Tenryu-ji. Norris Brock Johnson
(ca. 973–1025), provides an early glimpse of the region of Sagano. The Tale of Genji contains vivid descriptions of people and events associated with rites of purification critical to the venerated Grand Shrine at Ise (present-day Mie Prefecture, southeast of Kyōto).12
In the Tale of Genji, compounds termed “Palace-in-the-Field” were built in Sagano as secluded settings for princesses, high priestesses, from the family of an emperor. Prior to representing an emperor at Ise, a priestess was required to live for a year within a Palace-in-the-Field while undergoing rites of purification.13 Priestesses were purified in the flowing waters of the Katsura River prior to being escorted to Ise.14 After a priestess had been escorted to Ise, the compound associated with her purification was dismantled. A new compound was constructed each time a priestess was prepared to represent an emperor by living at Ise.
To our eyes, though, the word “palace” misdescribes the compounds built within Sagano. Consider the manner in which the Tale of Genji describes Prince Genji’s approach to a Palace-in-the-Field: “They came at last,” Lady Murasaki writes, “to a group of very temporary wooden huts surrounded by a flimsy brushwood fence. The archways, built of unstripped wood, stood solemnly against the sky. Within the enclosure a number of priests were walking up and down with a preoccupied air.”15 Prince Genji steals into the compound to secret a love note to Lady Rokujō, of the imperial court, whose daughter (Akikonomu) was being prepared to live within the Grand Shrine at Ise. The area described here was set apart, isolated spatially, and was entered through “archways” (鳥居, torii) still signaling spaces and places associated with Shintō.
Prince Genji, we read, then entered an enchanted garden within the Palace-in-the-Field. Having secreted his note to Lady Rokujō, Prince Genji lingers in contemplating how “the garden which surrounded her apartments was laid out in so enchanting a manner that the troops of young courtiers, who in the early days of the retreat had sought in vain to press their attentions upon her, used, even when she had sent them about their business, to linger there regretfully; and on this marvelous night the place seemed consciously to be deploying all its charm.”16 A striking aspect of this garden is its animistic quality and presence. The garden enchants, casts a spell, and the spell of the garden is so compelling as to force the gaze of courtiers away from the handsome Rokujō. As in William Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, the enchantment of the garden weaves its spell most charmingly at night, in moonlight (fig. 125).
FIGURE 31. Shrine buildings peek through dense groves of tall bamboo-grass, framing the walkway to the central area of the present-day Shrine-in-the-Field (Nonomiya).
At this time, a garden was a vital component of compounds such as the Palace-in-the-Field in Sagano. The word niwa (庭, garden) at the time defined a purified area into which kami (神) were invited, venerated, and/or housed. “Garden” was an animistic, spiritual concept as well as aesthetic landscape. The Tale of Genji brings Sagano to life as a region saturated with what we would recognize as religious belief and practice. To this day Sagano remains associated with purification, divinity, and spiritual renewal.
The present-day Shintō shrine of Nonomiya (Shrine-in-the-Field) is to the north and within sight of the Temple of the Heavenly Dragon. Nonomiya is descended from the Sagano compounds to which imperial princesses came to be purified (figs. 31, 32).
This contemporary version of the Shrine-in-the-Field often appears in the landscape of contemporary fiction. In The_Makioka Sisters, by Jūnichirō Tanizaki, we accompany a newly married couple to the area around the Temple of the Heavenly Dragon where “a chilly wind had come up by the time they passed the Nonomiya, the Shrine-in-the-Field, where in ancient times court maidens retired for purification before leaving to become Shrine Virgins at Ise.”17 Nonomiya still is considered an especially generative place to petition kami for happy marriages, healthy children, and the like. Nonomiya is swaddled in lush groves of bamboo and brushwood, similar to the foliage surrounding the Palace-in-the-Field described within the Tale of Genji. A winding path of gravel cushions the walk to the central area of the shrine. The surrounding foliage through which one passes is a tunnel of verdant green, punctuated by golden shafts of light. Nonomiya is entered through and under torii. The shrine still retains the seclusion and aura of sacredness of the Palace-in-the-Field in the Tale of Genji.
The Empress and the Priest
In addition to Shintō, the Sagano region west of Kyōto was significant to the early presence of Buddhism in Japan. In this regard, the present-day temple of Danrin-ji (Forest Temple) is important historically.
In 836 Tachibana no Kachiko ordered the construction of a small complex, initially a nunnery with about twelve subtemple buildings, to be constructed within Sagano. She was keenly interested in the Buddhism of China. She had sent an invitation to I-k’ung (Gikū Zenshi, as he came to be known in Japan), a Rinzai priest, asking him to travel to Sagano to instruct her in Chinese Zen Buddhism. Gikū Zenshi accepted her invitation, and the Forest Temple was built as a residence and teaching arena for him. In 1191, 355 years later, Myōan Eisai (Zenkō Kokushi, 1141–1215) would institutionalize the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism in Japan.
During the time of Tachibana no Kachiko, though, Chinese Zen Buddhism was not widely received in Japan. Disillusioned, Gikū Zenshi subsequently returned to China. The teachings, the way of life, of Gikū Zenshi nonetheless profoundly affected Tachibana no Kachiko. She shaved her head, and began living as a Buddhist priest.18
FIGURE 32. The entrance into the central area of the present-day Shrine-in-the- Field (Nonomiya).
Buddhism was present in Japan during the time of Empress Genmyō and Lady Tachibana. The word “Shintō” (神道, Way of the Kami) had begun to appear around the seventh century, in large part to name indigenous belief distinct from the growing influence of Buddhism in Japan.
The historical Buddha was born Siddhārtha Gautama in 563 B.C. in Nepal. Siddhārtha (“He Whose Aim Is Accomplished”) experienced existence-as-it-is (真如, shinnyo; tathatā, in Sanskrit), then chose to reveal the nature of existence (Dharma), to others. The belief is that “one who really knows truth, lives the life of truth, becomes the truth itself. This was realized in the person of Buddha (literally, “One Who is Enlightened about Ultimate Reality”).”19 Upon his awareness of the Truth of existence, Siddhārtha subsequently became known as Shākyamuni (the Sage of the Shākyas—Shākya being the name of his family of birth; fig. 33).
FIGURE 33. Sculpture of Siddhārtha Gautama (Shākyamuni). First century A.D., sandstone, Mathura, India. H: 23 cm.
A principal concern of Buddhism is the suffering of people as well as the suffering of non-human life (Four Noble Truths). The belief continues to be that suffering in large part lives within conceptions of ego-consciousness-as-reality—the belief that “self” is a distinct, autonomous phenomenon. A Truth apprehended by Shākyamuni was that “self,” ego-consciousness-as-reality, is an illusion giving life and power to suffering; one has an “Original Face”; every person already has Buddha-Nature, of which Shākyamuni became aware (“enlightenment”) while sitting in meditation under the Bodhi tree. Awareness of the fundamental reality of Buddha-Nature is the experience of existence-as-it-is, “enduring, permanent, a secure shelter, unassailable bliss. It is the supreme Truth and Reality … a state of neither being nor non-being.”20 Awareness of Buddha-Nature is said to be clouded by fear, pain, desire, and other misery-inducing illusions of life. Upon relinquishment of ego-consciousness-as-reality, “one’s ordinary personality is transcended and becomes an embodiment of Truth.”21The Truth experienced by Shākyamuni was a way to end, in this life, the cycle of birth and rebirth (samsara).
Buddhism arose amid the Vedic