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| Water, light and plants |
All cultures that have developed a tradition of the creation
of gardens, can trace the origin of such garden making back to a source idea of
the re-creation of Paradise, or a paradisial state of being. The notion of
‘Paradise’ is a symbolic projection onto the material world of an ‘inner state
of being’, which is both idealistic in scope and ambition. The connection
between the notion of the garden as representing Paradise and human society is
perhaps as old as human culture itself. This is just as relevant to Japan, as
it is to any other culture where gardens have been created. The idea of
Paradise underlies the notion of the garden is as pertinent today as it has
been at any time in the history of human culture. One may even argue that in
this modern age it is even more pressingly relevant than it has ever been.
The garden corresponds to the idea of the temenos, or a sacred circumscribed space because it is
understood to constitute a spiritual entity; whole and complete within itself.
In Japan, perhaps more than anywhere else, religion (as a formalisation of the
idea of spirituality in society) has had a profound influence on the
development of the garden culture that has emerged over more than 1500 years of
development. Indeed, it is in the grounds of Buddhist temple complexes that the
most distinctive gardens, which we may associate with Japan appear. The karesansui, or ‘dry landscape’, gardens, which are such a
characteristic of Zen temples, may have been an idea that emerged originally in
China; but it is in Japan (at the Kyoto Five Mountain Zen temples in particular)
that this form of garden was to develop into the distinctive art form that we
know today. All gardens are obviously subject to influence from social and
economic forces, as gardens are after all, a mirror of social and political
aspirations. What one may detect though in Japan is a continuity and a
cohesiveness in the influence that the primary religious forces were to bring
to the gardens.
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| Kibune Shrine, north of Kyoto, the stones encircle a Sakaki tree. This evocation of sacred space was the work of the garden creator Shigemori Mirei and was constructed in the mid 20th C |
When we speak of the influence of religions on Japanese
gardens, there are three principal threads, Buddhism, Shinto and Shamanism.
Further, one can also find further traces of elements of religious influence
from continental China, namely Taoism, and Confucianism. It is important to
understand that when we speak of the influence of these various religions on
the gardens, it is not simply a question of the influence of religious practice
on the physical forms of the garden, but perhaps even more crucially, what religious
or spiritual thought and awareness was to bring to the perception of landscape
as a whole. In both Japan and China, the gardens are intimately associated with
the landscape; indeed, the gardens were to develop into a synthesis, a
distillation, of the very notion of landscape itself.
Before examining in more detail the role of the various
strands of influence of religion on the Japanese garden culture it is worth
pointing out the notable eclecticism in Japanese thought in these matters.
Buddhism, which was officially introduced to Japan in 552 AD, was integrated
into an already existing complex set of native beliefs rather than superseding
them. It is perhaps partly a reflection of the character of the Japanese people
of the time that this was done without overt conflict. Where disagreements
occurred it was more due to political interests and competition for influence,
rather than due to any profound sense of doctrinal conflict. Buddhism by its
very nature is an essentially syncretic religion, and sought to adopt and
embrace the native forms of religious belief.
Mountains and Water
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| Huangshan Mts. Anhui Province, China |
Shamanistic practices probably arrived in Japan with the
very first settlers to reach and explore the islands, and shamanism has
lingered as an undercurrent of spiritual belief in Japan right up into the
modern era. Both Shinto (which is generally held to be the native religion of
Japan, and likely actually developed out of shamanistic origins) and Shamanism
share a number of characteristics that have a bearing on perception of the
garden culture. Principal among these is an intimate connection inherent in
both practices toward nature and elements of the natural landscape itself, as
it was in the landscape that ceremonies and rites were practiced. It should be
noted that the term for ‘landscape’ in Japanese, sansui, is composed of two characters san, 山 indicating
mountain, and sui, 水 indicating water. In this way the entire complexity of the
concept of landscape can be reduced to the interaction of these two most
fundamental elements, as well as underscoring the importance of both concepts
to gardens.
In Shinto, kami
(usually translated as ‘gods’ or ‘sacred spirits) are worshiped. Among the
objects or phenomena designated as kami are the qualities of growth, fertility and production; natural
phenomena, such as wind and thunder; natural objects, such as the sun,
mountains, rivers, trees and rocks, as well as certain animals and also
ancestral spirits. Much the same can be applied to Shamanism too, whereby many
of the same phenomena are regarded as being potentially sacred. For example,
trees and rocks are of particular importance as they were held to be the abode
of sacred spirits. In this context these elements are charged with a profound
spiritual resonance.
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| Ancient cherry encircled by a rice straw rope designating the tree as being an abode of kami |
One of the prime characteristics of the Japanese garden is
in its use of stones, particularly in the manner of setting upright stones as
principal features in the layout of the garden. The setting of stones is
regarded a crucial measure of the skill and sensitivity of the garden creator,
and the arrangement of the stones (ishigumi)
is seen as being the very skeleton of the garden itself. The prominent siting
of garden stones emphasises their importance, and in the garden context stones
are usually to be read as representing mountains.
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| Zuiho-in, Kyoto, the powerful rock arrangement represents Mt Shumisen |
Mountains, given their physical vastness, the difficulty of
access, inspire reverence and adoration, and sacred mountains are found in
virtually all cultures across the world. In Japan there has been a very long
established practice of mountain worship. Mountains were revered for their
shape, as in conically shaped dormant volcanoes such as, Mt. Fuji (also
national symbol), Mt. Chõkai, Mt. Taisen (both in Honshu) and Mt. Kaimon
(Kyushu). Mountains were also worshiped as being watersheds or sources of
streams (these sacred waters are known as harae-gawa, ‘rivers of purification’),
a connection that was particularly important for an agrarian society. Thirdly,
mountains were closely connected with ancestral worship, as it was believed
that mountains were a point of transition between this world and the afterlife.
Mountains have been at the heart of the sacro-religious life in Japan since the
earliest times, and every religion established there has developed its own
connections and symbolic associations with mountains.
Given the importance of mountains in Japanese religious life,
one can begin to understand that stones representing mountains in the garden
context will assume a depth of meaning that goes far beyond merely ‘placing
rocks’. Stones can become infused with significance, symbolism and will be
resonant with meaning to the knowing. They become manifestations of the sacred
themselves, or hierophanies. Stones (and other elements deemed as heirophanies)
are not revered for simply being stones, but for what they are perceived to
express and to contain. Contained within the world view of both Shamanism and
Shinto, the landscape is seen and interacted with as a living being, which
supports the local population both materially and spiritually.
Water is a most primal and a
fundamental element that allows life on earth to exist. In Shinto water is
understood to act as a purifying agent (a notion that underpins a prime role of
Shinto itself. Entering a shrine a worshippers will rinse both their hands and
mouth before proceeding to offer prayers to the deities. The same practice is
undertaken in the Tea garden (chaniwa), where
participants to a tea ceremony would expect to make the same ritual ablution at
a tsukubai, or crouching basin,
before entering the teahouse. In Chinese traditional belief, bodies of water
were the abode of dragons, whilst the mythology of dragons is exceedingly
complex in China, an important point lies in the belief that dragons acted an
intermediary between heaven and earth (hence also often associated with rain).
Much the same ideas are held in Japan too, where dragons are regarded as water
benevolent deities associated with good fortune and the benevolence of heaven
being bestowed onto the earth. Dragons are often evoked in temple names, such
as in two notable Kyoto temples, both sites of historically significant
gardens: Tenryū-ji 天龍寺 ‘Heavenly Dragon Temple’, and Ryōan-ji 竜安寺 ‘Dragon Peace Temple’.
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| Dragon and Tiger representing yin and yang energies. Fusuma painting Manshu-in, Kyoto. |
Prior to the official adoption of Buddhism in Japan around
the mid 6th century AD, there already had been considerable effort
put into creating agricultural and ritual landscapes. With the introduction of
rice growing culture by 300 BC
people would have learned to modify the landscape to make such cultivation
possible, and land would have been cleared and levelled and water flows
controlled. During the Kofun period (250-552 AD), ritual landscapes were being
created primarily around large stone lined tombs covered by substantial earth
mounds and the mounds themselves were surrounded by ponds. Also in the Nihon
Shoki it is noted that hunting parks had been established
by the late 6th century AD after the Chinese model for the use of
the Imperial family, though these may have been more in the way of exclusive
land preserves set aside for Imperial usage.
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| Islands in the pond of Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto |
This then was the environment to which Buddhism into Japan in
the mid 6th century, initially through the medium of Chinese and
Korean priests and craftsmen. The earliest attempts at creating gardens proper
in Japan were attempts to recreate the idea of landscape as a sacred entity,
albeit in a form that could be modified to suit a more ‘domestic’ situation.
These forms of gardens in Japan (initially created for Imperial residences, and
then in the grounds of properties of members of the aristocracy closely
associated with the Imperial lineage) were of the ‘pond and island’ model. The
word used for gardens at this stage was shima (island), which indicates something of the importance (and novelty) of
this type of garden. Within the gardens, elements such as stones would have
been erected and no doubt given particular symbolic importance. From other
sources, such as the Sakuteiki , we can understand the gardens that developed were
generally modelled after the conception of the creation of varying types of
landscapes, nearly all of which would have had ponds and islands in them. These
early gardens were created specifically with the idea of creating an
environment that would prove attractive to various deities being addressed.
Gardens were being created that could satisfy a dual purpose; on the one hand,
the gardens provided aesthetic pleasure through their link with Nature, and
then again the gardens, in their semi-public role as a stage for ceremony, also
acted as a bridge, or point of transition between the secular and spiritual
worlds. One should point out that in Japanese conception, there is a seamless
transition between these two functions.
Part 2 of this post will follow shortly.
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