インドラの網宮沢賢治Advanced · JLPT N1
インドラの網Indora no Ami — Beneath Indra's Net
- JLPT N1
- 3,673 characters
- 3 parts
- about 31 minutes
インドラの網 is a short visionary story told in the first person by a traveller who, exhausted, collapses among wind-blown grass and then seems to walk on across the cold, lifeless Tsera Plateau. Beside a pale lake of supercooled water, the landscape slowly changes. Sand, sky and water begin to glitter like gemstones, and the border between the human world and a heavenly one grows thin. There is very little plot. The story is mostly a sequence of luminous images, including three children who seem to have stepped out of the murals of a ruined temple in Uten (Khotan). The tone is quiet, cold and ecstatic all at once, and Miyazawa blends a geologist's precision (quartz sand, supercooled water) with Buddhist imagery. For learners it is demanding. The vocabulary is dense with mineral, scientific and religious terms, and some spellings are old-fashioned, such as 斯う and 本統. The rewards are a calm, polite narrative voice and short exchanges of blunt, casual dialogue. You also get one of the clearest examples of how Miyazawa makes scientific language sound like poetry.
Contents
Before you read
- Track the three voices. The narration is in polite past tense (〜ました, 〜のでした). The narrator's private thoughts appear in parentheses in plain, colloquial Japanese. The children speak brusquely with endings like 〜だい (お前は誰だい), while the narrator answers them politely.
- Learn a small set of nature and mineral words before you start, because they carry the imagery: 高原, 湖, 砂, 石英, 過冷却, 天, 天人, 網, 孔雀. Expect many others to be glossed in the notes, and don't let each one stop you.
- Watch for old spellings that are used in place of familiar words: 斯う = こう, 本統 = 本当, 誨える = 教える. Once you recognise them, sentences that looked unfamiliar become ordinary.
- Pay attention to expressions of uncertainty and appearance, such as 〜らしい, 〜ようでした and 〜のを待っているようでした. The whole story balances between dream and reality, and these forms show how far the narrator trusts what he perceives.
- Negative and prohibitive forms recur, especially in the children's speech and the narrator's caution: 〜ず, 〜ずに, 〜ないように and the casual 〜ちゃいかない (= 〜てはいけない). Reading them correctly matters for following what is allowed, seen or unseen in the heavenly world.
Words to know
The most useful words from the notes across the story.
| Word | Meaning | JLPT |
|---|---|---|
| 草穂くさぼ | plumes (ears) of grass穂 ほ becomes ぼ by rendaku; the same image returns as 草の穂 later. | — |
| 稀薄きはく | thin, rarefied (air)Now usually written 希薄. | — |
| 瓔珞ようらく | jewelled necklace or ornament (worn by Buddhist deities) | — |
| 遁げにげる | to flee, to run awaydictionary form: 遁げるOld spelling; normally written 逃げる today. | N4 |
| 夢中むちゅう | absorbed, in rapture, carried away夢中になる = to become completely absorbed in something. | N3 |
| 俄ににわか | suddenly, all at oncedictionary form: 俄Literary; also seen in にわか雨 'sudden shower'. | N2 |
| 却ってかえって | instead, on the contraryMarks an outcome opposite to what might be expected. | N2 |
| 漂ってただよう | to drift, to linger (of a scent)dictionary form: 漂う | N1 |
| 厳かおごそか | solemn, majesticA na-adjective; here used adverbially as 厳かに. | N1 |
| 昏倒こんとう | fainting, swoon, collapseWritten, literary word; 昏 means 'dark, dim'. | — |
| 影法師かげぼうし | one's shadow (as a figure)Old-fashioned, slightly personifying word for a person's shadow. | — |
| 日輪にちりん | the sun (literally 'sun-wheel')Literary and poetic. | — |
| 薄明はくめい | twilight; the faint light just after sunset or before dawnTechnical or literary word; compare 黄昏 たそがれ for deeper dusk. | — |
| 山稜さんりょう | mountain ridge, ridgeline | — |
| 気圏きけん | atmosphere (the layer of air around the earth)Scientific term; the everyday word is 大気. | — |
Plot summary
Show the full summary (contains spoilers)
Worn out, the narrator Aoki Akira collapses in the grass and then seems to walk across the Tsera Plateau at dusk. He reaches a lake of supercooled water and examines its quartz sand and water with a geologist's eye. Everything goes dark. When he opens his eyes it is night, the sky and sand sparkle like jewels, and the shore seems to belong to the Milky Way. At dawn he sees a heavenly being flying and believes he has entered heaven. The vision fades, leaving only the scent of quince. Three heavenly children from the murals of the Great Temple of Uten then appear, and one bluntly asks who he is. As heaven's sun rises, they joyfully show him Indra's shimmering net, the drums of the wind and a vast blue peacock. These wonders are present yet cannot be seen or heard. The children vanish, and the narrator dimly recalls his own body lying pale among the grass and the wind.
About the author
Miyazawa Kenji was a poet and writer of children's stories from Hanamaki in Iwate Prefecture. He studied agricultural science in Morioka and later taught at an agricultural school. He devoted much of his life to helping local farmers improve their methods and their cultural lives. He was a devout Buddhist, and his faith, love of nature and interest in science run through his writing. His fame came after his death, with works such as 銀河鉄道の夜, 風の又三郎 and the poem 雨ニモマケズ.