High
up in the hills, near some mountains, there laid a big old temple that had been
around for hundreds of years. This temple was called ‘The Seven Year Temple’
and this temple had a sad story behind it.
The story was hundreds of years ago,
before the temple was built, there used to be a village in the area. It was
what you called a peaceful little village with wheat fields all around. But
there was something sad about this village. The village had an old tradition of
sacrificing a seven year old girl to the mountain god for a good harvest, every
seven years.
One night a seven year old girl was
being sacrificed to the mountain god. She was dressed in fine robes and all set
to be sent to the mountains, where she was to stay put in a shrine and die
there. But the girl’s parents and older brother didn’t want her to die, even if
this was a tradition. The older brother, who loved his sister a lot, even
argued against the landlord of the village to not have his sister sacrificed. But
the landlord just said; “It is for the sake of the village, deal with it”. He
was one of those landlords who never cared about his own people’s feelings.
So the girl’s family couldn’t do
anything to prevent her from being sent to the mountains. But there was
something they could do to prevent her from dying. Her parents planned to take
their daughter out of the shrine in the mountains, hide her somewhere else and
keep her alive by sending food to her. Of course they weren’t really allowed to
do that, and they feared that this would attract the wrath of the mountain god,
but the girl’s parents and brother couldn’t just allow the villagers to kill
her.
It wasn’t long when the girl was led
up to the mountains and into the shrine to die. But sometime after the girl was
placed in the shrine, her brother got her out of the shrine and together they
found a small cave in the mountains for her to hide in. The girl was afraid
that the villagers would find out about this, but her brother reassured her
that he and their parents would protect her.
For the next three years the girl’s
parents and her brother visited her in secret, at night times, to give her food
and clothing. As for the harvest in the village the wheat had grown well over
the last three years, even if the girl hadn’t been sacrificed. They say that
the parent’s actions of saving their daughter didn’t attract the wrath of the
mountain god. Even though everything was going well it still made the girl
worried that the villagers would find out that she was still alive.
One night the girl’s parents and
brother decided they should leave the village and take her with them. They knew
they wouldn’t be able to keep their secret up forever. So the parents told
their son to go to his sister and tell her that they were going to leave the
village tonight. The son did that at once and the girl agreed with the plan of
leaving the village.
But before the girl and her brother
could leave the cave, trouble appeared. Some men from the village had followed
the brother and they saw the girl. The men realized that the girl and her
family broke the rules of the tradition and they were angry. The girl and her
brother tried to run away, but the men caught them right away. “You have
violated the rules and angered the mountain god,” said one of them “so for your
crime we will sacrifice both you two and your parents to the mountain god”.
Once the men brought the girl and her
brother back to the village, they seized their parents at once and tied the
whole family up in ropes. The father tried to reason with them saying that the
mountain god hadn’t sent a famine to them or anything else bad. But the
villagers wouldn’t listen; all they cared about now was completing the
sacrifice ritual so not to anger the mountain god. The land owner ordered the
girl to be killed first and then they will kill her brother and parents next. A
villager, with a shovel, got ready to strike the girl on the head to kill her.
The girl braced herself for the blow, while her parents and brother could do nothing
to stop him but watch in horror.
Suddenly the man with the shovel
caught on fire, just before he was about to kill the girl. The villagers gasped
at the sight and demanded to know what happened. Just then a voice appeared
saying; “you will not kill this girl or any other girls anymore”. A seven year
old girl appeared in front of everyone like magic; she was a ghost. “Ever since
I was sacrificed to the mountain god, four hundred years ago, I watched this
village sacrificing girls the same age as me,” she said “I also watched the
poor girls suffer like I did. But now I have seen enough, and they have too”.
Hundreds of ghosts of seven year old girls appeared; they were ghosts of girls
who had been sacrificed in the past. The villagers were horrified of seeing the
ghosts in front of them. Even the girl and her family were shocked of seeing
them.
Some of the ghost girls released the
girl and her brother and parents from their ropes and told them to leave. The
landlord was about to stop them, but the ghosts interfered before he could stop
them. “All of us girls still feel the coldness of the shrine we were locked in
before we died,” said the four hundred year old ghost “and so we shall bring
fourth fire to warm ourselves up”. Just like magic fire suddenly appeared and
it started to burn down the whole village. The villagers tried to run away, but
they all got trapped by the flames. Some of the villagers tried to apologize to
the girls but it was too late; the girls could not forgive the villagers for
what they had done and so the villagers were to die by the fire.
At that time the girl and her family
had fled the village, all safe and sound, and right now they were watching the
village burn to the ground. And they heard the screams of the villagers as they
were being burned alive by the fire. “Instead of attracting the wrath of the
mountain god,” said the father “the villagers had attracted the wrath of the
spirits of the girls they had sacrificed in the past”. “Yes, and it was the
villager’s cruelty and selfishness that attracted the girls wrath” said the
mother. The girl and her brother agreed and then the family left the village to
live a happier life someplace else.
A few years after that, the girl and
her brother who were adults now returned to where the village used to be and
together they built ‘The Seven Year Temple’. The girl hoped with all her heart
that the girls would find peace now since the village no longer existed and so
did her brother. After they completed the temple, they left the temple and
never returned to it again.
So ‘The Seven Year Temple’ was built
to help put the spirits of the sacrificed girls to rest. But the priests who
have run the temple over the years have said that on moonlit nights, when the
moon is full, they see the spirits of the sacrificed girls roaming around the
area, where the village once stood.
