Triadic compositions: The harmonious balance of odd numbers

Arrangements of rocks in groups of three probably date as far back as the gardens of the Nara era. The Sakutei-ki, the oldest text on Japanese garden architec ture, distinguishes between two different types of such rock compositions: hinbunseki-gumi and sanzonseki-gumi. The first, hinbunseki-gumi, is an arrangement of rocks based on the shape of the Chinese character for "articles", whereby the triadic composition is devel oped chiefly within the horizontal plane. Sanzonseki-gumi, on the other hand, is the name given to compo sitions recalling sculptures of the Buddhist Trinity. Here the triadic composition is developed within the vertical plane. Such rock triads appear throughout the history of the Japanese garden - both in splendid isolation and as part of a larger sequence, perhaps beside a waterfall or on the banks of a pond.

The significance of these Buddhist-influenced rock arrangements lies not in their religious symbolism but in their aesthetic composition: a large rock in the cen tre with two smaller rocks on each side. I do not accept the prevalent theory that "aesthetic values generally originate in a religious sphere; they develop and gain autonomy as religious values decline'"0. It fails to take account of the triad, a deep-rooted archetype of aes thetic composition which was only later adopted by a variety of religious iconographies.

In Japan, the use of three components - one large, one small and one medium-sized - to create a dynamic balance of odd numbers is not merely limited to gar den architecture, but lies at the heart of Noh theatre and the art of flower arrangement (ikebana). Thus three basic compositional elements of ikebana are the "branch of truth" (the tallest), the "accompanying branch" (slightly shorter) and the "flowing one" (the shortest). They are usually referred to as fen (heaven), chi (earth) and jin (man), the archetypal Chinese defini tion of the tripartite structure of the universe. A later text on garden architecture defines this same compositional archetype as a trinity of forces, one hori zontal, one diagonal and one vertical, which corre spond to the triad of Heaven, Earth and Man