Learning about Ise at Kogakkan: Day 12
After the lectures today we went to an old-fashioned used bookstore full of extremely good-quality works of history, literary criticism, and philosophy. Micchan bought the Heike monogatari, Michael bought a full set of Biographies of Japanese Swordsmen, and I found some nice books by Kure Tomofusa. The owner did not charge me full price for them, even though they were only priced at 400 yen each. I reflected on this a lot as we walked back to the dormitory, and I believe that the only reason he could have done this is because he didn’t care about the price at all, but was simply happy to see so many foreigners interested in Japanese literature. This is a type of interaction that I will never have over Amazon.
Without further ado, here are summaries of the three lectures!
Shimizu Kiyoshi
The gist of President Shimizu’s talk was that the Saiō symbolically brought the miyabi, or urban beauty, of the imperial capital to Ise. For a summary of his main point I will forward readers to Paula’s blog. I was much more interested in three tangents he went on:
(1) Why is the shikinen sengū necessary? He asked us to supply answers, and I gave him the standard answer that it’s because the kami like new, well-maintained buildings better than old buildings. He agreed, but then looked very expectantly to the room for another answer. He must have really expected more creativity from us! He then offered to us the possibility that the shikinen sengū teaches us a constant lesson about maintaining our mastery of difficult arts. The shikinen sengū creates something that is “newly old” (新しく古い). It therefore is a constant renewal and “revival” (甦り) of tradition. These days, the traditional crafts involved are so hard to come by that the implements for the shikinen sengū are often produced by “living national treasures”. But the renewal is about more than just the technology involved. The entire ritual must be constantly in the memory of the shrine priests, and the memory must be turned into action on a regular basis, once every 20 years.
(2) When Japan’s era name or nengō system was first introduced, said Professor Shimizu, they changed the name of the era whenever a good omen occurred, such as a great harvest or the appearance of a beautiful cloud. But by the later Heian period, the era was only changed when there was a bad omen, in order to ward off evil. The character of a nation changes with the times. Over the centuries, the Heian court became lax in its observation of the omens, and fell into depravity. Just like ancient Rome, the Heian aristocrats enjoyed endless parties as their political system began to decay around them. The Genji monogatari is a kind of high-water mark in the development of the classical court; a book that could not have been written in the Asuka or Nara periods, but which foreshadowed a decline.
(3) Ise is not the only religious institution in Japan that has been operated continuously since Asuka times. The Tōdaiji temple in Nara was built in in the early 8th century and has held a ceremony called shunie 修二会 nearly every year since 752. This year will mark the 1264th annual ceremony, which involves a traditional combination of Buddhist and Shinto rituals.
Sako Kazukiyo
Yamada Yoshio has been dubbed “the last national scholar,” but I believe we heard today from the last prewar scholar, Kogakkan’s director Sako Kazukiyo 佐古一洌. Unlike most of the other professors who spoke to us, Sako-sensei had no PowerPoint. Actually, his entire talk was a series of handwritten notes, and it quickly became evident he had never used a computer. He spoke in the highly educated and chauvinistic style of a prewar professor, which I found remarkably endearing, but also almost completely incomprehensible.
In place of an introduction, Sako-sensei shared with us some remarks about being old; he is 74, and as there are over 50,000 centenarians in Japan, he expects to live a bit longer. They are mostly women, though, so he amended this to say maybe he wouldn’t live that long. He said there was a method to beating senility named after the powers of 10. One must do the following every day: read one book, laugh 10 times, stretch 100 times, write 1000 characters (i.e. a letter to a friend), and walk 10,000 steps (一読、十笑、百吸、千字、万歩). To be honest this sounds like a great plan not just for old people but for people of every age.
Sako-sensei’s talk revolved around two points: (1) the Japanese spirit of magokoro, which I have written about in connection with the Genji monogatari, and (2) the Japanese tradition of matsuri, festivals. Matsuri is the expression of magokoro, and this is all that ever needs to happen in Japan. Unlike President Shimizu, Director Sako lives in a glorious, timeless state where the Japanese spirit and festivals are not subject to weathering and decay, but have simply always existed, and always will. He saw on television once that there are over 300,000 matsuri celebrated in Japan every year; therefore there are hundreds of matsuri taking place somewhere in the country every day. Contemplating this is clearly a great delight for him. He offered some words in praise of Minakata Kumagusu, who tried to stop the consolidation of shrines and save local chinjū-no-mori ecosystems back in the Meiji period.
The origin of these hundreds of thousands of matsuri was in desire for health, long life, marriage, safe childbirth, and worldly success. These are all expressed through magokoro, an honest heart. (Although he criticized the Chinese for encouraging selfish behavior in their philosophy, Sako-sensei’s definition of magokoro is rather Neo-Confucian, as I pointed out in my Genji paper.) Because women more often pray for the success of others, they have more pure hearts than balding old fools like Sako himself; this information came to him via his daughter. But regardless, Amaterasu commanded Lord Jimmu to create a country of people with pure and honest hearts, so it is the duty of every Japanese to avoid la négativité. In this one-hour talk, I am fairly certain that the only loan-word Sako-sensei employed was this one word “negatiibu“. The only thing he wrote on the board was the related phrase 神州清潔の民, “pure people of the divine country”.
Modernity was just a bothersome bit of foolishness to Sako-sensei, who whipped out a bit of English skills to quote Lincoln’s phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” then replaced the Japanese word for “people,” jinmin 人民, with what he called its Edo period equivalent, ugō-no-shu 烏合の衆, making democracy the “government of the rabble, by the rabble, for the rabble.” The people of the Edo period had a better goal in mind: self-sufficiency, 自給自足. They were able to produce for themselves (自給), and they felt satisfied with what they had (自足). The complex world of democratic politics and technology is a mere distraction from the essentials of magokoro and matsuri.
Sako-sensei had saved the real tear-jerker for the end of his speech: a soaring anecdote about the end of the Pacific War. He was apparently completely unconcerned by the fact that the grandparents of his audience would have been fighting on the opposite side in that war; but in the end this didn’t matter anyway, because I am convinced that, since our Japanese friends were not listening to this talk, no one in the room understood a word he was saying at this point. The majority of his anecdote was a direct quotation of the way people spoke in 1945, which is basically Greek. So if my classmates are reading this and think I must be some kind of genius to have written down the whole anecdote, please rest assured that all I did was write down some misspelled names and dates and found the text he was quoting on the Internet.
On August 14, 1945, past 11 PM, after the Cabinet meeting on ending the war had adjourned, I [Hisatsune Sakomizu] entered the Prime Minister [antiwar navy admiral Suzuki Kantarō]’s office, and offered my thanks to him for taking on the challenges of that day.
We sat facing each other, and it naturally it was impossible to avoid crying. The Prime Minister sat across from me in pensive silence.
Unexpectedly, we heard a knock at the door. We turned to see Army Minister Anami [Korechika] enter with his sword equipped and his hat at his side. I stood and observed from the side.
The Army Minister walked directly to the Prime Minister’s desk and bowed respectfully.
“I said many things at today’s cabinet meeting, and I fear I must have caused some offense. I wish to humbly offer my apologies. My sole desire is for the protection of the national polity; I have no private motive. I beg your understanding of this.”
Seeing tears falling from Army Minister Anami’s face, I also began to cry. Then the Prime Minister, nodding in assent, rose to meet Army Minister Anami and said,
“I understand your intention, but Anami, the royal house will remain secure. No matter what happens, His Majesty will continue to personally and thoughtfully make offerings to the imperial ancestors every spring and autumn.”
Army Minister Anami said, “This I too believe.” He bowed deeply and departed.
After I saw him off at the door, the Prime Minister said, “Korechika came to say goodbye.”
I shall never forget that sight, as long as I shall live.
Anami Korechika committed seppuku later that night. But he died knowing that the matsuri would go on.
Kamo Masanori
Our last lecture of the day was from Kamo Masanori 加茂正典. He gave us the surprising news that the Saiō system was not the only link between the classical court and Ise. This was actually kind of comforting in a way, because I was wondering who actually was allowed inside Ise between 1300 and 1700. The Saiō didn’t come anymore, and the Emperor never visited… were the shrine priests and miko very lonely in there?
In fact there was another imperial messenger, called the Shiō 使王, who appeared even in the Nihon Shoki. Kamo-sensei seemed to have a poor sense of time and spent most of the hour explaining the divination system by which the Shiō was selected in the classical period. We heard that his main duty was to make offerings of silk and thread, but we did not get to hear about the rest of his job.
Unlike the Saiō system, the Shiō system continued throughout the Warring States and Edo periods, making it a hallmark 1150-year tradition that ended in… YUP, THAT’S RIGHT, 1871.
Posted: March 6th, 2015 | Kogakkan