and fluttering about in panic, seemed unable to approach the area around Yoshihide’s knotted cap. Perhaps even to the eyes of those unthinking birds, there appeared above that man’s head an incomprehensible majesty, hanging there like a halo.”
鳥でさへさうでございます。まして私たちは仕丁までも、皆息をひそめながら、身の内も震へるばかり、異様な随喜の心に充ち満ちて、まるで開眼の仏でも見るやうに、眼も離さず、良秀を見つめました。空一面に鳴り渡る車の火と、それに魂を奪はれて、立ちすくんでゐる良秀と――何と云ふ荘厳、何と云ふ歓喜でございませう。が、その中でたつた、御縁の上の大殿様だけは、まるで別人かと思はれる程、御顔の色も青ざめて、口元に泡を御ためになりながら、紫の指貫の膝を両手にしつかり御つかみになつて、丁度喉の渇いた獣のやうに喘ぎつゞけていらつしやいました。･･････
“If even the birds were so affected, then how much more so were we, the attendants. All of us, suppressing our breath, our very insides trembling, found ourselves filled with a strange joy of rapture; we stared at Yoshihide without looking away, as though beholding a Buddha who had just attained enlightenment. The flames of the carriage roaring across the entire sky, and Yoshihide standing transfixed, his soul seized by them—what solemn grandeur, what exultation it was. And yet, amid all this, only the lord—bound to her by obligation—seemed as if he were a different person altogether: his face drained of color, foam gathering at his lips, his hands gripping tightly at the knees of his purple trousers, gasping unceasingly, like a beast parched with thirst.”
Seeing Yoshihide not break down in anguish or collapse into hysterical grief, but instead appear almost godlike, is what makes the Lord turn pale and foam at the mouth. After all, the reason the lord chose Yoshihide’s daughter to be burned was because he wanted Yoshihide to suffer he wanted to witness that suffering. You can clearly sense the lord’s twisted excitement in the way he speaks about burning Yoshihide’s daughter, can’t you?
But no, Yoshihide enters his painter-slave mode. This makes him radiate a sacred, divine presence in the eyes of others, because there is simply no way a normal human being could react like that. One could call it “art triumphing over power.” But at what cost?
It could be said that the narrator and the characters exaggerate somewhat when describing Yoshihide in this way.
Yet through my own reading, you can see that Yoshihide is, at heart, merely entering an extreme state of concentration in which everything else ceases to matter to him. Because the spectacle is so utterly horrifying, the expression he wears makes it impossible for others to regard him as human anymore turning him into a sacred being, one the narrator even calls “a Buddha at the moment of awakening.”
Even so, the reactions of the servants and the reaction of the lord form two fascinating extremes, which I will return to later. Returning to the scene of Yoshihide gazing into the pillar of fire this cannot be dismissed as madness followed by reckless action.
This supernatural element had already been foreshadowed earlier, and its repetition here serves to confirm that Yoshihide is in the same state he was in when he could not even bring himself to look at his daughter while she was still alive only far more intense.
Stripping away the layers of supernatural personification, Yoshihide is simply a man who places art above love. In the end, he does regret it, regret that comes too late.
The moment that marks Yoshihide being completely “devoured by the divine” occurs after the monkey leaps into the flames alongside the girl. If the monkey is taken to represent Yoshihide’s human core, then had that human core truly prevailed, Yoshihide himself would likely have rushed into the fire with his daughter, just as the monkey did.
(Actually, there is another reason, which I will mention later, in the section related to “Wisdom Kings”).
In that case, public condemnation would have fallen on the lord for arbitrarily burning an innocent young woman whom everyone sympathized with, rather than on Yoshihide whose continued painting left people too shocked to focus on the lord’s decision, eventually reframing it as a punishment inflicted upon Yoshihide, as though the lord were some sagacious judge.
Incidentally, this motif of possession is taken from the original Uji Shūi Monogatari. (宇治拾遺物語) People were stunned and asked Ryōshū how he could possibly react in such a way after witnessing something so horrific and can you guess how he replied?
「どうしてもののけなどとりつくことがあろうか。長年（わたしは）不動明王の火炎を下手に描いていたのだ。今見ると、（火は）このように燃えるものだったと、会得したのだ。これこそもうけものよ。仏画の道を職業として世の中を生きてゆくには、仏様だけでもうまくお描き申しあげれば、百や千の家などすぐできるだろう。あなたたちこそ、これといった才能もお持ちでないから、物をおしみなさるのだ。」
“How could a spirit or demon possibly possess me? For many years I had clumsily painted the flames of Fudō Myō-ō. Now that I have seen it with my own eyes, I have finally grasped how fire truly burns. This is pure profit to me. If one makes a living in this world through the path of Buddhist painting, then by painting the Buddhas well alone, one could easily build hundreds or even thousands of houses. You, on the other hand, lacking any particular talent, are the ones who begrudge things.”
Saying this, he stood there and laughed scornfully.
Note: 不動明王 Fudō Myō-ō aka "The Immovable"/"Immovable Lord" (Acala or Achala)
Neither Yoshihide nor Ebusshi Ryōshū believed in possession by evil spirits. Yet everyone around them thought both were possessed.
As you may have noticed, I use the term “divinity” rather than “deity.” or “god”
And true to the nature of an unreliable narrator, the storyteller gives us two pieces of information that directly clash with each other.
The narrator recounts rumors he has heard regarding Yoshihide’s rise to fame and success: that it was because he had sworn an oath to a certain 大神 (ōgami / okami, “Great Deity”), and that whenever he painted, fox spirits would gather around him.
The only deity I know who is served by foxes (kitsune) is Inari. And those foxes are called zenko, not yōko.
霊狐 (yōko) are yōkai—monstrous spirits.
So if we put it bluntly, this old man is not being protected by any benevolent deity at all; he is being possessed by yōkai (妖怪).
And honestly, oaths sworn to gods rarely end well anyway. One usually prays for a god’s protection one does not lightly swear vows to them, right?
Because an oath is a heavy thing, not something to be spoken carelessly, much less in the presence of a deity.
If this line of interpretation feels unfamiliar, you can think of it like Faust making a pact with Mephistopheles.
By the time we reach the scene where Yoshihide witnesses his daughter burning to death, the narrator raises the stakes further. Yoshihide is no longer merely possessed he has become a wrathful deity, a dharmapāla.
By combining the two descriptions “majestic like a lion king in a fury” and “a Buddha at the moment of awakening” I finally understood that Akutagawa is describing a wrathful guardian deity. And conveniently, one such figure is explicitly mentioned in the story.
In fact, in Uji Shūi Monogatari, the tale of Ebussō Ryōshū also refers to this very being.
Fudō Myōō—the wrathful manifestation of Dainichi Nyorai (Vairocana).
At this point, even if the bell had truly been given to Yoshihide, it would have been useless. A bell may drive away yōkai, but it can do nothing against a god. Seen this way, one might even wonder: if the daughter had given the bell to her father from the start, might he still have remained human at that crucial moment?
Because the girl gave the bell to the monkey, Yoshihide himself moved unchecked from being possessed to being wholly “devoured by divinity.” The monkey, which people interpret as Yoshihide’s humanity, his better self, bears the protective bell given by the girl, and thus was never something that could be possessed in the first place.
In short, there was no saving him. At first, Yoshihide was still a man possessed by fox spirits, there was still a way back. But in the end, he became a wrathful god, leaving people staring in wide-eyed awe, filled with a “strange rapture,” as though they were beholding the Buddha himself.
All except one person, whose reaction was entirely different. The lord Horikawa.
C. The Two Wisdom Kings (明王): Horikawa and Yoshihide
Horikawa was originally revered by the people as a reincarnation of a god or Buddha. It was said that before his birth, Daiitoku Myōō (大威徳明王 aka the god of death “Destroyer of Death” or "Conqueror of Death") appeared in his mother’s dream.
噂に聞きますと、あの方の御誕生になる前には、大威徳明王の御姿が御母君の夢枕にお立ちになつたとか申す事でございますが、兎に角御生れつきから、並々の人間とは御違ひになつてゐたやうでございます。
I heard it said that before His birth, Daiitoku Myōō appeared in His mother's dream. In any case, it seems He was different from ordinary men from the moment He was born.
The people appeared to regard him as Daiitoku Myōō reborn, to the extent that when an old woman was injured by one of his oxen, she expressed gratitude rather than resentment. This is because depictions of Daiitoku Myōō often show him riding a white ox.
The link between Yoshihide and Fudō Myōō is shown in the passage where the narrator criticizes Yoshihide for daring to paint Fudō Myōō using a base model taken from a disreputable man.
さやうな男でございますから、吉祥天を描く時は、卑しい傀儡の顔を写しましたり、不動明王を描く時は、無頼の放免の姿を像りましたり、いろくの勿体ない真似を致しましたが、それでも当人を詰りますと「良秀の描いた神仏が、その良秀に冥罰を当てられるとは、異な事を聞くものぢや」と空嘯いてゐるではございませんか。
Such a man he was, when he painted Kichijōten, he depicted her with the face of a lowly prostitute; when he painted Fudō Myōō, he portrayed him as a vagabond outlaw. He committed all manner of irreverent acts. Yet, when confronted, he would scoff, “That gods or Buddhas painted by Yoshihide should bring divine punishment upon Yoshihide himself—what a strange tale that would be!”
And in Uji Shūi Monogatari:
その後にや、良秀 がよぢり不動とて、今に人々めであへり。
Since this is written in classical language to the point that even modern Japanese readers (🐱) struggle with it, here is the modernized version:
そのことがあって以来のことだろうか、「良秀のよぢり不動」と言って、今でも人々が称賛しあっている。
“Perhaps it is for that reason that, ever since that incident, people have continued to praise Ryōshū’s ‘Fierce Fudō’ down to the present day.”
The context is that this Buddhist painter is working on an image of Fudō Myōō. And as you may know (or have just looked up), depictions of Fudō Myōō are always accompanied by flames. When a house fire breaks out, as we already know, the painter does not care that his home—and his wife and children—have just burned to ashes. What he cares about is that he had been painting the flames poorly, and only now, upon seeing real fire, can he paint them correctly.
The ending of this thirteenth-century tale leaves the reader with an uneasy aftertaste: we do not know what becomes of the painter afterward, but we do know that the painting he created—at the cost of his own family—goes on to be praised by later generations.
Perhaps this is why Akutagawa wrote the ending of Jigokuhen the way he did. If one must sacrifice goodness in order to choose beauty, then that choice is not acceptable.
All right—I’ve wandered off topic. Let’s return.
At its core, both Horikawa and Yoshihide are each associated with a Wisdom King, regardless of the narrative path taken.
In the English version, Daiitoku Myōō is translated as “the Guardian Deity of the West.” That… isn’t wrong. But it can easily be mistaken for one of the Four Heavenly Kings.
The Arrangement of the Five Great Wisdom Kings
The Kyōryō-rinjin (embodiment of the divine command) of Dainichi Nyorai.
The Kyōryō-rinjin of Ashuku Nyorai (Akṣobhya).
The Kyōryō-rinjin of Hōshō Nyorai (Ratnasambhava).
The Kyōryō-rinjin of Amida Nyorai (Amitābha).
North — Kongō Yasha Myōō (Tōmitsu tradition)
The Kyōryō-rinjin of Fukūjōju Nyorai (Amoghasiddhi),
or Ushusama Myōō (Taimitsu tradition).
Simply by reading the directional placement of the Five Wisdom Kings, you can probably notice that Fudō Myōō is set apart from the other four.
He stands at the very center.
So I looked further, and on a random Buddhist website called tuongphattrangia.com, it states the following:
Bản tôn của Ngài Bất Động Minh Vương có địa vị tôn quý quan trọng bậc nhất trong Ngũ Đại Minh Vương. (...). Địa vị của Ngài có thể sánh ngang với Bồ Tát Quán Thế Âm và Bồ Tát Địa Tạng và trở thành 3 chủ tôn của tượng Phật dân gian.
The principal icon of Fudō Myōō holds the most exalted and crucial position among the Five Great Wisdom Kings. (…). His status can be considered equal to that of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara and Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha, forming the three principal revered figures of folk Buddhist statuary.
And if you like, this is what was written in English wikipedia:
In East Asian esoteric Buddhism, Acala is classed among the Wisdom Kings (Vidyārāja) and is preeminent among the five Wisdom Kings of the Womb Realm. Accordingly, he occupies an important hierarchical position in the Mandala of the Two Realms.
Even if you do not trust that source, Fudō Myōō still occupies the center—the central position, the place that inevitably draws the viewer’s gaze.
At the very moment when people submit to the divine pressure emanating from Yoshihide, feeling as though they are witnessing the “Buddha opening his eyes,” Horikawa regarded as a god or Buddha reborn, aligned with Daiitoku Myōō sees something else entirely.
He sees the ugly painter he despises, the painter who has always stood beneath him on the ladder of power, becoming something that surpasses even himself. All eyes are fixed on Yoshihide, on Fudō Myōō, on the central position that naturally commands attention.
How could he not feel bitterness? How could he not feel revulsion?
Those violent emotions erupt, and we remember how he turned pale, foamed at the mouth, and breathed like a beast.
Here is a fact that is anything but pleasant.
The sword in Fudō Myōō’s right hand fully symbolizes the power to cut down Greed, Anger, and Ignorance, the three poisons that corrupt wisdom. The rope in his left hand binds all those who abuse their strength and act with arrogance. The raging flames behind him incinerate every form of defilement.
The two ritual implements of Fudō Myōō are a sword (often called the sacred sword, or Kurikara) and a noose or rope (pāśa). Yoshihide hangs himself a final, irreversible link to Fudō Myōō.
III. How those stuff can be refer in Limbus Company
I don't know what to say about the bell because PM seems to prefer choosing the rope to spotlight, even though the teaser also faintly echoes the sound of the bell.
So let's talk about the rest. Starting with the Five Wisdom Kings.
A. Five Finger - Five Wisdom Kings
We do not view it from Yoshihide's perspective, but instead look at it from the outside (specifically from above), then the position of each person will correspond to the following Wisdom Kings:
North, Matthias, the Middle: "The Devourer of Demons" Vajrayakṣa - Kongōyasha Myōō
South, Maestro ???, the Ring: "The Dispenser of Heavenly Nectar" Kuṇḍali - Gundari Myōō
East, Valentina, the Thumb: "The Conqueror of The Three Planes" Trailokyavijaya - Gōzanze Myōō
West, Rien, the Index: "The Defeater of Death" Yamāntaka - Daiitoku Myōō
Removing the Pinky from this photo leaves exactly five people in the frame. And the person in the center, Yoshihide, is obviously “The Immovable One” Acala - Fudō Myōō.
To be honest, I deliberately chose the viewing angle so that the Index Father would be Yamāntaka, because of the Jigokuhen and how the PM deliberately emphasized how important this character is to Yoshihide from the teaser to Part 1 of Canto IX.
If you're wondering what the Pinky aka Dihui Star is, it's simple: the former Immovable One. In the original work, we have two characters named 良秀. And both are associated with the Immovable One in some way.
Speaking of which, I thought of another possibility.
Kudos to @ryoshudoodles for giving us the idea by writing that long post.
B. Index Father - the Immovable One
If you look back at the picture where everyone is gathered around Yoshihide, just look at it from the angle it was drawn, isn't Mr. Index right in the middle of the picture? The center position of the Immovable One?
Jigokuhen is already short, and the story about ebusshi Ryōshū is even shorter (you have no idea how much I struggled with 13th-century classical prose). But because it's short, we don't have much information about it, yet at the same time, we know some other important information.
And the same goes for the Index Father.
This guy. THIS FUCKING GUY is the Rashomon effect. Because you can't FUCKING tell what he wants, needs, does, or thinks. Like Ryōshū said, he is an empty shell.
He is Chaos, and not even Moses, a genius detective and strategist that can see and point someone's innermost thoughts and feelings can get a read on him.
(quotes from ryoshudoodles)
An empty shell? Or let me suggest this...What do you think of the word “vessel”?
pls dont mind our nickname on discord--
In the section about the fantasy element, I explained that people saw Yoshihide as a possessed person/a divine entity because they couldn't understand or imagine that a human being could act that way. So they blame fantasy elements, which are also elements they believe cannot be explained or understood.
It's similar to how people believe ebusshi Ryōshū was possessed.
Now let's return to the world of City, where more crazy things can happen. What I mean is that he, the Index Father, is a vessel for something.
It could be a vessel for a “deity” like Yoshihide in Jigokuhen, for example, a vessel for the Immovable One. Quoted from the Caṇḍamahāroṣaṇa Sutra describing the Immovable One:
His right hand is terrifying with a sword in it,
His left is holding a noose;
He is making a threatening gesture with his Index Finger,
And bites his lower lip with his fangs.
C. Dihui Star and Horikawa
After Ryōshū cuts her tongue she spits it out, and she laughs, in Dante's words "The triumphant laughter of one who had just seized the victory of one's life." Ryōshū stands there, dumbfounded and confused, dropping the sword.
This is the ultimate suffering the Dihui blade wanted to inflict. This is the lord of Horikawa laughing from the balcony, foaming at the mouth.
So what do I think of her?
Like I said, I think she is our lord. I think at some point she was probably like Ryōshū , the pride of the house of spiders. That is, until something left her unable to perform that role and she was forced into raising a child that she did not want.
Unable to turn her blade towards those that forced something upon her, she turns it towards a younger Yoshihide. And she knows that one day Yoshihide will turn that same blade towards her own child. It never stops. And unsheathing the odachi was the first step towards making it happen.
(quotes from ryoshudoodles)
This fellow enthusiast connects the plot point of Dihui Star in 9-18 with the scene where Horikawa laughs when Yoshihide asks him to burn the carriage with a woman inside, and she also said that Dihui Star is Horikawa.
Let us delve deeper into this direction.
Before reaching the scene where Horikawa laughs hysterically upon hearing Yoshihide's request, we must first understand why Horikawa ordered the old man to paint the Hell Screen.
It was not a premeditated plan for punishment, but simply a way to distract Yoshihide.
As we all know, Yoshihide had a painting obsession that was so intense that people rumored he was possessed to explain it, and when he was in that state, he didn't even care about his own daughter.
According to the narrator, when painting the screen, he was more intensely focused than ever, and in any case, painting a complete picture of hell required much more effort than painting a Buddhist deity one of the other subjects Yoshihide had painted.
Why did Horikawa want to distract Yoshihide? Distract him from what?
From his daughter, of course.
The narrator denied any connection between the order to paint the screen and the girl, but this effort was insignificant when he admitted that the order to paint the screen came after the girl incident.
Previously, Yoshihide had repeatedly asked for his daughter to be dismissed from serving the lord, but Horikawa openly disapproved of this, and it happened so often (4, 5 times) that he grew cold and resentful of Yoshihide. This eventually led to the order to paint the screen.
While Yoshihide was busy painting, Horikawa kept visiting the girl without being bothered by her old father anymore.
When Yoshihide came to report that the painting was almost finished, Horikawa, whose goal was to keep Yoshihide buried in his work for as long as possible, reacted to the report with little enthusiasm.
しかしかう仰有る大殿様の御声には、何故か妙に力の無い、張合のぬけた所がございました。
“That is most fortunate. I am satisfied.”
Yet in the voice of His Lordship as he spoke thus, there was something strangely weak, a certain lack of vigor.
But as soon as Yoshihide admitted that he was stuck on a section he couldn't draw, Horikawa became strangely cheerful.
「さやうでございまする。私は総じて、見たものでなければ描けませぬ。よし描けても、得心が参りませぬ。それでは描けぬも同じ事でございませぬか。」
これを御聞きになると、大殿様の御顔には、嘲るやうな御微笑が浮びました。
“What? There are things you cannot draw?”
“Indeed, my lord. I can only draw what I have seen. Even if I could draw it, I would not be satisfied. Would that not be the same as not being able to draw it at all?”
Upon hearing this, a mocking smile appeared on the lord's face.
Yoshihide, that arrogant old man who always acted like he was the world's greatest painter, now admitted to him that he couldn't paint a thing. How could he not laugh?
He had already begun to dislike the old man, so it was understandable that he reacted that way when he heard the old man complaining about his art block.
Horikawa continued to ask, wanting to paint a scene of hell, one must have seen hell, right? He guessed that Yoshihide had never seen prisoners or prison guards, so he couldn't paint it, but Yoshihide said he had seen them, which surprised Horikawa. Losing patience, he asked Yoshihide what he couldn't paint.
When Yoshihide began describing the woman in the carriage, Horikawa became interested and urged him to continue.
When Yoshihide uttered that horrific request, Horikawa's face darkened for a moment.
He himself hadn't expected Yoshihide to have the nerve to ask him to do something so outrageous in the name of art. After all, on his artistic journey, Yoshihide had never sacrificed a single life, no matter how much he tormented his apprentices.
大殿様は御顔を暗くなすつたと思ふと、突然けたたましく御笑ひになりました。さうしてその御笑ひ声に息をつまらせながら、仰有いますには、
「おゝ、万事その方が申す通りに致して遣はさう。出来る出来ぬの詮議は無益の沙汰ぢや。」
The lord's face darkened, I thought, when suddenly he burst into loud laughter. And then, gasping for breath amidst that laughter, he declared:
“Well… I shall have everything done just as you say. Debating what can or cannot be done is a futile exercise.”
That moment also marked the instant Yoshihide gave Horikawa the means to punish the old painter in the most brutal and convenient way possible, without needing any further justification. Because the old man himself had asked him to do so.
Now back to the scene of Dihui Star laughing.
그것도 더할 나위 없이 만족스럽다는 듯한 승리자의 웃음이었다.
It was the smile of a victor, one that seemed utterly satisfied.
I'm not sure if Dihui Star laughed because Yoshihide drew her sword or because Yoshihide cut her tongue. But basically, fellow enthusiast @ryoshudoodles is quite right when comparing this scene to when Horikawa heard Yoshihide's request, the victor's laugh, sounding extremely satisfied.
As Yoshihide said, Dihua Star wanted her to suffer, just as Horikawa wanted to punish Yoshihide. So her action of drawing her sword and cutting her tongue was probably similar to the original Yoshihide asking Horikawa to burn the carriage. She gave the other person the most convenient means to torment herself.
The subsequent reactions of the two Yoshihides were also something else. Yoshihide Limbus became confused, as if she were lost.
혼란스러운… 마치 길을 잃은 듯한 표정으로 료슈는 한참 동안 그자의 허덕임을 바라본다.
混乱した…まるで道を失ったかのような表情で良秀はしばらくの間、その人の喘鳴を眺めていた。
Ryōshū , gasping for breath, drops her sword.
Confused… with a look as if lost, Ryōshū watches the person's labored breathing for a long while.
Yoshihide turned pale with fear after hearing Horikawa describe in detail the scene the old man wanted the lord to create. He realized that the artistic inspiration he had imagined would be nothing more than a brutal act.
大殿様の御言葉を聞きますと、良秀は急に色を失つて喘ぐやうに唯、唇ばかり動して居りましたが、やがて体中の筋が緩んだやうに、べたりと畳へ両手をつくと、
「難有い仕合でございまする。」と、聞えるか聞えないかわからない程低い声で、丁寧に御礼を申し上げました。これは大方自分の考へてゐた目ろみの恐ろしさが、大殿様の御言葉につれてありくと目の前へ浮んで来たからでございませうか。私は一生の中に唯一度、この時だけは良秀が、気の毒な人間に思はれました。
Upon hearing His Lordship's words, Yoshihide suddenly lost all color and gasped, moving only his lips. Then, as if every muscle in his body had gone slack, he collapsed onto the tatami mats, pressing both hands flat against them.
“It is a most fortunate turn of events,” he murmured in a voice so low it was barely audible, offering his most respectful thanks. This was likely because the dread he had imagined was now vividly brought to life before his eyes by the Lord's words. For the only time in my life, at that moment, I felt pity for Yoshihide.
It's like when we read fanfics with tags like violence and “graping”, and it seems appealing, so we keep reading. But when it actually happens in real life, you find it truly disgusting.
And this old man is only now realizing that. “Those who have never tasted war will think war is sweet,” I vaguely remember hearing a phrase like that.
As I said before, until he asked Horikawa, he had never sacrificed anyone for the sake of art (he had tortured people, but never to the point of killing them). He saw the fire and painted the Fudo of Twisting Flames, but he hadn't seen people die in that sea of flames.
He painted a scene of a person being tormented by a monstrous bird, but in reality, the model attacked by the owl was still alive and well.
Or, to put it more simply, a gore artist can still want to vomit when seeing real gore.
Applying this to Yoshihide of Limbus is difficult, because in the world she lives in, these horrific things happen frequently, and advanced technology allows people to kill each other freely and still survive (if they have enough money).
And so her expression is one of confusion. Perhaps she doesn't understand what's happening either, doesn't understand why she's acting this way, or doesn't understand why Dihui Star can laugh like that?
I give up on this one. Writing all this out has burned me out, so you figure it out yourself.
D. Dihui Star/Yoshihide and Fuku/Akutagawa
I'm currently cooking a list of all the facts and similarities between Ryoshu and her "father", Akutagawa, but you know my habits—I still haven't finished cooking it yet.
Instead of continuing with the comparison between Dihui and Horikawa, I see the relationship between Dihui and Yoshihide as akin to what might have been between Mrs. Fuku and Akutagawa.
Specifically, regarding the situation of Akutagawa Ryunosuke's biological mother, Mrs. Fuku, after giving birth to him. Well, I have a reason to use the term “biological mother” instead of just “mother,” which will be explained after you read the quote below.
生後7か月ごろに母フクが精神に異常をきたしたため[* 1]、東京市本所区小泉町（現：東京都墨田区両国）にある母の実家の芥川家に預けられ、伯母のフキに養育される。11歳のときに母が亡くなる。翌年に伯父・芥川道章（フクの実兄）の養子となり、芥川姓を名乗ることになった。旧家の士族である芥川家は江戸時代、代々徳川家に仕えた奥坊主（御用部屋坊主）の家である。家中が芸術・演芸を愛好し、江戸の文人的趣味が残っていた。
Around the age of seven months, his mother Fuku suffered a mental breakdown[* 1], and he was placed in the care of his maternal grandmother's family, the Akutagawa household, in Koizumi-cho, Honjo Ward, Tokyo City (present-day Ryogoku, Sumida Ward, Tokyo). He was raised by his aunt Fuki. His mother died when he was eleven years old. The following year, he became the adopted son of his uncle, Akutagawa Michiaki (Fuku's older brother), and took the Akutagawa surname. The Akutagawa family, an old samurai lineage, had served the Tokugawa shogunate for generations as goyōbukuro bōzu during the Edo period. The household cherished the arts and performing arts, retaining the literary tastes of Edo.
In the English Wikipedia, this detail is linked to the page “postpartum depression.” If you ask me how you can call it postpartum depression if it has already passed seven months, I will quote from a study by the Department of Psychology and Educational Services, University of Leuven.
The Department of Clinical Psychology, Education, and Health, University College London (UCL) here, though I doubt anyone wants to read it:
Studies in community samples suggest that 27% to 48% (median = 31.3%) of mothers with PPD still met criteria for major depression at 3 to 4 months postpartum (n = 4 studies); 30% to 62% (median = 35.5%) at 6 months (n = 6 studies); 25% to 31% (median = 28%) at 9 months (n = 2 studies); 6% to 39% (median = 23.1%) at 12 months (n = 4 studies); 18% at 18 months (n = 1 study); 13% to 46% (median = 31%) at 2 years (n = 4 studies); and 17% to 62% (median = 38.5%) at 3 years (n = 2 studies). Overall, these findings suggest that at any time point between 4 months and 3 years postpartum, about 30% of mothers diagnosed with PPD still meet criteria for depression.
There are no specific records detailing what Mrs. Fuku suffered from; it is only generally noted as “mental illness,” and many sources suggest it was schizophrenia.
The cause of this could also be attributed to the profound grief of losing her eldest daughter, but I have not been able to verify this information. The only thing that can be confirmed is that Mrs. Fuku became mentally ill seven months after giving birth to Akutagawa (a period that could still be suspected as postpartum depression).
To put it in teaser-like terms, from the moment Akutagawa was born, Mrs. Fuku's life was completely turned upside down in a negative direction.
네가 생기고서부터 내 인생은 줄곧 불행했다. 알고있니?
お前が生まれてから、私の人生はずっと不幸だった。分かっているか?
My life has been nothing but an unending stream of misery ever since you happened. Did you know that?
Dihui Star probably wanted Yoshihide to remember clearly that her existence was a misfortune for her “mother.” And at the same time, perhaps she wanted her to remember the agonizing pain of knowing that her existence brought misfortune to the person she loved. Or, to put it another way, perhaps she wanted to sow self-hatred in Yoshihide, or at least make her live in agony.
A prime example of how crazy you can go when you realize you are the source of someone else's misery is Canto VI. Although their methods differed, both Catherine and Heathcliff came to the same conclusion: to erase their very existence from all times and spaces, as well as from other mirror worlds whose fates they were not even sure they had seen to the end.
As for Akutagawa, in his final years he suffered from mental symptoms and seemed to fear that he too would go mad like his mother.
While researching this, I came across a study on Akutagawa's 44, “Suicides of elite Japanese writers: The case of Ryunosuke Akutagawa” on ResearchGate, written by Sachi Sri Kantha, Ph.D.Editor Emeritus at Gifu University:
Multiple reasons have been suggested for Akutagawa’s suicide. First was that he suffered from hallucinations of inheriting the schizophrenia traits of his biological mother.
Second, the financial burdens left by his brother-in-law’s suicide, in January 1927, left Akutagawa in a desperate situation.
Third, a medically pertinent possibility was insomnia, for which Akutagawa had been tinkering with prescribed sleep inducing medicine, Veronal, and potassium cyanide. Fourth, according to Healy, 12 mental collapse of his novelist friend Koji Uno (1891–1961) in May 1927 might have precipitated the suicide.
Additionally, it also mentions Akutagawa when he met his mother:
In his 1926 reminiscence Death Register, Akutagawa had described the health of his biological mother Fuku, as follows:
‘My mother was a madwoman. I never did feel close to her, as a son should feel toward his mother. Hair held in place by a comb, she would sit alone all day puffing on a long, skinny pipe in the house of my birth family in Tokyo’s Shiba Ward… I never had the experience of a mother’s care. I do seem to recall that one time, when my adoptive mother made a point of taking me upstairs to see her, she suddenly conked me on the head with her pipe. In general, though, she was a quiet lunatic… My mother died in the autumn of my eleventh year, not so much from illness, I think, as from simply wasting away. I have a fairly clear memory of the events surrounding her death.’
That sounds just like how our Ryoshu described Dihui Star also smoking...
