Note: This story was first published in 1915 in the magazine 帝国文学, Teikoku Bungaku, "Empire Literature". The original Japanese title of this story, 羅生門, is transcribed as Rashōmon in the Revised Hepburn notation, and refers to the southern gate of the then-ruined city of Kyoto, which had become a hide-out for thieves and robbers and a place for abandoning unclaimed corpses. It is composed of 羅生, ra jō, a sinicized word apparently meaning "raw silk", and 門, mon, sinicized equivalent of gēto, "gate".