Haiku Travels
Todaiji and Taimadera (Nara)
the Water Drawing -
the monks' clogs
make an icy sound
mizutori ya | kori no so no | kutsu no oto
水とりや氷の僧の沓の音
Basho
[Omizutori ceremony, Nigatsudo hall of Todaiji, Nara]
Basho was born in the castle town of Iga-Ueno, in the Kansai area, but at a young age settled in Edo. He made several trips back to western Japan and then also often visited the Nara area. In 1685 he observed the Water Drawing Ceremony in Todaiji, a visit which has been described in Nogarashi Kiko, The Journal of Bleached Bones in a Field. On the same trip he also visited Taima Temple at the foot of Mr Futagami, south of Nara.
Omizutori, 'water-drawing,' is a central rite of the Shunie (literally, 'rite observed in February' of the lunar calendar) held at the Nigatsudo Hall of Todaiji Temple in Nara. The entire Shunie lasts from March 1 to 14 (that is, in the modern calendar), and the omizutori proper takes place late at night on March 12. The rite begins with the waving of huge blazing torches from the hall's veranda, in fact whole trees set ablaze, sprinkling sparks over the crowd below. Next, the monks draw water from a nearby well and offer it to the image of the Eleven-Headed Kannon, the central Bodhisattva of the Nigatsudo Hall, which is a 'secret' statue. The rite symbolizes the arrival of spring and was first held in 752.
It is a most impressive ceremony and the monks who wave the torches come running down the verandah of the Nigatsudo on their wooden clogs, giving off a particular staccato rattle. This sound struck Basho and he aptly combines it with the icy cold which in March is still in the air in Nara, especially at night.
[Vairocana (Birushana) statue
in Golden Hall, Todaiji (Nara Daibutsu)]
first snow -
when will the temple building start
for the Great Buddha?
hatsu yuki ya | itsu Daibutsu no | hashira date
初雪やいつ大仏の柱立
The Daibutsu of Todaiji Temple in Nara was originally cast in 749 CE. That image had been destroyed in the 12th c. wars, but the statue which was soon cast as replacement had again become a war victim. When Basho visited Todaiji, the temple was still under repair after the destruction wrought by the civil wars of the sixteenth century (in 1567 it was destroyed by troops of Matsunaga Hisahide, to be exact). In 1684 the priest Kokei received permission from the government to start a fundraising campaign for the reconstruction, but work was slow due to a shortage of funds. The Great Buddha statue was only finally completed in 1691 (with the consecration ceremony held in 1692), after the visit by Basho described above, and the statue sat for years in the open like the Great Buddha in Kamakura. The new Buddha Hall (which is the present one) was finally finished in 1709, and Basho did not live to see this. He grieved for the Buddha in its sad state, for at that time even the head had not been restored yet. Basho saw only the rump of the statue, slowly being covered by the first snow of the year.
Birushana is a pantheistic Buddha of "light shining throughout the universe." The statue is the largest bronze Buddha in the world, and the hall in which it sits is the largest wooden structure in the world.
[Great Buddha hall, Todaiji, Nara]
it's already spring!
through nameless hills
a soft mist
haru nare ya / na mo naki yama no / usugasumi
春なれや名もなき山の薄霞
Composed on the way to Nara in February, 1685 - Basho gave it the title "on the road to Nara." Note that Basho's February is March in our calendar.
Basho probably came from the direction of Iga-Ueno, his native town in what is now Mie Prefecture, which he had visited for celebrating the New Year. Basho's family lived there (his elder brother and his sisters), but in addition over the years he had built up a large following of haiku disciples.
[The present state of the pine tree figuring in the haiku]
priests, morning-glorieshow many died and reborn
pine of the Dharma
so asagao | iku shinikaeru | nori no matsu
僧朝顔幾死にかへる法の松
Basho loved Chinese literature and one of his favorite books was the Zhuangzi, the Daoist anthology from the 3rd c. BCE. There is a Zhuangzi story about a pine tree large enough to cover 1,000 head of cattle. This tree had in fact lived so long that it served no practical purpose anymore. By the way, that is also the reason why Basho loved the useless plantain from which he derived his sobriquet. About the present pine tree, reputedly also 1,000 years old, Basho remarks in the foreword to the haiku that it is very fortunate the tree has escaped the penalty of being cut down with an ax. This is of course thanks to the Buddha's protection - that is what he refers to with 'Dharma,' which is the Teaching of the Buddha. In other words, Basho turns the story into a Buddhist one.
The tree, by the way, seems to have fallen victim to the axe after Basho's visit, because the present insignificant weed certainly does not have a trunk 'to hold a bull.' The hokku was meant as a complimentary greeting to the great temple, where this tree could live so long, while many generations of priests had passed away to be again reborn, their lives as brief as the morning glory. The long-lived tree symbolizes Taimadera, a temple that has kept the Light of the Law burning through the ages.
Taima Temple is indeed one of the oldest temples in Nara. It was originally established as the family temple of the Taima clan which embraced Buddhism early on. They also helped the future emperor Tenmu during the Jinshin war and enlarged/rebuilt the family temple after that event, in 681. The main image is a Miroku (Maitreya) Butsu (a national treasure), the Buddha of the Future, flanked by bearded Shitenno exuding a decidedly exotic central Asian flavor. Taima-dera is also the only temple that preserves a pair of pagodas in a style popular in the 7th and 8th centuries. The pagoda and Golden Hall with the statues face west, but in later centuries a new main hall was built at the northern end of the premises, and this hall faces south. The new main hall signifies a change in faith, as from a family temple centered on the Maitreya cult, in the 12th c. the temple became a proponent of the new Pure Land school. The new hall was built to house the Taima Mandala, a depiction of Amida’s paradise, according to legend woven in one day by Princess Chujo-hime, which became widely venerated due to the belief that the world was entering Mappo, the end time. The present Taima mandala is a 16th c. copy.
[The Main Hall containing the Taima Mandala, Taima temple]
First haiku:
The haiku stone stands to the side of the steps leading up to the Nigatsudo Hall in Todaiji.
20-min walk from Nara Kintetsu Station or JR Nara station
Fourth haiku:
The haiku stone stands in the front garden of the Nakanobo subtemple in the Taimadera complex; the pine tree can be found outside the gate of this Nakanobo.
10-min. walk from Taimadera Station on the Kintetsu Line.
Translations and Studies of Basho
Basho's Haiku, 2 vols, by Toshiharu Oseko (1990 & 1996, Maruzen): Basho and his Interpreters, Selected Hokku with Commentary, by Makoto Ueda (1992, Stanford U.P.); Traces of Dreams, Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho, by Haruo Shirane (1998, Stanford U.P.); Basho's Narrow Road, by Hiroaki Sato (1996, Stone Bridge Press); Basho's Journey, The Literary Prose of Matsuo Basho, by David Landis Bamhill (2005, State University of New York); Basho Yamatoji by Daiyasu Takashi considers Basho's travels in the Nara area and the haiku he wrote there (Izumi Shobo, 1994)
The Chuang Tzu has been translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1996).
Omizutori photo: via Wikimedia Commons.
The other photos in this post are my own.