The medieval warrior in Japan during the Kamakura era was an individual who was completely linked to social and political change. The warrior's position in society was a precarious one. On the one hand, he held a prestigious position and had ample opportunity for advancement and reward, but, on the other, he could only do so as the unquestioning servant who, at times, was expendable in his master's plans. The Tale of the Heike is a classic text which represent political turmoil and violent conflicts which ravaged Japan, and which brought the Taira clan from the heights of absolute rule and prosperity to complete annihilation. The Heike Monogatari is an intense and potent fictional history that brings the elements of the past into a somewhat orderly and manageable text and has been a primary source of Japanese understanding of samurai loyalty and character. The literary world of Japan is replete with many legendary figures of fighting prowess and commanding characters. It is those found in the exemplified models of samurai in the Heike Monogatari who are the very archetypes of elevated behavior for men, the very essence of what the warrior qualities of loyalty, fearlessness, proper conduct, and resourcefulness.
As we examine the Heike Monogatari for all of its qualities as a literary work, we must also be conscious of its place in Japanese history, its construction and revisions, as well as the readership of its own day. Butler, in his article, “The Textual Evolution of the Heike Monogatari,” clearly articulates how the Heike Monogatari evolved from a recitation of biwa houshi (blind “lute priests”) to its presently accepted form through a series of phases and revisions. The Tale of the Heike evolved along several lines of revisions until 1371 when the Kakuichi become the prominent version and generally accepted as the standard text. The Kakuichi text is the only one of all the early versions in which the authors are identified, along with its composition dates. Although there is a strong argument that the Heike Monogatari was developed solely for recitation, there are also persuasive arguments present that assert that it was developed primarily as a text to be read (29).
Despite some of the ambiguity of the formative years of the Heike Monogatari's development, the Kakuichi text of 1371 is a fusion of the various competing versions which preceded it, perhaps drawing on elements outside the schools of recitation as it grew. Previous versions, such as the Hiramatsuke text of 1235, used the Heike Monogatari as a source of inspiration and instruction for the tutelage of acolytes in their Buddhist orders. The Kakuichi absorbs this process by infusing different perspectives of Buddhism throughout the text as it draws on a wider base of competing perspectives. The authorship of what we have today in the Heike Monogatari is the best collaborative effort which one could hope for. Authors of competing versions of the Heike Monogatari had, for the most part, been able to complement one another in the Kakuichi text, bringing to it details of both sides of the epic conflict between the Heike and Genji clans in order to produce the best possible result in the construction of the text which has evolved into the standard (5-38).
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