Ta no Kami - History

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Ta-no-kami: Water God of the rice paddy

- source : japanesemythology.wordpress.com/ta-no-kami-god-of-the-rice-paddy...

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Ta-no-kami: “Kami of the rice paddy,” a tutelary of rice production.
The general term ta no kami can be found nationwide. While the ta-no-kami has undergone synthesis and conflated with other folk beliefs and deities from other lineages, such as Daikoku and the Lord of the Mountain (Yama no Kami) and is now thought of as a male mountain spirit, it is plausible that the early Ta no kami was originally a female water goddess, given that such a goddess was venerated throughout Eurasia, and much of Central and Southeast Asia and given that the sound of “Ta” is similar to the “Da” shortened Indian form of the Danu / Dana / Dhanya goddess.

The Ta no kami is depicted usually as an abstract deity or holding phallic symbols — see Green Shinto’s Ta no kami for an image of the deity, and the article from which the excerpted description of the deity below was taken:

“The Ta no Kami cult is widespread throughout the country, and is at the heart of Japanese rural folk cosmology. The Japanese imbue rice with a sacred reverence … In most regions, the Ta no Kami are represented abstractly, with tree branches decorated with strips of paper, sometimes stuck into mounds of sand. In a restricted area of southern Kyushu, however, there is a tradition, dating back to at least the early 18th century, of carving unique stone representations, locally called Ta no Kansa. This tradition centers in Kagoshima Prefecture but includes a small portion of neighboring Miyazaki Prefecture as well…”

It is possible that the Ta-no-kami (lit. the “Ta” deity) may have been derived from the Eurasian Proto-Indo-European Dana/Danu->Da deity.

Like the Ta-no-kami which is clearly a water god, Danu, is associated with the Celtic goddess also regarded as a river or water flow deity … the name of the river Danube is believed to be derived from this Celtic origin. Hindu mythology similarly, has a goddess called Danu, who may be the Indo-European cognate. When we consider the etymology of the word “danu” as a word for “rain” or “liquid”… that dānu is compared to Avestan dānu “river”, and the existence of a Danu river in Nepal, and the many river names of the Eurasian steppes like Don, Danube, Dneiper, Dniestr, etc. the association is likely.

“The Rigvedic Danu was the mother of a race of Asuras called the Danavas. A shortened form of the name appears to have been Dā. The Greek goddess of agriculture Demeter (Da-mater, Da being the Doric form of De, see Online Etymology Dictionary), is also associated with water several times. [2] Julius Pokorny reconstructs the name from the PIE root da:-: “flow, river”, da:-nu: “any moving liquid, drops”, da: navo “people living by the river, Skyth. nomadic people (in Rigveda water-demons), fem. Da:nu primordial goddess , in Greek Danaoi(Danaans, Greek tribe, Egypt. Danuna).” — Source: Danu (Irish goddess)

According to Balinese Cosmology and its Role in Agricultural Practices by Julie Melowsky:
In Balinese cosmology, the Goddess Dewi Danu resides at and rules the lake on the second-highest peak in Bali, Mount Batur. Her counterpart, the God of Mount Agung, rules the highest and is symbolically associated with kings and kingdoms. The Goddess has no such relationship with powerful beings on earth. Instead she rules over several hundred subaks, or associations of farmers who share water from a single source, who make pilgrimages to her temple called Pura Ulun Danu Batur, or the Temple of the Crater Lake. The goddess “is believed to be responsible for the gift of the waters that irrigate their fields” (Lansing, 1987), therefore farmers believe that, “’those who do not follow her laws may not possess her rice terraces’” (Lansing, 1995). There are twenty-four permanent priests, chosen in childhood to serve the goddess at her temple. In addition, there is a single high priest, Jero Gde, who is selected as a young child by a virgin priestess who, in a trance, allows the Goddess of the Lake to posses her voice to describe the boy she has chosen”.

From the above passage, just as Mt Agung is the male counterpart of the Danu goddess (the role of the Dew-Danu & Agung pair in creation is similar to that of Izanami and Izanagi in the creation of the island, see Lansing’s chap 4 “The Goddess and the Green Revolution“, p. 78 of The Balinese), the Japanese Ta-no-Kami have been merged with the Yama-no-Kami, since the Danu goddess is also considered a goddess of the Underworld.

And in the Sanskrit cognate, we have “dhānya” which means “rice paddy”; CC Adi 13.114 dhānya paddy; CC Adi 13.117; dhānya-rāśi heaps of paddy; CC Adi 12.12. “South Indians call rice Anna Lakshmi. Anna means “food” and Lakshmi is the Goddess of prosperity. From ancient times, Dhanya Lakshmi has been depicted holding a few sheaves of rice in her hand” … “At a harvest festival, Thai Pongal, rice is ceremoniously cooked. Surya, God of the sun, is worshiped and the nature spirits are thanked. …But this reverence for rice is not restricted to India. The Angkabau of Sumatra use special rice plants to denote the Rice Mother, Indoea Padi. The people of Indochina treat ripened rice in bloom like a pregnant woman, capturing its spirit in a basket. Rice growers of the Malay Peninsula often treat the wife of the cultivator as a pregnant woman for the first three days after storing the rice. Even the Sundanese of West Java, who consider themselves Muslims, believe rice is the personification of the rice goddess Dewi Sri.”(Source: Rice, Rice lore, and the Rice Goddess Dewi Sri).

According to Wikipedia’s entry on Tano Kami:
“According to their agricultural calendars, farmers observe kami ceremonies related to Tano Kami in the spring and autumn. These include the ceremony of the beginning of a year, beginning of farming in early spring, the start of rice plant farming, rice plant transplantation (accepting kami at the start of transplantation, called Saori) (sending kami at the end is called Sanaburi) and harvest time. They also pray for the elimination of disasters or harmful insects. Finally, they conduct the ceremony of thanking kami for a good harvest, the real ceremonies and their names differ from place to place, although dancing, eating a special dish or rice cakes, or visits to the community kami, and burning ceremonies are some of them. Scarecrows are variations of Tano Kami, since they are expected to prevent bad spirits of animals and birds. Niinamesai is one of the festivals of the Japanese Imperial family, the eating of freshly harvested rice with kami, a variation of the festivals of Tano Kami.”

From the above, we begin to see the connection between the Mother goddess Dana-Ta-Dewi of the water flow-paddy and who is consequently identified with all life that emerges or issues from her, be it the rice grain that grows out of it, or the serpent that was observed to be frequently found in rice fields. Unfortunately, we can also attribute to this connection, the reason why maidens in ancient times were frequently sacrificed to the waters or in peril to be taken by the voracious appetites of the serpents that inhabited the marshes, lakes or paddies…and therefore in need of rescuing by some mythical local folk hero.

The Hindu Danu, mentioned in the Rigveda, is the primordial goddess and mother of the Danavas. The word Danu described the primeval waters which this deity perhaps embodied. In the Rigveda (I.32.9), she is identified as the mother of Vrtra, the demonic serpent slain by Indra.

In Japan, the land is rampant with ancient myths of the dragon that inhabits the marshes, lakes, water pools, paddies. The Japanese mythical equivalent of Indra the serpent-slayer, is Susa-noo (lit. of “Susa” or “man” from Susa, suggesting a West Asian-Persian connection) and his slaying the eight-headed Orochi serpent strongly suggests that the Susanoo myth is derived from the same Indo-Iranian (also recalling West Asian the Hittite and Sumerian archetypal dragon slayings) sources as the Indra-Vrtra pairing.

If the Japanese Ta-no-kami originated from an Indo-Iranian Danu-Dana-Da deity source, the idea that the all-pervasive ancient belief that dragons and serpents inhabit the watery pools, paddies and rivers then makes sense, since the Orochi serpent is the cognate of Vrtra and the Ta-no-kami must then be a cognate of Danu/Dana, the primordial goddess of the waters, from which emerge the watery dragon-serpent.

Other indications that the Ta-no-kami deity come from the same traditions as the Proto-Indo-European ones, are the associations with fertility and with of vestal virgins, cranes and her role as protectress of the crops from the storm and her association of the boar/pig.

From “The Roman Goddess Ceres” by Barbette Stanley Spaeth (at pps. 128 – 139 ):
“… Grain, particularly wheat is a characteristic attribute of Demeter/Ceres in both Greek and Roman art, where she is often represented wearing the wheat-stalk crown holding stalks of wheat, or having wheat at her side.19”
Demeter is also identified with the “crane which was considered in antiquity to be the herald of Demeter (Porph. Abst. 3.5). This interpretation of the crane provides a direct connection between the side figures of the relief, the nymphs, and its central figure, the goddess Demeter/Ceres.
The cult sites of Demeter were generally near water, either salt or fresh, and special arrangements were made at many sites for the use of water in the rituals of the goddess. Her worship at many sites is frequently combined with that of the lcoal water divinities, and Demeter herself may bear cultic epithets that connect her with water nymphs.96 …
“In her role as a protectress of agricultural fertility, Ceres guards the crops against the storm.110 In the Georgics Vergil instructs the farmer to guard the storms that destroy crops by worshipping the gods, especially Ceres:

“Among the first things, revere the gods and repeat the annual rites to great Ceres, worshipping on the joyful grasses near the very end of winter, now in the fair spring. (Cerg. G. 1.338-340)
The central figure of the relief is Ceres, who protects the farmers and the crops from the storm signaled by the attributes of the two nymphs represented at the sides of the relief.
On yet another level, the two nymphs beings of fresh water and the sea, point to the goddess’s connections with two different kinds of water, as Piccaluga has defined them: “useful”water (acqua utile), that is, frewh water to be used for watering plants, for fertilization; and “nonuseful” water (acqua non utile), that is, sea water, or water as an element, a power of nature.111 “Useful”water is associated with Demeter/Ceres as an agricultural divinity who controls the fertility of plants. “Nonuseful” water is tied to her role as one of the supernatural beings who gave form to the cosmos at its time of origin through manipulating hte elements of nature. In this association, the goddess operates as a liminal divinity who helped to bring about the transition from chaos to order at the very beginning of the universe.”


In Gabi Greve’s Ta no Kami Yama no Kami, she associates Ta no Kami with the wolf:
“The belief in the Ta no Kami might be related to the WOLF lore in Japan.

… there seems also to have existed a belief that if one encountered an okami (wolf) on a mountain and “treated him kindly”, he would bestow kindness in return, and protect the man against other dangers. This may have to do with the belief, current in many parts of Japan, that the okami is a messenger of the gods, especially also of Yama-no-kami, the Mountain-deity, who during agricultural activities of the humans descends from her mountain residence to act as Ta-no-kami, the Field-deity.


Is it mere coincidence that grain goddess Ceres (the Roman equivalent of Demeter) is considered to originate from the twins Romulus and Remus who were nursed by the wolf when discovered by the god Mars on the marshy banks of the River Tiber? See p. 141 “The Roman Goddess Ceres” by Barbette Stanley Spaeth.

And is it also coincidence that the Ta no Kami is associated by people in the Izumo region with the wild boar — they use the term i no kami (kami of the wild boar), just as the boar or sow was sacrificed to Demeter, see p. 217, G. Elliot Smith:

“This fact seems to have played some part in fixing upon the pig the notoriety of being “an unclean animal”. But it was mainly for other reasons of a very different kind that the eating of swine-flesh was forbidden. The tabu seems to have arisen originally because the pig was a sacred animal identified with the Great Mother and the Water God, and especially associated with both these deities in their lunar aspects. … The sacrifice of the sow to Demeter is merely a late variant of Hathor’s sacrifice of a human being to rejuvenate the king Re. How the real meaning of the story became distorted I have already explained in Chapter II (“Dragons and Rain Gods”). The killing of the sow to obtain a good harvest is homologous with the sacrifice of a maiden to obtain a good inundation of the river. The sow is the surrogate of the beautiful princess of the fairy tale. Instead of the maiden being slain, in one case, as Andromeda, she is rescued by the hero, in the other her place is taken by a sow. …

The pig was identified not only with the Great Mother, but with Osiris and Set also. With the pig’s lunar and astral associations 1 do not propose to deal in these pages, as the astronomical aspects of the problems are so vast as to need much more space than the limits imposed in this statement. But it is important to note that the identification of Set with a pig was perhaps the main factor in riveting upon this creature the fetters of a reputation for evil. The evil dragon was the representative of both Set and the Great Mother (Sekhet or Tiamat); and both of them were identified with the pig. Just as Set killed Osiris, so the pig gave Adonis his mortal injury. 1 When these earthly incidents were embellished with a celestial significance, the conflict of Horus with Set was interpreted as the struggle between the forces of light and order and the powers of darkness and chaos. When worshipped as a tempest-god the Mesopotamian Rimmon was known as “the pig” and, as “the wild boar of the desert,” was a form of Set.”– “Evolution of the Dragon” by G. Elliot Smith

In “The Roman Goddess Ceres” Spaeth at p. 118 tells us that and that both Demeter and Ceres were associated with fertility and that Demeter is linked with children with a variety of epithets given her such as “Child Nourisher(kouro trophos)” while Ceres, from an inscription, is known as the “mother of the fields (mater agrorum)”. Rituals for Ceres included carrying the wedding torch in honor of Ceres during the festival and the sprinkling of water on the wedding bride so that she might come home chaste and pure to her husband, in order to share fire and water with her husband (see p. 116).

These torch festivals and water-sprinkling festival rites are well attested practices in Japan as well as in Southwest China and Southeast Asia, carried along the Indian northern to northeast corridor to Southeast and into Japan.

Sources and references (with hyperlinks on the page)

Tanokami (Encyclopedia of Shinto)
Rice, Rice lore, and the Rice Goddess Dewi Sri
Danu (Wikipedia)
Tano Kami (Wikipedia)
Ta no Kami Yama no Kami (Gabi Greve)
“The Roman Goddess Ceres” by Barbette Stanley Spaeth
“Evolution of the Dragon” by G. Elliot Smith
Balinese Cosmology and its Role in Agricultural Practices by Julie Melowsky
J. Stephen Lansing, The Balinese, see chap 4 “The Goddess and the Green Revolution”
Yugawara Yukake Festival
The Water-Sprinkling Festival
Songkran

- source : japanesemythology.wordpress.com/ta-no-kami-god-of-the-rice-paddy...




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mono no aware

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Mono no aware: subtleties of understanding
C.B. Liddell

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©　Japan Times June 2013

Normally, The Japan Times likes to cover exhibitions in the earlier part of their run, rather than 10 days before they close; but, in this case, our tardiness may be strangely appropriate, because the essence of the show at the Suntory Museum of Art is the appreciation of things in the shadow of their future absence.

The “Mono no aware and Japanese Beauty” exhibition brings together a range of works, including paintings, ceramics and lacquerware, that seek to explore one of the more complex and interesting aesthetic ideas in Japanese culture.

Pregnant with nuance and connotation, the term “mono no aware” inevitably loses something in translation, but the direct meaning — “the sadness or pathos of things” — is a starting point. This refers to the heavily Buddhist culture of the Heian Period (794-1185), when the term first arose, and implies the transience of carnal and material life.

But this is also misleading, as the phrase, especially through the work of the Neo-Confucian scholar, poet and artist Motoori Norinaga (1730 -1801), has come to stand for “sensitive, exquisite feelings experienced when encountering the subtle workings of human life or the changing seasons,” as the catalogue phrases it. In Norinaga’s interpretation, the phrase included not just sad or fleeting emotions but also joy and intense appreciation.

The exhibition opens with a few elegant, timeworn scrolls from the Heian and Kamakura (1185-1333) periods, depicting the lives of the bygone aristocracy. These include a lotus sutra on a paper fan, a depiction of an insomniac noblewoman, and a scroll showing a retired emperor visiting the town of Ono (in what is now Fukushima Prefecture), to view the snowy scenery.

This selection suggests slightly guilt-ridden, restless nobles with perhaps too much time on their hands, seeking solace in beauty. The reference to Fukushima, one of the prefectures hardest hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, also hints at a modern relevance for the idea of appreciation tinged with sadness.

The next part of the exhibition focuses on Norinaga, and includes a self-portrait at the age of 44 and examples of his brush calligraphy. The poetic inscription on the portrait also sounds an important theme in the exhibition, namely the communication of mono no aware through poetry and art.

Mono no aware is usually defined in terms of an experienced sensation or emotion, as something passively enjoyed. But if it were only this then it would be a solipsistic pleasure lost in solitary contemplation rather than the long-running cultural thread that it is. To exist as a cultural phenomenon it has to have a social aspect, so much emphasis is given by the exhibition to communicating mono no aware to others through art and poetry.

For this reason, it is represented by a rich symbolic language that many can share. This ranges from aspects of nature to certain poets and stories.

The exhibition takes a rather indiscriminate view with regard to symbols from nature. Most of the well-known seasonal varieties of birds and flowers are included. There are bowls enameled with cherry blossoms, a saddle inlaid with a bush-clover design in mother-of-pearl, and folding screens adorned with snow-clad evergreens. And in all this profusion, the selectivity of the aesthetic principle seems somewhat lost.

Luckily, certain motifs of nature, such as moonlight and autumn grasses, are more in evidence. These seem particularly representative of the concept in question. The autumn full moon about to wane, symbolic of the “adult activities” of the aristocratic culture, was thought to evoke mono no aware. A hanging scroll ink painting by Nagasawa Rosetsu of a moonlit landscape presents this most effectively.

The most prominent motif at the exhibition, however, is autumn grass. The show boasts a wide array of items adorned with this comparatively low-key, but very evocative element.

Of particular interest is a pair of six-paneled Edo Period screens covered in gold leaf, with a quails and pampas grass design. As we look at them, the elegant brush strokes of the dense pampas grass seem to bend and undulate, giving us a sense of a gently blowing wind.

Such elements of nature are also very important in the stories most associated with the concept. These include the “Tale of Saigyo,” about a famous itinerant poet, who sought out scenic beauty to inspire him, represented here by two picture scrolls. More famously is the “Tale of Genji.” According to Norinaga, this tale with its frequent recourse to moonlight was written specifically to make people conscious of mono no aware.



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Tokyo literary festival

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Tokyo literary festival writes its opening chapter
by Sandra Barron

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source: Japan Times February 2013

Every time David Karashima took a Japanese author to New York or London to do a reading, the local audiences would ask two questions: “Who’s the next Haruki Murakami?” and “Why isn’t there an international literary festival in Tokyo?”

“Finally I thought, OK, let’s make this happen,” Karashima says.

He can’t predict the next breakout Japanese novelist, but Karashima is uniquely positioned to address Tokyo’s lack of literary events. He is the manager of international projects at Read Japan, a division of the Nippon Foundation dedicated to promoting Japanese literature abroad. Now, as the director of the first Tokyo International Literary Festival, to be held March 1-3, he is bringing to Japan a dozen English-language authors. They will participate in three days of readings, conversations and workshops alongside some 30 Japanese authors at venues ranging from coffee shops to universities, and even a nightclub.

The increased interest in Japanese literature abroad, in part due to the popularity of Murakami’s most recent opus, “1Q84,” is one of the reasons that Karashima says now is a good time to host Japan’s first international literary festival. Another is that, he says, readers are increasingly looking to connect with writers and with other readers.

“Readings and book-discussion groups are just starting to take off, though it’s mostly been for business books,” he says. “We want to grab those readers who are already looking for that shared experience and expand the kinds of books they reach out for.”

Literary fiction isn’t necessarily an easy sell. Demand has declined in Japan, he says, and there’s a mistaken impression that it isn’t for everyone. “With literary fiction, there are walls up that don’t need to be there. We’re hoping that bringing in foreign authors helps break that down,” he says. “We’re trying to mix things up.”

All of the Japanese authors have some work translated into English, and most of the visiting authors have some work translated into Japanese. The authors include Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee and Pulitzer winner Junot Díaz as well as Nicole Krauss, who was named one of Granta Magazine’s best writers under 40, and her husband Jonathan Safran Foer, who has earned the same recognition from The New Yorker.

Many of the visiting writers have strong connections with Japan. Journalist Pico Iyer and novelist David Peace have both made their homes in Japan at different times. Iyer has written extensively about life and travel here, while the books in David Peace’s “Tokyo Trilogy” are fictionalized but deeply researched crime thrillers set in the aftermath of World War II.

The festival will be the 11th trip to Japan for Díaz, who won international acclaim for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” about a Dominican immigrant teenager who lives in the U.S. and has a socially crippling love of all things nerdy. Díaz will appear at a session called “The Otaku’s Guide to Love” with Risa Wataya, who won her first literary prize while still in high school. His writing is often related to immigration and assimilation. He will also join Peace and Fukushima native Hideo Furukawa at a session on “Writing Home away from Home.”

Karashima says that Nobel laureate Coetzee is a tremendous influence on contemporary Japanese writers, even if they don’t explicitly acknowledge it. And while, true to his taciturn reputation, the South African author is expected to deliver his keynote reading while shunning any audience interaction, he was quick to agree to make the trip from Australia.

“Coetzee just loves Japan,” Karashima says. “It will be inspiring for the Japanese authors to have him here.”

And that’s part of the point of the festival. The invited authors are mostly in their 30s and 40s. They have all achieved recognition and success but are still at a point where they are open to being influenced by being in an international environment, Karashima says.

All of the sessions will be presented with simultaneous interpretation in both Japanese and English. But the idea of “mixing things up” goes beyond translation. Editors, publishers, translators and cultural commentators will be speakers and moderators, talking about different aspects of what goes into internationalizing fiction. Renowned cover illustrator Chip Kidd and manga artist Naoki Urasawa will give presentations and appear in conversation, and actor Shosuke Tanihara will perform in a reading. And video and performance will mix at an event called “Night on the Galactic Express,” a multimedia evening at subterranean Roppongi club SuperDeluxe, a venue not often associated with the quieter pleasures of reading.

That’s not an accident. Yoshitaka Haba, one of the presenters and organizers, works as a “book director.” He moves book collections out of bookshops and into other urban environments, such as cafes and bars.

“I don’t want books to be a rare luxury item — I want them to be something people have with them all the time,” he says. “I want them to be in places where books have been forgotten.”

In the same spirit, the festival will bring literature into other unexpected places. Haba will also take over the loudspeaker of one of Shinjuku’s largest department stores (to be revealed soon) during the festival and replace the usual announcements to shoppers with Japanese poetry.

He will take part in a panel discussing the future of books on the last day of the festival. Novelist Safran Foer, illustrator Kidd and literary critic Makoto Ichikawa will join him on stage at Waseda University.

At the same time, novelist Shinji Ishii will be taking his work to the streets — or, rather, to the rails. Ishii is known for his sonoba shōsetsu, or “fiction of a specific place.” He creates short works of fiction on the spot, inspired by the place he’s in, whether it’s a cafe, a temple or the stage of a former strip club. He writes longhand and reads out loud as he goes. He will live-write a piece in the most novel of the festival’s venues: a fully rented-out carriage on the Toden Arakawa streetcar. Parts of the mobile writing experiment will be broadcast live to the panel at Waseda.

While the festival doesn’t have a specific connection to the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011, it’s something that won’t be too far from anyone’s mind, as the event takes place just a few days before the second anniversary. Several of the Japanese authors appearing at the festival contributed to “March Was Made of Yarn,” a collection of fiction inspired by the disaster and edited by Karashima. Furukawa, Peace, Natsuki Ikezawa, Mieko Kawakami and Mitsuyo Kakuta will talk and read about writing as a part of rebuilding and responding to calamity. Karashima says, “Fiction allows us to explore the aftermath of a disaster in a way that nonfiction doesn’t.”

At an evening session at Roppongi Hills, Foer, Kawakami and Peace will read and talk about how fiction can confront disaster in “Rebuilding Narratives.” All authors are well known for fiction they wrote in the aftermath of disasters close at hand: Foer for the post-9/11 novel “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” and Kawakami and Peace for writing about Japan’s recent and historical natural disasters.

With Hollywood movies losing popularity in Japan and fewer people studying abroad each year, is Japan really looking for international literary influence? “Japan could very easily slip into becoming more insular. That would be a shame,” Karashima says, adding that from a business perspective, Japan literally can’t afford to close itself off. “Literature is something that works on the individual level to counter that tendency toward insularity,” he says.

Díaz agrees that books connect people across cultures. He says that on his many trips to Japan it has always struck him as “a reading society.”

“The sheer amount of books and magazines I encounter during my trips to Japan always leads me, a writer, to feel like I’m in my kind of place,” he says. “Given how little space literature is given at a global level and how necessary literature is for all our well-being, it’s always a good time for a literary festival.”

Tokyo International Literary Festival will take place March 1-3 at various locations in central Tokyo.

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Read Japan

The Read Japan program aims to make a wide variety of books from Japan available to foreign audiences by working in partnership with libraries, publishers, authors and translators.

Read Japan is comprised of the following three projects:

1.Book Donations
2.Translation Support
3.Translator Training


source : www.nippon-foundation.or.jp


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100 waka

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The wonderful worlds of 100 waka

For 1,500 years, people in Japan have being writing poems in lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables each. Even today they're a part of daily life — and especially at New Year's, the role played by the revered 'Hyakunin Isshu' collection often becomes decidedly unpoetic

By STUART VARNAM-ATKIN

QUOTE
source: www.japantimes.co.jp


As venerable as the "Hyakunin Isshu" poems may be, though, even in the modern, bustling Land of the Rising Sun, most people will readily name their favorite one — and likely recite it and many others perfectly.

News photo
An ukiyo-e by Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1865) of Poem No. 62, by Sei Shonagon (authoress of "The Pillow Book" [ca. 1000]), with her depicted above a scene from the kabuki play "Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami" about the life of the scholar, poet and politician Sugawara no Michizane (845-903), who penned Poem No. 24. COURTESY OF STUART VARNAM-ATKIN

Interestingly, too, in a straw poll I conducted recently, people's selections were almost always different, rather than just a few of the poems being everyone's favorites. For instance, the choices included the following four: "The reed nodes image meant a lot when I was a student in love!" (No. 19 — male antique dealer in his 60s); "It makes me imagine beautiful red leaves and a man faithful to nature and the gods" (No. 24 — female editor in her 30s); "Nara's my hometown and I love its double-blossom cherry trees, which have always been beautiful and will be in the future, too!" (No. 61 — a female artist in her 30s); "For its exquisite suggestion of lovers parting and being reconciled" (No. 77 — male professor in his 30s).

So there seems to be something for everyone Japanese — but what chance do English-only speakers have of savoring what native speakers can? This of course leads directly into the supremely thorny thicket of translation.

The renowned English scholar Arthur Waley (1889-1966), who scaled tremendous linguistic heights in Japanese and Chinese without ever visiting Asia, said that Japanese poems are perhaps the hardest in any of world literature to translate — in fact, almost impossible.

However, translators faced with the awesome task have one thing in their favor: Opinions differ greatly regarding the meaning of ancient waka. For centuries, Japanese and foreign scholars have been scrutinizing every word and coming up with all kinds of possible nuances which may or may not have been intended by the glorious dead poets. In that sense, of course, they're great works of literature.

The condensed form of the waka, though, raises many questions: Is the poem addressing "an other" or "you"?; is it written from the Emperor's point of view or that of a rice-farmer?; are the Immortals up on the mountain airing their robes or are the local villagers washing flax cloth?

Another major stumbling-block is the prevalence of homonyms and complex wordplay — just like Shakespeare, in fact.

Translations differ greatly as a result of these uncertainties, and it's not easy to say one particular interpretation is entirely "incorrect."

News photo
A kabuki revenge-story illustration by Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), with the text of Poem No. 57, by Murasaki Shikibu (authoress of "The Tale of Genji" [ca. 1000-12]), and her portrait. COURTESY OF STUART VARNAM-ATKIN

Personally, my interest in waka developed through work connected with "The Tale of Genji," the 11th-century novel by Murasaki Shikibu, who appears as the writer of No. 57 in "Hyakunin Isshu." In fact, I co-translated part of a manga titled "Asakiyumemishi" based on the novel and wrote a simplified version of the early chapters.

Recently, working on a bilingual version of another manga, titled "Chihayafuru," I was asked to translate all the 100 "Hyakunin Isshu" poems as an appendix. This threw me straight into that thorny thicket, as the issue wasn't just my grasping what each waka was all about — but which poetic style to use?

When he tackled the translation of the 800 waka that are such an intrinsic part of "The Tale of Genji," Waley clearly found them obtrusive and included them in the dialogue wherever possible. For his part, the American scholar and translator of Japanese literature, Edward Seidensticker (1921-2007) — who's often cited as the best-ever translator of Japanese — kept them short and simple in his 1976 version of "Genji," using couplets without rhymes.

In contrast, in his 2001 contribution to the oeuvre, U.S. scholar and translator of Japanese literature, 1936-born Royall Tyler, set himself the challenge of rendering the poems in 31 syllables each. That was something of a tour de force.

In the case of "Hyakunin Isshu," various late-19th and early-20th century translators used a rhyme scheme, and sometimes a five-line format as well. One of the most amazing efforts, still in print, was "One Hundred Verses from Old Japan" (1909), in which William N. Porter, the translator of "The Tosa Diary" by Ki No Tsurayuki (ca. 872-945) created five-line verses totaling 34 syllables (8-6-8-6-6), with the second, fourth and fifth lines rhyming.

Such translations as the foregoing have a certain formality and validity as English poems, but many eminent academics object strongly to those kinds of approaches, and the pendulum swung their way as the 20th century progressed. Steadily, translations free of any rhyme or particular meter became the norm, as they were supposedly more faithful to the Japanese ambience. In fact some were just written as long sentences.

News photo
A woodblock print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) of a poet beside a river. courtesy of stuart varnam-atkin. COURTESY OF STUART VARNAM-ATKIN

However, waka have a distinctly Japanese rhythm and have always been recited. Coming to them as an actor, narrator and writer, I felt translations should have an English rhythm and be easy and pleasant to recite.

Certainly I'm not keen on copying the five-line layout, because a Japanese place name can use up the five allotted syllables of one line. Nor do I think there's much point in using the same number of "syllables," since there's little resemblance between English and Japanese ones: for example, a lengthened vowel in Japanese counts as two syllables.

Going even further back to basics, a distinguished reciter once explained to me that to say waka have 31 syllables is misleading. That's because Japanese poems have long been called uta (song) and Japanese music is traditionally based on an eight-beat form; a waka actually consists of 40 beats in five lines of eight, with the nine extra ones being accounted for by slight pauses when the poem is recited correctly. This means the important concept of ma (space or interval) comes into play; we don't normally talk about the length of pauses in English poetry.

But back to my thorny thicket: Because waka poets wrote under severe restrictions of length and the number of beats per line, I decided a strict format was also required in English and chose that quintessential poetic form also favored by rap singers — the rhyming couplet.

Before mass printing, when his poems were also intended to be read aloud, Chaucer was another who found the rhyming couplet a perfect tool for that. I can only hope to have at least conveyed something of the essence of each waka, and to have made them fun to read out loud.

Another intriguing aspect of the "Hyakunin Isshu" is visual interpretation. Poetry and artists have inevitably long been linked in Japan via the fine art of calligraphy. Woodblock-printed books of the collection included many illustrations and notes, and the yomifuda cards have always featured portraits of the poets. Some fancier sets also have illustrations on the torifuda.

What's particularly enthralling are the close links with the great ukiyo-e artists. And oddly (nay, almost bizarrely) there are real and significant connections between my industrial hometown of Birmingham in central England and the "Hyakunin Isshu" — courtesy of three of my predecessors at the high school I attended: Sir Harry Parkes, Edward Burne-Jones and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Handmade paper called washi is the raw material for woodblock print-making, and in 1871 Parkes, then the Minister to Japan, made a unique, fully annotated collection of washi samples and items for the government in London.

Then in his works Burne-Jones (1833-98), who was to become prominent in the reform-minded Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of artists formed in London in 1848, duly placed emphasis in a manner similar to ukiyo-e on clarity, bright colors, flat compositions — and many classic and classical themes such as the Greek myths, King Arthur, and Chaucer. Coincidentally, too, with visual interpreters of waka in Japan, the Pre-Raphaelites were greatly inspired by the 18th- and 19th-century English Romantic poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats and Alfred, Lord Tennyson whose themes commonly spanned nature, classical, legendary and allegorical themes.

News photo
This third sheet in a set of four by an unknown 19th-century artist shows card designs portraying the 25 authors of poems No. 51-No. 75, along with the full text of each. The title and the cards run from right to left, and this sheet features 12 of the 21 poetesses who appear in the "Ogura Hyakunin Isshu" collection of 100 poems, including Murasaki Shikibu (No. 57; second line, second from right) and Sei Shonagon (No. 62; third line, second from right). COURTESY OF STUART VARNAM-ATKIN

Hence, in both style and content, the works of Burne-Jones and like-minded artists on one side of Eurasia inadvertently reflected what had been happening on the other side, in Japan, for several decades as woodblock prints of the "Hyakunin Isshu" by veteran artists increasingly featured legendary figures in a fusion of the plebeian art form of ukiyo-e and the refined poetic pieces composed by the aristocracy.

Around 1835, the then septuagenarian Hokusai went out of the box to design a "Hyakunin Isshu" print series that consisted of down-to-earth images, some of them tongue-in-cheek as they rendered mostly contemporary scenes of everyday life having some connection with the odes.

In the following decade, the ukiyo-e artists Kunisada and Kuniyoshi both created solo "Hyakunin Isshu" series — the former going for pin-ups of beautiful women with the poets and odes in cartouches, the latter portraying the poets in appropriate settings.

They then teamed up with another ukiyo-e genius, Hiroshige, to produce a complete series in which each print incorporates the ode, a commentary by writer Ryukatei Tanezaku and historical or legendary figures somehow related to the theme — many of them popular kabuki characters. From No. 51, they even also added portraits of the artists. The fun for customers was to identify the connection in the artists' minds.

There was a huge market for these new visual interpretations, and the series sold like hot rice cakes on a cold day.

And Tolkien? Well, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery's prodigious collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, drawings and tapestries probably influenced him — and he certainly stimulated my interest in folklore and mythology.

Okay, it's not quite the same as the fact that the words that will be recited at the televised "Competitive Karuta Master and Queen 2013" championship to be held on Jan. 5 at Omi Shrine, will have been familiar to most Japanese people for centuries. Or that the first poem in the collection sets an Emperor in a rice-field — while at the annual Imperial New Year's Poetry Reading (Utakai hajime), to be held at the Imperial Palace on Jan. 16, one will have been written by the present Emperor, who personally grows rice.

In addition, when the new, 25-episode "Chihayafuru" anime series goes on air at 1:53 a.m., Jan. 12, on NTV, it will surely help to foster a new generation of "Hyakunin Isshu" lovers — even though many may not realize that the major producer of uta-garuta and hanafuda cards for more than a century has been the computer game-maker Nintendo, which was founded in Kyoto in 1889 for that purpose.

The "Hyakunin Isshu" collection is as fundamental a part of Japanese culture as Mount Fuji, cherry blossom, soy sauce, natto and rice. Those 3,100 syllables, or 4,000 beats, are like an ancient plum tree with deep roots that continues to burst into flower at the beginning of every year — in many homes with at least as much vigor as the Carters exercised in their festive pursuits.

A woodblock-printed torifuda with the second half of Poem No. 5, written by Sarumaru Dayu early in the Heian Period (794-1185). COURTESY OF STUART VARNAM-ATKIN

LINK
to the first page
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20121230x1.xml


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to the last page
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20121230x3.xml

Savor transports of delight from long, long ago

The "thorny thicket" of waka translation in action: English versions of the "Ogura Hyakunin Isshu" poems mentioned in the text or included in featured illustrations are rendered here as rhyming couplets with six to eight stresses per line:

No. 1

News photo
A yomifuda bearing the full text of Poem No. 1 by Emperor Tenji, from a set published by Tamura Shogundo in 1975. COURTESY OF STUART VARNAM-ATKIN

I gaze across the autumn fields, from a rustic hut with broken eaves; But there is much more than the dripping dew to wet my lonely sleeves.

Emperor Tenji (621-71)

No. 4

Glancing back from Tago Bay, I see an awesome sight: Snow falls again on Fuji's peak, white on gleaming white.

Yamabe no Akahito (early eighth century)

No. 5

Trudging through the fallen leaves amidst the mountains steep, I hear a stag cry for his mate, so loud, so sad, so deep.

Sarumaru Dayu (eighth century)

No. 19

Even for a time as short as the nodes of reeds on Naniwa Shore, Does this mean that we should never ever meet once more?

Lady Ise (late ninth century)

No. 24

Traveling to Mount Tamuke, no silken offerings to choose; I beg you, gods, accept instead this cloth of autumn hues.

Sugawara no Michizane (845-903)

No. 36

Oh, this speedy summer night has ended all too soon! So where in the clouds is it hiding, the stranded fading moon?

Kiyohara no Fukayabu (ninth century)

No. 57

Was that really, really you, dear lover from the past — Like the moon within the clouds slipping away so fast?

Murasaki Shikibu (ca. 973-1025)

No. 59

How much better to have gone to bed than waiting for you, I think — All the way through the tedious night till the moon began to sink!

Lady Akazome Emon (956-1041)

No. 61

News photo
A yomifuda showing the complete Poem No. 97 by Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241), who compiled the "Ogura Hyakunin Isshu." COURTESY OF STUART VARNAM-ATKIN

Eight petals bear the double cherries in ancient Nara born; And nine gates has the Kyoto Palace those fragrant flowers adorn.

Ise no Taifu (989-1060)

No. 62

Pretending to crow like a cock won't fool the Ausaka guard; And I hope that if you try it, they keep the gate well barred!

Sei Shonagon (966-1017)

No. 77

A mighty boulder in a stream divides the foaming flow; But, reunited, on it goes, and so will we, I know.

Retired Emperor Sutoku (1119-64)

No. 97

You do not come, but still I wait at sunset on Matsuo Bay; Like the salt-seaweed along the beach, my heart is burning away.

Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241)

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20121230x3.xml


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Kodama - Tree Spirit

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Kodama – The Tree Spirit

By Zack Davisson

QUOTE
©　hyakumonogatari.com


Sourced and translated from Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Japanese Wikipedia, Yokai Jiten, Nihon Kokugo Dai-ten, and Other Sources

If a tree falls in the forest, and someone hears it, is that the plaintive cry of a kodama? Because that is what ancient, tree-worshipping Japanese people thought.

The Japanese have always known that some trees were special. For whatever reason—maybe because of an interestingly shaped trunk, or a sequence of knots resembling a human face, or just a certain sense of awe—some trees were identified as being the abodes of spirits. Depending on where you lived, these spirits went by many names. But the most common term, the one that is still used today, is kodama.

What does kodama mean?

Kodama is a very old belief, and a very old word. It was spoken long before Japan had a written language, and over the centuries there have been three different kanji used to write kodama.

The oldest, 古多万, is ambiguous to say the least. The word breaks down into 古 – (ko; old) – 多- (da; many) – 万 (ma; 10,000). Because ancient Japanese had no writing system, when the Chinese writing system was adopted kanji characters were often selected for sound rather than meaning. Unrelated symbols were jammed together to approximate the pronunciation of existing Japanese words. This is the most likely explanation for the use of 古多万.

But this combination is unsatisfying, and in later years 木魂 (木 ; ko; tree – 魂 ; dama; soul) was adopted as well as木魅(木 ; ko; tree – 魅 ; dama; soul), and now in modern times木霊 (木 ; ko; tree) – 霊 ; dama; spirit) tends to be used. There is little difference between木魂, 木魅, or 木霊, all being variations of the term “tree spirit.”

Another kanji used for kodama, 谺, also means echo. And if you read below you will find out why.

The Legends of Kodama

Along with the kanji , what exactly a kodama is has changed over the centuries, from nature gods to goblin spirits.

In ancient times, kodama were said to be kami, nature dieties that dwelled in trees. Some believed that kodama were not linked to a single tree but could move nimbly through the forest, traveling freely from tree to tree.

Still others believed that kodama were rooted like the trees themselves, or in fact looked no different from other trees in the forest. Woe betide any unwary woodsman who took an axe to what looked like a regular tree, only to draw blood as he chopped into a kodama. A kodama’s curse was something to be feared.

But they were also a sound. Echoes that reverberated through mountains and valleys were said to be kodama. The sound of a tree crashing in the woods was also said to be the plaintive cry of a kodama. (In modern times this mountain echo is associated with the yokai yamabiko and not with kodama).

Whatever form they took, kodama were said to be possessed of supernatural power, that could either be a blessing or a curse. Kodama that were properly worshipped and honored would protect houses and villages. Kodama that were mistreated or disrespected brought down powerful curses.

The History of Kodama

The first known mention of tree spirits is in Japan’s oldest known book, the Kojiki (Record of Thing’s Past) that talks about the tree god Wakunochi-no-kami, second born of the godling brood of Izanagi and Izanami.

The oldest, specific known use of the term kodama comes from the Heian period, in the book Wamuryorui Jyusho (和名類聚抄; Japanese Names for Things; written 931 – 938 CE). Wamuryorui Jyusho was a dictionary showing the appropriate kanji for Japanese words, and listed古多万 as the Japanese word for spirits of the trees. Another Heian era book, Genji Monogatari (源氏物語; The Tale of Genji), uses木魂 to describe kodama as sort of tree-dwelling goblin. Genji Monogatari also uses the phrase “either oni or kami or kitsune or kodama,” showing that these four spirits were thought to be separate entities.

Around the Edo period, kodama lost their rank as gods of the forest and were included as just one of Japan’s ubiquitous yokai. Kodama became humanized as well—there are stories of kodama falling in love with humans and taking human shape in order to marry their beloved.

Kodama Across Japan

In Aogashima, Izu Islands, people place small shrines at the base of cryptomeria (Japanese cedar) trees and still worship and pray to them. This is said to be the remainders of a nature-worshiping religion that once dominated.

In Mitsune village, in Hachijō-jima, they still have a festival every year giving thanks and respect to “kidama-san” or “kodama-san,” hoping for forgiveness and blessing when they cut down trees for the logging industry.

In Okinawa, they call the tree spirit kinushi. At night, if you hear the sound of a falling tree it is said to be the cry of a kinushi, and Okinawa’s tree-dwelling famous yokai kijimuna is thought to be a descendant of these ancient kinushi tree spirits.

Appearance of Kodama

No one really agrees what kodama look like. In ancient legends they are either invisible or indistinguishable from regular trees. Toriyama Sekian, who has set the standard for the appearance of many creatures of Japanese folklore, drew kodama as an ancient man or woman standing near a tree in his famous Gazu Hyakki Yagyō (画図百鬼夜行; The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons).

Miyazaki Hayao used kodama extensively in his film Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) and illustrated kodama as dual-color bobble-heads. Modern interpretations are wildly various, showing kodama as human young and old, or small nature sprites borrowing from European pagan traditions, or just cute animated characters.

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Ki no Kami – The God in the Tree
Translated from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujara

From ancient times in Japan, certain types of trees were thought to be abodes for kami, the spiritual deities of Japan’s native animistic religion. Specific trees such as the Chinese bunyan tree or the Indian laurel were said to be favored by these kami. The importance of these tree-dwelling kami was established in the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters), where the legend is told of the founding sibling gods of Japan Izanagi and Izanami. The two gave birth to hundreds of thousands of godling children, but their second-born was the kami of the trees.

All around Japan you can see trees that resemble humans in some uncanny way. Legends say this comes from the kami spirits who dwell inside. Called Jiyushin (), shinboku (神木), or kodama (古多万), these sacred trees are often found on the grounds of Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples. The spirits that dwell in the trees are said to offer protection to worshipers and watch over homes in the vicinity.

At the same time, these trees offer protection to the kami themselves, giving them a physical space to inhabit. It is sometimes said that the kami come down to earth from heaven, but they cannot remain in their natural state. The holy trees act as a medium, giving the spiritual essence of the kami somewhere to exist while they are in the human realm. They resonate with trees of a certain shape—it is said spiritual energy of the kami can be felt the most strongly in trees that have double, or even triple, trunks.

There are still shrines throughout Japan that venerate local tree-dwelling kami. Many of these are found in the mountains, where the trees are said to be inhabited by various mountain kami or even ancestor spirits. But no matter the origin, when they kami take up residence in a tree they are called ki no kami, the gods in the trees.

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Moidon – The Lords of the Forest

from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujara

The Moidon’s name tells you exactly what it is. The word moi (森) means “forest,” and the word don (殿) means “Lord.” It is a title of honor bestowed upon grand and aged trees. In ancient Japan, long before there was any sort of organized religion, people believed that these great trees were deities and the land they inhabited was a sacred space. Southern Kyushu in particular is home to moidon, although on Osumi peninsula they are called moriyama. In Kagoshima prefecture you can find more than a hundred moidon.

Long before any shrines were built, moidon served as places of worship to the ancient Japanese. Very old and massive trees were said to be the bodies for gods. In particular, broad-leaf evergreen trees were considered to be moidon, such as beech, camphor, and fig trees. In modern day Shinto, you can still see moidon that existed long before the buildings were built. Indeed, many of those oldest shrines were built around a particular moidon, as the area was already considered a sacred space by virtue of the tree.

In Hioki ward, Ichiki city, there is a moidon whose festival is celebrated every year. On November 5th, by the counting of the old Japanese lunar calendar, people eat festive red rice to mark the occasion, and a dish is always set in front of the tree as an offering. However it is said that if you take a single leaf home, or if any part of the great tree is burned as firewood, you will fall under its curse.

Moidon were long worshiped as gods, but they were also greatly feared. It is said that moidon are quick to take offense, and bestow curses more readily than blessings. Those who ask too much of them, or who gather their fallen branches to burn, will find themselves stricken with various illnesses, including a burning, itchy skin. Sometimes doing so much as to touch the tree brings about its curse, so villagers are often careful to give their moidon trees a wide birth except at festival time.

Because of their ability to curse, it is thought that these lords of the forest may be one of the origins of yokai legends throughout Japan.

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Jinmenju – The Human Face Tree

Translated from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara

This tree is found in mountain valleys. The fruit of the tree looks like a human head. It doesn’t say a word, but it is constantly laughing. It is said that if the fruit laughs too heartily, it falls from the tree.

According to the Edo period Hyakka Jiten encyclopedia Wakan Sansai Zue (和漢三才図会; A Collection of Pictures of Heaven, Earth, and Man from China and Japan), the Jinmenju trees are found in the south, and the fruit of the tree is called the jinmenshi, or human-faced child. They ripen in the fall, and if you eat the fruit they have a sweet/sour taste. It is said that the Jinmenju seed also has a human face, eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It is possible that the trees were all eaten and it is why we don’t see them today.

In the past however, it was said that people planted great orchards of the laughing Jinmenju. That must have been a beautiful sight.

The legend of the Jinmenju comes from China, and was passed onto Japan where it was considered to be a yokai due to its peculiar nature. There are also stories of trees bearing human-faced fruit from India and Persia, usually with the faces of beautiful girls. Even now, when you walk through the forest you can see trees whose roots bear a resemblance to human and yokai faces. I have five pictures of trees like this in my photo albums. I wonder if this is some new species of Jinmenju?


Read more yokai magical tree tales on hyakumonogatari.com:

Ochiba Naki Shii – The Chinkapin Tree of Unfallen Leaves

Enju no Jashin – The Evil God in the Pagoda Tree

http://hyakumonogatari.com/category/magical-tree-stories/


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Matsuo Basho and KODAMA - echo

. natsu no yo ya kodama ni akuru geta no oto .
(summer) evening, echo, sound of clogs


. kure kurete mochi o kodama no wabi ne kana .
(winter) pounding mochi ricekcakes. I sleep alone.


. Matsuo Basho 松尾芭蕉 - Archives of the WKD .


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China translations

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How Western translations distort China's reality
By THORSTEN PATTBERG
QUOTE
©　Japan Times, Saturday, May 5, 2012

BEIJING —
A lot of people search endlessly for the secret key or a magic formula that would enable them to understand China. Naturally, at some point, they will want to know how the Chinese are educated. The Middle Kingdom has many prestigious schools, but let us take a closer look at Peking University, the mother lode of the Chinese wenming.

Wenming is often translated as "civilization," but that is misleading. In a recent lecture at Peking University, the renowned linguist Gu Zhengkun explained that wenming describes a high level of ethics and gentleness of a people, while the English word "civilization" derives from a city people's mastery over materials and technology. Think about architecture.

"Peking University" is, of course, a Westernized name so that foreigners can find its address. The Chinese themselves, however, call their institutions of higher learning daxue (in Japanese: daigaku). Peking University is Beijing daxue or Beida, Tsinghua University is Qinghua Daxue and so on.

"Daxue is not a translation of Greek universitas," explains Professor Gu, but "a reference to one of the great Confucian classics, the Daxue".

The Daxue is often loosely translated as "The Great Learning," but it is really this: an instruction manual on how to become a junzi and then, perhaps, a shengren.

A junzi is the ideal personality in China's family-value based tradition, while a shengren is its highest member, a sage that has perfected the highest moral standards, called de, who mastered the principles of
ren (benevolence),
li (ritual),
yi (righteousness),
zhi (wisdom) and
xin (faithfulness),
and who now connects between all the people as if they were, metaphorically speaking, his family.

The historian Tu Weiming even calls the shengren "the highest form of an authentic human being".

The junzi and shengren of Confucianism are as clearly defined, unique and non-European as the bodhisattvas and buddhas of Buddhism are. Yet, the former are completely unknown to the educated Western public due to erroneous, biblical and philosophical European translations dating back to the 17th to 19th centuries.

As the historian Howard Zinn once remarked: "If something is omitted from history, you have no way of knowing it is omitted."

While a Western university's principal aim is to produce a skilled expert, a Chinese daxue's principal aim is to cultivate an ideal character. Anglo-Saxon students often seem surprised when they hear that Chinese daxue do not award Ph.D. degrees or "Doctors of Philosophy". They award a boshi or, literally, an erudite master.

The word for "philosopher" doesn't appear in the Chinese classics. Our so-called Chinese philosophy departments in the West are reminiscences of the imperial age. In fact, the Chinese word for philosopher, zhexue-jia, came to China via Japan not before 1874, where it is pronounced tetsugaku-sha.

As great educator and linguistic sage Ji Xianlin once remarked,
"We practically know the West like the palm of our hand, but the West's vision of the East is still a murky confusion".

Maybe, since the West obviously lacks the concepts of shengren and junzi, let alone daxue, we should adopt those Chinese concepts, out of necessity and by common sense, just as Japan and China back in the 19th century adopted Western concepts such as "artist," "scientist" and "philosopher". It's simple reciprocity.

Of course, some Western philosophers like Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel have traditionally played down Chinese socio-cultural originality. Western scholarship is strategically withholding valuable information about China — it will always prefer European terminology to describe China because it wants to keep what the Germans call deutungshoheit — the prerogative of final explanation.

Or, as Slovenian philosopher and critical theorist Slavoj Zizek once said:
"The true victory ('negation of the negation') occurs
when the enemy speaks your language."

Tourists and imperialists rarely come to be taught; they call things in China just the way they call things at home — only to put their feet in their mouths later because all is clear mafan (trouble) and maodun (contradiction).

Using the correct terminology often makes a huge difference, indeed: Yes, a "Peking University," this architectural colossus, was founded in 1898, only recently by Western standards. Yet, the Chinese daxue can be traced back to its origins in the Spring and Autumn periods, some 700 to 500 years B.C.!

As Confucius once said: If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. It's known as the rectification of names.

Educated in error, the people of Europe to this day have no idea what they are missing: East Asia invented tens of thousands of non-European concepts they may have never heard about.

China is a wenming with a Confucian love for learning. And Peking University — that's a living shengren culture.

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Language imperialism — 'democracy' in China
By THORSTEN PATTBERG
QUOTE
©　Japan Times, Nov. 17, 2011

BEIJING —
If you are an American or European citizen, chances are you've never heard about shengren, minzhu and wenming. If one day you promote them, you might even be accused of culture treason.

That's because these are Chinese concepts. They are often conveniently translated as "philosophers," "democracy" and "civilization." In fact, they are none of those. They are something else. Something the West lacks in turn. But that is irritating for most Westerners, so in the past, foreign concepts were quickly removed from the books and records and, if possible, from the history of the world, which is a world dominated by the West. As the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel once remarked, the East plays no part in the formation of the history of thought.

But let us step back a bit. Remember what school told us about the humanities? They are not the sciences! If the humanities were science, the vocabularies of the world's languages would add up, not overlap. Does that surprise you?

I estimate that there are over 35,000 Chinese words or phrases that cannot properly be translated into the English language. Words like yin and yang, kung fu and fengshui. Add to this another 35,000 Sanskrit terminology, mainly from India and Buddhism. Words like Buddha, bodhisattva and guru.

In a recent lecture at Peking University, the renowned linguist Gu Zhengkun explained that wenming describes a high level of ethics and gentleness of a people, while the English word "civilization" derives from a city people's mastery over materials and technology.

The correct Chinese translation of civilization should be chengshijishu-zhuyi. Wenming is better, but untranslatable. It has been around for some thousand years, too, while Europe's notion of "civilization" is a late 18th-century "invention."

Tourists and imperialists do not come to be taught. They call things the way they call things at home. Then they realize that the names are not correct.

In many countries, adopting Chinese terminology is a taboo. Even the most noble-minded thinkers, such as the Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse, warned the Germans that "we must not become Chinese [...], otherwise we'd adhere to a fetish."

Next is "democracy," a concept of Greek origin. The Hellenic "civilization" failed a long time ago, of course. It's gone, while China's wenming is still here, uninterruptedly so, after 5,000 years. "Democracy" originally had little to do with letting the mob vote, lesser even so for the mob to rule the country; on the contrary, it meant that various, powerful interest groups should fight over the resources, each by mobilizing their supporters of influential city dwellers.

While in China we still see a family-value based social order, in the West we find an interest group-based social order. In your family, you do not apply strict laws or make contracts; instead you induce a moral code. When among strangers who fight against other interest groups, you simply cannot trust them like your own family, so you need laws.

Up to the 20th century, the Europeans believed China was not a proper "civilization," because it had no police force, while China accused Europe of being without "wenming" because it lacked filial piety, tolerance, human gentleness and so on.

Finally, the shengren is the ideal personality and highest member in that family-based Chinese value tradition, a sage that has the highest moral standards, called de, who applies the principles of ren, li, yi, zhi and xin (and 10 more), and connects between all the people as if they were, metaphorically speaking, his family.

The modern Chinese word for philosopher, zhexuejia, is nowhere to be found in any of the Chinese classics. In fact, zhexuejia came to China via Japan, where it is pronounced tetsugakusha, after Nishi Amane first coined the word in 1874. Yet, the Western public is constantly told, through our highly subsidized China scholarship, that Confucius is a "philosopher" and that Confucian thought is "philosophy."

As Slovenian philosopher and critical theorist Slavoj Zizek once said: "The true victory (the true 'negation of the negation') occurs when the enemy talks your language." The West would be irrational to adopt Asian concepts. That would be like holding the candle to China. Moreover, the Middle Kingdom is notorious for assimilating all invading cultures in the past. Why queuing?

The "barbarians" always had superior weapons and technology, but, as Gu Hongming in 1920 noted, lacked true human intelligence. How's that? Well, it's a bit like Star Trek wisdom: If prehistoric humanity evolved from the beasts, then the most advanced human societies would be the least physically aggressive ones, no?

In 1697, the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz famously argued that the Chinese were far more advanced in the humanities than "we are." He never specified, but I think it is all revealed when he urged all Germans that they must not use foreign words, but use their own language instead (German is a compound language, so it's an infinite source), in order to build and enlarge the German-speaking world.

And so they did. And so the Germans rose to the top. As expected, the Germans, the descendants of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation, called Confucius a "Heiliger" (a saint or holy man). Now, that's convenient. But is it correct scholarship?

Since the European languages have their own histories and traditions, they cannot sufficiently render Chinese concepts. The solution, I think, would be to not translate the most important foreign concepts at all, but adopt them.

So that next time in international relations we could discuss how we're going to improve minzhu in Europe, and how to help America's transition into a descent wenming. Maybe the West just lacks shengren after all.


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Earthquake Mainichi

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Explosion at Japan nuke plant, disaster toll rises

QUOTE
©　mdn.mainichi.jp

IWAKI, Japan (AP) -- An explosion at a nuclear power station Saturday destroyed a building housing the reactor amid fears that it was close to a disastrous meltdown after being hit by a powerful earthquake and tsunami.

Friday's double disaster, which pulverized Japan's northeastern coast, has left 574 people dead by official count, although local media reports said at least 1,300 people may have been killed.

Tokyo Power Electric Co., the utility that runs the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, said four workers had suffered fractures and bruises and were being treated at a hospital. A nuclear expert said a meltdown may not pose widespread danger.

Footage on Japanese TV showed that the walls of the reactor's building had crumbled, leaving only a skeletal metal frame standing. Puffs of smoke were spewing out of the plant in Fukushima, 20 miles (30 kilometers) from Iwaki.

The trouble began at the plant's Unit 1 after the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake and the tsunami it spawned knocked out power there. According to official figures, 586 people are missing and 1,105 injured. In addition, police said between 200 and 300 bodies were found along the coast in Sendai, the biggest city in the area near the quake's epicenter.

The true scale of the destruction was still not known more than 24 hours after the quake since washed-out roads and shut airports have hindered access to the area. An untold number of bodies were believed to be buried in the rubble and debris.

In another disturbing development that could substantially raise the death toll, Kyodo news agency said rail operators lost contact with four trains running on coastal lines on Friday and still had not found them by Saturday afternoon.

East Japan Railway Co. said it did not know how many people were aboard the trains.

Adding to worries was the fate of nuclear power plants. Japan has declared states of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants after the units lost cooling ability.

The most troubled one, Fukushima Dai-ichi, is facing meltdown, officials have said.

A "meltdown" is not a technical term. Rather, it is an informal way of referring to a very serious collapse of a power plant's systems and its ability to manage temperatures. It is not immediately clear if a meltdown would cause serious radiation risk, and if it did how far the risk would extend.

Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said a Chernobyl-style meltdown was unlikely.

"It's not a fast reaction like at Chernobyl," he said. "I think that everything will be contained within the grounds, and there will be no big catastrophe."

In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded and caught fire, sending a cloud of radiation over much of Europe.

Pressure has been building up in Fukushima reactor -- it's now twice the normal level -- and Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told reporters Saturday that the plant was venting "radioactive vapors." Officials said they were measuring radiation levels in the area. Wind in the region is weak and headed northeast, out to sea, according to the Meteorological Agency.

The reactor in trouble has already leaked some radiation: Operators have detected eight times the normal radiation levels outside the facility and 1,000 times normal inside Unit 1's control room.

Ryohei Shiomi, a nuclear official, said that each hour the plant was releasing the amount of radiation a person normal absorbs in a year.

He has said that even if there were a meltdown, it wouldn't affect people outside a six-mile (10-kilometer) radius -- an assertion that might need revising if the situation deteriorates. Most of the 51,000 residents living within the danger area had been evacuated, he said.

Meanwhile, the first wave of military rescuers began arriving by boats and helicopters.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said 50,000 troops would join rescue and recovery efforts following the quake that unleashed one of the greatest disasters Japan has witnessed -- a 23-foot (7-meter) tsunami that washed far inland over fields, smashing towns, airports and highways in its way.

"Most of houses along the coastline were washed away, and fire broke out there," said Kan after inspecting the quake area in a helicopter. "I realized the extremely serious damage the tsunami caused."

More than 215,000 people were living in 1,350 temporary shelters in five prefectures, or states, the national police agency said. Since the quake, more than 1 million households have not had water, mostly concentrated in northeast.

The transport ministry said all highways from Tokyo leading to quake-hit areas were closed, except for emergency vehicles. Mobile communications were spotty and calls to the devastated areas were going unanswered .

Local TV stations broadcast footage of people lining up for water and food such as rice balls. In Fukushima, city officials were handing out bottled drinks, snacks and blankets. But there were large areas that were surrounded by water and were unreachable.

One hospital in Miyagi prefecture was seen surrounded by water. The staff had painted an SOS on its rooftop and were waving white flags.

Kan said a total of 190 military aircraft and 25 ships have been sent to the area, which continued to be jolted by tremors, even 24 hours later.

More than 125 aftershocks have occurred, many of them above magnitude 6.0, which alone would be considered strong.

Technologically advanced Japan is well prepared for quakes and its buildings can withstand strong jolts, even a temblor like Friday's, which was the strongest the country has experienced since official records started in the late 1800s. What was beyond human control was the killer tsunami that followed.

It swept inland about six miles (10 kilometers) in some areas, swallowing boats, homes, cars, trees and everything else.

"The tsunami was unbelievably fast," said Koichi Takairin, a 34-year-old truck driver who was inside his sturdy four-ton rig when the wave hit the port town of Sendai.

"Smaller cars were being swept around me," he said. All I could do was sit in my truck."

His rig ruined, he joined the steady flow of survivors who walked along the road away from the sea and back into the city on Saturday. Smoke from at least one large fire could be seen in the distance.

Smashed cars and small airplanes were jumbled up against buildings near the local airport, several miles (kilometers) from the shore. Felled trees and wooden debris lay everywhere as rescue workers coasted on boats through murky waters around flooded structures, nosing their way through a sea of debris.

Basic commodities were at a premium. Hundreds lined up outside of supermarkets, and gas stations were swamped with cars. The situation was similar in scores of other towns and cities along the 1,300-mile-long (2,100-kilometer-long) eastern coastline hit by the tsunami.

In Sendai, as in many areas of the northeast, cell phone service was down, making it difficult for people to communicate with loved ones.

President Barack Obama pledged U.S. assistance following what he called a potentially "catastrophic" disaster. He said one U.S. aircraft carrier was already in Japan and a second was on its way. A U.S. ship was also heading to the Marianas Islands to assist as needed, he said.

Japan's worst previous quake was a magnitude 8.3 temblor in Kanto that killed 143,000 people in 1923, according to the USGS. A magnitude 7.2 quake in Kobe killed 6,400 people in 1995.

Japan lies on the "Ring of Fire" -- an arc of earthquake and volcanic zones stretching around the Pacific where about 90 percent of the world's quakes occur, including the one that triggered the Dec. 26, 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami that killed an estimated 230,000 people in 12 countries. A magnitude-8.8 quake that shook central Chile in February 2010 also generated a tsunami and killed 524 people.

(Mainichi Japan) March 12, 2011


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Victims in Japanese religion

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Tragic Victims in Japanese Religion, Politics, and the Arts


QUOTE
©　Herbert Plutschow
East Asian Languages & Cultures
University of California at Los Angeles


The purpose of this article is to draw attention to the presence in Japan of a victimary discourse and a scapegoat mechanism which, beyond religion, helped shape Japanese politics, literature and the arts. This victimary discourse, which yet needs to be defined, has been so influential in pre-modern Japanese culture, that it became a national ideology. A thorough understanding of Japanese culture without realizing the religious, political and cultural importance of this ideology would at best be incomplete and superficial.

Historical evidence of a victimary discourse in Japan is as old as historiography and written literature. Entire portions of histories such as the Nihongiryaku and the Fuso Ryakki, and the Gukansho were based on the scapegoating ideology. An entire genre of Japanese literature – the tales of the failing heroes – including such great classics as the Heike Monogatari, and numerous dramatic as well as pictorial works such as the Kitano Tenjin Engi Emaki, a national treasure, draw from it. By sponsoring religious institutions and literary as well as artistic works around scapegoats, political leaders have drawn their legitimacy from this ideology.

The fear and worship of political victims occupies an important place in Japanese religion. Like ancestral and nature gods (kami in Japanese), political victims were deified and subject to worship from the lowest echelons of society to the very top. Let me discuss some concrete examples and try to define the kind of victim worship, which, in the course of history, has assumed such importance.

Perhaps we should begin with Japan’s oldest and most revered anthology of poetry entitled the Manyoshu. Containing more than 4500 songs, some of which transmitted orally for generations, the first two books of the Manyoshu already existed by the middle of the eighth century. Given the craze for things Chinese at that time, the Manyoshu may have been a Japanese version of its great Chinese predecessor, the Shih Ching. Whereas the idea to compile such an anthology was certainly Chinese, the nature and content of the songs differs greatly, for Manyoshu songs are mainly ritual songs sung at such ritual occasions as travel, marriage, enthronement, funerals, etc., often it seems by important persons such as emperors, empresses, officials, and, perhaps most importantly, by official ritualistic poets.(1) Umehara Takashi suggested convincingly that the oldest, original books of the Manyoshu contain a disproportionate number of songs sung by political victims: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, Otomo no Yakamochi, Prince Arima, Prince Otsu’s sister and possibly more.(2) This was in the 1960’s and 70’s, when Japanese scholars became acutely aware of the importance of scapegoats in their culture, Hitomaro died in obscure circumstance in exile. His ranks were posthumously restored, an effort to appease his spirit as we can tell from similar facts in later Japanese history. Yakamochi was executed, as a result of having been implicated in the assassination of Fujiwara no Tanetsugu in 785. This was between the Nara period (710-784) and the Heian period (794-1185) when, because of political instability, the emperor Kanmu decided to relocate his capital from Nara to Nagaoka (784-94) and then to what is now known as Kyoto. Princes Arima and Otsu were executed because of their involvement in imperial succession disputes. Was the original Manyoshu an attempt to publish the works of political victims to appease their spirits?

Before defining the "theology" of victims, let me briefly present another series of prominent victims, victimized by the political ascendancy of the Fujiwara clan. The Japanese history entitled Shoku Nihongi, records under the date of 20/5/863 (all dates henceforth will be in the order of day, lunar month, and year) a cult offered to a number of political victims at the imperial garden called Shinsen-en just south of Kyoto’s imperial compound. The worshipped victims were as follows: 1. Prince Sawara (posth. Emperor Sudo, d. 785) who was accused of having plotted against the above Fujiwara no Tanetsugu and against the transfer of the capital from Nara to Nagaoka. Prince Sawara was exiled and died in mysterious circumstances without having ever been pardoned, aged 36. 2. Prince Iyo (executed in 807) and his mother Kisshi both victims of an imperial succession dispute in 807. 3. Fujiwara no Nakanari (executed in 810) responsible for the Kusuko Uprising. 4. Tachibana no Hayanari, involved in the Jowa Uprising and executed in 842. He had been in China with Saicho (posthumously Dengyo Daishi), the founder of the Japanese Tendai school of Buddhism. 5. Bunya no Miyatamaro was put to death the following year as a result of the same uprising. 6. Mononobe no Moriya who, with the rest of the Mononobe clan, was killed by the Soga clan in 587.(3)

2

Later, two more prominent victims were added to the list. Kibi no Makibi (693-775), who had spent some years in China and is credited with the transfer to Japan of the Korean deity Gozu Tenno. According to the scroll entitled Kibi Daijin Nitto Emaki (Scroll of Minister Kibi’s Journey to China now at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts) Kibi studied Chinese poetry, closed in a tower and engaged the Chinese in chess and, aided by the ghost of Abe no Nakamaro, was able to outdo other Chinese scholars in the interpretation of the Shih Ching.(4) They also added to the list Sugawara no Michizane (more on him below) to become the Eight Goryo, the Eight August Spirits, the most worshipped victims.

The 863 cult called goryo-e or "meeting with the august spirits" worshipped these victims in ways no different than many Japanese festivals today. They were offered a popular festival including a lecture on the sutras Konkomyo-gyo and Hannayshin-gyo followed by performances by the artists of the Bureau of Music of Chinese and Korean dances, sangaku performances, shooting arrows from horseback, sumo wrestling, and puppet plays. The purpose of the 863 goryo-e was to appease these spirits but not, as is the case in other cultures, to banish them from the human world. Rather than to banish them, the community tried to convert these victims into beneficent, tutelary deities. The nature of Japanese deities, whether nature, ancestral or scapegoat ones, has traditionally been ambivalent. Deities can be both good and evil; when ‘good’ the members try periodically to maintain that quality in their deities, because they believe that their agriculture and wellbeing depended on it. When bad for any reason, they try to convert the deity/deities back to good ones by offering them, often on an ad hoc basis, gay and elaborate festivals as tokens of community effort and sacrifice. One of the methods to appease these victims was to restore their ranks or, as in the case of Emperor Sudo, bestow on them even higher ranks, which they then enjoy forever in the heavenly bureaucracy.

The 863 goryo-e was not the only rite held to appease these spirits. Such goryo-e were also held in the provinces. More was done to appease the spirit of Prince Sawara. After the premature death in 9/intercalary3/785 of his wife as a result of an epidemic, Emperor Kanmu declared a general amnesty and restored Prince Sawara to the rank of Crown Prince and offered the prince a proper burial. In 11/6/785, when the new crown prince fell ill, an oracle revealed that he was possessed by Prince Sawara’s spirit. In 19/7 therefore, the Emperor gave the dead prince the title of Sudo Tenno (Emperor Sudo) and his grave was transferred to the Yamato region, the proper site for imperial burials. This is the only known case in which the title of emperor was given to a dead person. When this proved insufficient, the Emperor decided to relocate the capital and to move to present Kyoto.

Similar efforts had already been made concerning other members of the goryo. In 3/850 Emperor Ninmyo died followed two days later by his wife. In the belief that this was the work of Hayanari, in 5/850, the new emperor promoted Hayanari to Fifth Rank and his grave was transferred to his native province, thus ending, posthumously, Hayanari’s demotion and exile. In 5/853, after an epidemic in the Third Month, the court awarded him the even higher Junior Forth Rank.

From what we have learned so far, we can offer the following definition of Japanese victim/deities. Traditionally, many East Asian (Chinese, Korean and Japanese) religions are based on a parallelism of real and supernatural worlds. The real world is meant to reflect a supernatural one. An exact replica of the Chinese government, with all its offices and officials was believed to exist in the other world as well. Based on this parallelism, the Japanese believed that a victim will take its office, power, or that to which it felt entitled to, or that which was injustly taken away from him, into the world of the dead. The power, which they enjoyed or were supposed to enjoy in life, is the same power from which they can exact their revenge and perpetrate evil upon their communities from the other world. Hence the name ‘vengeful deities’ some scholars have given to them.

By definition, these victims were people who died prematurely, in unnatural circumstances. These include: execution, exile, death during travel (kykaushi), suicide, death as a result of grudge, jealousy or any other strong emotion, death on the battlefield, death as a result of natural calamities such as epidemics, floods, earthquakes, fires, and starvation.

It is only logical therefore that the more powerful a victim has been during his or her life, the more it was feared. For if an emperor, an imperial prince or any other high government official is victimized, that spirit can effect a revenge on the living that is commensurate with the power it enjoyed or took as granted, when it were alive. Such victims were for the Japanese the very raison d’être of all natural disasters, social and political upheavals, epidemics, unusual natural phenomena (eclipses, snow in summer, etc) and provided them with an explanation of their volatile world and lives.

Once these victimary spirits are appeased by the efforts of those who were not directly involved in their deaths or by later leaders, they turn into good deities willing to protect the community. Many Japanese festivals, which actuate such victims, make them into scapegoats. Not only do they have the potential to cause harm to the community but also, as appeased deities, they become scapegoats who, absorbing the sins of the community, help to prevent the very harms they potentially perpetrate. Such is indeed the ambivalence of practically all Japanese deities.

3

That such a religious system could become the mainstay of the political system comes as no surprise. For those who have the political, social and economic power to build shrines for them and offer them elaborate worship, are also those who were believed to control these victims as well as the natural and human disasters they allegedly cause. Hence the fact that, as far back we can trace this religious phenomenon in historiography, the worship of political victims has been the prerogative of powerful people and families. Hence also the fact that the 863 goryo-e was sponsored by people who, at the start of the sessho-kanpaku system of government, had considerable political ambition. Sessho are the regents who served during the reign of infant emperors and kanpaku (e.g. prime minister) was the highest position in the imperial government. The combined sessho-kanpaku was equal to civil dictator. These titles have been traditionally given to leading members of the Fujiwara clan who controlled the imperial throne by marrying their daughters to the emperors (traditional imperial in-laws) and often by enthroning their infant grandsons. The fact that the sessho-kanpaku system developed at the same time as the first goryo-e is no coincidence. It was sponsored by Fujiwara no Mototsune (836-91), kanpaku in 887 (related to 3 emperors) and Fujiwara no Tsuneyuki. The sessho regent system has already begun under Fujiwara no Yoshifusa (804-72) Mototsune’s father, in 866.

Such a cult did not appear suddenly and out-of-nowhere in 863. It had existed already before, sponsored by political outs to embarrass the leaders whenever natural disaster stroke. Natural disasters have traditionally been considered portents of heaven’s displeasure with the current political leadership. Why was it that Fujiwara no Yoshifusa and his son Mototsune brought such ‘out’ cult into the political mainstream? Was it that Yoshifusa used this system to compete religiously against rivals within his own clan? Or was it that he needed to legitimize his newly acquired power by sponsoring this cult? We may never know the answer to all these questions without taking later development into account. It is well known, however, that Yoshifusa competed with many brothers (he had four) and competition among siblings was common in the Japanese clan system. This was true especially when, under Yoshifusa, the Fujiwara developed into a family system (Kajuji, Kan’in, Kujo, Nijo, Ichijo, Iwakura, Saionji, etc.) on the basis of hereditary rights to office.

In order to reply to these questions, we need to take into account the later developments of the cult of political victims and to discuss the details of Sugawara no Michizane’s career. The above-mentioned Mototsune had four sons and four daughters. Under the Chinese political system the Japanese had adopted by the seventh century, women had no rights to political office, but a matrilineal and matrilocal system was still lingering on before it changed, beginning with the leading Fujiwara in the tenth century, into a patrilineal family system. Under Mototsune, political rivalry among brothers continued unabated. Mototsune’s eldest son Tokihira ((871-909) took over the political authority from his father and his career began early when, in 14/2/899, Emperor Uda (r. 887-97), appointed him Sadaijin (Minister of the Left), the most powerful office under the Kanpaku. Uda whose mother was not a Fujiwara, however, was a strong-willed emperor intent on balancing Fujiwara power with other clans. He therefore appointed Sugawara no Michizane (845-903) Udaijin (Minister of the Right). Under the hereditary system developing at that time, the Sugawara had no rights to such high office and the Fujiwara under Tokihira profited from every chance to intrigue against Michizane. Michizane however was the descendent of a scholarly family. His father was an expert in Chinese studies and his expertise was particularly important when the imperial government needed information about Chinese precedent and a scholar-diplomat in its foreign relations. His grandfather had opened a school of Chinese learning and the precocious Michizane, able to compose Chinese poems at age 10, eventually became an expert in his own rights. In 874, he was promoted to Fifth Rank, which gave him access to the court and opened the door to high government positions. In 880, at the death of his father, he took over his grandfather’s college. As an expert in Chinese studies, he was charged in 883 and 7/5/895 with receiving the ambassadors of the kingdom of Parhae. After the death of Fujiwara no Mototsune, his first son Tokihira succeeded him. Emperor Uda appointed Michizane to head his private office. In 893, he became adjunct to the crown prince’s (later Emperor Daigo) office headed by Tokihira. In 894, Michizane was appointed ambassador to China but, concerned about the decline of the T’ang dynasty and perhaps about his own political future, he advised the emperor to discontinue sending embassies to China for the time being. In 897, Emperor Uda abdicated in favor of Emperor Daigo. After the enthronement ceremonies, both Tokihira and Michizane were promoted to Third Rank and to the positions of Minister of the Left and Minister of the Right respectively. This promotion gave Michizane access to all correspondence. Three daughters of Michizane entered the court, one married Emperor Uda’s second son. In 900, Miyoshi no Kiyoyuki, whom Michizane had once refused the doctorate, warns Michizane that a plot is being prepared against him at court.

Uda was able to keep the political rivalry between his two ministers under check but, as was customary by the time, he abdicated in favor of the younger Emperor Daigo (885-930). Soon after the Daigo’s enthronement, Tokihira assembled such disgruntled politicians as Fujiwara no Kiyotsura (34), Minamoto no Hikaru (56), the son of Emperor Ninmyo (810-50), Fujiwara no Sadakuni (34) and Fujiwara no Sugane (45). Tokihira promised Hikaru the position of Uchuben (Secretary of the Right) if successful Sugane who served as Uchuben aspired to the position of Udaisho (General of the Right Guard). At first, Michizane promoted Sugane but, during a banquet, slapped him on grounds of insubordination. The marriage of Michizane’s daughter to Prince Tokiyo, the maternal brother of Emperor Daigo, served as food for the plotters. They accused Michizane of promoting Tokiyo at the expense of Daigo, who at age seventeen was already too old for the emperorship. In 3/1/901, the credulous Daigo immediately decreed that Michzane should be stripped from his court rank and sent to the Dazaifu (Military Headquarters of the West) as a low-ranking official.(5) This amounted to nothing else but exile. His entire family was sent away from Kyoto under the harshest conditions. In 25/1/901, Michizane left Kyoto. Before leaving, he sent his Chinese poems to his friend Ki no Haseo. Intent on preventing Michizane’s exile, Ex-emperor Toba tried to force his way into the palace but Minamoto no Sugane prevented him.(6) The Ex-emperor sat in the grass and waited until the end of the day without avail. That day, Minamoto no Hikaru was appointed Minister of the Right and took over Michizane’s post. On 25/2/903, after having proclaimed his innocence, Michizane died unpardoned at the Dazaifu. He was sixty years old.

4

It is worth our while to consult the two major histories which cover that time, not only to know what happened in the years immediately after Michizane’s untimely death, but also to realize how the victimary ideology shaped contemporary historiography. Let me begin with the more detailed Nihongiryaku (a history compiled by an unknown person, covering from the age of the gods to Emperor Goichijo (reigned 1016-36) assuming the format of a diary from the reign of Emperor Uda). Then I will proceed to the Fuso Ryakki (Compiled by monk Koen (1119-69?), covering from Emperor Jinmu (first official emperor, dates unknown) till Emperor Horikawa (reigned 1079-1107)

25/12/902 the death of Michizane reported

7/7/903 Drought

8/7/903 Prayers for rain

7/intercalary3/904 Epidemic

1/4/904 Solar eclipse

7/4/904 Thunderstorm

23/6/904 Floods

1/10/904 Solar eclipse

1/4/905 Solar eclipse

15/4/905 Lunar eclipse

1/4/906 Solar eclipse

2/4/906 violent thunderstorm. Hail as big as eggs

3/7/906 Death of Fujiwara no Sadakuni

7/6/907 Death of Fujiwara no Atsuko, Emperor Daigo’s wetnurse

1/9/907 Solar eclipse

7/11/907 Death of Fujiwara no Sugane, age 54

1/2/908 Solar eclipse

4/4/908 Death of Fujiwara no Tokihira, age 39

1/5/908 Epidemic

19/5/908 Floods

9/6/908 Thunderstorm

12/6/908 Prayer for the cessation of rain

1/7/908 Insurrection in Shimofusa Province

7/908 Epidemic

1/1/909 Abundant rain

22/4/909 Violent storms

5

23/4/909 Violent storms

14/5/909 Thunderstorm

1/7/909 Solar eclipse

1/1/910 Solar eclipse

1/6/910 Solar eclipse

6/910 Flood in the capital

1/12/910 Solar eclipse

8/4/911 Solar eclipse

10/4/911 Prayers for rain

5/5/911 Epidemic

1/interc.5/911 Solar eclipse

2/6/911 Prayers for rain

1/11/911 Solar eclipse

21/3/912 Minamoto no Hikaru dies age 68 during a hunt. His horse dragged him and his body disappeared in the mud

1/5/912 Solar eclipse

14/8/912 A kite dropped a mouse it had caught onto Fujiwara no Kiyotsura

1/11/912 Solar eclipse

7/11/912 Violent storms

1/4/913 Solar eclipse

2/5/913 Fire in the capital destroys 617 houses

1/10/913 Solar eclipse

1/3/914 Solar eclipse

1/9/914 Solar eclipse

10/15/914 Epidemic. Continues into the following year

1/3/916 Solar eclipse

3/5/916 Hail

7/5/916 Hail with violent winds

29/6/916 Earthquake

1/9/916 Solar eclipse

Disturbances in eastern Japan

6

1/3/917 Solar eclipse

7/917 Beginning of a famine

1/1/918 Solar eclipse

1/8/918 Solar eclipse

15/8/918 Violent storms

Such reports continue until 923. Below I select only the events related to the people who played a role in Michizane’s exile and supported Fujiwara no Tokihira.

21/3/923 Death of Crown Prince Yasuakira. People cried as loud as thunder. He was possessed by Kan’s (Michizane’s) spirit.

20/4/923 Michizane restored to Minister of the Right, Second Rank

11/interc.4/923 Epidemic

26/6/930 The weather was clear. A black cloud moved in from Mt. Atago and quickie covered the sky. It thundered loudly and lightning struck the Seiryoden. The wall caught fire. Dainagon Fujiwara no Kiyotsura’s dress caught fire, his breast split and he died instantly, age 64. Uchuben Taira no Mareyo suffered burns in his face. At the Shishinden: Hyoe-no-Suke Mibu Tadakane’s hair caught fire and he died. Ki no Kagetsura’s stomach split open and he lost consciousness. Azumi Munehito’s knees sustained burns and he could no longer get up. The Emperor fell ill. An epidemic reigned.

15/9/930 The Emperor began to cough

29/9/930 The Emperor passed away.(7)



Fuso Ryakki.

20/4/903 Report of an oracle in which Michizane revealed that he turned into a god of thunder

10/2/904 Yasuakira (two years old) appointed crown prince

7/8/908 Minamoto no Sugane dies at age 54

14/1/909 Lunar eclipse.

909/ Spring and Summer Epidemic

4/4/909 Tokihira dies at age 39. During his illness, ten monks came to offer prayers but they were afraid of the evil spirit that was haunting Tokihira. In broad daylight, Michizane’s spirit came out of Tokihira’s ears as a blue dragon.

1/1/911 Solar eclipse

7/6/911 Floods

12/3/913 Minamoto no Hikaru dies at age 68. He dreamed of Michizane the year before

2/5/915 Fire destroys 617 houses in the capital

7

5/6/915 Floods

916 Autumn Epidemic

8/918 Floods

20/4/923 Michizane’s rank restored after an oracle

11/intercalary 4/923 Epidemic

18/6/925 Crown Prince Yasuyori dies at age 5. His mother was Tokihira’s daughter

925 Summer Drought

4-5/927 severe epidemic

1/6/927 Earthquake

11/7/927 Thunder storm. Lighting strikes pagoda of Saidai-ji Temple

3/929 Epidemic in Home Provinces. The deads fill the streets

16/6/929 Lunar eclipse

26/7/929 Typhoon and floods

8/929 Typhoon

930 Spring and Summer Epidemic

26/6/930 Lightning strikes Imperial Palace twice. Michizane caused the lightning.

Emperor Daigo dies at age 36.

The Fuso Ryakki includes an entire supplement on the lightning.

No only in the enumeration of natural calamities and the death of Michizane’s rivals, in some cases, the histories specifically mention Michizane’s spirit as the perpetrator. In its report of Minamoto no Hikaru’s cruel death, the Nihongiryaku strongly suggests that it was Michizane who was behind it. The same can be said about the kite dropping a dead mouse onto Fujiwara no Kiyotsura’s head. Furthermore, in its report of Crown Prince Yasuakira’s death, it refers to Michizane as the cause. In the case of the lightning striking the private quarters of Emperor Daigo, and his consequent death, both histories make it unequivocally clear that the cause of the lightning was no other than the god of thunder, Michizane. The thirteenth-century scroll entitled Kitano Tenjin Engi Emaki, now a national treasure clearly represents the lightning as engendered by Sugawara no Michizane’s vengeful spirit. Both histories were compiled at least partly according to a victimary discourse.

According to the Okagami (Great Mirror), a collection of stories about Fujiwara no Michinaga (966-1027) and his times claims that "People say Tokihira’s descendents died out because of the terrible sin he committed. No doubt they are right…" Tokihira’s eldest son Yasutada died in 936, at age 47, a ghost haunting his deathbed. Tokihira’s third son Atsusada died in 943 at the age of thirty-eight. Both daughters died prematurely. Only his second son Akitada was able to live over sixty and rose to the position of Minister of the Right, but as the Okagami points out, only because he lived simply and frugally. Yet his line died out too in the end allegedly because of Michizane’s grudge.(8)

Under the year 941, the Fuso Ryakki reports that Priest Nichizo (905?-985?) had met Michizane in hell as the god of lightning (Karai Tenjin). Nichizo was undergoing austerities in Yoshino and went to hell and back.(9) Already in 905, Umasake Yasuyuki, an official who followed Michizane into exile, received an oracle instructing him to erect a shrine and to worship Michizane as the deity Tenman Daijisai Tenjin. This deity whose Sanskrit name is Mahesvara, was originally a Brahman deity ruling over the Great One Thousand Worlds and who is surrounded sixty protective deities and one hundred thousand heavenly deesses.(10) Upon receiving this oracle, he built the Anraku-ji (lit. Peace and Comfort Temple) at the Dazaifu.

8

These histories make it absolutely clear that, in the context of Japanese religion at that time, Michizane’s spirit needs to be placated and converted into a benevolent deity. Ironically perhaps, the person who started this task was no other than Tokihira’s younger brother and political rival Fujiwara no Tadahira (880-949) and his descendents. Upon Minamoto no Hikaru’s death, Tadahira managed to promote himself Minister of the Right and, when Michizane was posthumously reappointed Minister of the Right, Tadahira was given the position of Minister of the Left. He also profited from Tokihira’s premature death to revive the regency and served as sessho under Emperor Suzaku (r. 930-46) and kanpaku (941-48) under Suzaku and Emperor Murakami.

In 919, Tadahira rebuilt the Anraku-ji at the Dazaifu and in 959, Tadahira’s son Morosuke (908-60) sponsored a building in what was later to become the celebrated Kitano Shrine in Kyoto. The shrine goes back to a miko(11) called Ayako who received an oracle from Michizane instructing her to worship him at Ukon no Baba; a site in an area of Kyoto generally referred to as Kitano. Ukon no Baba had been a place of agricultural worship dedicated to the thunder and water gods and numerous prayers for rain or a good harvest were held there, some offered by Emperor Daigo and prominent politicians like Tokihira. Morosuke also offered treasures to the Kitano Shrine, which helped it, become a permanent institution with branches all over Japan.

The year 959 is significant. Morosuke rivaled Sugane’s son Motokata (888-953). Motokata married his daughter to Emperor Murakami (r. 946-67) who bore him his first son. But Morosuke also managed to marry his daughters to the emperor and gave birth to two sons who became future emperors (Reizei r. 967-69 and Enyu r. 969-84) and succeeded in making his son crown prince. The building of the Kitano Shrine also coincided with Morosuke’s efforts to establish his branch of the Fujiwara as a separate family called the Kujo. After his death in 960, the Tadahira-Morosuke’s line became the most powerful faction at court. His elder brother revived the regency system under Emperor Reizei whereupon it became hereditary within the Kujo line. All subsequent Kujo leaders sponsored the Kitano Shrine: Kaneie (929-90) and Michinaga (966-1027). In 8/5/987, Kaneie had the Kitano shrine included among the Nineteen Great Shrines of the imperial family.(12)In 22/5/993, Michinaga, Kaneie’s fifth son, sessho in 1015 and kanpaku in 1018, sent an emissary to the Dazaifu in Kyushu to promote Michizane to Minister of the Left, Senior First Rank. On the 22/interc.10/993, Michizane was promoted to Dajo Daijin (Chief Minister). In 21/10/1004 he arranged for the first imperial visit to the shrine. The imperial visit coincided with Michinaga’s rise to supreme power.(13)

By now, the Kitano Shrine dedicated to the spirit of Sugawara no Michizane had become the tutelary shrine of the Kujo Family. The Kujo also made an effort to restore the Sugawara family and eventually both the Anraku-ji and the Kitano shrine were placed under Michizane’s descendents. The leading Fujiwara also sponsored the Sugawara to write Michizane’s in-life and after-life biographies. The Kitano Tenjin Goden, written during the years 931 and 947 was written by a Sugawara and destined for a new history of Japan entitled Shinkokushi. (14) In 1106, a Sugawara Nobutsune compiled his Kanke Godenki (Biography of the Sugawara Family) about the Michizane’s life and deification.(15) Sugawara Tamenaga (1158-1246) may have been the author he Tenjin Ki in which we learn for the first time that Michizane may have been an incarnation of the bodhisattva Kannon.(16)

In 12/994, Michizane revealed in an oracle that that he no longer holds any grudge and that he will henceforth protect the state.(17) This set the stage for Michizane’s worship as a god of literature. Literature became an important part of the Kitano cult. It began with the readings of Michizane’s poems from his private collection entitled Kanke Koshu within a Shinto/Buddhist ritual called Tenjin Koshiki offered to the Kitano shrine.(18) Beginning perhaps with Yoshishige no Yasutane (934?-97), poets with literary ambitions offered prayers at the shrine. When, in the year 986, Yasutane offered a series of Chinese poems to the shrine, he called Michizane "the father of literature."(19) The Gonara Tenno Shinki also considers Michizane as a god of poetry.(20) In 25/6/1012, Oe no Masahira called Michizane "a true master of poetry" when he visited the Kitano shrine.(21) Some compare Michizane with Confucius and the Buddha. These statements contributed to Michizane’s deification as a god of literature and promoted the visits to the Kitano shrine of numerous poets throughout subsequent history.

Kujo Kanezane (1149-1207), sixth descendent of Michinaga, was behind the compilation of the Kitano Tenjin Engi, the history of the Kitano Shrine. Kanezane became regent at age 38 and in 1189, strongly supported by the first shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo, was appointed Chief Minister. The 1219 copy of the manuscript reveals that Priest Jien (1155-1225), Kanezane’s younger brother was one of its authors. It also reveals that the history was probably written in the years 1190-99. This was a time of deep political and social changes in Japan when the old imperial government lost power to a military, shogunal government. It is therefore conceivable that the Kujo intended the work to sustain their new position as liaison between the imperial and shogunal governments.

The Kitano Tenjin Engi begins with Michizane’s brilliant career. Then it gives an account of Tokihira’s intrigue, Michizane’s exile and tragic death. His soul turned into an evil deity who caused misfortunes at the court and upon his rivals. Then it tells the story of the Kitano shrine and extols the virtues of the Kujo. The history ends with an explanation of the virtues of the Kitano shrine and those of the deity Tenjin (Michizane) as a beneficent deity.(22)

9

In 1219, Kujo Michiie (1191-1252), Kanezane’s grandson offered an illustrated version of the history entitled Kitano Tenjin Engi Emaki (Illustrated Scroll of the History of the Kitano Shrine) and an enlarged version of the history to the Kitano shrine in 1223.(23) This was after the assassination in 1219 of third shogun Sanetomo and after Ex-emperor Gotoba’s abortive attempt to topple the shogunate of 1121. He perhaps intended this new version to placate the spirit of Michizane so that peace may prevail in the nation (of course under Kujo leadership). In 1226, Michiie managed to have his son Yoritsune appointed fourth shogun. Like before, Kujo sponsorship of building projects and literary and artistic works coincided with important political developments and cannot be said to be entirely selfless sacrifice.

Priest Jien contributed considerably to the cult of victims. Understandably so because he lived in a time of deep turmoil. In mid-twelfth century much of the political power of the imperial government shifted to the warriors (samurai). This was not because the warriors usurped imperial power by force, but rather because political factions in the imperial government increasingly used military force to press their demands. By the middle of the twelfth century, two prominent military clans, both originally from the Kanto area of present-day Tokyo emerged: the Taira (also Heike) and the Minamoto (also Genji). At first the Taira dominated but between 1180 and 1185, the Minamoto eliminated the Taira. During the last battle between the rivaling clans at Dannoura on the Western edge of Japan’s main island Honshu, the child emperor Antoku (1178-85) whom the Taira had taken along with his mother and many court nobles perished. After the news of the battle reached the capital Kyoto, the earth shook violently. This was bad news for anyone believing in the power of dead victims.

Concerned about a victimized emperor and nobles, Jien wrote a private moral history entitled the Gukansho, petitioned the ex-emperor to build the temple Daisenpoin in Kyoto to appease the spirits and organized the Heike Monogatari (Tales of the Heike), one of Japan’s great literary classic. As a member of the Kujo, Jien has a stake in promoting the cult of political victims and his activities were in tune with Kujo religious tradition. The Gukansho dates to the year 1219; the year Shogun Minamoto no Sanetomo was assassinated and two years before Ex-emperor Gotoba marched against the military government in Kamakura and coincides with the compilation of the Kitano Tenjin Engi Emaki. This was also a highly unstable time when the Kujo needed to consolidate their political future and sponsor the religious activities needed for that end. The Gukansho is a history in which the vengeful spirits are the main historical driving force. Here is what Jien had to say about vengeful spirits in his Gukansho:

Vengeful spirits are those which, when they were alive, felt an implacable hatred toward those who caused it. From the tiniest hermit huts to the end of the empire, they slog at their rivals in the traps they tend and seek to destroy them by slander and false accusations; this is how they cause disorder in the world and harm the people. When they cannot exact their revenge from the visible world, they do so from the world of the dead.(24)

Furthermore, Jien claims that it was the cult his ancestors offered that placated Michizane’s spirit and allowed the Kujo to prosper. He claims that Michizane was an incarnation of the bodhisattva Kannon who sacrificed himself for the good politics of the Kujo.

In 12/1204, Jien presented to the emperor the following petition for the construction of the temple Daisenpoin:

Since the disturbances started in the Hogen [1154-59] and Genryaku [1184-85] eras, the warriors have made the people uneasy with their constant movements… Maleficent ministers and rebellious warriors have disturbed the nation and have caused wars and many have died far away from their families and have turned into demons. They are like the southern barbarians aspiring to high position, and eastern barbarians who have deviated from the way seeking prosperity. We must safeguard the nation by overcoming the ills of our times and convert them into good.(25)

Jien wrote further that a person of virtue who has undergone Buddhist discipline must placate these spirits by the Buddhist means of eko (Skt. parinamama) and guide them to salvation. He also emphasizes the use of raku (sukah) to restore the spirits to normal condition.(26)

In this petition, Jien points out the dangers the victimary spirits present to the nation and urges the emperor to fund the building. Jien suggests that the temple be organized according to four categories of priests, the fourth of which are monks specializing in the recitation of the sutras (sekkyo-shi). Furthermore, he proposes that a group of blind monks with a good voice should be placed under the Sekkyo-shi.(27) One of the professions open to the blind in ancient Japan was to eulogize the dead in a lyrical recitation at the rhythm of a musical instrument called the Biwa. According to the Moso Yurai (Origin of the Blind Priests), Empress Genmei (661-712) ordered that blind monks placate the spirits who cause havoc.(28) The blind monks did so by reciting the sutra Chijin-kyo (Sutra of the God of the Earth) with their biwa.(29) It was believed that lyrical eulogy and the sympathy it engenders among the living will placate the dead and prevent them from causing calamities. Jien saw in the most talented among these blinds, potent instruments for the placation of the evil spirits. In presenting this proposal, Jien set the foundation for a recitative art called the Heike-gatari (Recitation of the Tales of the Heike) which survived until the present.(30) The Daisenpoin was built according to Jien’s specifications, but it has not survived.

10

It is not until the Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness) written between 1310 and 1331 that we learn more about how Jien organized the Tales.

During the reign of ex-Emperor Gotoba, Yukinaga, the Former Governor of Shinano [Province] was known for his learning but, summoned to discuss the poetry of Po Chu-I, but having forgotten two of Po Chu-I’s poems about the Dance of the Seven Virtues, was given the nickname "Wearing the hat of the Five Virtues", which depressed him so much that he abandoned his studies and retired from the mundane world. When Priest Jichin [Jien] had difficulties in organizing monk-specialists of an art into a sub-category, he relied on this Lay-priest of Shinano.

This lay-priest created the Heike Monogatari and taught the blind monk Jobutsu how to recite it… Because he was from the East, Jobutsu wrote what the warriors told him about the battles. The Biwa priests of today continue to imitate the natural voice of Jobutsu.(31)

We do not know anything about the activities of these monks during the time the Daisenpoin stood, but, by the thirteenth century, these Biwa monks (Biwa Hoshi) as they were called were placed under the supervision of a family called the Todoza. To place a group of artists under the umbrella of an authoritative family was the norm in the Middle Ages. It was a means for the political sponsors to control the art and to prevent free-for-all creativity. Since these arts were so closely linked to politics, politicians had a major stake in ‘correct’ performance because any deviation from the sponsored norm could potentially undermine political authority. It was also under the Todoza that an authoritative written text was established precisely to standardize the recitation.(32)

Some of these recitations were subject to a ritual protocol and calendar. On 16/2 every year, the blind monks gathered at a place to the northeast of Kyoto called Shinomiya Kawara to perform a ritual called shakuto-e.(33) They did this in honor of their tutelary deity, the fourth prince (Shinomiya) of the emperor Ninmyo (810-50) who was blind and a skilled Biwa performer. Shinomiya Kawara was a liminal area associated with the ten deities called shiku which were believed to control the so-called Kimon, the Gate of the Devils in the northeast, through which all evil was believed to pass into the city. According to ancient Japanese belief, Shinomiya Kawara was located in a particularly dangerous direction. On a rock called Biwa-ishi (Biwa Rock), the monks built a stone stupa and recited ten thousand times the sutra Hannya Shingyo also called the Heart Sutra. Whether they also recited parts of the Tales is unknown but likely.

The blind reciters also gathered on the 24/4 every year at the dry riverbed of the Kamo River at the height of Shijo street to worship Emperor Antoku (1178-85) at the anniversary of his tragic death. They did this in an area controlled by the deity of epidemics Gozu Tenno whose shrine, the Gion Shrine, was nearby. The highlight of the ritual was floating a sutra downriver (kyo-nagashi). Floating downriver effigies or other representative objects, was a widely used means to rid oneself of the evil spirits.

The Ashikaga shoguns sponsored public recitation of the Heike Monogatari. Called Kanjin Heike, they were also fund-raising events to benefit the building or rebuilding of temples. The 16/4/1466 Kanjin Heike attracted thousands of spectators.

Perhaps most importantly, it was the shoguns of the Kamakura (1185-1333) and Ashikaga (1336-1568) and the Tokugawa (1603-1868) Periods, who came to sponsor the victimary spirits the most. The Kamakura leaders sponsored Dengaku performances as means to appease the noxious spirits. The Ashikaga are on record for having sponsored Dengaku and Sarugaku (both precursors of the modern Noh) events in the dry Kamo riverbed. Under the names Dengaku or Sarugaku, Noh actors performed the evil spirits on a stage constructed in the dry riverbed or other liminal areas around Kyoto. There were numerous Sarugaku events the Ashikaga sponsored in liminal areas of the capital Kyoto: 11-13/7/1412 such an event took place for three days at the Imamiya shrine, on 12/5/1412 one took place in the Kamo dry riverbed at Shijo. The one of 10/7/1413 occurred not far from the shogunal headquarters. Thousands of Kyoto citizens came to see the lavish performances of the Sarugaku actor On’ami (?-1467). Zeami (1363-1443), a Sarugaku Noh actor of the subdued yugen style performed during seven days at Kitano shrine. By 1433, Zeami lost out to the ostentatious style of On’ami. Some of these events ended in fights and quarrels to the extent that the shogunal officials had to shortcut, even prohibit the performances. They had become popular events allowing people to vent their frustrations. But, such prohibitions were only temporary.

Among the many Noh plays staging evil spirits there is a particularly exemplary play. It is Sanemori written by the playwright and shogun-sponsored actor Zeami. Saito Sanemori (?-1183) was a warrior fighting on the side of the Taira. He proceeded to Shinohara (Kaga Province) in an effort to halt the advancing Minamoto troops. He was close to sixty, an age far too advanced to go into battle at that time and he was killed. His horse dragged him into the ricefields. Since that time, whenever the villagers faced a bad harvest, they attributed it to the vengeful spirit of Saito Sanemori and offered him a cult called Sanemori-okuri (Sending Off Sanemori) or Mushi-okuri (Sending Off [Noxious] Insects). On the 11/5/1414, according to the Manzai Jugo Nikki, a diary kept by the monk Manzai during the years 1411-35, an itinerant priest called Yugyo Shonin, happened to pass through the area, when the spirit of Sanemori appeared to him.(34) The villagers told him that the vision predicted a bad harvest. Yugyo Shonin therefore proceeded immediately to exorcise the spirit. Zeami wrote his Sanemori on the basis of this story. Evil spirits are usually exorcised on stage which is why the Noh theater became a kind of exorcist theater, the performance of which would safeguard the nation from the havoc these spirits can cause. Sanemore, however, also became a kind of scapegoat deity. In the Mushi-okuri festival which takes place each year, the people touch the puppet representing Sanemori as if to hand their impurities over to him and begin a new cycle free of sin. The floats in the Gion Festival of Kyoto (highlight, July 17 and 18), the modern version of the 836 goryo-e, a boy called chigo rides on the first Naginata float. The sword (naginata) on top of the float seems threatens the evil spirits into submission. The chigo is supposed to absorb all impurities that had accumulated over the years in the community. This is why he has to undergo extensive purification at the end of the festival in order to be readmitted into society.

11

Conclusion

One plausible reason why political leaders such as the Kujo and later the shoguns sacrificed so much to appease politcal victims is that this system could be used to explain the world and to maintain the political status quo at the same time. The way this worked should be clear from the above examples. Natural calamities do occur, but they always subside eventually. To attribute them to political victims, that is, giving them a human cause, ultimately places these calamities under human, political control. Practically all natural calamities in pre-modern Japan were believed to have a had a human cause. Before modern science, this allowed the political and religious leaders to identify the cause of natural calamities and to direct their placatory efforts to an identifiable human entity. Natural disaster does strike from time to time but rather than to leave them unexplained and incomprehensible in the minds of the people, the political leaders used them to legitimize their authority. By offering elaborate cult to the political victims, the leaders claimed that evil spirits caused by their predecessors, but they made it clear that it was thanks to their efforts to pacify these spirits that brought about a return of normal conditions. It allows political leaders to claim that, when the calamities subside, it was thanks to their good offices and benevolent, pious government. These deified victims became the mainstay of society and the center of religion. Victimary deities were believed to maintain their presence and to have a strong stake in the state. This is why state affairs could not be conducted without offering them cult. Because of this ‘presence’, these victimary deities were also revered as oracle-delivering deities, and used to predict the future. Like in Delphi, Japanese political leaders manipulated such oracles to benefit the state.

These deified victims also functioned as scapegoats. They were highly ambivalent. They are both devils and deities, able to cause, but also to abate and prevent calamities. These were the deities on whom the community would hand their sins and on whom they would rely to overcome their calamities. This system balances the forces of good and evil and creates structure and anti-structure. Sympathy with failing heroes, making heroes out of political rivals, villains and rebels, became a cult in which ironically even the victors had to participate.

Perhaps because of the dominant Confucian philosophy, the Chinese have not made heroes out of the defeated, at least not at the national level. Defeat was a divine judgment rather than a human feat. Confucianists tended to make it the "victim's fault." Also, the Chinese did not need to explain natural calamities in terms of the goryo. Natural calamities were caused by a "heaven" dissatisfied with official conduct "under heaven" and not by victims seeking justice or revenge. in Japan, however, the goryo, like other deities, were placed beyond the morality of good and evil.They were heroes despite the dominant socio-political ideology and regradless of whether or not they were wrong or unjust. In China, a Sugawara no Michizane would probably never have been deified as he was in Japan, on a national level, even though, according to popular opinion, he was wronged.

In Japan, political victims are the anti-heroes religion and the arts engendered. Seeing a play or hearing a story or reading about these victims was believed not only to prevent calamities and perpetuate the order but , psychologically, to defer resentment, revenge and violence. Literary and theatrical heroes are also proxies. They stand for any victim that may threaten the stability of the state. Rather than sacrificing some living human or animal for the good of the rest, as was practiced in many other cultures, this is a system whereby already dead victims are called to play the role of scapegoats. The tragic heroes in literature and the theater are not living but substitute scapegoats.

Thus the Japanese have used their victims to explain uncontrollable natural forces and human fate. The fear of evil spirits tended to curb unlimited violence. One can kill an enemy, but then one has to worship him. It is conceivable that, emphasizing the power of political victims, Jien intended just that, namely, to curb violence in an age dominated by the warriors. But, at the same time, he wanted to contribute to the political fate of his family. Such dual purpose is a common feature in pre-modern Japanese religion. It is an attempt to divert violence into the metaphysical realm and convert it into an instrument of peace and stability.

12

Notes

1. See on this Herbert Plutschow, Chaos and Cosmos – Ritual in early and medieval Japanese literature (Leiden, 1990)(back)

2. "Suitei no uta," Subaru, vol 12 (1973) pp. 270-324. See also Masuda Katsumi, "Nagasarebito Hitomaro," Kokubungaku (Kaishaku to Kyozai no Kenkyu) vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 82-84 and Ohama Itsuhiko, "Chinkon no shi," Bungaku, vol. 39, no. 9, pp. 1005-15.(back)

3. Kokushi Taikei, vol. 4 (Tokyo, 1934) pp. 112-13.(back)

4. Abe no Nakamaro (701-70) went to China with Kibi but failed to return and died in China. The scroll was probably painted to appease Kibi’s spirit. (back)

5. The Dazaifu was established as an office of the ritsuryo government in mid-seventh century to guard the northern coast of Kyushu, the nearest point between Japan and the Asiatic continent.(back)

6. The Minamoto surname was given to imperial princes not eligible to become crown princes.(back)

7. Nihongiryaku (Shintei Zoho-)Kokushi Taikei, vol. 11 (Tokyo, 1929) pp. 8-42.(back)

8. Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei, vol. 21 (Tokyo, 1970) p. 79.(back)

9. Kokushi Taikei, vol. 6 (Tokyo, 1907) pp. 708-12.(back)

10. On Umasake Yasuyuki’s shrine, see Tenmangu Anrakuji Soso Nikki, Shinto Taikei, Jinja-hen, vol. 48 "Dazaifu" (Tokyo, 1991) p. 4. On the oracle, see Tenmangu Takusen Ki, Gunsho Ruiju, vol. 2 Jingi-bu (Tokyo, 1932) p. 130 and Tenjin Koshiki, Zoku Gunsho Ruiju, vol. 3, part 1, Jingi-bu, p. 34.(back)

11. Miko are shaman-type virgins serving the deities at their shrines. They were believed to becomes possessed by the deities they represent and deliver oracles.(back)

12. According to the Dainihon Shiryo under 24/6/Shoryaku 2. Later, in 3/1039, more shrines were added to the Nineteen. On this, see Nijunisha Chushiki, Gunsho Ruiju, vol. 2, Jingi-bu (Tokyo, 1932) p. 209ff.(back)

13. See on this Francine Herail, Notes Journalieres de Fujiwara no Michinaga – Ministre a la Court de Heian 993-1018 – Traduction du Midokanpakuki, vol. 3 (Geneve, 1991) pp. 444-45.(back)

14. Compiled during the years 936 and 969.(back)

15. This is included in the Shinto Taikei, vol. 11, Jinja-hen, pp. 83-90. (back)

16. This is included in Shinto Taikei, vol. 11, Jinja-hen, pp. 103-29. The original Tenjin Ki is lost. The earliest copy dates to the year 1194.(back)

17. This is recorded in the Kitano Tenjin Goden, Shinto Taikei, vol. 11, Jinja-hen, "Kitano", pp. 14-15. (back)

18. For an example, see Zoku Gunsho Ruiju, vol. 3, part 1, Jingi-bu, pp. 42-43. The Kanke Koshu peoms are the ones Michizane sent to his friend Ki no Haseo before going into exile. They are included in the Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei, vol. 72 (Tokyo, 1966). See also note about poem no. 514 (p. 524).(back)

19. See on this Josef Kyburz, pp. 349-50 and Sakamoto Taro, Sugawara Michizane, Jinbutsu Sosho, vol. 100 (Tokyo, 1966) pp. 161-62.(back)

20. See on this Sakamoto Taro, op. Cit., pp. 163-64.(back)

21. Shin Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei, vol. 27 (Tokyo, 1992) p. 347.(back)

22. Gunsho Ruiju, vol 2, Jingi-bu, p. 147.(back)

23. Shinshui-)Nihon Emakimono Zenshu(back)

24. Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei, vol. 86 (Tokyo, 1965) p. 339.(back)

13

25. Reprinted in Fukuda Akira, "Kataribon no seiritsu," Nihon Bungaku (June, 1990) p. 58. For a discussion of this document, see Akamatsu Toshihide, Kamakura Bukkyo no Kenkyu (Tokyo, 1959) pp. 276-79 and Zoku Kamakura Bukkyo no Kenkyu (Tokyo, 1966) pp. 384-87.(back)

26. Dainihon Shiryo, vol. 4, 10, pp. 279-80 "Daisenpoin no koto".(back)

27. Dainihon Shiryo, vol. 4, 10, p. 266.(back)

28. Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 17, p. 247. (back)

29. The text entitled Chijin Moso Engi explains the history of this practice. See Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 17, pp. 225-27. Yanagita Kunio reports that blind monks were summoned to pray against floods and droughts because they were supposed to control the dragon. See on this (Teihon-)Yanagita Kunio Shu, vol. 8 (Tokyo, 1962) pp. 309-11.(back)

30. The Tales of the Heike (Heike Monogatari) the story of the downfall of the Heike (Taira) clan between 1156 and 1185 told according to the Buddhist law of cause and effect. The oldest manuscript dates to the years between 1219-1243. There are various versions. (back)

31. Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei, vol. 30 (Tokyo, 1957) pp. 271-72.(back)

32. See Todoyoshu, Nihon Shomin Seikatsu Shiryo Shusei, vol. 17 (Tokyo, 1972) p. 230.(back)

33. On this ritual, see Honcho Seiki, (Shintei Zoho-)Kokushi Taikei, vol. 9 (Tokyo, 1933) p. 12.(back)

34. Zoku Gunsho Ruiju, suppl. Vol. 1 (Tokyo, 1924) p. 46.(back)


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Anthropoetics - The Electronic Journal of Generative Anthropology
Volume VI, number 2 (Fall 2000/Winter 2001)
ISSN 1083-7264
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. The vengeful spirits, goryoo, onryoo 御霊、怨霊

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