Ghost Stories in Ouchoubu of Konjaku Monogatarishu And In Chinese Ancient literature

Various kinds of Ghosts with different characters are depicted vividly in Ouchoubu of Konjaku Monogatarishu. While there are ghosts who do harm to humans, there are also ghosts full of humanity. Also, ghosts who come back to visit their spouses, ghosts who make a failed attempt to injure humans, ghosts who steal or chant in order to make themselves conspicuous are also commonly seen. From these stories, we see the influence inherited from Chinese literature. For example, stories in which the ghosts come back to visit their spouses are one kind of the many. It is very intriguing how these stories assimilate Chinese literature, deal with the influence and take on new faces later. Therefore, in this thesis, I am going to focus on the 25th and 26th story in the 27th volume to see how these Japanese stories are connection with their Chinese counterparts, and further compare and contrast them.