Tōdaiki refers to a figure forced to stand with a candlestick fixed atop the head—a “human candelabrum.” It appears in works like The Tale of the Heike, The Rise and Fall of the Genpei, and Wakan Sansai Zue. In these accounts, a Japanese person who sailed to Tang China as an envoy vanishes, is robbed of speech, tattooed, and made to bear a candlestick. In Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Hyakki Shūi it is drawn in Tang-style dress and explicitly shown to be human. The tale is known in the context of filial-piety narratives.
Folklore & Legends
In outline, the Minister Karu disappears in Tang China; his son, Prime Minister Hitsushi, crosses the sea to search for him and eventually confronts the Tōdaiki. The candelabrum-bearer weeps and bites his finger to write a poem, revealing he is Japanese. This leads to the discovery of the father–son reunion, though whether rescue or return follows varies by source. Accounts differ, and Sekien’s image suggests a human brought to such a fate. The story belongs to the motif of filial devotion and suffering in a foreign land.
Yokai Cards3
Tōdaiki (Human Candelabrum) across multiple art-style decks
An edition based on visual readings of Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Hyakki Shūi and related images. Depicted as a human figure in Tang-style robes with a candle set upon a tray or stand on the head. Said to have had the voice destroyed by drugs and the body tattooed, composing poems in tears or fingertip blood in place of speech. Its true nature is not a monster per se but the tragic end of a person enslaved in a foreign land, giving it a strongly narrative character of human ethics and suffering, even while included in yokai catalogs. Details vary by source, yet the figure consistently stands in the night holding a light. Accounts of salvation or death are inconsistent and left unspecified.
Character Profile
This section is our own creative profile for storytelling. It is not historical fact or scholarship.
The diagram below is a diagnostic evaluation chart for Setuwa Iconography Edition, after Sekien Toriyama. The higher the value of each item, the stronger that characteristic is expressed.
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