"Mandai Pond" is a retelling of a Japanese legend about a demon and the magical rite that trapped it beneath the pond a thousand years ago. The photos shared alongside this story were taken by the author on a visit to Mandai Pond near Shitennoji Temple in Japan.
"Mandai Pond" a legend retold by Seri Tamaoka
This is the tale of how long, log ago, Prince Shitoku saved the land of Sumiyoshi and how Mandai Pond received its name…
A dragonfly, as blue as the spring sky, landed on Shotoku’s palm as he recited sutras. Its wings flickered as if listening.
Image Description: A shrine with a painted-blue archway and blue lanterns surrounded by foliage.
Credit: Seri Tamaoka
“My prince,” his retainer said, startling the bug. The man was broad-shouldered, and quick with a blade, but his patience rarely lasted long. “We should keep moving if we are to reach the Grand Shrine before rain falls.”
Shotoku drew a slow breath. Rain?
The rustle of reeds and small sounds of the marshland whispered differently. He smelled the ocean on the wind, but no storm in it.
The recent storms had swollen the marshland, but the Kumano Way was still dry and firm.
“Let us not rush and sleep under the stars tonight,” Shotoku said. “We’ll greet the Grand Shrine in the morning.”
They traveled up the road, walking until the sunlight faded, and stopped to lay their bedrolls beside a copse of pine.
While his retainers, two of his most loyal, coaxed a small fire to life and prepared his rice and salted fish, Shotoku returned to his prayers.
He recited sutras to Kannon, asking her to watch over the people, and offered devotion to Inari, hoping the deity might bless the land with bountiful harvests.
After supper, the prince lay on his bedding, gazing up at the sky, his eyes tracing the seven stars of the Great Dipper until sleep overcame him.
Before dawn, in the hour of the Rabbit, a biter chill encircled him. Fingers like pinpricks crept up his chest and walked across his face. Shotoku woke with a gasp, sat upright and gripped his holy sword, Shichisei. He thrust the hilt, etched with the pattern of the Dipper, into the dark like a charm against evil.
His retainers woke as well. “My lord,” they cried. Their blades hissing out from their sheaths, sweeping the darkness.
“Sheathe your swords,” Shotoku replied in a steady voice. “Ordinary steel can not harm this evil.”
Shotoku crossed his legs and prayed to the Buddha for protection. In a moment of stillness, he saw the thing that had woken him. First in fragments, then in full: a being with a thousand eyes—a spirit swollen with corruption carried in on the recent rains.
The creature looked at him. Its hunger washed over him. The fish and waterfowl it had consumed only made it hungrier. It desired human flesh.
Image Description: A tall, square, stone marker set in stone pavers. Green, red, and orange foliage surround the area.
Credit: Seri Tamaoka
Then, as dawn broke through the trees, the vision vanished like morning mist.
“My lord, my lord,” his retainers cried out in relief.
“Pack camp,” he said, placing steel in his voice. “We continue onward.”
They traveled through the land known as Sumiyoshi, where earth and sea met, toward the Grand Shrine. Though the sun climbed bright into a clear sky, Shotoku still felt the shadow from his vision like an icy embrace.
In the distance, a couple came into view—the husband striding towards them, the wife struggling to keep up.
“You there,” the prince called.
The villager halted, mouth agape.
“Bow before your prince,” a retainer urged. But Shotoku noticed the man stood boldly before him—not afraid of punishment nor rank.
“Why do you run?” Shotoku asked.
The wife clutched her husband’s hand, eyes flickering to the trees behind them.
“There’s a demon,” the man said. “Its has a thousand eyes… ”
…screaming in the moonlight.
“It appeared after the last rain. No one in the village can sleep. It torments us all. One by one, the animals have disappeared too. Now, people fear being out at night.” The man shuddered. “The land is cursed!”
They bowed awkwardly and hurried on.
Further along, another, two older women carrying bags of seaweed on their backs approached.
“You there,” the prince called again. “Have you seen trouble on this road?”
One women lifted a hand worn with age and pointed toward distant pines. “Beyond the trees lies a large pond. Cursed it is. Best keep to the path.”
Shotoku thanked the women, watching them as they continued on.
“Evil gains strength from troubled hearts,” Shotoku murmured. “Let us calm this place.”
At the mention of evil, Shotoku’s retainers went still. These were brave men, fierce in battle, but even their courage faulted when faced with unseen things.
Shotoku rested his fingertips on Shichisei and stepped off the road, down the gentle slope toward the tree line.
Pine needles brushed his face as he parted the branches. Under the morning light, the pond appeared peaceful. Its surface bright, reflecting the sky, thin mist curling off the warming shallows. Wetland plants cluttered along its edges, and at its center lay a small island thick with brush and tangled trees.
A retainer stepped up beside him. “It looks like an ordinary fishing hole.”
Shotoku shook his head. “There are no fish here.”
He felt it more than he saw it—the absence of life. With every step toward the bank, he noticed the silence—no insects skimming the surface, no birds in the reeds, nor movement under the water.
With each step closer to the bank, the silence thickened.
“Show yourself, demon!” Shotoku shouted.
A response flared—a shimmer in the shadows. The very air tore open with a thin crack, as if the firmament had split. From the rift crawled a darkness that was not shadow but a shape with too many limbs, jointed like a spider’s. It clawed at the gap as if trying to birth itself into the world.
It hissed, spearing Shotoku’s chest with a spike of ice. He gripped his chest expecting to feel a shaft there, but the demon was not yet enough in this world to make such physical damage.
A prayer rose to his lips. He thrust Shichisei skyward. The sword came to life—its power pulsing in his hand, its hilt flaring holy light—and yet the cold, darkness rose to meet it. Doubt whispered at him; was Shichisei strong enough to control such evil?
A droning shriek burst from the creature’s many mouths as it pushed harder against the tear in the sky. Shotoku feared he had only enraged it further.
Then, as the sun climbed higher, its strength vanished like an extinguished flame. The crack flickered and closed, leaving all life around it twisted, blackened, and withered.
Shotoku watched the pond. The silence was absolute.
Slowly, he released his breath. He had faced demons before, but never any like this.
He sheathed his blade. “We must get help before night falls again.”
They ran north, following the Kumano Way road stones, through small villages until the walls of Shitenno-ji Temple rose before them.
Image Description: Red-orange leaves decorate a tree in the left foreground as a skyscraper rises in the distance against a deep blue sky.
Credit: Seri Tamaoka
They passed before the gate’s Nio guardians, fierce warriors, ever watching the faithful. Shotoku lowered his head before them, offering a quick word of gratitude.
His sudden arrival swiftly drew the temple’s monks. The head priest moved through them like a parting sea.
“Most faithful of the path,” Shotoku said, “your prince has need of you.”
A hush settled over the courtyard as he recounted what he had witnessed and the torment the demon brought.
“Bring the Mandala Sutra,” the head priest commanded. “We will bind the creature to the lake.”
Two sutra-bearers sprinted off and returned with a long sandalwood box. Inside lay the sacred scroll of binding.
The head priest received it with a nod. Without delay, Shotoku and the head monk led a procession of kekkai-monks, those trained to guard the boundaries between things seen and unseen, south once more—toward the cursed pond.
Even travelling at their swiftest, much of the day was lost. By the time the procession had reached the lake, the air had grown cold, and clouds had gathered, masking the sun. What light came through was weak.
The monks spread out along the shore, their sandals trampling the reeds as they formed a circle.
Shotoku sensed the demon’s presence. Whether it understood what was afoot, or sensed the magic in the scroll, the wind rose. Leaves rattled in the trees, and a thin layer of frost touched the plants along the bank.
Image Description: Autumn foliage in shades of red, green, orange, and brown are reflected in the clear, still water of Mandai Pond.
Credit: Seri Tamaoka
The head priest opened the sandalwood box and lifted out the scroll. The sutra-bearers unfurled it, revealing dense lines of Sanskrit, invoking heavenly deities—entreating them with pleas for protection, and power to bind the demon. They drew the scroll taut between them.
“With your leave, Prince Shotoku,” the head priest said, bowing.
Shotoku nodded.
The head priest took a deep breath and bellowed the first lines. The monks echoed him.
The earth trembled. Cold air washed across the shoreline as though the demon hissed cold air from its maw. Lines like fractures in a teacup cracked the sky.
Fear tightened Shotoku’s chest. The sun had begun its final descent. Gripping his sword, he added his voice to the chant.
Syllables rolled from their tongues like stones cast to the sky. Each holy sentence burst into a thread of silver light. The threads began forming a net.
The air shuttered as the demon fought the holy words. It pushed forward until it writhed into the realm; its form poured from the crack like oil down glass.
Its multiple limbs formed first, then its head, and finally its thousand eyes, yellow beams that glared at Shotoku.
Then its counterattack began in a wave of sorrow: the sadness in a lonely night, the hollow loss of a loved one taken too soon, the despair of a ruined crop.
Dark memories gripped Shotoku’s chest; around him, monks stumbled over their words.
The threads of silver light dimmed. The demon raked its claws through the binding.
“Do not yield to darkness!” Shotoku shouted. He ran around the wavering monks. “The demon cannot have these waters.”
Their voices rose again. They straightened, lifting themselves out of grief even as tears fell from their eyes.
The creature shrieked as the monks completed the first recitation, but the spell was not complete. They began again.
“Begone, demon!” Shotoku cried, shaking his sword. His retainers, finding their courage, joined beside him.
“Begone!” they shouted as one.
A wind rose, lashing reeds and robes. Water shaped into hands, throwing the monks back. Shotoku braced the head priest, whose lone voice continued the invocation. The Mandala Sutra was ripped from its bearers’ hands and drawn into the sky. Yet, one by one, the monks rejoined the circle. Each voice pushed the darkness back a little more until it was driven to the fissure.
Image Description: The water's edge of Mandai Pond. The grasses have turned yellow. The trees are shades of green and red. The sky, trees, and grass are reflected in the clear, still water.
Credit: Seri Tamaoka
At the next stanza, a golden light shot over the water. A radiant mandala formed above the pond, hovering until it gently descended, and sealed the evil beneath the surface. Shotoku slumped to his knees, more spent than after the hardest battle.
“Quick—the dragon god,” he said, forcing himself upright.
His retainers moved quickly, escorting two monks who guarded a small golden box at the pond’s edge.
One monk cleared a space in the earth. The other gripped a wooden wand, an onusa, and swept its bouquet of white streamers through the air, purifying the ground before they placed the sacred container.
Hands clasped, the monks entreated the sacred dragon within to become guardian of the pond.
A golden light spilled from the box, brightening the sky. It grew stronger until it encompassed the pond, bathing everything in radiance.
Shotoku held his breath as the dragon god took form. Long, luminous, like a river of living light, it coiled over the water. The fissure sealed shut with an audible pop. The dragon god circled once, twice, then roared, shattering like starlight across the water, and sealing the demon within the rift.
Then the waters stilled, and there was no sign of darkness, only a gentle pulsing of the dragon god’s steady presence.
The demon was sealed.
After sealing the demon, the pond was named Mandai, for the Mandala Sutra used.
To this day, it is protected by a dragon god. Shitennoji Temple, which Prince Shotoku founded, cares for his sword Shichisei.
About the Author
Seri Tamaoka (she/her) grew up in sunny Southern California before moving to Japan, where she now lives fueled by coffee and the pull of ancient streets. She writes science fiction and fantasy, often exploring the crossover between the two genres. When she’s not writing, she enjoys photography, cycling, and saving the world in an MMORPG, one quest at a time.
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