expression, noun
mystery due to conflicting accounts; unknown truth; in a grove (literal)
Idiomatic phrase from Akutagawa Ryūnosuke's short story 'In a Grove' (藪の中). Used when conflicting testimonies make the truth unknowable. The literal meaning 'in a grove' is rarely used outside the title.
この事件はまさに藪の中だ。
This case is truly a mystery with conflicting accounts.
目撃者の話が食い違っていて、何が真実か藪の中だ。
The witnesses' stories contradict each other; the truth is unknown.
Another Akutagawa story title used idiomatically, but 羅生門 refers to a situation where people's selfish motives are exposed, while 藪の中 refers to the impossibility of knowing the truth due to conflicting perspectives.
From the title of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's 1922 short story '藪の中' (In a Grove), in which multiple characters give contradictory accounts of a crime, leaving the truth unknowable. The phrase became an idiom for situations where conflicting testimonies obscure the facts.