The Spider’s Thread(based on the Onion Parable from Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers

Karamazov”)

Written by Ryunosuke AkutagawaTranslated by R.E. Parrish

1.

One certain day in Paradise, the Buddha was idly strolling on the edge of a lotus

pool. Each of the lotuses floating on the water shone with the bright whiteness of

jewels, with centers of golden stamens, and the smell of these flowers was

indescribably sweet. The water lapped ceaselessly at the edge of the pond. Dawn

was just breaking in Paradise.

For a while, the Buddha paused at the edge of this pond, and beheld an image

between the lotus flowers covering the pond’s surface. Below this lotus pond in

Paradise lay the depths of hell, and the scenery of hell’s rivers and mountains could

be seen through the spaces of pure, crystal water, as if through a glass.

The Buddha’s gaze came to rest on a man named Kandata, who was squirming

and crawling through the bowels of hell along with his fellow sinners. This

Kandata was a well-known thief, who had committed murder and arson, among

various other evil acts. Despite this, the Buddha recalled that in his lifetime, this

man had performed one single good deed. One day, Kandata had been passing

through a deep forest, and had seen a tiny spider crawling across his path. At once,

Kandata had raised his foot to trample the poor spider to death, but had then

thought, “No, no, although this creature is tiny, surely it too is living. What a

shame it would be to take its life without reason.” And so he had spared the spider

its life.

While watching this figure down in hell, the Buddha mused on Kandata’s decision

to save the spider. And so, because Kandata had performed this one good deed, the

Buddha decided that he would rescue this man from hell if he could. Luckily, the

Buddha caught sight of one of Paradise’s spiders spinning a silvery web on top of a

jade-colored lotus leaf. The Buddha took the spider’s thread in hand, and lowered

it into the pond between the jewel-bright lotuses and down to the depths of hell.

2.

Down at the very bottom of hell, Kandata and the other sinners were eternally

floating up and sinking down in a lake of blood. No matter which direction they

looked, they only saw complete darkness. Every now and again, the faint glowing

outline of hell’s thorny mountain could be seen through the pitch black. The

feeling of helplessness experienced by the sinners in this lake was beyond

description. The space above and around them was as still and silent as the grave,

and the only occasional noises to be heard were the small, desperate breaths of the

sinners in the lake. The sinners who had fallen to this level of hell had already

endured such torture that they no longer even had the strength to cry out. And so

as one would expect, as the thief Kandata was being smothered with the blood

from the lake, he was only able to struggle in place, like a pitiful, dying frog.

However, one day, something new occured. As Kandata raised his face and looked

up into the sky above the lake of blood, he saw the fine, shining, silvery spider’s

thread descending through the silence from the heavens above, as though afraid to

be seen by the eyes of men. When he saw this, Kandata unthinkingly clapped his

hands in delight. If he could cling to this thread and climb anywhere upward from

where he was, surely, he thought, escape from hell was possible! No, if it all went

smoothly, he could even enter Paradise! If he could climb this thread, he would

never again be driven up against the mountain of thorns, or drowned in the lake of

blood!

Thinking this, Kandata immediately seized the spider’s thread with both hands,

and started to haul himself upward with all his might. (As he had been an

experienced burglar in life, he’d had a lot of practice with this sort of thing.)

However, because there were tens of thousands of miles between hell and Paradise,

although he was eager to ascend quickly, he could not climb up the thread easily.

After only a short while climbing, Kandata became tired and could no longer climb

hand-over-hand as he had been doing. After trying to rally his strength in vain for a

while, he rested for a moment, and looked down the length of the thread, which he

had already ascended halfway.

He saw that due to his efforts, he had made it to where he could no longer see the

lake of blood through the darkness, and that he was now completely above the top

of the mountain of thorns. At this rate, he could make it out of hell for sure!

Kandata wrapped his hands firmly around the thread and laughed in a voice that

hadn’t known breath for years, “I’ve got this! I’ve got this!”

Suddenly, however, he noticed that, like a line of ants, the other sinners from the

lake of blood were clambering up the thread behind him. Seeing this, Kandata

became surprised and paralyzed with fear, his eyes bulging and his mouth hanging

wide open like an idiot. The spider’s thread seemed to be straining under his

weight alone - it couldn’t possibly hold the weight of such a great number of

others! If this thread were to break while he was still climbing, the selfish Kandata

who had taken such pains to get this far would be thrown back into hell, as well as

the rest of the sinners. Such an occurrence would be unbearable. While he

agonized over this, swarms of hundreds and then thousands of sinners were

crawling in a single line up the shining and slender thread. If any more began to

climb, he thought, the thread would surely snap in two and all would be lost.

And so Kandata shouted down, “You, sinners! This is my thread, understand? Who

the hell said you could climb it? Get off! Get off!”

Up until then, the thread had been perfectly intact, but in the very moment that

Kandata shouted down to the other sinners, it snapped cleanly right where he had

been holding it. He was doomed, along with the rest. He fell head over heels

through the air like a spinning top, and in a mere moment was plunged back into

the darkness of hell.

Afterward the remnant of the thread continued to hang right above him, glittering

and silver in the sky that had no moon or stars.

3.

The Buddha, standing at the edge of Paradise’s lotus pond, watched the whole

scene play out. He watched Kandata sink back into the lake of blood like a stone,

and then continued his stroll around the pond, sadness on his face. The Buddha

thought that it was unfortunate that Kandata’s selfish heart had led him to try to

prevent others from escaping hell with him, but he supposed that being cast back

into hell for eternity was fair punishment enough.

But the lotus blossoms of the pond didn’t seem to care in the slightest. Their petals

shone bright-white like jewels as they swayed gently around the Buddha’s feet, and

the most inexpressibly lovely scent flowed from their golden stamens. It was

almost midday in Paradise.