Tag: Japan

The Three Sacred Mountains of Nara

As I’ve written before, the Hyakunin Isshu poetry anthology is a rough slice of history of Japan’s “classical age” which spans the Asuka, Nara, Heian, and early Kamakura periods of history: roughly six centuries.

The early poems, numerically, were often written by people living in and around the area of Nara (奈良), a very old city in Japan, and also the capitol for a time.1 The city itself isn’t the only famous landmark, though. Many of the geographic features around Nara have become part of the poetry that we enjoy today.

Poem two of the Hyakunin Isshu (はるす) introduces a mountain named Kagu-yama, but nowadays is known as Amano-kaguyama (天香久山) in Japanese. Mount Amanokagu is actually one of three mountains that surround Nara, called the Three Mountains of Yamato: yamato-sanzan (大和三山). These mountains are:

Mount Amanokagu, terumasa, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Mount Unebi, ウォーレンさわかみ, CC BY-SA 2.1 JP, via Wikimedia Commons
Mount Miminashi, 8-hachiro, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

When you look at these mountains, they’re not very big,2 nothing like Mount Fuji which was also a subject of the Hyakunin Isshu (poem 4, たご). So….. what’s so special about the Three Mountains of Nara?

You can find clues to this in the Manyoshu anthology,3 including this choka (“long form”) poem from book one, poem 17:

ManyoganaModern JapaneseRomanization
味酒 三輪乃山
青丹吉 奈良能山乃
山際 伊隠萬代
道隈 伊積流萬代尓
委曲毛 見管行武雄
數々毛 見放武八萬雄
情無 雲乃 隠障倍之也		味酒 三輪の山
あをによし 奈良の山の
山の際に い隠るまで
道の隈 い積もるまでに
つばらにも 見つつ行かむを
しばしばも 見放けむ山を
心なく 雲の 隠さふべしや		Umasake miwa no yama
Aoniyoshi nara no yama no
Yama no ma ni ikakuru made
Michi no kuma itsumoru made ni
Tsubara ni mo mitsutsu ikan wo
Shibashiba mo misakemu yama wo
Kokoro naku kumo no kakusafubeshi ya

A rough translation is as follows (alternate translation here):

Oh, how I wish to take in the sights of the Three Sacred Mountains, the mountains of Nara of the blue-green dyes, until they are far from view. Yet, at every step of way, you hinder me, O heartless clouds!

But something’s lost in this, admittedly very crude, translation: the pillow word umasake. This is a pillow word (actually this poem has two pillow words, aoniyoshi is the other) specifically used for the sacred mountains of Nara, but uses the Chinese characters 味酒 for “delicious sake”. Sake rice wine has since antiquity been an offering to the Shinto gods (kami), so there’s a touch of the divine as well. Think of the Greek god Dionysus, and you get an idea of the nuance.

The three mountains were each thought to be the home of a sacred kami, two male one female (Unebi, I think), and as Nara was surrounded by them, the whole scene must have felt ethereal to Japanese at the time. In the same way, Mount Olympus in Greece really isn’t that big, but it has an aura to it that has fascinated people since ancient times.

1 Speaking from personal experience, Nara is a fun place to visit because it’s a small, laid-back city but also has so much early history there. Compared to Kyoto which is wonderful, but very crowded, Nara is slower and quieter, and well worth a visit.

2 The prefectural website also has some nice photos. Well worth visiting.

3 Many of the early (numerically early) poets in the Hyakunin Isshu also contributed poetry to the Manyoshu. Otomo no Yakamochi (poem 6, かさ), compiled the Manyoshu. So, there’s quite a bit of overlap. Teika’s (poem 97, こぬ) genius in compiling the Hyakunin Isshu was selecting the very best of the best, and organizing it in a simple, accessible collection.

Fireflies in Summer

Poem 45 of the Ise Stories is an unusual anecdote, and includes some great poetry about summer. According to the story, there was a young woman who was hopelessly in love with someone (probably the protagonist of the Ise Stories, it is unclear), but she endured this unrequited love alone. In time, she fell very ill, and confessed to her parents her love for the young man. The parents called the young man over, but by the time he arrived, she had already passed away.

That evening, during the hot days of summer, the young man watched fireflies rise from the grasses, and recited these poems:

Original JapaneseRomanizationTranslation
ゆく螢Yuku hotaruWandering firelies,
雲の上までKumo no ue madeshould your roaming carry you
往ぬべくはInu beku wahigh above the clouds,
秋風吹くとAki kaze fuku totell the wild geese on the wing
雁に告げこせKari ni tsuge-kosean autumn breeze is blowing.
Translation by Joshua Mostow and Royall Tyler.

Followed by:

Original JapaneseRomanizationTranslation
暮れ難きKuregatakiAll a summer day,
夏の日ぐらしNatsu no higurashione that seems never to end,
ながむればNagamurebaI gaze before me,
その事となくSono koto to nakuabsorbed — why, I do not know —
物ぞ悲しきMono zo kanashikiin a pervasive sorrow.
Translation by Joshua Mostow and Royall Tyler.

I admit the idea that a young maiden pining for someone so much that she falls ill and dies feels more like a trope than reality (“girl, he’s just not that into you”). But, it should be noted that this was an era in Japan when death was seen as ritual pollution, so it’s noteworthy that he came nonetheless.

But also, there is another connection here: the summer tradition of Obon. Obon in Japan, roughly around July to August, is similar to the Mexican tradition of the Day of the Dead, and has Buddhist origins. Hence, the first poem and its symbolism of fireflies, can also be seen as the souls of the recent dead flitting in the summer night.

A Love of Blossoms, an Ise Story

Poet Ariwara no Narihira, who wrote poem 17 (ちは) in the Hyakunin Isshu, and quite possibly the best poem on cherry blossoms ever, is also the model for the protagonist of the Ise Stories. In it, he delivers yet another banger of a cherry blossom poem. This is episode 29 of the Ise Stories:

Back then, when called to attend the cherry-blossom jubilee held at the reside of the Heir Apparent‘s mother [he recited the following]:

Original JapaneseRomanizationTranslation
花にあかぬHana ni akanuI had always known
嘆きはいつもNageki wa itsumowhat sadness it means to love
せしかどもSeshikadomoblossoms such as these,
今日の今宵にKyo no koyoi nibut the evening of this day,
似る時はなしNiru toki wa nashiresembles no other time.
Translation by Joshua Mostow and Royall Tyler.

This is a really good cherry blossom poem, but Professors Mostow and Tyler explain that there is more to the story too. The heir apparent, later the ill-fated Emperor Yozei (poem 13, つく) in the Hyakunin Isshu, had a mother named Fujiwara no Takaiko. And within the Ise Stories, episode 6, there is a famous anecdote where:

Back then there was this man. Year after year he courted a lady he was unlikely ever to win, until at last he managed to abduct her under cover of darkness.

Translation by Mostow and Tyler

Later, the pair take cover in a storehouse during a bad rainstorm, but while he stood guard outside, a demon came and swallowed her, losing her forever. The episode then explains that the demon was in fact Takaiko’s brothers who brought her back to the capitol. Thus, it’s strongly implied in the story that Narihira and Takaiko briefly eloped before she was found by her family and brought home.

The poem above was composed after Takaiko was already wed to Emperor Seiwa and had given birth to a son, Yozei. It’s not hard to imagine that Narihira maybe still had feelings for Takaiko, though modern scholarship seems to reject this, and suggest it is simply polite felicitations.

Was this a hidden love poem, or a really colorful description of cherry blossoms? Who knows?

The Super Poetry Brothers

Interesting historical fact that I learned recently.

A long, long time ago in this blog, I wrote about the Six Immortals of Poetry: a list of eminent poets devised by Ki no Tsurayiki (poem 35 in the Hyakunin Isshu, ひさ). This list was in the preface to the Kokinshu imperial anthology, wherein he raised up these six poets, as prime examples of poetry at the time ….. then promptly tore them down for one reason for another.

However, my book about the Manyoshu explains that in the same preface, Tsurayuki elevates two other poets as being above reproach:

  • Kakinomoto Hitomaro (poem 3 in the Hyakunin Isshu, あし) and
  • Yamabe Akahito (poem 4, たご)

Together they were revered as Yamakaki no Mon (山柿の門) meaning the “Gate of Yama(be) and Kaki(nomoto)”. In modern terms, we can call them the Super Poetry Brothers…

I used to watch this show as a kid, every day after school. 😆

But I digress.

Kakinomoto and Yamabe were not exactly contemporaries. They were about a generation apart, and their poetry had different styles, but together they were seen as the epitome of poetic skill. So much so, that even Ki no Tsurayuki could find no fault in them.

Let’s look at each one.

Kakinomoto Hitomaro focused on expressing inner feelings. His poem in the Hyakunin Isshu shows his worry about sleeping alone one night, while this poem shows his passion for the one he loves. Or this one from the Manyoshu (poem 48):

Original ManyoganaModern JapaneseRomanizationRough Translation
東東のHimugashi noTo the east I
野炎野にかぎろひのNo ni kagirohi nosee the rising sun
立所見而立つ見えてTatsumieteover the fields,
反見為者かへり見すればKaeri misurebabut if I look back [west]
月西渡月かたぶきぬTsuki katabukinuI see the moon setting.
Translation by me, apologies for any mistakes or nuance problems.

This poem has a hidden meaning, and was both a memorial to one Prince Kusakabe who was the only child of Empress Jito (poem 2 in the Hyakunin Isshu, はるす), and praise of Prince Kusakabe’s son, who later was crowned Emperor Monmu. Thus, the poem expresses both sadness at the passing one of beloved figure, and hopes for a bright future for his son.

Meanwhile, Yamabe Akahito was more focused on the beauty of nature. His poem in the Hyakunin Isshu about the snow on Mount Fuji is a good example. He wrote many poems on various subjects, but often did so through simile with nature. Or this one from the Manyoshu (poem 1424):

Original ManyoganaModern JapaneseRomanizationRough Translation
春野尓春の野に Haru no no niI went to go
須美礼採尓等すみれ摘みにとSumire tsumi ni topick some violets for
来師吾曽来し我そKoshiware soyou in a spring field,
野乎奈都可之美野を懐かしみNo wo natsukashimibut it was so charming
一夜宿二来一夜寝にけるHitoyo nenikeruI slept there all night.

Here, Yamabe is talking about a wonderful, charming violet field and how it made him so sleepy and relaxed that he slept all night there. There’s less of the heavy, emotional pull of Hitomaro, but it paints a really lovely scene that’s timeless.

That’s a very brief look at the Super Poetry Brothers!

Gagaku Music

Courtly life in the Heian Period of Japanese history wasn’t limited to poetry and love trysts. Music was an important part of the culture too, but Japanese music at the time was considerably different than we might expect. This kind of Court music is called gagaku (雅楽).

You can see a good example of Gagaku music here:

It may not seem obvious at first, but this style preserves many cultural aspects of the Heian Period (which the Hyakunin Isshu was a part of too): the costumes, music, songs of the time, and so on. The music takes a bit of getting used to for modern audiences (it is kind of screechy at times), but it was common then for such music to accompany important dances such as the yearly Go-sechi dance (see poem 12 of the Hyakunin Isshu, あまつ). When Lady Murasaki talks about concerts and dances in her diary or Sei Shonagon in her Pillow Book, this kind of music was played.

Gagaku music still lives on in Japan in traditional theater, and some religious services. It also makes a nice cover for Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven, too:

Enjoy!

Special thanks to Mr Togi for this awesome video. 東儀さん、ありがとうございます！

P.S. Speaking of Stairway…

The Return of the Hyakunin Isshu Crackers!

The Hyakunin Isshu Cracker trilogy continues! Way back in 2011, when I first wrote this blog, I posted about some neat Japanese senbei (deep fried crackers made from rice dough), featuring poems of the Hyakunin Isshu. The pictures were lost however, and so I can’t really show what they looked like.

Then in 2022, I wrote another post about a different set of Hyakunin Isshu crackers we got in Japan. However, I only had a couple examples, not the complete set.

This time, I have the complete set. My father-in-law sometimes receives them as periodic gifts during the summer (a.k.a. Ochūgen, お中元) from business partners and such. The company website for these crackers is here.

There are six varieties in the set, each featuring a poem of the Hyakunin Isshu.

These first two are poems 98 (left, かぜそ) which has a spicy, wasabi (?) flavor, and 36 (right, なつ) which has baked shrimp flavor.

These two are poems 2 (left, はるす) which has leaf-shaped crackers with a salty taste, and 81 (right, ほ) is baked with nori seaweed.

The one on the left is also written with poem 98 (left, かぜそ), but has a light salty cracker flavor. This one is my favorite. The one on the right didn’t have a poem written on the front, but the back was printed with poem 97 (こぬ), and has some lightly flicked baked seaweed on it.

There might be more poems and/or flavors, but this is what I got from the boxed set we brought back to the US. Anyhow, it’s neat to see the poems written in a traditional cursive script (rather than standard printed Japanese), and I wonder if there’s some association between certain poems and certain flavors but I don’t see a connection yet.

As with the handwriting book, it’s interesting to see how the Hyakunin Isshu lives on in Japanese culture in fun, friendly ways like this.

Hyakunin Isshu Book Handwriting Book

This summer my family went back to Japan to visit relatives while I stayed home, and one of the souvenirs they brought back was this wonderful book (publisher’s link here):

This book was sold at a local Kinokuniya bookstore in Japan, and each page of the book features a poem from the 100 poems of the Hyakunin Isshu, in traditional numerical order. Within that page, you can practice your own handwriting by writing out the poem, first on the right-hand side, and again on the left.

Here’s a close-up of one of the pages, depicting poem 41 (こい), one of two poems from a famous poetry contest (poem 40 is the other). You can see the poem is written out in traditional style: right to left, vertically. There is a special handwriting guide on the left-side of this page with tips to help with certain difficult Chinese characters. You can also trace the poem on the right side of the page to practice your penmanship.

On the following page, there are some historical details about the poem. In this case, it is a lineage chart of the Imperial family at the time, and focuses on the reigning Emperor Murakami who succeeded the throne after the death of Emperor Daigo. On the bottom right is a glossary of terms, since the poem is composed in old Japanese, and thus the spellings and vocabulary are not clear to modern speakers.

This is a pretty neat book, and I am hesitant to practice my handwriting on it, since it is pretty poor. But I love the idea, and it’s a lot of fun to look through. It also seems like a nice relaxing exercise if you go slow, and take in each poem one by one.

If you are ever in Japan, and happen to be browsing a local bookstore, keep an eye out for books like this. The Hyakunin Isshu continues to be a popular topic, and you’ll find many such excellent books and many ways to savor and enjoy this wonderful anthology.

Learning Karuta For Fun

My journey with the game of Karuta began one August day in 2023 with the kind folks at a local karuta club, and right away I loved the game. However, over time, I realized that the competitive style of karuta, like you see in the anime Chihayafuru, was not for me. The constant pressure to grind out game after game to make incremental improvements, especially as a working parent with little time or energy for such endeavors, made me feel increasingly hopeless about making any real gains.1 Finally, with my children getting older, and one of them graduating, I had to take a long break from karuta. It just wasn’t fun anymore.

Recently, I’ve been playing again with a small informal group where we just mess around a bit, and play shorter Karuta games using the casual format. This is how most Japanese people play in Japan, by the way.

Thus, I wanted to share my experiences lately with readers in hopes that they may find ways to keep enjoying karuta, or help introduce it to people outside of Japan who didn’t learn it in grade school.

For starters, I ordered this 5-color Hyakunin Isshu set online from the good people at Oishi Tengudo last year,2 and after using the set a few times, I finally realized this five-color set is different than the more well-known version sold in Japan. It uses different colors, and divides the cards differently. My karuta reader apps were not set to recite poems according to Oishi Tengudo groupings, so I was really confused at first.

Using my favorite karuta reader app, Wasuramoti (Android and iOS), I decided to make custom lists based on the Oishi Tengudo groupings. You can do this too in Wasuramoti by selecting Advanced Config, then Set of Poem:

In the Oishi Tengudo set, the “red” group (also called Group A), is comprised of poems whose kimari-ji (starting syllables) start with む (mu), す (su), め (me), せ (se), う (u), つ (tsu), し (shi), も (mo), ゆ (yu), ち (chi), and ひ (hi). These cards have very few or no tomofuda (cards with similar kimari-ji), so they’re distinct and easy to learn first. I created my custom list with 20 cards, just like my physical set.

I made a similar custom list for Group B (“blue”) as well. This group is a bit harder because it includes cards whose kimari-ji have slightly more tomofuda cards (3-4): い (i), み (mi), た (ta), and こ (ko). So, there’s a bit more effort required to distinguish one card from another. Yet it’s still the second easiest group.

… and so on.

When I practice, I just grab the color I want to play (“red”, or Group A in this case) and scatter then on my desk, casual-style.

Then in the Wasuramoti app, I select the group of poems I want (see above), set the app to display the torifuda, same as cards on my desk, and set the reader to “auto” mode so it doesn’t stop with each poem. I just want to see if I can recognize the poem before too late. I don’t care very much about speed.

It is fun to play this way. I can finish a game pretty quickly (roughly ten minutes) and it is not very exhausting. Since I chose the easiest set of cards first, I remembered many of them pretty quickly despite the long hiatus, which was gratifying.

This format of playing smaller sets of cards, with optional levels of difficulty, and no threat of penalties, seems to be a great way to introduce to new players as well. I was happy to see that a new player, who had experience with Japanese language, quickly pick up the game, took a few cards of her own, and had a great time. If people aren’t having a great time, why play karuta?

Karuta is super fun, and a great game to enjoy throughout one’s life. However, if you are struggling, don’t blame yourself. Instead, find what you enjoy about karuta, pick a more gentle format, and focus on that, not what the A-rank players are doing.

Happy gaming!

1 The final nail in the coffin was when I joined some online communities which I soon realized were very focused on competition, and very little on actually enjoying the culture of the Hyakunin Isshu. It was just another sport, with physical training regimens, and techniques to edge out your opponent. That is not why I created this blog back in 2011, and not why I continue to enjoy the Hyakunin Isshu now. I had left the world of competitive card games behind when I quit playing Magic the Gathering before the Pandemic, and didn’t want to resume.

2 They only ship in Japan as far as I can tell, and with tariffs making things more expensive, it might be hard to get outside of Japan. Thus, I am adding a new index page for five-color Hyakunin Isshu to help readers make their own sets

Drinking Poems in the Manyoshu

The Hyakunin Isshu anthology, the subject of this blog, is not known for bawdy subjects as Japanese poetry by that time had become increasingly refined and codified in style. By contrast, the much older Manyoshu included a wider variety of poems and topics. This includes drinking poetry.

In fact, the compiler of the Manyoshu, Ōtomo no Yakamochi (大伴家持, 718 – 785) who also composed poem 6 in the Hyakunin Isshu (かさ), was the son of a famous literati and booze-hound: Ōtomo no Tabito (大伴旅人, 665 – 731). Tabito was a contemporary of Hyakunin Isshu poet Hitomaro (poem 3, あし), though not quite as successful.

Tabito was dispatched by the Imperial bureaucracy at the time to serve a term as governor of Daizafu in western Japan, and while there he formed a poetry circle called the Tsukushi Kadan (筑紫歌壇, “Tsukushi Poetry Circle”), where Tsukushi is the name of an old district in Dazaifu. Of Tabito’s 50+ poems in the Manyoshu, 13 of them were contributed by Tabito, known as the Sake wo Homuru Uta Ju-san-shu (酒を讃むる歌１３首) or “The Thirteen Poems Praising Saké [rice wine]”.

My book lists two example poems:

Manyogana Modern JapaneseRomanizationRough Translation
験無験なきShirushi nakiI’d rather
物乎不念者ものを思はずはMono wo omowazu wadrink a cup of
一坏乃一杯のIppai no“dirty rice wine”1
濁酒乎濁れる酒をNigoreru sake wothan think about
可飲有良師飲むべくあるらしNomu beku aru rashiuseless things.
Poem 388, source: https://art-tags.net/manyo/three/m0338.html
ManyoganaModern JapaneseRomanizationRough Translation
中〻尒なかなかにNaka naka niI’d rather be
人跡不有者人とあらずはHito to arazu waa rice wine cask
酒壷二酒壷にSaka tsubo niand immerse myself
成而師鴨成りにてしかもNari te shikamoin wine, than live a
酒二染甞酒に染みなむSake ni shiminanhalf-assed life.
Poem 343, source: https://manyo-hyakka.pref.nara.jp/db/detailLink?cls=db_manyo&pkey=343

Although I joke about Tabito’s possible alcoholism, the poems are not necessarily meant to be taken as literal. My book on the Manyoshu points out that these poems may have intended to imitate a famous 3rd century literati group in China called the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, sometimes known as the Seven Sages of the Western Jin [Dynasty]. In Japanese they are called the chikurin-shichiken (竹林七賢). The enduring image of these seven musicians, poets and scholars is a band of bohemian, drunken geniuses, and Tabito and his poetry circle was likely inspired by them. You can see other examples of artistic inspiration in this post from my other blog. Between this collection of poems, and the Zen artwork in my other blog, I had no idea that the Seven Sages were such a popular topic in art.

But I digress.

There is another side to this poetry as well : evidentially on the move from the capital (Kyoto) to Dazaifu to the west, Tabito’s wife apparently fell ill and died. So, my book alludes to the idea that Ōtomo no Tabito took up drinking not just as a literati trend, but also to deal with the grief of losing his wife. Marriages at this time were often political as various noble families vied for position in the tightly stratified hierarchy in the Imperial Court. However, even political marriages could be happy ones at a personal level, so Tabito may have genuinely been grieving for a wife that he loved, plus the isolation from the capital.

Tabito’s poems, celebrating the virtues of rice wine, are technically very good poems, but also cover a subject that is omitted in later anthologies where style and form were pretty much codified by then. So, by the time the Hyakunin Isshu was compiled, 4 centuries later, no one would write such crass poetry about booze and girls (at least not openly). Further, while the Manyoshu lacks the refinement of the Hyakunin Isshu, it does have a raw, visceral tone that’s often missing in later anthologies, and resonates differently with readers. Personally, I love both anthologies, but for different reasons.

P.S. I’m finally back, and have a few upcoming topics. Please enjoy.

1 This kind of rice wine seems to be a style from China, where the fluid is cloudy rather than clear.

Hyakunin Isshu-A-Day

A Japanese friend who is also a fan of the Hyakunin Isshu shared this website with me:

https://fromnkichi.github.io/fortune-of-100nin-isshu/

This fun website will let you pick a Hyakunin Isshu poem at random, and that will be your fortune for the day. After your poem is selected it is shown in the upper right corner:

On the left hand side is your “lucky color” for the day, and in middle is a fortune for you. You can see the matching karuta card on the bottom. The site is entirely in Japanese, so you will have to use an online translator. It reminds me of those page-a-day calendars I used to buy for work.

In any case, this is a terrific site and worth visiting. Enjoy!