Summary and comment:
We can see homosexual love between a priest and a young acolyte. Buddhist priest Keikai of Enryaku Temple falls in love with a young boy Baijyaku whose father is the highest court and the two are involved in when the priest visits Ishiyama Temple on his business. The boy is abducted by Tengu on his way to the destination to meet the priest. ( Tengu is seen as an aviator or transformation of a guardian of certain mountains.) Monks of Mitsui Temple that the boy belongs to regard the kidnapping as a tactics or a seduction of priests of the rival Enryaku Temple that the priest belongs to. Tactfully, the Mitsui Temple is burnt down by the priest of the Enryaku Temple. With supernatural skills, the boy escapes from the evil Tengu's place at last. The young boy kills himself as soon as he knows the fact that his father's place and the Mitsui Temple are finished with ill. With deep sorrow he falls himself on a big bridge into a river. The priest Keikai is left alone and seriously he prays that our god would help save the boy`s soul for long. His genuine spirit is fully appreciated by lots of people. Surprisingly, the homosexual love affair often causes a strife with bad blood in pre modern Japan. The secular novel reflects social state of the past when a strange mixture of a love, a religion, and a politics falls into place. It`s a true love that the problem is the death of them.