Transition to a new garden prototype
The Heian garden prototype, with its pond and islands, continued to flourish during the early years of the Muromachi era, and found a new variation in the chisen kaiyu teien, a "pond-spring-strolling garden" designed to be enjoyed on foot rather than from a boat as before. This probably reflected the dwindling size of the ponds in such gardens, making boat rides unnecessary.
The Muromachi era
In 1333 Emperor Godaigo succeeded in overthrowing the Kamakura shogunate and restoring imperial rule. After a mere three years, however, Ashikaga Takauji, a member of the Minamoto clan, established a new military government in Kyoto itself.
Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, grandson of Takauji, moved his shogunate headquarters to the Muromachi district of north-east Kyoto. Thus the period of Ashikaga rule also became known as Muromachi bakafи, "Muromachi feudalism". The palace which Yoshimitsu subsequently built in the Muromachi district in 1378 was popularly known as Hana no gosho, the "Flower Palace", because of its countless numbers of cherry trees. Its buildings and gardens, with a large pond, islands, bridges and various pavilions, were indebted to the traditional Shinden style of the late Heian era. Sadly, however, neither the "Flower Palace" nor the palaces of the Ashikaga nobility were to survive the Onin civil wars (1467-1477). The present imperial palace in Kyoto stands on approximately the same site as one such palace of Muromachi times.
The Muromachi era was to last some two and a half centuries, from 1336 to 1573. It was a period plagued by constant internal conflicts and civil wars, reducing Kyoto to ashes by 1477. At the same time, however, the era proved one of the most creative in Japan's history, giving birth to some of the greatest forms of Japanese culture. The tea ceremony, Noh theatre, landscape painting, Shoin architecture and the dry landscape garden, all innovations of the Muromachi era, have since come to represent traditional Japanese culture as such. Equally remarkable is the fact that the culturally most important phases in Muromachi history are named after the gardens created by the shoguns of the day.
Thus the Kitayama epoch derives its name from the northern hills in which Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358 — 1408) created the garden famous for its Golden Pavilion, while the Higashiyama epoch refers to the eastern hills in which Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436-1490) built a pond garden similarly renowned for its Silver Pavilion.
The great new garden prototype to emerge during the Muromachi era is the kare-sansui, the dry landscape garden. Its austere architecture reflects the tastes of the Zen priests and samurai for whom it was principally created. It is designed not as a pleasure garden, but as an object of contemplation to be viewed from fixed vantage points.
Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, grandson of Takauji, moved his shogunate headquarters to the Muromachi district of north-east Kyoto. Thus the period of Ashikaga rule also became known as Muromachi bakafи, "Muromachi feudalism". The palace which Yoshimitsu subsequently built in the Muromachi district in 1378 was popularly known as Hana no gosho, the "Flower Palace", because of its countless numbers of cherry trees. Its buildings and gardens, with a large pond, islands, bridges and various pavilions, were indebted to the traditional Shinden style of the late Heian era. Sadly, however, neither the "Flower Palace" nor the palaces of the Ashikaga nobility were to survive the Onin civil wars (1467-1477). The present imperial palace in Kyoto stands on approximately the same site as one such palace of Muromachi times.
The Muromachi era was to last some two and a half centuries, from 1336 to 1573. It was a period plagued by constant internal conflicts and civil wars, reducing Kyoto to ashes by 1477. At the same time, however, the era proved one of the most creative in Japan's history, giving birth to some of the greatest forms of Japanese culture. The tea ceremony, Noh theatre, landscape painting, Shoin architecture and the dry landscape garden, all innovations of the Muromachi era, have since come to represent traditional Japanese culture as such. Equally remarkable is the fact that the culturally most important phases in Muromachi history are named after the gardens created by the shoguns of the day.
Thus the Kitayama epoch derives its name from the northern hills in which Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358 — 1408) created the garden famous for its Golden Pavilion, while the Higashiyama epoch refers to the eastern hills in which Ashikaga Yoshimasa (1436-1490) built a pond garden similarly renowned for its Silver Pavilion.
The great new garden prototype to emerge during the Muromachi era is the kare-sansui, the dry landscape garden. Its austere architecture reflects the tastes of the Zen priests and samurai for whom it was principally created. It is designed not as a pleasure garden, but as an object of contemplation to be viewed from fixed vantage points.
The second large wave of Chinese influence on Japan
It was during the Kamakura era (1185-1336) that the second large wave of Chinese influence reached the shores of Japan. Both the shoguns - the new political rulers - and the influential samurai welcomed the arrival of Chinese Zen Buddhism, in part for its emphasis upon meditational discipline, and in part for the magnificent Sung dynasty works of art it brought with it, which they first collected and later imitated as a conscious means of documenting their new power and wealth. "Modern art" quickly came to mean Chinese art, such as tea utensils, paintings, incense burners and lacquerware. The main vehicles in this process of cultural importation were Japanese Zen monks returning from China, where they had gone in search of purer schools of Buddhist thought owing to their dissatisfaction with the Pure Land Buddhism and smaller esoteric sects patronized by the imperial court. A number of Chinese monks had in turn come to Japan following the invasion of the Mongols. Thus the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism was founded in Japan by the monk Eisai (1141-1215) and the Soto sect by the monk Dogen (1200-1253).
The name Zen is derived from the Sanskrit dhyan, meaning "meditation". Zen meditation is based on the belief that the only means to enlightenment is ji-riki, "power from oneself", and thus contrasts sharply with Pure Land Buddhism and its hope for salvation by means of external aid, or ta-riki, "power from outside".
Meditation is neither concentration nor contemplation, two activities which rely on the mind, on thought. Meditation means passing beyond the limits of mind ти-shin, "no-mind". But no means implies mindless-ness; ти-shin is accompanied by full awareness. But the thinking, questioning and judging self has gone. For Zen Buddhism, the "experience" of thus disbanding the self (which can hardly been termed an experience, since the personality experiencing it has disappeared) is enlightenment.
Occidental language has no adequate name for this "experience" of enlightenment, apparently unknown in the West, where there are no records of anyone having achieved ти-shin. Nor have any methods been devised with which enlightened masters may help their pupils to achieve such an experience. But although this "experience" remains almost impenetrable to the West, it forms the essence of Eastern-Asian spirituality. The reports of men and women who have attained enlightenment in India, China and Japan are legion. It is this tradition, this understanding of meditation, which represents Eastern Asia's greatest contribution to the development of human consciousness.
It was not the case, however, that Zen temples and their gardens led Zen adepts, through contemplation of their art and architecture, to enlightenment. The reverse was sooner true: garden architects and their creations were profoundly influenced by the enlightenment and psychological insights gained through meditation.
The name Zen is derived from the Sanskrit dhyan, meaning "meditation". Zen meditation is based on the belief that the only means to enlightenment is ji-riki, "power from oneself", and thus contrasts sharply with Pure Land Buddhism and its hope for salvation by means of external aid, or ta-riki, "power from outside".
Meditation is neither concentration nor contemplation, two activities which rely on the mind, on thought. Meditation means passing beyond the limits of mind ти-shin, "no-mind". But no means implies mindless-ness; ти-shin is accompanied by full awareness. But the thinking, questioning and judging self has gone. For Zen Buddhism, the "experience" of thus disbanding the self (which can hardly been termed an experience, since the personality experiencing it has disappeared) is enlightenment.
Occidental language has no adequate name for this "experience" of enlightenment, apparently unknown in the West, where there are no records of anyone having achieved ти-shin. Nor have any methods been devised with which enlightened masters may help their pupils to achieve such an experience. But although this "experience" remains almost impenetrable to the West, it forms the essence of Eastern-Asian spirituality. The reports of men and women who have attained enlightenment in India, China and Japan are legion. It is this tradition, this understanding of meditation, which represents Eastern Asia's greatest contribution to the development of human consciousness.
It was not the case, however, that Zen temples and their gardens led Zen adepts, through contemplation of their art and architecture, to enlightenment. The reverse was sooner true: garden architects and their creations were profoundly influenced by the enlightenment and psychological insights gained through meditation.
The Kamakura era
Just as the "Tale of Genji" transports us back to the cultured world of the Heian court and allows us to glimpse the delight with which the privileged classes saw nature, so the "Tale of Heike", a Kamakura war epic, captures the the mood of the tumultuous age which followed - the age of the warrior.
"The Gion Temple bell echoes the evanescence of all. The colour of the flowers of the Saraso Tree discloses the law of the fall of the prosperous. The proud last not long, but are like a spring night's dream. The mighty soon pass just like dust before the wind.
The "Tale of Heike" is a lively account of the decline of the Taira clan who once dominated the imperial court. They suffered final defeat at the hands of the Minamoto clan, whose power bases lay in the provinces. In the east of Japan, far from the imperial capital of Kyoto, commander-in-chief Minamoto Yoritomo succeeded in setting up an independent military government, or bakafu. In 1185 he founded his capital, Kamakura, from where he subsequently ruled as Sho-gun. Although Kyoto remained the official capital of Japan for another hundred and fifty years, the now politically powerless emperor was reduced to no more than a figurehead.
"The Gion Temple bell echoes the evanescence of all. The colour of the flowers of the Saraso Tree discloses the law of the fall of the prosperous. The proud last not long, but are like a spring night's dream. The mighty soon pass just like dust before the wind.
The "Tale of Heike" is a lively account of the decline of the Taira clan who once dominated the imperial court. They suffered final defeat at the hands of the Minamoto clan, whose power bases lay in the provinces. In the east of Japan, far from the imperial capital of Kyoto, commander-in-chief Minamoto Yoritomo succeeded in setting up an independent military government, or bakafu. In 1185 he founded his capital, Kamakura, from where he subsequently ruled as Sho-gun. Although Kyoto remained the official capital of Japan for another hundred and fifty years, the now politically powerless emperor was reduced to no more than a figurehead.
Rocks in the sand
The gardens of the Kamakura and Muromachi eras are dearly indebted to the second large wave of Chinese influence on Japanese culture, and an particular to Zen Buddhism and the landscape painting of the Sung and Yuan dynasties. The age finds its garden prototype m the scenery of the kare-sansui. the small-scale dry landscape garden attached to and bordered by Shom-style architecture Such gardens are designed to be contem-plated, like a painting, from a number of fixed vantage pants in the Kamakura era. gardens were laid out by special priests - called ishitateso - from the esoteric Shmgon sect, who thereby effectively acted as semiprofessional garden-makers. Their role was later taken over by Zen priests During the Muromachi era. kawaramono. lowclass "nverbank workers", slowly rose to the status of professional garden designers They were held in high esteem by the Ashikaga sho-guns Although the materials employed tn the gardens of the Kamakura and Muromachi eras may still be called "natural", their final forms increasingly abridged nature almost to the point of abstraction The gardens of the Kamakura and Muromachi eras thus imitate the inner essence of nature, not its outward forms.
Japanese garden archetypes
The Japanese landscape - Shintoism - Hindu cosmology - Taoist myth -Buddhist faith - Triadic compositions
Shinto beliefs: sacred archetypes
Permanent shrine buildings appear relatively late in Shintoism; they probably arose during the fifth and sixth centuries AD, when "nature Shinto" slowly entered its second phase of "shnne Shinto". Such was the formal clarity and simplicity of the earliest sanctuanes and the universality of their ritual imagery that they produced specific archetypes of holy site and sacred nte m the collective Japanese subconscious, archetypes which have survived the passage of time and whth continue to cast a spell over foreign tourists even today.
Shinto beliefs: sacred archetypes
Permanent shrine buildings appear relatively late in Shintoism; they probably arose during the fifth and sixth centuries AD, when "nature Shinto" slowly entered its second phase of "shnne Shinto". Such was the formal clarity and simplicity of the earliest sanctuanes and the universality of their ritual imagery that they produced specific archetypes of holy site and sacred nte m the collective Japanese subconscious, archetypes which have survived the passage of time and whth continue to cast a spell over foreign tourists even today.
Gardens in ancient Japan
Almost nothing has survived of the gardens of ancient Japan. Their forms and functions can thus only be inferred from a limited number of literary sources, archeolo-gical excavations and hypothetical reconstructions by Japanese scholars.
The Nihon shoki, the Chronicles of Japan of 720 AD whose records span a period from prehistoric Japan up to 697 AD, contains sporadic references to gardens which, when taken together, add up to a surprisingly clear picture of the first palace gardens in Japan. Below is a selection of these entries:
In the spring of 74 AD, so the Nikon shoki relates, Emperor Keiko "resided in the Kuguri Palace and, letting loose carp in a pond, amused himself by looking at them morning and night."'3 In 401 AD Emperor Richu had a pond built at his palace in lhare. In November 402 "the Emperor launched the two-hulled boat on the pond of Ichishi at lhare and went on board with the imperial concubine, each separately, and feasted."14 In around 413, the consort of Emperor Ingio was "walking alone in the garden" when a nobleman on horseback looked over the hedge and said: '"What an excellent gardener thou art. Pray, madam, let me have one of those orchids.'"15 In 486 Emperor Kenzo "went to the park, where he held revel by the winding streams".
In 612 an emigre from Korea faced banishment to an island because of his flecked skin. Empress Suiko pared him, however, when she heard his plea that he could "make the figures of hills and mountains". Thanks to his remarkable talents, he was subsequently employed to create a "Mount Sumeru" and a "Bridge of Wu" in the southern courtyard of the imperial palace.'7 It is thought that this Bridge of Wu may have been an ornamental bow-shaped bridge such as is frequently found in Chinese gardens. The shape and nature of Mount Sumeru remains, however, a mystery.
In 625, during the reign of the same Empress Suiko, a minister by the name of Soga no Umako - a member of the powerful Soga clan - owned a palace "on the bank of the river Asuka. A small pond had been dug in the courtyard, and there was a little island in the middle of the pond. Therefore, the men of that time called him shima no oho omi, which translates as 'Lord of the Island(s)'."'8 This palace later passed into the hands of the imperial family and acquired the name of Shima no miya, "Palace of the Isles". It is mentioned in a number of poems in the earliest anthology of Japanese poetry, the Manyoshu or "Collection of a Myriad Leaves" which was compiled in the mid-eighth century.
However fragmentary these literary references, they nevertheless enable us to piece together a fairly accurate portrait of the first Japanese garden prototype. The earliest palace gardens were clearly of impressive size. Why else should a powerful minister be called after his garden? They were located in or near the southern courtyards of royal or noble residences. Their chief scenic elements included a pond with one or more islands, symbolic representations of an ocean landscape, together with man-made mountains and a winding stream with rocks placed along its banks.
It is not known precisely where within Fujiwara-kyo. capital of the Fujiwara clan (694-710), or Heijo-kyo. "Capital of the Castle of Tranquility" (710-784). these gardens were located, nor where they lay in relation to the imperial palaces themselves. Only a few such gardens have been excavated, and much remains hypothetical It is generally believed that the two above-named capitals, with their palaces and Buddhist temples, were modest imitations of the architecture of the Chinese T'ang dynasty. Thus it may be surmised that their gardens, too, were influenced by those of the T'ang, which ranged from huge pleasure gardens, via rock gardens copying mountains and gorges, to the gardens of court nobles and ministers.
552 AD is widely accepted as the year in which Japan began seriously to copy China's far superior culture. Japans oldest chronicles, the Kojiki of 712 and the Ninon shoki of 720. both agree that this was the year m which Buddhism officially reached Japan. Together with Buddhism (which was imported from the kingdom of Korea) came the Chinese script and various works of Chinese art. This by no means implies there were no contacts with Korea or China before this date With time, relations between the Japanese islands and the mainland were strengthened by official missions to the Chinese court. P Varley writes:
"The Japanese dispatched a total of four missions to Sui China during the period 600-614 and fifteen to T'ang between 630 and 838. The larger missions usually consisted of groups of about four ships that transported more than five hundred people, including official envoys, students, Buddhist monks and translators. Some of these visitors remained abroad for long stretches of time - up to thirty or more years - and some never returned The trip was exceedingly dangerous, and the fact that so many risked it attests to the avidity with which the Japanese of this age sought to acquire the learning and culture of China."
This first large wave of Chinese influence left traces m Japanese thought and art which can still be felt today Sierksma divides acculturation processes into three phases: first, a phase of identification, of simple imitation of the foreign culture. This is succeeded by a phase of remterpretation and. finally, by a phase of complete assimilation and absorption I see the Japanese absorption of Chinese culture as following this same rogression, whereby the first phase corresponds to the Tumulus (250-552) and Asuka (552-710) eras, and the second to the Nara era (710-794) and the early years of the Heian period. Sierksma writes of this second phase: "Acculturation is always characterized by remterpretation Objects and ideas are taken over from the strange culture, but derive their meaning from the context of the old culture within which they are now placed. Or again, indigenous elements of culture are given a new meaning in the context of the new strange culture."
Such regular cultural exchanges with China exerted a profound influence upon the religion, arts, government, economic system and social structure of Japan In 894, however, one hundred years after the founding of Heian-kyo. they came to an abrupt end Japan broke off all diplomatic and cultural relations with China shortly before the collapse of the T'ang dynasty
This simultaneously marked the beginning of the third phase of the acculturation process, which reached its climax approximately a century later with Japan's complete assimilation of Chinese values and forms
Pure-Land paradise garden of Byodo-m Temple. Kyoto, seen from the soutfi-easf The right angles of the Hoodo, the Phoenix Hall built in W52, are reflected m the man-made water-lily pond This contrast between the right angle and the irregular forms of cultivated nature expresses the aesthetic principle underlying the garden as a whole
The Nihon shoki, the Chronicles of Japan of 720 AD whose records span a period from prehistoric Japan up to 697 AD, contains sporadic references to gardens which, when taken together, add up to a surprisingly clear picture of the first palace gardens in Japan. Below is a selection of these entries:
In the spring of 74 AD, so the Nikon shoki relates, Emperor Keiko "resided in the Kuguri Palace and, letting loose carp in a pond, amused himself by looking at them morning and night."'3 In 401 AD Emperor Richu had a pond built at his palace in lhare. In November 402 "the Emperor launched the two-hulled boat on the pond of Ichishi at lhare and went on board with the imperial concubine, each separately, and feasted."14 In around 413, the consort of Emperor Ingio was "walking alone in the garden" when a nobleman on horseback looked over the hedge and said: '"What an excellent gardener thou art. Pray, madam, let me have one of those orchids.'"15 In 486 Emperor Kenzo "went to the park, where he held revel by the winding streams".
In 612 an emigre from Korea faced banishment to an island because of his flecked skin. Empress Suiko pared him, however, when she heard his plea that he could "make the figures of hills and mountains". Thanks to his remarkable talents, he was subsequently employed to create a "Mount Sumeru" and a "Bridge of Wu" in the southern courtyard of the imperial palace.'7 It is thought that this Bridge of Wu may have been an ornamental bow-shaped bridge such as is frequently found in Chinese gardens. The shape and nature of Mount Sumeru remains, however, a mystery.
In 625, during the reign of the same Empress Suiko, a minister by the name of Soga no Umako - a member of the powerful Soga clan - owned a palace "on the bank of the river Asuka. A small pond had been dug in the courtyard, and there was a little island in the middle of the pond. Therefore, the men of that time called him shima no oho omi, which translates as 'Lord of the Island(s)'."'8 This palace later passed into the hands of the imperial family and acquired the name of Shima no miya, "Palace of the Isles". It is mentioned in a number of poems in the earliest anthology of Japanese poetry, the Manyoshu or "Collection of a Myriad Leaves" which was compiled in the mid-eighth century.
However fragmentary these literary references, they nevertheless enable us to piece together a fairly accurate portrait of the first Japanese garden prototype. The earliest palace gardens were clearly of impressive size. Why else should a powerful minister be called after his garden? They were located in or near the southern courtyards of royal or noble residences. Their chief scenic elements included a pond with one or more islands, symbolic representations of an ocean landscape, together with man-made mountains and a winding stream with rocks placed along its banks.
It is not known precisely where within Fujiwara-kyo. capital of the Fujiwara clan (694-710), or Heijo-kyo. "Capital of the Castle of Tranquility" (710-784). these gardens were located, nor where they lay in relation to the imperial palaces themselves. Only a few such gardens have been excavated, and much remains hypothetical It is generally believed that the two above-named capitals, with their palaces and Buddhist temples, were modest imitations of the architecture of the Chinese T'ang dynasty. Thus it may be surmised that their gardens, too, were influenced by those of the T'ang, which ranged from huge pleasure gardens, via rock gardens copying mountains and gorges, to the gardens of court nobles and ministers.
552 AD is widely accepted as the year in which Japan began seriously to copy China's far superior culture. Japans oldest chronicles, the Kojiki of 712 and the Ninon shoki of 720. both agree that this was the year m which Buddhism officially reached Japan. Together with Buddhism (which was imported from the kingdom of Korea) came the Chinese script and various works of Chinese art. This by no means implies there were no contacts with Korea or China before this date With time, relations between the Japanese islands and the mainland were strengthened by official missions to the Chinese court. P Varley writes:
"The Japanese dispatched a total of four missions to Sui China during the period 600-614 and fifteen to T'ang between 630 and 838. The larger missions usually consisted of groups of about four ships that transported more than five hundred people, including official envoys, students, Buddhist monks and translators. Some of these visitors remained abroad for long stretches of time - up to thirty or more years - and some never returned The trip was exceedingly dangerous, and the fact that so many risked it attests to the avidity with which the Japanese of this age sought to acquire the learning and culture of China."
This first large wave of Chinese influence left traces m Japanese thought and art which can still be felt today Sierksma divides acculturation processes into three phases: first, a phase of identification, of simple imitation of the foreign culture. This is succeeded by a phase of remterpretation and. finally, by a phase of complete assimilation and absorption I see the Japanese absorption of Chinese culture as following this same rogression, whereby the first phase corresponds to the Tumulus (250-552) and Asuka (552-710) eras, and the second to the Nara era (710-794) and the early years of the Heian period. Sierksma writes of this second phase: "Acculturation is always characterized by remterpretation Objects and ideas are taken over from the strange culture, but derive their meaning from the context of the old culture within which they are now placed. Or again, indigenous elements of culture are given a new meaning in the context of the new strange culture."
Such regular cultural exchanges with China exerted a profound influence upon the religion, arts, government, economic system and social structure of Japan In 894, however, one hundred years after the founding of Heian-kyo. they came to an abrupt end Japan broke off all diplomatic and cultural relations with China shortly before the collapse of the T'ang dynasty
This simultaneously marked the beginning of the third phase of the acculturation process, which reached its climax approximately a century later with Japan's complete assimilation of Chinese values and forms
Pure-Land paradise garden of Byodo-m Temple. Kyoto, seen from the soutfi-easf The right angles of the Hoodo, the Phoenix Hall built in W52, are reflected m the man-made water-lily pond This contrast between the right angle and the irregular forms of cultivated nature expresses the aesthetic principle underlying the garden as a whole
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