The Suzakumon Gate was located in the center of the southern side of the Ouchi Interior of Heiankyo.Starting from this gate, Suzakuoji, the main street of Heian-kyo, connected to the main gate, Rajomon, located at the southern end of the capital.

Stone monument at the site of Suzaku-mon Gate

Explanatory board of the Heiankyo site in front of Nijo Station

it appears that"Gate."was to the metropolitan people of the time,Boundary between the other world and this worldand recognized,They were also favored by demons.To its Suzaku Gate,An eccentric demon inhabited the area.

The Suzakumon (Suzakumon) depicted in "The Ban Dainagon Edda, vol. 3. The Suzakumon Gate (Digital Collections of the National Diet Librarycollection)

At dusk, Kino Haseo, a Chinese scholar of the early Heian period, passed by the Suzaku Gate. At that moment, a man stood in his way. He learned that Haseo was an expert at Sugoroku (backgammon) and asked for a game of Sugoroku with him. Haseo hesitates at the offer,If I lose, I will give you the most beautiful woman in the world. If you lose, I will take all your money."The man said, "I'll take it. Haseo decided to accept the challenge and played a game of Sugoroku on the tower of Suzakumon. The game went back and forth until finally, at dawn, Haseo won.

Then the man is as promised,
Then take this woman with you.However, do not touch it for 100 days!"
He said, "I'm sorry," and disappeared with the morning light.

A stunningly beautiful woman was waiting before Haseo's eyes. Haseo took the beautiful woman back to his mansion, but she was so beautiful that he could not wait 100 days and broke his vow. What do you think? The woman's form collapsed and she turned into water and flowed away.

Actually, I challenged him to a game of Sugoroku.The man's true identity is the demon that resides in the Suzaku Gate.It was. The melted beauty wasThe demon gathered only the beautiful parts from the corpses of 100 city women and made them into aIn,After a hundred days, he could have a soul and be human.The story goes. The story goes that the ogre was frustrated because his painstakingly confident work was destroyed, while Haseo was defeated by his desire and failed to get the beautiful woman.

There is another story, this time about a man who obtained a treasure from an ogre.

It was a bright moonlit night. Minamoto no Hiromasa, who was renowned as the best flute player in the city, was playing his flute in front of the Suzaku Gate when, out of nowhere, he heard a similar sound.A man with a whistle appeared.He is a man with a strange appearance, with scraggly hair and a beard,The sound of the flute was out of this world.

After playing together several times that night at Suzakumon, they decided to exchange their flutes. The man's flute was so wonderful that Hakuga neglected to return it, and the months passed.

After the death of Hakuga, there was no one in the court who could play this flute. When the emperor learned that there was a master flute player named Jozo, he asked him to play the flute, which produced a wonderful tone. The emperor then asked Jozo to play the flute at the Suzakumon Gate, where Hakuga had exchanged flutes, and a voice came down from the top of the building, saying, "Wonderful tone, isn't it? And Jozo thought that this wasbe a devil's fluteI learned that the The demon's flute was named "Hafutatsu" and was housed in the Byodoin Phoenix Hall in Uji.

Tsukihyakkata Shujakumon no Tsuki Hakuga Sanshoku" ("Moon in One Hundred Forms, Vermilion Gate, Hakuga Sankyo")Digital Collections of the National Diet Librarycollection)

Although there was also a wind demon inhabiting Rajomon who liked to write Chinese poetry,The demons of the Suzaku Gate are no less elegant than the aristocrats of the Heian periodThey were demons. Even though these demons gave beautiful women and famous whistles to others, they were somewhat aloof and not hateful. What's more,It is interesting that both demons want to communicate with humans themselves.

Incidentally, the person named Jozo who masterfully blew the "leaf two" was the same person as Jozo, the deity of the Gion Festival Yamabushi Mountain, who demonstrated tremendous legal power, as described in the previous article.

References: "Kyoto, Legendary Walk" edited by Kyoto Shimbunsha, etc.