The Drowned and the Drowned
Antoku and Bing had both been drowned as small children, young and innocent. That was far from the only thing the two had in common. Powerless and yet exalted, anointed by Heaven it was said but pawns on Earth, from the greatest heights both had fallen to their ruin and into the sea. What passed through their minds in those final moments before they drowned? Even those so close who perished with them could never know what it was like for a child in such a time, for a child to die such a death. They must have been full of terror, must have felt helpless. Did they blindly believe? Did they take faith in whatever their elders told them? At that tender age little could they have understood the tragedy that had befallen them, and not at all the politics which damned them nor the weight of forever. In spite of being surrounded by so many familiar faces, did they feel lost, abandoned, and alone?
As slaughter gathered round them and desperation took hold, the armies sworn to protect him falling in battle to the enemy, his loyal warriors slain one by one and in ever greater number, Antokuâs grandmother took hold of him. âAmida will welcome you to the Western Pure Land. Hurry up and say His sacred name,â she said. Grasping him to her bosom, and he in turn clinging to her, she leapt and threw herself into sea; and so it was that the waters at Dan-no-Ura received their august persons. Together they sank beneath the waves in hopes of a greater kingdom. His mother and others nearest followed, one by one or together, into the churning water, resigning themselves to death in despair of defeat and defiance of the foe. A century and many miles away at Yamenâby cruel coincidenceâBing came to meet a peculiarly similar fate. When the tide had turned against his men and defeat became an inevitability, the chief minister grabbed him, jumped from the ship and took them both to a watery grave, to spare him, the Son of Heaven, the unceasing humiliation of a captive life at the hands of his gravest enemy. So it happened that both had fallen, from Emperor to nothing, in the end the same as any human being. âThe proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night.â
In life, Antoku and Bing had been separated by time and distance such that neither knewânor indeed could have knownâthe other. But in death, they would visit each other often, as often as the opportunity arose. Whenever such a chance arrived, whenever their duties in the afterlife allowed them the possibility, there is nothing either held dearer than to see his counterpart. Traveling across the countless miles, Antoku and Bing would pay each other a visit just to sit and talk for endless hours into the celestial night. It didnât matter much what they talked about, or what was said. In truth, it could be about anything or nothing, weighty conversations of philosophical matters, or spiritual depths, just as well as gossip and idle chatter. Regardless of the seeming import of the subject at hand, for the two of them there could be no greater significance than these most cherished conversations. A marvelous harmony had arisen between them; none could understand either as the other did. It was their presence there in that moment together which meant everything.
Always, however, the time would come for Antoku and Bing to depart each otherâs company and return to their regular existences in the afterlife. âFarewell," said the traveler, whichever of the two it happened to be, tearfully bidding his host goodbye. âFarewell,â his host would tearfully bid him in return. Then they would promise, both of them, to meet again at the first opportunity, affirming the brotherly bond that existed between them then and forevermore, and the traveler would be sent off on his journey back to his celestial palaces across the far plains of the sacred realm. However long their time together, it remained but a fleeting moment in the vastness of eternity. With that farewell, each of themâone in his home, one wandering the long roadâwas alone again.