Ki no omi Umakai was a man from the village of Kibi, Ate district, Kii province. Nakatomi no muraji Ojimaro was a boy from the village of Hamanaka, Ama district in the same province. Kinomaro no asomi lived at a port in Hidaka district in the same province, using a net to catch fish. Umakai and Ojimaro were given an annual payment for their labor by Maro no asomi, and both were driven hard day and night to catch fish by net.

In the reign of Emperor Shirakabe, on the sixth of the sixth month in the summer of the second year of the hare, the sixth year of the Hōki era, it suddenly blew hard and rained in torrents, so that the water flooded the port and floated various timbers and logs into the sea. Maro no asomi sent Umakai and Ojimaro to collect driftwood. Both man and boy made the collected timber into a raft on which they rode, trying to row against the current. The sea was extremely rough, breaking the ropes that held the raft together, and immediately the raft broke apart and drifted out of the port into the sea. The man and the boy each got hold of a piece of wood and drifted to sea on it. Both of them were ignorant, but they never ceased wailing, “Śākyamuni Buddha, please deliver us from this calamity!”

After five days, the boy was eventually cast by the waves onto the beach at a salt makers’ village, Tamachino no ura, in the southwestern part of Awaji province, in the evening. The other man, Umakai, was cast onto the same spot early in the morning on the sixth day. The local people, having asked them why they had been cast by the waves onto the shore, learned what had happened and took care of them out of pity, reporting it to the provincial magistrate. When he heard, he came to see them and gave them food because he was sympathetic.

In grief, the boy said, “As I have followed a man who kills, my suffering is immeasurable. If I go home, I shall be driven to begin killing again and never be able to stop.” Thus he stayed at the provincial temple in Awaji province becoming a follower of the monk of that temple.

Umakai, however, went home after two months. When his family saw his face and protruding eyes, they wondered and said, “He was drowned in the sea. The seventh seventh day has passed, and we have already offered a vegetarian feast to thank the Buddha for his benevolence. How could he come back alive so unexpectedly? Is it a dream, or is he a ghost?” Thereupon, Umakai told his family in detail what had happened, and they were sorrowful as well as happy. Awakened and disillusioned with the world, he entered the mountains to practice dharma. Those who saw or heard of him could not but marvel at the event.

The sea being full of danger, it was owing to the power of Shakanyorai and the deep faith of those who drifted on the sea that they could survive the peril. The immediate repayment of our deeds is as sure as in this instance, and how much more certain repayment in future lives will be! (Page 255-257)