I just read a book, a Japanese folklore, about discarding elderly people in a mountain. This tale has been handed down in the oral tradition from generation to generation among Japanese. A source said that many had modificated it into rather different versions. Yet these tales are only caused any hearts to swell with sorrow. Considered as one of the national heritage, this tale has been produced in a picture book for children.

Here’s the sort, simple story of Obasute:

In ancient times in the Province of Shinano there was a feudal lord who hated old people. So he decreed throughout the land that when old people became seventy years of age, they were, without exception, to be taken to the mountains and left there. One bright moonlit night a young farmer climbed up a mountain carrying his mother on his back. Since his mother had reached the age of seventy, he had to discard her there. However, the young man could not bear the thought of leaving her there–no matter what! He brought her back home again, dug a hole under the floor so no one would see her, and hid her there. About this time, an envoy from a neighboring province appeared before the feudal lord and laid down a very difficult proposal. He posed three problems, and if these were not solved, the Province of Shinano would be attacked and destroyed. The three problems were: to make a rope out of ashes; to pass a thread through a nine-sided jewel; and to make a drum beat by itself. The feudal lord was perplexed, and he issued a proclamation throughout the land calling upon the wise men to solve these difficult problems. When the young farmer told this to his mother, who was hidden under the floor, the mother instantly explained to him how the problems could be solved. The young farmer immediately went to the home of the feudal lord and told him. Because of this the province was able to be saved from its difficulties. On learning from the young man that all this was due to the wisdom of an old woman, the feudal lord became enlightened, and without any further hesitation he proceed to abolish the decree.

So went the story. Now the appearence of the picture book:

The colored frontispiece was a drawing of a young man wearing a hood like the headgear of court nobles. Carrying his aged mother on his back, he was making his way through the thick underbrush as he climbed up a steep mountain. The mother’s hair was white but her face seemed exceedingly young, so that the combination produced a slightly weird effect. The rays of the full moon tinted the entire scene blue everywhere–the trees and grass and earth–and the shadows of the two people were imprinted in bold relief in black over the ground like spilled ink. It was just a coarse, common picture, but even so the sadness inherent in the story and the scene still rose from the superficies of the character of the picture. For the mind of children, it was probably adequately stimulating.

Imagine this, you carry your mother, or grandma, or any member of your family in your back and take this person up to a mountain and just leave her there alone.. Can you bear that? The idea is sickening! But this is how Japanese been taught to respect of their elder people. To comprehend the nature of highest wisdom that forms throughout years and ages and experiences.