The Great Bodhisattva Pass, Book 25: Michiriya

A traveler’s account of a beautiful stranger grows into a mountain ghost story. At home, Omatsu’s schools take root and a festival brings together children, elders, and the patient giant Yohachi. Rumor and imagination give way to the practical work of teaching and care.

Elsewhere, questions of painting and taste, letters filled with dread, violent encounters, popular songs, and unsettling discoveries carry Kaizan’s characters onward. The narrator moves between local celebrations and extended reflections on art, religion, society, and the judgments people make of one another.

This complete English translation preserves all twenty-four sections of Book 25, including full letters and all poetry. Michiriya remains the title’s supplied sound, with its identity left uncertain rather than assigned an invented explanation.