The Source of Kumo-no-ito (The Spider Web) and its Author

Abstract

　The source of “Kumo-no-ito,” Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s famous work, was once believed to be a Russian folklore called “A Welsh Onion” appearing in Dostoyevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov,”　Ⅶ, iii. It was then considered that the originality of Akutagawa consisted in his creating a Buddhistic narrative from the said source.

　It was Prof. Sei’ichi Yamaguchi that, having denied the old theory, set up a new one that the source of “Kumo-no-ito” was “The Spider Web, ” a chapter of “Karma” by Paul Carus (1852-1919). Besides, it was ascertained that this “Karma” was published in English by Hasegawa Shôten (a publisher) in 1895.

　Then Prof. Tatsuro Katano proved in his article that the source used by Akutagawa was not the English version of “Karma” but the Japanese translation of it by Daisetsu Suzuki, “Inga-no-oguruma”, published in 1898 by the same publisher, in which a chapter called “Kumo-no-ito” appears.

　　Upon investigation the author of this article discovered that the “Inga-no-oguruma” reposited in the Library of the National Diet was bound in old Japanese way with an indigo cover. This fits in with Akutagawa’s words. It is, therefore, confirmed that the source of “Kumo-no-ito” is not the English version of “Karma”, but its Japanese translation titled “Inga-no-oguruma” . In addition， a short biography of Paul Carus is put at the end of the book which presents an interesting problem on the relationship between Japanese and Western modern cultures.