MIMINASHI HOICHI

Lore

Miminashi Hoichi—literally “Hoichi the Earless”—is a man carrying a curse born of contact with the spirits of the Taira clan, who died in the sea battle of Dan-no-ura. Blind from birth, Hoichi became a monk-musician, mastered the biwa, and achieved such virtuosity that his singing literally pierced the veil between worlds.

LEGEND

After the Taira clan was destroyed at Dan-no-ura, the Shimonoseki Strait filled with the ghosts of the fallen warriors. At night one could see the flickering onibi lights, hear phantom battle cries, and the drowned were said to drag down anyone they caught. To calm the spirits, the temple Amidand-ji was built, and for a time peace returned.

Centuries later, with the abbot’s permission, the blind musician Hoichi took up residence at the temple. A master of the biwa and epic songs of the Heike and Minamoto, Hoichi enchanted the abbot and the monks, who loved to hear him perform each evening. Then one night everything changed. An armed samurai arrived, saying he had come to escort Hoichi to a noble lord who wished to hear the tale of Dan-no-ura. Refusing a samurai was dangerous, so the blind singer went with him.

The samurai led him along an unfamiliar path and through a gate into a grand palace. In a vast hall packed with guests, Hoichi sang the battle of Dan-no-ura so movingly that the listeners wept. Their reaction puzzled him, yet absorbed in his music he thought little of it. The hosts praised him, told him to return for six more nights, and strictly forbade him to mention the matter to anyone.

Twice Hoichi slipped out of the temple in secret. On the third night the monks followed and found him, in the pouring rain, singing in the Heike graveyard. He sat before the tomb of the infant Emperor Antoku, playing to an invisible crowd of spirits, ringed by hundreds of ghost-lights. Realizing Hoichi was trapped in a ghostly illusion, the abbot warned him that the spirits would kill him during the final performance.

To protect his friend, the abbot covered Hoichi’s entire body with the sacred text of the Hannya-shingyo and told him to sit silently on the veranda that night; whatever happened, he must not move or make a sound. Hoichi waited. On schedule the familiar voice called his name three times. Receiving no answer, the samurai spirit climbed onto the porch and growled, “All I can see are two ears! If that’s all there is, the ears will prove I carried out my orders.” He seized Hoichi’s ears, tore them off, and vanished. The blind man endured the pain without a cry.

At dawn the abbot found Hoichi covered in blood and realized his mistake: he had forgotten to write the sutra on Hoichi’s ears. The wounds healed, but the ears were lost forever. News of the brave singer spread across the land; nobles showered him with gifts and he grew rich. From then on he was called Mimi-nashi-Hoichi—Hoichi the Earless.