The Sparrow Story

"The Sparrow Story" is an example of a popular tale in which the main characters are creatures, such as birds, animals, fish, or insects, rather than human beings. In this picture scroll, the tale consists of two parts: The Poetry Competition and The Religious Awakening. In the first scroll, birds who have come to console Kotota and his wife, whose chick has tragically been eaten by a snake, compose poems for each other. In the second, Kotota, having resolved to retire from the profane world, leaves home, goes on a pilgrimage all over Japan, and ends up making a hermitage in the sparrows' forest, where he meets his death after performing the odori nembutsu (a ritual dance and recitation of the nembutsu, to achieve salvation) until he was a hundred years old. The brushwork is rather rough and the depiction of the birds, flowers, and plants simplified. Nonetheless, the first scroll, in which subject is the birds' condolence call, is meticulously depicted just like a scroll of flowers and birds. The first and second scroll differ in their points of view as well as their subjects: in the first scroll, the birds are presented as birds. In the second, they are anthropomorphized.