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9A perspective to see the landscape of the garden through a famous story that has been handed down
Naokata Okaijma Minami kyusyu University, Miyakonojo city, JAPAN, okaj ima@nankyudai .ac.jp
Abstract. The garden of the house where Japanese landscape architect Juki Iida lived was prototyped in 1967, later modified, and demolished in 2011. This paper takes a scene from the garden and interprets it through a famous story the author knows. First of all, I associated the story of Momotaro, which is handed down in Japan. Next, I recalled a story similar to this, the story of Exodus. This paper examined Iida's garden while comparing the story with the actual scenery. Keywords: Zuki Iida, Momotaro, lantern, ark
Juki Iida ffiH+a (1890-1977) is listed on Wikipedia as a "Japanese landscape architect and garden maker" and as a "founder of a garden of miscellaneous trees."
1. Scenery created by lantern and fence
To get to the entrance of Iida's house, walk through the Kido at the entrance of the garden and walk along the curved garden road that goes up to the upper right. Standing by the front door of the house, there is a small garden on the right side. There is a tea room in the house with this garden in front. The name of the tea room is hung on the outer wall. Figure 1 shows the garden in front of the tea room. What do you feel when you look at the scenery? There is a lantern slightly to the left of the center of the figure, and behind it is a fence, surrounded by an L-shape. Looking at the relationship between the height of the lantern and the wall, if the height of the wall is higher than the top of the lantern, how would it look different from now?
When walking along the garden road from the entrance of the garden toward the entrance of the house, the back side (the other side) of the scene in Fig. 1 can be seen. That is the landscape of Fig. 2. There is a roof tile on the Tsui-ji fence. Because of this fence, the tea room is not visible when walking from the entrance of the garden. At this time, I would like to interpret the meaning of this landscape by paying attention to the landscape that can be seen in this place, that is, the landscape created by the fence, the roof tiles, and the upper part of the lantern that can be seen above it.
It is clear that Iida's own gardening intention was to create this landscape by the method of "Oku-yukasisal)". As you walk, you can see some of the elements of the landscape, but you cannot see the whole picture, so if you are drawn to it and move forward, a new landscape that you want to go further will appear. This continues in the Japanese garden1).
Fig. 1. A landscape from the tea room (^^^HpXpf^^^ Fig. 2 A landscape from the Entrance of the garden (N.Okajima 1997 )
However, I would like to see this in a viewer's own way 2). The upper part of the lantern can be seen from the top of the fence. The tiles are lined up in the horizontal direction just below, so it looks like there is a diagonal line here. Also, this tile seems to represent the expression of flowing water. Assuming this scene, there are two stories that I remember.
One is the story of "Momotaro (Peach boy) 3)" in Japan. When the grandfather goes to the river to pick up firewood and the grandmother goes to the river to do the laundry, the grandmother finds the peaches that have flowed into the river, catch it, and takes it home. A baby comes out of the peach. The baby then grew up to be a good young man and eventually did a big job. The upper part of the lantern in Fig. 2 looks like a scene where something is flowing. It is not necessary to look at it that way, but with that kind of association, the scene in Fig. 2 can be seen as a scene that expresses the so-called "Momotaro" that has been handed down in Japan. I would like to present one such perspective.
By the way, what is actually in this garden is not a peach, but a stone structure called a "CTffi (lantern)". When the compound word of this kanji is decomposed and interpreted, it is a "basket" with a "light". Are there any famous stories shared by the world that remind us of Momotaro's story?
I would like to propose the story of Moses in the book of Exodus 2. Shortly after his birth, Moses was placed in a "papyrus basket" and placed between the bushes of reeds near the Nile. The Egyptian princess found it, took it, and decided to raise it as her own child. The princess named the child "Moses". The reason for the name(n$b) is said to be that the princess pulled it out of the water 4). Moses was in a "basket". Momotaro was in "Momo (peach)". The container they were placed in is different. Moses did a big job when he became an adult. Since there is a "lantern" in this garden, the concept of "basket" remains. If you look at this landscape in the garden, you can see it as a scene from Momotaro's story and a scene showing Moses' upbringing. It cannot be proved whether the garden maker intended to show such a thing, but it was just imagined by the viewer.
Let's take a closer look at Fig. 1, which is the scenery seen from the back side of Fig. 2, that is, the tea room. The basket is important, but if the basket is not floating on the water, one child inside is unsafe. Therefore, the basket needs to be raised above the water's edge, that is, in the air.
Looking at this lantern again, the window part of the fire bag is higher than the position of the tile, so this basket looks like it is floating on the water5). Seen from the side of the tea room, the sunlight shining on the south side of the wall enters the window of this lantern and looks bright and shining.
2. Scenery created by bamboo
There is a tsuku-bai in the center of the garden. A bamboo stick is installed toward the cho-zu-bachi to store water. Bamboo is attached sideways to the rod-shaped rising part, which has a natural feel that makes it unlikely that water will come out. Water flows from the bamboo. The gradient is gentle. Bamboo is likely to be over 1 meter long, giving a long impression. It crosses in front of the cedar tree in the back. Here, the vertical line made by the trunk of the cedar and the horizontal line made by the bamboo cross. You can see the shape of the character "+(ten)" that Iida cherished.
Water flows from the bamboo and falls onto the cho-zu-bachi. Let's take a look at the continuation of the story that Moses was involved in earlier. As the Israelites fled Egypt and traveled through the arid regions, they finally reached a place where water was scarce, and the people told Moses that they were "thirsty." So Moses hit the rock in the arid area with a cane. There is a story that water came out of the rock
and the people could drink it. There were two such events (Exodus 17, Numbers 20). So, why don't we think of the long bamboo that guides the water in this garden as a symbol of Moses' cane? By hitting the rock with a cane, water came out of the rock and many people were able to drink it. In the story, the water came out from the rock, but if we were to express the cane that triggered this event with bamboo, we could see the symbolic expression that water came out of the bamboo. Thus, there were two events in which Moses drained water from the rock for thirsty people.
A stone Jizo is placed on the left side of Fig. 1. Jizo may be placed alone, but here it looks like two Jizo are in a pair. Jizo is said to indicate the shape of the Bodhisattva that appears in Buddhism, but from the story of Moses, can it be seen as a symbol of the water coming out of the rocks in the arid land twice?
The above interpretation does not mean that Mr. Iida, who made it, thought in this way. I have shown one way to explain this garden using a famous story known to the people of the world. When I looked at this garden without thinking, I was touched by the scenery and at the same time, I was filled with a feeling of fertility and calmness. I have nothing to add to the master's work, but when I wondered if I could show the universality of this garden in another way, this approach came up. I hope this method does not undermine the value and splendor of this garden.
The Old Testament story was made before the beginning of Buddhism and is considered to be older. The old ones may affect the new ones, and the opposite is unlikely, so in that sense, this paper may have a certain meaning. However, one of the limitations of this consideration is that in the Japanese word "lantern CTffi", only the "basket ffi" part is taken out and its meaning is deciphered by the Bible. Also, I could not afford to give consideration to the Japanese meaning of the kanji "basket ffi".
Bibliography
1. Juki Iida (1969): Hobby Notebook: 9:20-10:39 min. Interview sound, Japanese only
2. Juki Iida (1969): Hobby Notebook: 11:13- 11:40 min. Interview sound, Japanese only
There is a word that Iida talked about how to look at the garden. "I would like to say how you should look at the garden. As long as the creator does not explain it, even if a third party explains it, it will not be understood. Therefore, I think it is best for the person who visited the site to interpret it as something like this, or something like that, depending on the person's point of view."
3. The story of Momotaro in general is assumed. See, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k75rkB61Bk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj74Obi6BsU
4. Although the basket was placed on the banks of the Nile, it was waterproof, indicating that it was built so that it would not be flooded even if the river water increased. Also, the fact that the princess named Moses in the sense that she pulled it out of the water shows that this basket was not placed on a safe land unrelated to water. If the basket hadn't floated above the water, the princess wouldn't have given him such a name.
5. In the King James version of the Bible, the basket in which Moses was placed is referred to as an ark. It is expressed like this. "And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein; and she laid it in the flags by the river's brink." Another famous arc that appears in the Old Testament in the King James version are Noah's Ark and the Ark of the Covenant. Upon examination in yet another source, it was found that in the original Bible language, the word "basket" containing Moses and the word "ark" in Noah's Ark are the same word "B 5 n". This is described in "Jay Green,Sr. (1985): The Interlinear Bible Hebrew English: volume 1, p.14, p.143." First, I looked up the Japanese version of the Bible (joint translation) to find out what words are used to describe the container containing Moses. It turns out that the container is represented by the word "basket(ffi )". What is actually placed in the garden is a "lantern". If you write "lantern" in kanji, it is a combination of "light CT" and "basket ffi". I used the method of exploring the concept by investigating what is "basket ffi" in these two kanji. It is an interpretation that is opened by recognizing that the basket is the container in which Moses was placed.
