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Songbirds, Swords, and Specters

Patrick McKenzie
Japan Civilization
October 2001

Japanese court culture underwent a series of changes during the transition from the Heian to Medieval (Kamakura-Ashikaga) periods. While some commonalties remained, the changes in philosophy and artistic sensibility cannot be understated. A useful method for appreciating these changes is the discussion of the seminal works from each era. These include the Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon and Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji from the Heian period, the Tale of the Heike from the Kamakura period, and Noh theatre and the tea ceremony from the Ashikaga period.

Courtly tastes, by the advent of the Heian period, had become defined by poetry. For example, one of the first major works of Japanese literature was the Kokinshu, an anthology collected at the request of the emperor early in the Heian period (circa 905 AD). It demonstrates a quality called miyabi. Roughly translated as “courtly elegance,” miyabi is nothing so much as a set of rules concerning which sorts of expression are proper for an aristocrat to indulge in. The Kokinshu set the standard for Japanese poetry for centuries, and the restraints it imposed, though they may have been written on rice paper, might as well have been chiseled into granite. For example, miyabi imposed a hierarchy among birds. Cranes were an appropriately elegant subject to dedicate a waka to – but not crows. Dragonflies could also merit inclusion – but only in autumn. Love, that perennial muse for poets everywhere, was always wistful or unattainable, never fiery or passionate (except in the case of the rare Ono no Komachi.)

It was from this fertile, if vigilantly weeded, literary garden that Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book sprang from. As the Pillow Book is largely written in diary form, it is an excellent account of what Heian era aristocrats thought, valued, and expected. For example, in the discussion of proper morning-after behavior for suitors, the value of miyabi is evident. The courtier was expected to read the Lotus sutras, not out of any great piety, but because they were beautiful poetry. The same courtier would switch tasks with an “amusing if blasphemous rapidity” when a letter arrived from his lover (Course Pack 42). The sutras were thus beautiful, elegant, and essentially devoid of any substance. Much the same can be said of the Pillow Book in general. Many of the lists that Sei Shonagon is famous for are, not to put to fine a point on it, banal. The thought that a very intelligent, learned woman would disturb her elegantly manicured hands to put to paper her concerns about the aesthetic qualities of duck eggs and the ideal foreheads for oxen is amusing, and reflective of a culture which valued a rigid system of defining beauty.

One of Sei Shonagon’s contemporaries, Murasaki Shikibu, demonstrated another feature of Japanese culture: mono no aware. The term refers to an awareness of the impermanence of things. It is perhaps best described as a “sensitivity, an appreciation of beauty, and a wistful Buddhist melancholy” (Morton 40). This melancholy is greatly evident in Murasaki Shikibu’s work The Tale of Genji. Genji’s father was the emperor, but his passionate love for Genji’s mother, in opposition to the natural order of things, eventually led to her death. Genji eventually came to grief because he, too, failed to realize that love, like all things, passes. Miyabi and mono no aware defined the Heian mindset.

The transition to the Kamakura period was like mono no aware sprung to life. As summer segues to autumn and love fades to indifference, so did the rule of Japan pass from aristocrats in the capital to a group of yokels with no skills beyond killing. The Taira clan used its substantial military prowess to force its way into power, but after achieving it attempted to settle into the refined role befitting the power behind the throne. This did not sit well with the imperial court, which did not desire to treat as equals those whom they viewed as having lately escaped the primordial ooze. The Taira had no appreciation of the classics; they could not spontaneously compose poetry about cherry blossoms. They sought to make their dominance permanent rather than accepting the inevitability of fate. Rather than engaging in all-night poetry contests in Kyoto, the imperial seat, they engaged in battle. In addition to alienating the court, the Taira’s drive to power had earned them the enmity of the Minamoto clan, and the ensuing war between the two saw the utter destruction of the Taira. The Tale of the Heike, which chronicles the aforementioned Gempei war, is very sympathetic to the Taira warriors if not their cause in general. Perhaps this is not surprising, given the fact that it was composed partially to placate the spirits of the dead. In any event, the warrior ethos it celebrates, of loyalty and finding a good death, is very far removed from the cuckoo-hunting excursions and courting of the Heian period. However, it still celebrates the value of mono no aware. One of the defining moments of the tale is when honor compels Naozane, a man of “no special importance”, to kill the beautiful Atsumori, thus ending his youth and beauty. Naozane is a heroic figure, as he is appropriately saddened by the necessity of the deed and hence becomes a monk, to devote his life to contemplating it. The patriarch of the Taira clan, Taira no Kiyomori, is an evil figure in the tale -- to the point where he bursts into flames, consumed by his pure hatred. This is because he refuses to bow to mono no aware and give up the things of this world, such as revenge against his enemies, before entering the next. In more general terms, his failing is attempting to gain lasting political power, rather than accepting the impermanence of it.

The Ashikaga period saw moderation of the extremes of the refined elegance of the Heian period and the rustic brutality of the Taira clan. Two art forms of particular importance were developed. Both the Noh form of theatre and the tea ceremony owe much to the sensibilities of previous periods. Both are essentially performance arts, as meticulously scripted as any Heian waka. However, as performance arts, they are inherently intangible. Thus, in a feature definitely reflecting mono no aware, no particular presentation of a Noh play or tea ceremony will ever be seen again. Even though the rules of Noh and the tea ceremony are rigidly prescribed, from the stylized movement of the Noh actors to the formulaic preparation of the tea, they do not quite share the miyabi sense of elegance of the Heian period. Noh celebrates yugen, a sort of sublime mystery that requires contemplation and defies description in mere words. The virtues of yugen could definitely not be expressed in one of Sei Shonagon’s famed lists. Tea ceremonies are excellent examples of sabi, which connotes both loneliness and a more rustic elegance than miyabi. The room the ceremony takes place in is all but bare of adornments to focus the participants on the elegant simplicity of the task at hand. The tools used are of common stock (earthenware, simple bamboo implements) but are meticulously crafted. The incense used is neither the heavy perfume of the Heian nor the blackened smoke of civilization ablaze from the Kamakura, rather, it is something that owes to both but belongs to neither.

In the European tradition, “The only thing that is constant is change”. In the Japanese tradition, the only invariant, from the Heian to Ashikaga periods, was mono no aware. It is from such paradox that civilization springs.