The Heretical Faith

The young lord of Horikawa has inherited his father’s household but little of his brutal temperament. Refined, witty, and devoted to poetry and music, he pursues the beautiful princess of Nakamikado with a persistence that astonishes his servants. Yet a strange monk has appeared in the capital, preaching the Faith of Mari beneath a banner showing a mother and child.

Miraculous cures and terrifying punishments win the monk followers among the riverbed’s outcasts. When a retainer discovers his interest in the princess, suspicion leads to violence. Courtly love and religious certainty become entangled as the monk challenges the assembled masters of Buddhism to demonstrate the power of their faith.

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892–1927) serialized this work in 1918. Left unfinished by its author, the complete surviving narrative preserves the dramatic final challenge without supplying an invented ending. Its storyteller’s voice leads readers through an unsettling encounter between elegance, devotion, fear, and supernatural spectacle.