Ooka Tadasuke

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, commonly called Ōoka Tadasuke (1677 - 1752) was a Japanese samurai in the service of the Tokugawa shogunate. During the reign of Tokugawa Yoshimune, as a magistrate (machi bugyo) of Edo, his roles included chief of police, judge and jury, and Yamada Magistrate (Yamada-bugyo) prior to his tenure as South Magistrate (Minami Machi-Bugyo) of Edo. With the title Echizen no Kami, he is often known as . He was highly respected as an incorruptible judge. In addition, he established the first fire brigade made up of commoners, and the Koishikawa Yojosho (a city hospital). Later, he advanced to the position of jisha bugyo, and subsequently became daimyo of the Nishi Ōhira han (10,000 koku).

Famous cases

In addition, the figure has taken on a legendary status in a number of stories about his wise and imaginatively unorthodox legal decisions. One of the most famous stories is called "The Case of the Stolen Smell" where he heard the case of a paranoid innkeeper who accused a poor student of literally stealing the fumes of his cooking by eating when the innkeeper was cooking to flavour his dull food. Although his colleagues advised Ooka to throw the case out as ridiculous, he decided to hear the case. The judge resolved the matter by ordering the student to pass the money he had in one hand to his other and ruling that the price of the smell of food is the sound of money.

The "Story of the Two Mothers" appears in the legendary decisions of Ooka Tadasuke, in near-exact parallel to the decision of Solomon in the Old Testament 1 Kings 3:16-23. In summary, two women claim an infant as their own true child. Ooka orders the child to be divided in half, and one woman relinquishes her claim for the sake of the child's life. She is awarded the child, as she is shown to be the true mother by her concern for the child. Whether this myth has originated in parallel or derived from a single source is unclear.

In The Case of the Bound Jizo Ooka (referred to as Ooka Echizen) was called upon to discover the thief of a cartload of cloth from a local kimono maker. Ooka ordered a jizo, or Buddhist statue, of the Narihira Santosen Temple in Tokyo to be bound and brought forth called to answer for dereliction of custodial duty. When the bound statue arrived in the courtroom, the spectators burst into laughter. Ooka sternly ordered each spectator to be punished with a token fine for their outburst. Each was ordered to provide a small swatch of cloth in fine. When the spectators paid their fines, the robbed kimono maker identified the piece of cloth from one spectator as identical to the cloth stolen in the crime. The spectator, who was the actual thief, was arrested, and Ooka ordered the jizo released as having discharged her duty.

Trivia

The city of Chigasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture has a festival for Ooka in late April.
Ooka is a major character in the Japanese tokusatsu series, Shiro Jishi Kamen (White Lion Mask).

References

Edmonds, I.G., Case of the Marble Monster and Other Stories, ISBN 0590080245, a collection of stories about Ooka Tadasuke, for younger readers.
Edmonds, I.G., Yamazaki, S. (Illust.)Ooka the Wise: Tales of Old Japan, ISBN 0208023798, A collection of seventeen folktales about the legendary Japanese judge Ooka...
[Case of the Bound Jizo, In article on Mark Schreiber]
[Kanagawa festivals]

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