The Great Bodhisattva Pass, Book 22: White Bones

Okaku’s ambitious new show draws crowds to Ryōgoku, where Western magic and dance promise wonders. Behind the spectacle lie money, jealousy, political danger, and a graveyard encounter that brings Komai Jinzaburō into the theater’s orbit. Meanwhile, Lady Ogin seeks news of a traveler and prepares a disguise of her own.

Arsonists, secret rites, wandering doctors, and schemes for the future of Japan move through a world of unstable loyalties. The narrator’s reflections range from popular entertainment to medicine, libraries, desire, and the uses of land. The travelers’ outward adventures repeatedly open onto the uncertainties of their inner lives.

This complete English translation preserves all twenty-eight sections of the twenty-second book of Nakazato Kaizan’s epic. The title retains the literal meaning of White Bones while leaving intact the source’s debate over the mountain place-name Hakkotsu or Shirahone. Full inscriptions, quoted narratives, political dialogues and final dream scenes remain unabridged.