Kiyohime in Japanese folklore is a character in the story of Anchin and Kiyohime. In this story, she fell in love with a Buddhist monk named Anchin, but after her interest in the monk were rejected, she chased after him and transformed into a serpent in a rage, before killing him in a bell where he had hidden in the Dōjō-ji temple.
Early sources
The story first appeared in two collections of setsuwa or tales, Dainihonkoku hokekyō kenki and Konjaku Monogatarishū. These two versions tell the story of a young widow who desired the attention of a handsome monk travelling on a pilgrimage route to a Shugendōshrine in Kumano on the Kii Peninsula. The monk, in a attempt to avoid meeting her, chose a different route on the return journey, and the women died in grief when she found out that he was deliberately avoiding her. After her death, a great serpent emerged from her bedchamber and it pursued the monk before killing him in a bell in the Dōjō-ji temple where he had hidden. Years later the monk appeared in a dream of a senior priest begging him to copy a chapter of the Lotus Sutra to release him and the serpent from their suffering in their rebirths, which was duly done and they were both reborn in separate heavens. Another version is found in Genkō Shakusho. The name Kiyohime did not appear in these early versions, Anchin however was named as the monk in Genkō Shakusho. A version of the story is told in an emaki scroll from the Muromachi period titled Dōjōji engi emaki. In this version, the woman in the tale was the daughter-in-law of the owner of a home in Manago in the Muro district named Steward of Seiji. The name Seiji can also be read as Kiyotsugu, which is the origin of the name Kiyohime found in later versions of the tale. The name Kiyohime did not appeared until the 18th century, in the narrative of a joruri titled Dojo-ji genzai uroko that was first performed in 1742. Some later versions also used different names for Anchin and Kiyohime, or that she was the daughter of an innkeeper Shōji Kiyotsugu and other variations.
Popular versions
There are some variations in different versions of the story. In the popular versions, the family of Kiyohime provided lodging for traveling priests, who passed by on their way to a shrine famous for ascetic practices. One day, a handsome visiting priest named Anchin lodged at the house while on a pilgrimage. In some versions, he fell in love with the beautiful Kiyohime, but after a time he overcame his passions and refrained from further meetings. In other versions Anchin resisted her attention from the start, and avoided her house on his return journey. Kiyohime became furious by his rejection and pursued him in rage. At the edge of the Hidaka river, Anchin asked a boatman to help him to cross the river, but told him not to let her cross with his boat. When Kiyohime saw that Anchin was escaping her, she jumped into the river and started to swim after him. While swimming in the torrent of the Hidaka river, she transformed into a large serpent or dragon because of her rage. When Anchin saw her coming after him in her monstrous new form, he ran into the temple called Dōjō-ji. He asked the priests of Dōjōji for help and they hid him under the bonshō bell of the temple. However, the serpent smelled him hiding inside the bell and started to coil around it. She banged the bell loudly several times with her tail, then gave a great belch of fire so powerful that it melted the bell and killed Anchin.
Cultural references
The tale of Anchin and Kiyohime forms the basis of a collection of plays termed Dōjōji mono, depicting an event some years after the temple bell was destroyed. These plays include the Noh playDōjōji and the Kabuki dance drama Musume Dōjōji. Kiyohime appears in the mobile gameFate/Grand Order as both a Berserker, and Lancer class servant, both incarnations with a madness/insanity related skill. She also appears in the Megami Tenseivideo game series as a demon. In the video gameFor Honor, the Aramusha character has a customizable sword gear set named "Kiyohime's Embrace" complete with serpent scales on the blade hilts, and marks running down the blades as if they were partly melted. In the mobile game onmyoji, Kiyohime is represented as a fire-spitting snake-like shikigami, one of the collectable spirits, and an occasional villain in the game's storyline. In the anime seriesMy-HiME, Kiyohime is the Child of Shizuru Fujino, one of the 12 HiMEs.
