The Mountain Where Old People Were Abandoned
Japan
A
 long time ago, there was a lord who commanded that when people reached
old age they should be taken to a mountain canyon and left there to die. He
felt that once they became too old to work in the fields or ply their trade, they
were no longer useful. In a nearby village, there was a young farmer whose
father had now reached the age of abandonment and, since the lord had
commanded it, the son now took his father on his back to the mountain to be left
there to die. They walked deeper and deeper into the wilderness and, as they
went along, the old man broke the tips off of branches in order to mark the trail.
“Father, why do you break the branches off? Is it to mark the trail and find
your way home again?”
“No, my son, it is not for me that I mark the trail, but for you. I know that I
cannot return, but I am afraid that you will become lost on your way home and I
would be grief stricken if anything happened to you on my account.”
When the young farmer heard these words, he thought back on how kind
and wise his father had always been and how he had tried his best throughout the
years to guide his son along life’s journey. Stopping for a moment, the son
shifted his father’s weight on his back and then turned around and walked back
home. By day, he hid his father under the porch and at night, he brought the aged
man into the house and fed and cared for him.
Now, the lord of that land was a man of whims who would often taunt his
subjects by asking them to undertake challenging and sometimes ridiculous
tasks. One day, he gathered the farmers from the region and said, “You must
each bring me a rope woven from ashes.”
All the farmers were very troubled, knowing the impossibility of the
request. The young farmer went home and told his father of the lord’s command
as they ate their evening meal. “A rope of ash is what he wants. How can I do
this?”
“You must weave a rope very tightly then burn it and bring it carefully to
the lord.”
EDdeThe young man was amazed and overjoyed at his father’s advice and
quickly went about his task. The next day, he was the only one who brought an
ashen rope to the lord. The lord was pleased and praised the young man for his
quick thinking.
Next, the lord commanded, “Each of you must bring a conch shell with a
thread passed through it.”
Once again, the young farmer sought out his father’s wisdom. The old man
smiled and said, “Take a conch shell and point the tip to the light. Take a thread
and stick a grain of rice on it. Then give the rice to an ant and make it crawl into
the shell. The ant will make its way toward the light and weave the thread
through the chambers of the shell.”
Once more, the young farmer was the only one who was able to complete
the task and again, the lord was pleased. “How were you able to come up with a
way to solve the riddles of these tasks and complete them so well?”
The young farmer took a deep breath and answered the lord. “I love my
father very much and when it came time to take him to the mountain canyon to
die I could not bear it. He was always so wise and kind. Instead, I brought him
back to my house and hid him there by day and fed and cared for him at night. I
asked him about these problems and he quickly solved them both.”
When the lord heard this, he was impressed with the young man’s devotion
and the old man’s wisdom. He knew now that it was a mistake to lose all that
knowledge, so he commanded that the practice of abandonment cease and that
old people should be revered and honored.
And so it was and so it should be.