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Healing Symbolism in the Japanese
Legend of the Woman Diver
An interview of Steve McCarty by Sydney Solis
Original source: Solis, S., & McCarty, S. (2024, May 30).
Healing symbolism in the Japanese legend of the woman
diver. Sydney in Osaka: Living the Mindful Life in Japan.
INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
While staying in Japan and studying a module on Somatics in the Soul-
Centered Psychology Coaching Program, I (Ms. Solis) was struck by the
contrast between the Japanese “heart-mind” thinking of
kokoro
and the
Cartesian model in the Western mind. I also wondered if feminine divinities
like the Japanese creation myth Sun Goddess Amaterasu could provide a
corrective to the masculine dominance stressing the modern world. Given
our cultural alienation from nature, could stories show a way, with values
that offer global humanity a return to wholeness? Could it be found in
returning to inward feminine consciousness that values connecting humans
to one another, to nature and to the unconscious, rather than outward
masculine values of success and materialistic consumption?
INTERVIEW IN JAPAN
Such questions, along with my interest in mythology, led me to meet
Japanologist Professor Steve McCarty, who has an abiding interest in the
Jungian psychology of Asian religions. I therefore focused on his research
into the ancient legend of a woman diver, which is rich in symbolism and
possibly a springboard to diving into our own healing journey to wholeness.
THE WOMAN DIVER STORY
Q (Solis): What is the legend of the woman diver and its historical
background?
A (McCarty): One of the oldest professions on what is now the Japanese
archipelago was diving for seaweed, fish, or pearls. Ancient people there
regarded the mountains and seas as the abode of gods, demons, and
ancestors. The capriciousness of the ocean gave rise to various
autochthonous myths of underwater palaces guarded by monsters. Citing
all original sources in Japanese, McCarty (1988) presents the legend of the
woman diver in English, investigates its origins, and interprets its timeless
significance. From a prehistoric oral tradition, it evolved into a Buddhist
temple chronicle and a Noh play. The aristocrats depicted were actual
historical figures, yet the story is fantastically embellished with historical
layers such as devotion to the Buddhist goddess of mercy.
The story goes, that more than 1,300 years ago, a handsome young man
sailed over to Shikoku island from the Nara capital. He fell in love with a
lovely girl in the village, a humble seaweed diver. Soon they married and
had a pretty baby boy, but the husband was often seen brooding. His wife
pleaded to know why, so he finally revealed his noble origins and what had
brought him there. Fuhito (659-720) was a son of the late Fujiwara
Kamatari (614-669), a most distinguished aristocratic statesman.
His younger sister, who was married to the Emperor of the T'ang Dynasty,
had sent three precious treasures from China to Japan for the grand
memorial service. But while the ship was sailing through the Inland Sea, a
Dragon King got wind of the treasures and wanted them. He sent out a
thunderstorm and dragons, who captured the ultimate treasure: the Ball of
Buddha, a crystal ball enshrining an image of the Buddha who never failed
to face you at whichever angle you looked into the ball.
Then the woman said, "I am a diver. I could bring it back to you, my lord."
Fuhito hesitated because of the danger to his beloved. But she persisted,
adding that, "If I could bring it back to you, then could you make this son of
ours, Fusazaki, your heir?" Fuhito then consented, assuring her that the
boy would have a brilliant future.
The next day they sailed out onto the sea. The woman put a long lifeline
around her waist and said, "Hold the end of this line, and haul me up when
I pull on it. That means I've got it." Then, with a knife in her hand, she
quietly disappeared into the depths. Down, down she went, through the
cold darkness of the deep. It seemed fathomless. But the love of a devoted
mother and wife had made the little woman fearless. On and on she went
until she found herself in front of a towering palace ferociously guarded by
eight dragons and swarms of crocodiles. For a moment she hesitated, but
praying once more for the help of Kannon the Goddess of Mercy, she burst
into the palace brandishing her knife, dashed to the ball, snatched it and
ran, closely pursued by the furious sea monsters. As they caught up with
her, she quickly cut herself below the breast, inserted the crystal ball and
fell down as if dead. Abhorring blood and death, the dragons fell back,
while the woman pulled on the lifeline held by her husband above.
The man hauled up his wife, but to his horror she was dying, terribly
wounded and empty-handed. He held her in his arms, only to hear her last
gasp: "... my breast." There in her breast Fuhito did find the Ball of Buddha
for which he had come to these shores. He left for the Capital with the
crystal ball and his son Fusazaki (682-737), to fulfil his filial duty and his
promise to the poor woman diver.
PROFESSOR MCCARTY’S INTERPRETATION
Q: In terms of Asian Studies and Depth Psychology, how would you
interpret the symbolism of the story?
A: When the oral tradition crystallized into writing much later, the Noh play
did not end with the sacrifice of the woman diver. Her ghost reappeared as
the Dragon Lady who attained Buddhahood according to the Lotus Sūtra.
In that scripture from 2,000 years ago in India, hope was held out for the
first time that a woman could attain Buddhahood – by first transforming into
a man.
In the cultural anthropology of religion, so-called little traditions are found to
co-exist with great traditions like international Buddhism. Thus, while the
orthodoxy held out a ray of hope for women to be saved, the folk tradition
embedded in the story held that the Ball of Buddha, saved by the woman,
was to be found in a woman's breast. That is as if to say that the answer or
salvation men are seeking is to be found in the heart of a woman, that the
love of a devoted wife and mother is Buddhahood itself.
A key element of the story was the woman's request that, in return for her
ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate treasure, her son would become heir to
the aristocrat Fujiwara Fuhito. The historical Fusazaki, grandson of the
great statesman Kamatari, did become a government Minister, one of the
highest ranks below royalty. In that vertical society, the social distance from
the humble seaweed diver of a remote village to the aristocracy in the
capital was vast and unthinkable to bridge. To catapult her son to such
heights was ingeniously virtuous in the East Asian cultural context.
I have used this story as a values clarification exercise for university
students to understand feminine East Asian values. It might seem that the
woman made the ultimate sacrifice for her husband, but it was more so to
raise the future status of her son. It could be added that Fuhito in turn was
sacrificing her out of filial piety to his father. Only the Dragon King behaves
selfishly; the protagonists in this legend, though faced with value conflicts
of the highest order, exemplify East Asian ethical ideals.
Buddhism, the most consciously psychological of the world's great
religions, has generally held that the ultimate truth is to be found within
oneself upon reflection. In this story, as recorded under Buddhist influence
in the Muromachi Period Noh drama, the symbolism is acted out all too
literally as the crystal ball of Buddha is found within the woman's breast.
But going beyond the Lotus Sūtra and reflecting devotional trends from the
Kamakura Period, in this story the woman's sacrifice constitutes the
ultimate truth and leads to her rebirth as a Buddha. The crystal ball, the
means of reflection, is left far behind. Having done her duty to her husband,
his ancestors and their son, she is beatified, while Fuhito and Fusazaki
merely achieve worldly success. Thus, the woman diver seems
unparalleled as a woman's story, expressing the quintessential virtues of
the Japanese woman.
There is a natural symbolism in the story of diving into the depths, and
coming up with healing insights as in Jungian psychology. Although
Japanese women have become modern, the traditions from India to China
and Japanese history are still embedded, mostly unconsciously, in
Japanese common sense, culture, and behavior such as self-sacrifice. This
moving story might contribute to psychic healing because of powerful
natural symbolism, such as diving into the depths, which activates
universally human archetypes.
COMMENTARY BY MS. SOLIS
This imagery resonates in my body and gives access to meaning. The
whole story seems to be a regression which ultimately provides creativity.
The nobleman regresses by leaving his lofty position in the Capital, while
the diver regresses into the deep sea. But this restores the ultimate
treasure and catapults a disadvantaged child to nobility.
I see a woman, Ama, diving into the waters of the unconscious to retrieve
something that has been lost, something that has been split off and is out
of balance. Water symbolizes the unconscious and also is a feminine
quality, the waters of life. She evokes the Great Mother archetype by hiding
the Buddha pearl in the container of her body, the breast. “The great
mother is often symbolized by containers, but she holds everything, and the
process of transformation occurs within her” (Kawai, 1998, p. 36).
The Dragon King, sea dragons and crocodiles are not benevolent as usual
in Eastern myth, but malevolent, hoarding and greedy, like Western dragon
myths, by stealing the precious Ball of Buddha. For me, this ball symbolizes
the spiritual unity and intuitive and feeling functions of the psyche that have
been split off by a patriarchal, capitalistic, consumptive society that lives out
of harmony with nature, and is suffering, as the nobleman Fuhito suffers.
The dragons and crocodiles abhor blood and death [taboo in the
indigenous Japanese Shintō religion – McCarty]. Their fear of embodied
reality is not unlike the Western split of mind from body and nature.
The woman diver reaches the palace gate, a threshold, where the dragons
and crocodiles catch up to her after she has used her diving skills to
retrieve the treasure. However, challenges like these dragons that the
nobleman Fuhito also faced could be psychologically necessary for men to
split from the mother, establishing an ego rather than being infantilized by
her. In this view, Fuhito’s journey across the sea from Nara through
dangers was integral to his masculine independent ego development,
similar to Western depth psychology. The woman diver restores what the
man lost, and his consciousness grows.
Man is cut apart from nature, a child is separated from the mother, and
consciousness is separated from unconsciousness. These are the same
phenomenon. It is a great and at the same time cursed progression. Thus
only he who can accomplish the task for redemption is able to establish an
independent ego (Kawai, 1998, p. 123).
According to Jung, regression is a phenomenon in which psychic energy
flows from the ego toward the unconscious. Because the ego is losing the
energy at its disposal, it can manifest various regressive symptoms, such
as delusions or outrageously emotional behavior. Yet Jung pointed out that
such regression can be necessary for the creative psychic process. In
regression, ego can gain a great deal through contact with the
unconscious. In one’s shadow there might be pathological or evil
complexes, but regression could result in future development or renewed
life. Therefore, it is quite understandable why fairytales – which reflect
human psychic development – often begin by describing a regressive
phenomenon (Kawai, p. 92).
Professor McCarty’s story about the woman diver Ama contrasts with the
diminution of traditional Japanese culture in the modern world. The loss of
connection to the natural world constitutes a loss to living closer to the
unconscious feminine. A traditional characteristic of the Japanese people
perhaps lost in modernity is the “absence of a clear distinction between
exterior and interior world, conscious and unconscious” (Kawai, p. 103).
This legend might offer a road back to balancing the mind-body split of
Western thinking that has impacted Japan, and to help the modern psyche
adapt rather than disintegrate, by creating a conscious feminine. The story
contains important symbolism that guides a return to instinctual and
intuitive thinking not in conflict with the body. It can help heal and restore
consciousness in cyclical harmony with the environment.
REFERENCES
Kawai, H. (1998). The Japanese psyche: Major motifs in the fairytales of
Japan. Spring Publications.
McCarty, S. (1988). Legend of the woman diver. Kagawa Junior College
Journal, 16, 17-22.
About the Authors:
Sydney Solis studied psychology and theater at the University of
Colorado, Boulder. She is currently enrolled in a certificate program of the
Institute for Soul-Centered Psychology and Coaching. Her blog Sydney in
Osaka: Living the Mindful Life in Japan is at
https://sydneyinosaka.wordpress.com
Steve McCarty is a longtime professor and lecturer for the government on
Japan. For his highly cited publications on Japan, bilingualism, online
education, and the academic life, see: https://japanned.hcommons.org