The Nose

Zenchi Naigu, the protagonist of “The Nose,” is a Buddhist priest who serves within the imperial palace or court. The Naigu were associated with various rituals and religious duties within the court context, including conducting religious ceremonies, offering spiritual guidance, and promoting teachings and practices outlined in Buddhist scriptures, or sutras.

Buddhism was first established in Japan in the sixth century CE, around 1,000 years after it was founded by Siddhartha Gautama in India. There are three major traditions of Buddhism, which can be divided into hundreds of sects; however, Buddhists in general adhere to the teaching of the Four Noble Truths established by Gautama. The Four Noble Truths are (1) that life involves suffering; (2) that the cause of suffering is ignorance and craving, based on the illusion of a separate self or ego; (3) that suffering can end through purifying and awakening the mind; and (4) that a path to the end of suffering exists and consists of ethical living, meditation, and the development of wisdom. Japanese Buddhism as a whole is deeply influenced by Chinese teachings and belongs to the East Asian Mahayana school.

“The Nose” references several different sects of Buddhism that became prevalent in Japan in the 12th and 13th centuries—that is, around the same time that its source material, the Uji Shūi Monogatari, was composed. For instance, the name “Zenchi,” given to the protagonist, refers to the Zen school of Buddhism that was brought to Japan from China by the monk Dōgen (1200-1253), who emphasized the bringing about of enlightenment through the practice of meditation, or zazen. Zenchi’s sense that he should be “thirsting exclusively for the Pure Land to come” (52), aligns him with the Pure Land school, whose central practice is chanting the nembutsu to invoke Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light. That Zenchi once “accumulated religious merit for having copied out the entire Lotus Sutra by hand” (56) may reflect the teachings of Nichiren (1222-1282), who elevated that text over all others. The Kannon Sutra, which Zenchi should be chanting when he is instead brooding on his nose in the mirror (53), is part of the Lotus Sutra.

During Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s life, which saw the end of the Meiji Era and the whole of the Taishō period, Buddhism remained a central religion in Japan, though much of its political power was curtailed by anti-Buddhist policies and religious persecution under Meiji leaders, who established Shintoism as the state religion. In the early 20th century, however, Japanese Buddhism became a subject of academic study, as well as a topic of interest to Western scholars and converts.