Shunshoku Umegoyomi Vol. 1: The Yōshi

Fig. 1: 私き
やア今日帰
ると直に住
けへをねが
つて。

Yonehachi finishes her monologue (finally):

"If I return [home] today, I'll immediately ask [permission] to change houses (fig. 1)."

「私き」 is an alternate form of the modern 「 私」 that we've encountered before (see fig. 3).

Fig. 2: 婦多
川へでも行
て辛抱して
おまはんの
身を少しも
樂にさせ申
てねへヱ
トしんじつ
見へし女の
いぢ男はし
ゞうふさい
でゐる

「けへる」 is clearly an alternate form of 「帰（かえ）る」. This also helps to explain 「住けへ」— it's just 「住み替える」, or "to change one's residence". 「ねがつて」 is of course 「願って」— "to desire".

"Even if we [have to] go to Futagawa or somewhere, I will endure it if it makes things a little more comfortable for your body [health], OK?" the woman [Yonehachi] said, and showed her true obstinacy, [at which] the man [Tanjirou] continued to keep [his mouth] shut (fig. 2).

First of all, we encounter the place name Futagawa （婦多川）. As explained here, it is just another name for Fukagawa （深川）, which is itself a former ward of the old Tōkyō City. It can be found in the modern day ward of Kōtō ward, which is made up of Fukagawa and Jōtō, another former Tōkyō City ward.

We see the odd calligraphed form of 「身」 from last time (see fig. 4) again here. Note how this time it has the reading 「み」, which made it quite easy to determine which kanji it was.

I wasn't entirely sure about how to transcribe the part I've got as 「させまして」, particularly the 「まし」. I couldn't think of anything else that made grammatical sense, but it seems like there might not be enough space for a 「し」. Edit: as Matt has suggested in the comments below, what I thought was 「まし」 is likely the kanji 「申」. The meaning is unaffected by this change, but the reading would be 「させもうして」.

In the togaki (see fig. 5), we see 「見へし」. This is the shimo-nidan "ya"  verb 「見ゆ」 in the continuative form （見へ） followed by the auxiliary verb 「き」 in the attributive form （連体形）. The auxiliary verb 「き」 has an irregular conjugation, in which the attributive form is 「し」. It is used to indicate personal past or recollection （体験回想）.

I wasn't entirely sure about the kana 「く」 in the left column of the togaki. However, nothing else fit the context, and 「久」 had the closest-looking kuzushiji form of all the parent kanji for 「く」.

「ふさいで」 is derived from the verb 「塞（ふさ）ぐ／鬱（ふさ）ぐ」, which means "to feel depressed", or "to mope".

Edit: as suggested by Matt in the comments below, what I read as 「ご」 is more likely 「ゞ」, meaning that 「しゞう」 (which would be read as 「しじゅう」 in modern Japanese) is most likely 「始終」, meaning "continuously" or (more literally) "from start to finish". This would then suggest that the meaning of 「塞ぐ」 is likely an alternate one — "to shut up" or "to close (one's mouth)".

Fig. 3: よね
「ヱモシそ
して養子
に

"Huh, then as for the house that adopted you as a son-in-law, well (fig. 3), why was it that its fortune suddenly collapsed, huh?" Yonehachi asked (fig. 4).

I wasn't entirely sure about the beginning of fig. 3 (the 「ヱモシ」 part), so if that looks wrong, let me know.

Fig. 4: ど
うした訳
で急に身
代がたゝ
なくなつ
たのであ
りますヱ

In fig. 3, we also see the term 「養子（ようし）」, which refers to an adopted son-in-law. As explained in this book, the yōshi system of adoption came into play in those families who wanted to prevent the extinction of their family name/lineage, or those families who felt their biological sons did not possess the competence necessary to adequately preserve and propagate that legacy. In such situations, a suitable man would be adopted into the family by having one of the family's daughters marry him. He would change his last name to that of his adoptive family, move into that family's house, and be removed from the koseki （戸籍）, or family registry, of his old family and added to that of his new family (this was essentially the same process regularly followed by women when they married into their husband's family). Individual yōshi might have risen from poor backgrounds to a place of sufficient prominence in society, or they might be sons from wealthy families who were not the firstborn, and thus had no responsibility (or right) to their own family's legacy.

Konjaku Monogatarishū Vol. 2, Tale 1: Śuddhodana's Death #1 (part 5)

Fig. 1:
暫ク在
テ佛虛
空ヨリ
難陀阿
難羅睺
羅等ヲ
引将テ
來リ給
ヘリ

Last time, Śuddhodana was miraculously cured of his illness. Continuing the story:

暫（しばら）ク在（ありまし）テ、仏、虚空（こくう）ヨリ難陀・阿難・羅睺羅等ヲ引将テ来（きた）リ給ヘリ。

 After a while had passed, the Buddha, leading Nanda, Ānanda, Rāhula, etc. from the empty sky, arrived (fig. 1).

I was a little confused about the meaning of the sentence in fig. 1. 「ヨリ」 here functions as a grammatical equivalent to 「から」 in modern Japanese, so I based the translation on a literal interpretation of that. However, that seems a little off.

Fig. 2: 先
ツ大王佛
ヲ見奉テ
涙ヲ流シ
給フ事雨
ノ如シ

The meaning of 「虚空」 wasn't entirely clear either. On the one hand, it has the secular meaning of "empty sky" or "empty space". But it is also the Chinese translation （漢訳） of the Buddhist term Ākāśa (Sanskrit: "आकाश"). Perhaps there is some special significance here related to that meaning. Then again, the word might just have been selected because of the religious nature of the story, even though the meaning here is intended to be the first one I mentioned.

The pattern seen with the verb 「給フ」 at the end of fig. 1 is the same as that seen at the end of fig. 8 in this post (see the explanation there).

先ヅ大王、仏ヲ見奉（たてまつり）テ、涙ヲ流シ給フ事雨ノ如シ。

First, the Great King, seeing the Buddha, shed tears, as if it were raining (fig. 2). 

Fig.3: 合掌
シテ喜給フ
事无限シ

There's not much to say about fig. 2. Just keep in mind that 「給フ」 is in the attributive form （連体形） here, rather than the predicative form （終止形）. The two forms just happen to be identical in appearance, since 「給フ」 is a yodan verb.

合掌シテ喜（よろこび）給フ事限リ无シ。

[Śuddhodana] pressed his hands together, and his joy was limitless (fig. 3).

As indicated above, the word 「合掌」is a common Buddhist hand gesture, also known as añjali (Sanskrit: "अञ्जलि").

Fig. 4:
佛父ノ王
ノ御傍ニ
在シテ本
経シ説
給フニ

Additionally, in fig. 3, we see the same 「給フ」 as in fig. 2 (i.e., in the attributive form).

仏、父ノ王ノ御傍（おそば）ニ在（ありま）シテ本経（ほんぎょう）ヲ説（とき）給フニ、大王即（すなは）チ阿那含果（あなごんか）ヲ得給（たまひ）シ。

The Buddha was at his father's side and preached the main sutra, at which (fig. 4) the Great King immediately achieved anāgāmihood (fig. 5).

Fig. 5:
大王即チ
阿那含果
ヲ得給シ

I got pretty confused about fig. 4. First of all, there seems to be something missing between 「本」 and 「経」 in the original script, given the amount of blank space there. But they form a word together anyway, so I'm not entirely sure that's actually the case. Even if nothing is missing, though, what exactly is the "main sutra"? It seems to be a general term (i.e., doesn't refer to a particular sutra), so perhaps some more context is necessary here.

Edit: as Matt has suggested in the comments, this could be 「本生経」, or the sutras expounded by the Buddha during his lifetime. However, there is no definitive evidence/proof of that.

In fig. 5, we see the term 「即チ」, usually written as 「すなわち」 nowadays. Whereas the modern Japanese meaning is restricted to "that is" or "i.e.", in the premodern language, it also had the meaning "immediately". Given the context, that meaning seemed most appropriate.

Finally, we see the term 「阿那含」, which is a Buddhist ateji term meaning anāgāmi, or a person who has reached the third of the four stages of enlightenment. From the comments below by Matt, the suffix 「果」 indicates attainment of enlightenment as a result of Buddhist practice.

Shunshoku Umegoyomi Vol. 1: A Fleeting Existence

Fig. 1: 今日ま
じやア我慢して
居たけれど。

Fig. 2: おま
はんの宅は
知れるし。

A quick post today, continuing our story of Yonehachi and Tanjirou's conversation from last time:

"Until today, I had been patient, but (fig. 1) [now] I know where you live as well (fig. 2), and so...," [Yonehachi said], looking around the neighborhood as tears spilled into her lap (fig. 3).

In fig. 1, we see the expression 「まじや」 (pronounced 「まじゃ」), which is just a dialectical contraction of 「までは」, as seen in modern Japanese.

Fig. 3: そして
マアトあたりを
みまはしなみだを
ひざにこぼしながら

In fig. 3, note how the 「ながら」 portion at the end is separated from the rest of the text; it is on a new line in the original text.

Fig. 4: 此様
なはかない
形身になつ
てゐさつし
やるのを見て

"Seeing [you] in this fleeting state [of existence], so weak and fragile (fig. 4), why do [I wonder] if you will even be in this house tomorrow?" (fig. 5)

In fig. 4, we see the same kanji pattern for 「こんな」 as seen in fig. 3 of this post.

I had difficulty parsing 「形丸」, as it doesn't show up in any of the dictionaries I've checked. The furigana 「なり」 can apply to just 「形」, but since the 「り」 is to the right of 「丸」, I assumed that this was an irregular reading, where 「なり」 applied to both kanji. This fits with the following kana「に」, which combines with 「なり」 to create the particle 「なりに」.

Edit: with the help of an anonymous commenter and Matt, I was able to clear this up. First of all, the kanji after 「形」 is actually 「身」. I'm not sure how I could have figured that out a priori, but it looks quite similar to some examples in online databases, such as this one. Also, there is an occurrence of this same kanji in another few lines, where it is clearly labeled as having the reading 「み」.

Fig. 5: どふ
してあすこ
の宅に居
られます
ものか。

The meaning of the word is the same as that of 「なり」: "state". One reason for using kanji was to more clearly delineate word beginnings/endings, so the reader wouldn't get lost in a sea of kana. But also, 「形身」, which has no meaning of its own (even in premodern Japanese), was possibly a kakikae of 「肩身」 (or perhaps just an orthographic error), which has the dual meanings of "body" and "image you present to society/strangers". Thus, there are three different meanings to this word, all of which contribute to the overall interpretation of the sentence, a literary technique that is reminiscent in some ways of the rhetorical device this blog is named after.

Finally, 「ゐさつしやる」 is read as 「いさっしゃる」, as explained for fig. 4 of this post.

Konjaku Monogatarishū Vol. 2, Tale 1: Śuddhodana's Death #1 (part 4)

Fig. 1: 而ル
程ニ淨飯王ノ宮

The tale now takes a bit of a twist:

而（しか）ル程ニ浄飯王ノ宮、俄（にわか）ニ朝日ノ光ノ差（さし）入（い）タルガ如ク金ノ光リ隙（くま）无く照（てり）耀ク。

 While they were doing that, King Śuddhodana's palace (fig. 1) suddenly shined brilliantly with a gapless golden light, as if the light of the morning sun had entered it (fig. 2).

Fig. 2: 俄ニ
朝日ノ光ノ
差入タルカ
如ク金ノ光
リ隙无ク照
耀ク

At the beginning of fig. 1, we see 「而ル程ニ」, which can actually be treated as one phrase （接続）. According to the Nihongo Kokugo Daijiten, it's equivalent to the modern Japanese phrase 「そうしているうちに」 — "while doing that". The first example given along with the definition is actually from another sentence in Konjaku.

Edit: from Chris's explanation in the comments, 「而ル」 is a contraction of 「しか」 (an archaic 「そう」) and 「ある」. 「程ニ」 is equivalent to 「内ニ」.

Edit 2: I initially had the reading for 「隙」 as 「すき」, but as Matt suggested in the comments, this is more likely read as 「くま」. Moreover, there are no real examples of 「すきなく」 that I could find online, whereas there are plenty of examples for 「くまなく」.

In fig. 2, note the irregular okurigana usage with 「差入タル」. Once again, the "internal" kana — such as the 「し」 in 「差し入れ」 — is not present. This can also be seen in the fig. 2 with 「照耀ク」. You also see "light" written in two different ways in the same figure — 「光」 and 「光リ」.

Note that the same 3-kana arrangement pattern that has been seen  in previous sentences was observed again with 「タルカ」, with the dakuten for 「ガ」 omitted again.

Adding the okurigana 「シ」 after 「如」 was a hard decision. The Suzuka Manuscript scan provided by Kyoto University has a relatively low DPI, particularly when compared to the National Diet Library's scan of Shunshoku Umegoyomi. The area of the manuscript where the okurigana would be expected to appear seems to have been damaged. Although there are no clear indications of a kana there, there is a bit of a smudge on the right side of the blank space between 「如」 and 「金」. The presence of such a large blank space between the two kanji was also convincing.

Edit: as Chris has pointed out in the comments, it would make more grammatical sense to have 「ク」 here, and not 「シ」, so that the verb is in the continuative form （連用形）, as it is followed by another clause.

Fig. 3: 其ノ時
淨飯王ヲ始テ

其ノ時ニ、浄飯王ヲ始テ、若干（そこばく）ノ人驚キ怪シム事限リ无シ。

At that moment, King Śuddhodana, and (fig. 3) many other people as well, were amazed, and the awe was limitless (fig. 4).

Fig. 4: 若干
ノ人驚怪シ
ム事无限シ

I wasn't exactly sure how to interpret the 「始テ」 in fig. 3, so I kind of guessed that he woke up. I was a little tripped up by the 「ヲ」 that comes before it, and I'm still not entirely sure how it fits in.

Edit: as Matt has explained in the comments, 「Xを始め（て）Y」 is a pattern that means ""Y, including X". Also, 「怪しむ」 likely has its older meaning of "wonderment" or "awe" here.

The meaning in modern Japanese of 「若干」 is "some" or "few", and the reading is 「じゃっかん」. However, there is also the archaic meaning of "a lot" or "many" (see definition #3), with the reading 「そこばく」 (among others; I just picked this reading because it was the first one listed).

Note how I added a 「キ」 after 「驚」 in the modified version above. This is because, unlike with 「如ク」 in fig. 2, I didn't feel that there was enough evidence of the presence of a 「キ」 in the original text. There doesn't seem to be that much space between 「驚怪」, nor any signs that there might have been an okurigana there (except for some damage to the manuscript in that region).

「怪シム」 is a single verb; the 「ム」 is not an auxiliary verb or anything like that.

Finally, we see the Chinese-origin pattern 「无限シ」 resurface. It was encountered previously in fig. 3 of this post.

Fig. 5: 大王
モ此ノ光ニ
照サレテ

大王モ此ノ光に照（てら）サレテ、病ノ苦（くるしビ忽チニ除のぞきテ、身ノ楽（たのし）ビ限リ无シ。

The Great King was also illuminated by this light (fig. 5), [his] suffering from disease was suddenly removed (fig. 6), and his joy was limitless (fig. 7).

Fig. 6: 病ノ
苦ヒ忽チニ
除テ

Of interest in fig. 5 is 「照サレテ」, where 「照サ」 is the imperfective form （未然形） of 「照ス」 ("to illuminate"), 「レ」 is the continuative form （連用形） of the auxiliary verb 「る」, which has the passive （受身） function here. 「テ」 is, of course, the continuative particle.

Fig. 7: 身ノ樂ヒ
无限シ

In fig. 6, we see 「苦ビ」, which is just an alternate form of 「苦しみ」. Same goes for 「楽ビ」 in fig. 7.

At the end of fig. 7, we see the 「无限シ」 pattern from fig. 4 again.

Konjaku Monogatarishū Vol. 2, Tale 1: Śuddhodana's Death #1 (part 3)

Fig. 1: 然レハ
后大臣等此ノ
思惱フ程ニ

This part turned out to be fairly straightforward, so this post will be short.

然（さ）レバ后・大臣等、此ノ事ヲ思悩（おもひなや）ブ程ニ、仏ハ霊鷲山（りょうじゅせん）ニ在（ましま）シテ、空（くう）ニ父ノ大王ノ病ニ沈（しずみ）テ、諸ノ人此ノ事ヲ歎キ合ヘル事ヲ知（しり）給（たまひ）テ、難陀・阿難・羅睺羅等引将ひきいテ、浄飯王ノ宮ニ行キ給フ。

That being the case, while the queen, the cabinet ministers, etc. were worrying about this (fig. 1), the Buddha was at Vulture Peak, and in the emptiness, he was depressed because of his father's, the Great King's, illness (fig. 2). Knowing that many people had been lamenting this fact together (fig. 3), with Nanda, Ānanda, Rāhula, etc. leading (fig. 4), they went to King Śuddhodana's palace (fig. 5).

Fig. 6: Vulture Peak (location, image source)

Fig. 2: 佛
ハ靈鷲山
ニ在シテ
空ニ父ノ
病ニ沈テ

The first thing to note in fig. 1 is the yodan verb 「思悩ブ」, which has the same meaning as the modern verb 「思い悩む」, as stated in the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten （日本国語大辞典）. In fact, it cites this particular sentence in its definition, along with another occurrence in Konjaku, so the 「ブ」 ending may be an idiosyncrasy of Konjaku.

Fig. 3: 諸
ノ人此ノ
事ヲ嘆き
合ヘル事
ヲ知給テ

Continuing on to fig. 2, we encounter Vulture Peak, the literal translation of a mountain known in Sanskrit as "गृध्रकूट" ("Gṛdhrakūṭa"). The kanji name is another meaning-based translation （意訳）, since 「霊鷲」 means vulture. I couldn't find a definitive source for this definition, but that's what the Japanese Wikipedia page says, and the word for vulture written in kanji is 「禿鷲」, so the 2nd kanji match. The name comes from either (a) the shape of the peak being vulture-like (see fig. 6) or (b) the presence of many vultures there.

The verb 「在シ」 looks similar to the instance of 「在（あり）マス」 observed last time (see fig. 2), but note that this time there is no 「マ」 in the okurigana, so it is more likely the verb 「在（ましま）ス」, which is just an honorific version （尊敬語） of 「有る」 or 「居る」 — so it ends up having essentially the same meaning as  「在ありマス」.

The word 「空（くう）」 has this reading because it is a Buddhist term that has the meaning of "emptiness", or "Śūnyatā" ("शून्यता" in Sanskrit). Finally, note that 「沈テ」 is a case of irregular kana usage — one would expect the 「み」 to be part of the okurigana.

Fig. 4: 難陀
阿難羅睺羅
等引將テ

In fig. 3, we see the phrase 「嘆キ合ヘル」. 「嘆き」 is the continuative form （連用形） of 「嘆く」, while 「合ヘ」 is the realis form （已然形） of the yodan verb 「合フ」. 「ル」 is the attributive form （連体形） of the auxiliary verb 「リ」, which takes on the resultative （結果の存続） function (i.e., "had been") here.

Fig. 5:
淨飯王ノ
宮ニ行キ
給フ

「知給テ」 is comparable to fig. 5 of the previous post in terms of missing okurigana when using the honorific auxiliary verb 「給フ」.

In fig. 4, we encounter several familiar names, followed by the phrase 「引将テ」. I wasn't sure what to make of this, but since 「引き」 is read as 「ひき」 and  「将る」 is an alternate way of writing 「率（ひき）いる」, I decided to go with
「引将（ひきい）テ」, with the same meaning as 「率いる」: "to lead a group". This is primarily speculation, though.

There's not much to say about fig. 5 in terms of grammar, but note how parts of the original text are quite faded/missing, particularly the first character. This is a situation in which context is very important when determining the missing characters. Fortunately, in this case it was a proper name that we had encountered before.

Konjaku Monogatarishū Vol. 2, Tale 1: Śuddhodana's Death #1 (part 2)

Continuing the story of Śuddhodana's death from last time:

Fig. 1: 此ノ由シ
佛ノ御許ニ告
奉ラムト為ルニ

此ノ由シ仏ノ御許（みもと）ニ告（つげ）奉（たてまつ）ラムト為（す）ルニ、仏ノ在（あり）マス所ハ舎衛国（しゃえこく）也（なり）、迦毘羅衛国（かぴらえこく）ヨリ五十由旬（ゆじゅん）ノ間ナレバ、使ノ行カム程ニ浄飯王ハ死（しに）給（たまひ）ヌベシ

For this reason, in order to reveal [his imminent death] to the Buddha (fig. 1), [who] lived in the Country of Śrāvastī (fig. 2), [Śuddhodana] was going to send a messenger (fig. 5), but since [Śrāvastī] was 50 yojana from the Country of Kapilavastu (fig. 3), King Śuddhodana would no doubt have died while [the messenger] was en route (fig. 5).

Fig. 2: 佛ノ在マス
所ハ舍衛國也

In fig. 1, we encounter the word 「御許」, meaning "(his) side", where "his" in this context refers to the Buddha. As noted in the linked dictionary entry, it is an archaism and honorific language （尊敬語）.

Also of importance is the phrase 「告奉ラムト為ルニ」. I wasn't entirely sure about the furigana here, but I assumed that 「告」 was used as a noun meaning "revelation" (which is just the kanji's meaning by itself).  Edit: from Chris's suggestion in the comments, this is more likely the verb 「告ぐ」 ― it is equivalent to the modern Japanese 「告げる」.

That would make 「奉ラム」 the humble verb 「奉ル」 in the imperfective form （未然形）, followed by the auxiliary verb 「ム」 in the predicative form （終止形）, which indicates intention （意志）. 「ト」 is a case particle that, when it precedes the verb 「為（な）ル」, indicates that whatever comes before it is the result of a change. It is comparable to 「に」 in modern Japanese. Finally, 「ニ」 is another case particle that indicates the purpose of an action, and is comparable to 「のために」 in modern Japanese.

Edit: from Matt's comment below (and the context of what comes next in the tale), the messenger is not actually sent, meaning that the correct reading is 「為（す）ル」. In this case, 「ト」 is a citational （引用） case particle that indicates that what precedes it is the content of the following verb's action. 「為ル」 is the sahen （サ変） verb 「為（す）」, which has an irregular conjugation, with 「為ル」 being the predicative form （連体形）. The verb is in the predicative form because that is required by the following conjunctive particle 「ニ」, which has the meaning of concession ("despite the fact that"/"even though").

Continuing on to fig. 2, note the verb 「在マス」. I sort of guessed here, since the standard way of writing 「います」  in my classical Japanese dictionary is 「坐す」. It fits grammatically, since the attributive form （連体形）, which has to be used when preceding a noun (such as 「所」), of 「坐す」 is also 「坐す」 when using the yodan conjugation of that verb. Edit: as indicated by Chris in the comments, this is more likely read as 「あります」, which can be used for both animate and inanimate objects in classical Japanese. This can be broken down as the rahen （ラ変） verb 「在リ」 in the continuative form （連用形） followed by the honorific suffix 「ます」. Whereas 「ます」 is used in modern Japanese in polite speech （丁寧語）, it also has the archaic function of indicating "respect for those affected by the action" (look at the entry for the auxiliary verb).

According to Wikipedia, the kanji name 「舎衛」 for Śrāvastī is an abbreviation of ateji, such as 「室羅伐悉底」, although I'm not clear on where either of the kanji used in the abbreviation came from (perhaps they are unrelated and used just for their phonetic value as well). As will be seen in fig. 3, however, 「衛」 can be used in other place names as well, when placed before 「国」. Thus, it may not actually be a part of the ateji, even though that's what the Wikipedia article seems to indicate. Edit: as Matt explained in the comments, 「舎衛」 is an abbreviation of 「舎衛城（しゃえいじょう）」. Although 「衛」 doesn't make much sense as an ateji with the modern Japanese reading, it fits the Mandarin ("wèi") and Vietnamese ("vệ"/"về") readings a little better.

There are also meaning-based translations of Śrāvastī, such as 「聞者」, which is based on the Sanskrit root "śrāvas" ("श्रवस्"), which means "hearing" or "fame". As mentioned in the Google Books link, this is cognate to the Latin "cluo" and the Ancient Greek "kleos" ("κλέος"), the latter being a theme encountered in Greek works such as the Iliad and the Odyssey. The common ancestor of the cognates is the Proto-Indo-European word "*ḱléwos".

Fig. 2 ends with the archaic copula 「也」. Note how the similarities between it and the hiragana 「や」 can be seen in its calligraphed form in the original text. Indeed, 「也」 is the kanji from which 「や」 is derived, and 「や」 is a possible reading of 「也」, one that I have encountered most often in kanbun texts.

Fig. 3: 迦毗羅衛国
ヨリ五十由旬ノ間
ナレハ

In fig. 3, we see Kapilavastu referred to as 「迦毘羅衛国」, which I briefly brought up earlier. I'm not sure why this pattern of inserting 「衛」 before 「国」 exists ― 「衛」 means "defense" or "protection", so there's no apparent connection to the meaning "country" or "nation". Edit: we can see the phonetic similarities between Śrāvastī and Kapilavastu in their shared /vaC/ syllable, which is why 「衛」 is used in both names.

The case particle 「ヨリ」 is used here to indicate the point of origin （起点）, and is analogous to the modern Japanese 「から」.

「ナレバ」, at the end of fig. 3, is the copular auxiliary verb 「なり」 in its perfective form （已然形）, followed by the conjunctive particle 「ば」, which takes on the function of providing a causal logical connection ("since"). This is analogous to 「ので」 in modern Japanese. Also, note how the kana 「ナレハ」 are written in the original text ― the third kana is written to the left of the first two, just as was seen in the previous post in figs. 6 and 8. Matt suggested in the comments for that post that this pattern might be unique to 「テ」, but it turns out that it actually isn't. Also, a similar occurrence can be observed with 「シ」 in fig. 5 of this post.

We also encounter the yojana ("योजन" in Sanskrit; 「由旬」 in Japanese), a Vedic measure of distance for which the exact metric equivalent is unknown, but is estimated by scholars to be 6 to 15 kilometers. I tested this estimate by measuring the distance between where Śrāvastī and Kapilavastu are believed to be located, based on evidence discovered through archaeological digs. Their respective latitudinal/longitudinal coordinates are:

• Śrāvastī: 27.517073°N 82.050619°E
• Kapilavastu: 27.576667°N 83.054722°E

The haversine formula can then be used to approximate the ground distance between two sets of latitude/longitude coordinates. R is the radius of the Earth (6367.5 km).

I also used Daft Logic's Google Maps Distance Calculator to visualize/confirm this calculation:

Fig. 4: the distance between Kapilavastu (on the right) and Śrāvastī  (on the left).
Note how they are on different sides of the (modern) India-Nepal border.

According to the prior estimates of 6 to 15 kilometers per yojana, 50 yojana would be a distance of 300 to 750 km, so there is a significant discrepancy between Konjaku's use of the unit and the distance a yojana is currently believed to represent. According to Konjaku, 1 yojana would be ~2 km. There are numerous possible reasons for this difference, but the most likely ones are that the distance was originally calculated incorrectly or that it was somehow changed in the course of various translations/retellings of the story as it progressed from India to Japan.

Fig. 5: 使ノ行
カム程ニ淨飯
王ハ死給ヌベシ

Returning to the story, you can see that the portion of the text in fig. 5 was split into two separate clauses in the English translation.

In this context, 「使」 is a noun that takes on the meaning of "messenger", or "emissary".

「行カム」 can be broken down as the yodan verb 「行く」 in the imperfective form （未然形） followed by the auxiliary verb 「ム」 in the attributive form （連体形）. In this context, 「ム」 has the function of speculation/conjecture about the future （推量）.

The most confusing part of fig. 5 was the ending ― 「死給ヌベシ」. I decided to rewrite this as 「死ニ給フベシ」 because the okurigana 「ヌ」 didn't fit 「給」, but it fit the verb 「死ヌ」 perfectly. The auxiliary verb 「ベシ」 is used here to conjecture with confidence （確信推量）, as in "would no doubt". Note how this reinforces the conjectural nature of the clause in fig. 5, a meaning that was originally introduced by the 「ム」 in 「行カム」.

「ベシ」 is expected to be preceded by a verb in its predicative form （終止形）. Therefore, if 「給」 were simply left out, the sentence would make perfect grammatical sense, since the predicative form of 「死ヌ」 is just 「死ヌ」. However, the presence of 「給」 and the subject of the clause being Śuddhodana suggests that an honorific is necessary/appropriate here. The grammatically correct way to do that using the verb 「給フ」 would be to change 「死ヌ」 to the continuative form （連用形）, which is 「死ニ」, then use 「給フ」 in the predicative form, which is still 「給フ」.

Edit: as suggested by Chris, this phrase can be better explained with irregular okurigana usage. If you assume that 「死」 is read as 「しに」, the continuative form （連用形） of the verb 「死ヌ」 and that 「給」 is read as 「たまひ」, the continuative form of 「給フ」, then it makes grammatical sense as-is. The 「ヌ」 that follows is an auxiliary verb that can indicate either perfection （完了） or certainty （確信） ― I think it has a little of both meanings here. You can see the "no doubt" aspect of the meaning in the translation, as well as the fact that it "would" have happened ― perfection (already happened).

Konjaku Monogatarishū Vol. 2, Tale 1: Śuddhodana's Death #1 (part 1)

I'll be using a slightly different format for Konjaku than I have been using for Umegoyomi. Konjaku is written in a style known as wakan konkōbun （和漢混淆文）, or "mingled Japanese and Chinese writing". It is defined on Wikipedia as "Sino-Japanese composition written with Japanese syntax and mixed on'yomi and kun'yomi readings". As indicated on the linked Japanese Wikipedia page, Konjaku is one of the most famous early examples of wakan konkōbun, while later examples include Tsurezuregusa, Hōjōki, and Heike Monogatari.

There are also some other quirks that make the text more difficult to understand from just a transcription of the scans, so a modified transcription will be more prominently displayed. Also, there are a few things I've learned through the Umegoyomi translations about the whole process, so hopefully this approach will be more transparent.

The main changes in the modified transcription will be:

• Any traditional characters （旧字体） will be changed to simplified characters （新字体）. The traditional forms will still be used in the figures and their captions.
• Any kana that lack dakuten or handakuten will have them added. As noted on Wikipedia, these diacritics were not considered standard until the Tokugawa era, hundreds of years after this manuscript was produced. Edit: as suggested by yudantaiteki on the RtK Forums, dakuten usage can be more accurately characterized as having gradually developed over time, and there are cases in which they can be found in Heian-era writings. Konjaku doesn't appear to be one of them, though.
• The replacement of certain Chinese grammatical patterns with their Japanese equivalents. This will become more apparent after starting to read the translations.
• HTML furigana will be frequently added to parts of the text. The irregular furigana usage, frequent use of Indian names written in ateji (in the case of this tale, the kanji transcriptions were originally created by the Chinese), lack of furigana in the original work (unlike Umegoyomi), and continual use of obscure terms makes this quite useful. Furigana should render correctly by default on the latest versions of Chrome and IE; for Firefox, there's the extension HTML Ruby, but many reviews claim it will cause serious performance issues when you have lots of tabs open (an issue I've run into myself). Similarly, there's an Opera add-on; it worked for me in my brief testing, but I don't have extensive experience with it (however, Opera's add-ons are architected quite differently from Firefox's extensions, so there being performance issues with the Opera add-on as well isn't a foregone conclusion).

I'm starting with the very first tale in the Indian （天竺てんじく） part of Konjaku that is available in the Suzuka Manuscript. The first volume is missing (at least from Kyoto University's scans), so this will be tale 1 from volume 2 of the collection.

Fig. 1: 佛御父
淨飯王死給時
話第一

First up is the title of the tale:

仏ノ御父（おとう）浄飯王（じょうぼんおう）死ニ給（たま）フ時ノ話第一

 The story of when the Buddha's father, King Śuddhodana, died, part 1 (fig. 1)

So the first thing you're probably wondering is where all those okurigana in the modified transcription came from. The truth is that I don't really know. They're not in the original text, but they're in the transcription from Kyoto University, and certainly make sense here.

One might think that the lack of kanji indicates that the title is actually in Classical Chinese, which certainly could be the case. However, from my experience with kanbun, it would be very rare for a string of characters that long to be in the same order in both Japanese and Chinese, given their wildly differing grammars. My theory is that all kana are omitted, but the kanji are in the Japanese order. Therefore, the reader is required to supply the kana by himself. The Heian nobility was certainly obsessed with all things Chinese, so such a title would have made the text look more sophisticated.

The verb 「給フ」, pronounced 「たもう」, is an honorific supplementary verb suffixed to verbs to show respect towards the subject of the sentence ― King Śuddhodana, in this case. Note that 「給フ」 requires the preceding verb to be in the continuative form （連用形）. This is likely how it was determined that the okurigana for 「死」 should be 「ニ」. The use of katakana, rather than hiragana, is explained below.

Fig. 2: 今昔
佛ノ御父
迦毗羅国
ノ淨飯王

One interesting thing here is that Śuddhodana's name doesn't appear to be written using ateji, unlike many of the other names we will encounter. In modern-day Mandarin and Cantonese, the pronunciations of 「浄飯」 are "jìng fàn" and "zeng6 fang6", respectively. Even looking at the meaning ("clean" and "food"/"rice"), doesn't yield much useful information.

Edit: Matt's comment below has cleared this up. "Śuddhodana" in Sanskrit is "शुद्धोधन", which can be broken down as "śuddha" ("शुद्ध"), meaning "pure", and "odana" ("ओदन"), meaning "rice" or "food". This fits the meaning of the kanji 「浄飯」, so this can be considered an 「意訳」, or meaning-based translation.

今ハ昔、仏ノ御父迦毘羅（かびら）国ノ浄飯大王、老（ろう）ニ臨（のぞみ）テ、病ヲ受（うけ）テ日来（にちらい）ヲ経ル間、重ク悩乱（のうらん）シ給フ事限リ无（な）シ

Once upon a time, the Buddha's father, the Great King Śuddhodana of the country of Kapilavastu (fig. 2), was confronted with old age, suffering from disease while some days passed and worrying things weighed heavily upon him, with no limit (fig. 3).

Fig. 3: 老ニ
臨テ病ヲ受
テ日来ヲ經ル
間重ク悩乱シ
給フ事无限シ

First of all, we are encountering the use of kana in the original text for the first time. Note how only katakana are used, and how they are (often) set to the right side of the text and are in smaller print than the kanji. This was quite common in the Heian era, when hiragana were considered feminine, and therefore inappropriate for men to use (Edit: also suggested by yudantaiteki, it's more that the male-dominated areas of writing used katakana. Men could also write in styles that used hiragana, like waka). Since these works are of foreign origin (an area of literature that was, at that time, male-dominated), it makes sense that only katakana are used. Moreover, katakana were originally devised by Buddhist monks, and this work consists of many Buddhist tales.

Obviously, there is no actual 「ハ」 between the first and second characters in fig. 2. The decision to add a 「 ハ」 (the modern particle 「は」) was made by me. Clearly, 「今昔（こんじゃく）」 can have the same meaning as 「今ハ昔」 (and it does), but this makes it easier to read/understand.

Our first example of ateji also appears in fig. 2, with 「迦毘羅」, which has a reading clearly created from the Japanese pronunciation of the first half of "Kapilavastu".

Edit: as explained by a commenter below, the primary Japanese reading of 「迦毘羅」 is "kabira", and not "kapira", as listed here, despite the original word having a "p". This is probably because the "name of the city must have entered China with a Prakrit or non-Indic source, which voiced the medial stop". However, according to this page, it appears that "kapira" is a valid alternate reading. This is interesting, considering that the modern readings of 「毘」 in Mandarin and Cantonese are pi2 and pei3, respectively.

There are several interesting things to note about fig. 3. First is the verb 「臨テ」. This kanji is encountered in verb form in modern Japanese as 「臨（のぞ）む」, meaning "to look out on" or "to confront". As is often seen, the meanings stick to the kanji much longer than the readings do, which change with the frequent shifts that occur in any spoken language. I chose to assign the reading 「み」 based on the fact that (a) it fits the okurigana, where 「のぞ」 does not, and that (b) it is still used as a reading for names, or nanori （名乗り）. I have noticed that nanori sometimes preserve archaic kanji readings. Edit: as Matt as suggested in the comments, it's more likely that 「臨テ」 is read as 「のぞみて」. This is indeed a grammatically valid construction, and is equivalent to 「望んで」 in modern Japanese, which is just a minor sound shift.

Also of note is the irregular okurigana for 「受」 ― this is something encountered previously in Umegoyomi, but it'll probably come up much more often with an older text like Konjaku.

The word 「日来」 has two possible readings ― 「にちらい」 and 「じつらい」. In fact, as suggested in this comment, when Konjaku was originally written, such words may have actually been pronounced in Chinese. Since both have the same meaning, I just went with the first one listed. Edit: as Matt has suggested in the comments below, the meaning is likely 「日頃」, and not 「ふだん」. In classical Japanese, the phrase 「日頃を経る」 means "some (i.e., a few) days pass".

Note how the kana right after 「悩乱」 looks much more like the hiragana 「し」 than it looks like the katakana 「シ」 (Edit: yudantaiteki, in that same post, said that in his experience, this way of writing 「シ」 is standard). One downside of these Kyoto University scans is that the quality isn't that high ― zooming in doesn't help much, given their low resolution. In any case, it appears that in the top left corner of that kana, there are two strokes, as seen in 「シ」, so I selected the katakana version. Moreover, it would be rather odd to see a random hiragana interspersed in a Heian text, even though we've seen that semi-arbitrary switching back and forth is quite commonplace in Umegoyomi.

Fig. 4: 无限
(just an
example, not
from the text)

At the end of fig. 3, we encounter the first example of rewriting a Chinese grammatical pattern into its Japanese equivalent. One might think from looking at the original manuscript that the kanji 「无」 should actually be 「元」, but the overlain version of the text provided by Kyoto University has it clearly marked as 「无」. The differences in the handwritten versions of the two kanji are certainly minimal.

Whereas the original text says 「无限シ」, if there were kunten ("guiding marks for rendering Chinese into Japanese") included, they would likely indicate that this should be read as 「限り无し」. This is also how it is transcribed on Kyoto University's site, albeit as 「限り無し」. 「无」 is just an alternate kanji for 「無」, which can be seen in 「無ない」 (although it is usually left in kana form in modern Japanese in in this context). I chose to leave it as 「无」, to reduce the number of unnecessary changes.

The proper method in kanbun of indicating the way such a pattern should be read can be seen in fig. 4. The use of a kaeriten (the 「㆑」 symbol on the left side of the figure) between the two kanji indicates those two kanji should be reversed when being read in Japanese. The hiragana are the readings of the kanji, and the katakana are their okurigana. Thus, we get the 「限リ无シ」 for the kakikudashibun （書き下し文） - the equivalent text when rewritten in classical Japanese.

Fig. 5: 身ヲ迫ル事
油ヲ押スカ如シ

The way this pattern was written at the end of fig. 3 is probably just one of the idiosyncrasies of wakan konkōbun. As Chinese grammatical patterns go, this is a fairly simple one, so it was probably assumed that readers would be able to parse the text without the aid of a kaeriten or complete okurigana.

身ヲ迫ル事油ヲ押スガ如シ

Compelling the body [to do anything] was like pressing oil (fig. 5).

This was an odd sentence because although it was short and the grammar was straightfoward, the meaning eluded me. It appears to be some sort of figure of speech I'm not aware of, so I could use some help here.

There is one other interesting point ― we see the first example in Konjaku of how the addition of dakuten to the text is left up to the reader. That is, the 「ガ」 is left as 「カ」.

Fig. 6: 今ハ限リ
ト思シテ 

今ハ限リト思（おぼ）シテ、御子（おこ）ノ釈迦仏・難陀（なんだ）・孫ノ羅睺羅（らごら）、甥ノ阿難（あなん）等ヲ見ズシテ死ナム事ヲ歎キ給ヘリ

Thinking that now [he had reached his] limit (fig. 6), [Śuddhodana] lamented that he would probably die without [first] seeing his sons the Buddha and Nanda, his grandson Rāhula (fig. 7), his nephew Ānanda, etc. (fig. 8)

Fig. 7: 御子ノ
釋迦佛難陀
孫ノ羅睺羅

The first point of interest in fig. 6 is 「思シテ」 ― it comes from the verb 「思（おぼ）す」, which is just a polite form of 「思う」. In fact, the modern Japanese translation given is just 「お思いになる」.

Another thing to note is how the last two kana are not vertically aligned, as would be expected. This is a little reminiscent of togaki, which we saw in Umegoyomi, but I think that it might also have been to make the kana fit into the space of one kanji, so they don't stand out that much or waste space on what might have been expensive paper.

Fig. 8: 甥ノ阿難
等ヲフ見スシテ
死ナム事ヲ
歎キ給ヘリ

Fig. 7 is full of name ateji. First we have another name for the Buddha, 「釈迦（しゃか）」, which comes from his Sanskrit name Śākyamuni ("शाक्यमुनि"), meaning "Sage of the Śākyas", where the Śākyas were the tribe that the Buddha was born into.

We see similar ateji for the Buddha's half-brother (Nanda, or 「難陀」), the Buddha's son (Rāhula, or 「羅睺羅」), and for the Buddha's cousin (Ānanda, or 「阿難」). The kanji for Rāhula are particularly interesting, for two reasons. First, 「羅睺羅」 is often written as 「羅ご羅」, including in the Kyoto University transcription and in the title of his Japanese Wikipedia page. For whatever reason, use of the kanji 「睺」 is not very common/popular. Second, notice how the first and third kanji are the same ― once again, there's clearly no meaning to be drawn from the kanji (which, in other contexts, can mean "gauze" or "net for catching birds").

In fig. 8, there's another Chinese grammatical pattern ― 「不見スシテ」, which is how it is in the original text. This time, interestingly enough, it is dealt with in the opposite way ― it is overdefined, rather than part of the interpretation being left up to the reader.

The Chinese grammatical pattern 「不見」 simply indicates negation of the kanji 「見」, and would be written in premodern Japanese as 「見ズ」, which is exactly what we see in fig. 8, with 「見スシテ」 (remember that insertion of dakuten is left up to the reader). What's interesting is that both the kanji 「不」 and the okurigana 「ス」 are included, when just one would have sufficed.

We once again see the placement of multiple kana (this time, three of them: 「スシテ」) in the space for one kanji.

Also of interest here is the verb 「死ナム」, which can be parsed as the imperfective form （未然形） of the verb 「死ヌ」 (which is 「死ナ」), followed by the auxiliary verb 「ム」, in its attributive form （連体形）, which is also 「ム」. The auxiliary verb takes on the meaning of appropriateness ― i.e., "should not die". Edit: as Matt pointed out in the comments, in this context, 「ム」 more likely has the meaning of "was apparently going to". He defined this as the "hypothetical" meaning of 「ム」, but I see another "hypothetical" meaning for 「ム」 in my textbook, used for "If..." sentences. It would be more appropriate to define this as being speculation/conjecture about the future （推量）.

The verb 「給フ」 is seen here in the perfective form （已然形）, as 「給ヘ」, followed by 「リ」, which is an auxiliary verb with the perfective function ― it indicates the completion of an action or process.