Deep Kyoto

good places - good people

  • About Deep Kyoto
  • About Michael Lambe
    • ARTICLES BY MICHAEL LAMBE
    • ARTICLES FOR INSIDE KYOTO
  • Books
  • Deep Kyoto Hotels
  • Pottery Fair
  • Kimono Stall
  • 日本語

“Kyoto Uta Kiko” (Song Travels in Kyoto) — Rokuhara-mita Temple

June 15, 2011 By Michael Lambe Leave a Comment

Here’s this month’s poetry contribution from Keiji Minato:

枇杷の咲く路地抜け右へ折れましてまっすぐ行けば六波羅蜜寺    坪内稔典
Biwa no saku Roji nuke Migi e oremashite Massugu ikeba Rokuhara-mita-ji
TSUBOUCHI Toshinori

Passing through an alley
where you see loquat blossoms
and taking a right turn
and then going straight gets you
to Rokuhara-mita Temple

『京都うた紀行』 (Kyoto Uta Kiko ~ Poetic Travelogues in Kyoto) (2010) by NAGATA Kazuhiro and KAWANO Yuko has a subtitle: 近現代の歌枕を訪ねて(Visiting Modern and Contemporary Utamakura). The term “utamakura” (歌枕) is usually used for old Japanese traditional poetic forms, and means the name of a place which is used in great literary works many times and has come to have special connotations associated with it. In the book, Nagata and Kawano, both great tanka writers, take up modern/contemporary tanka with the names of places in Kyoto to renew this rhetorical tradition for the 21st century.
The poem I quoted in the beginning is a tanka by Tsubouchi Toshinori (He is one of today’s most popular haiku writers but also writes tanka like this one, longer poems, and great essays). It might sound like it is just giving directions to the temple in English; and actually, it does so too in Japanese! In Japanese traditional poetic forms it sometimes happens that describing an extremely ordinary thing with no affectations gives a poem lightness in a poetical sense, which makes the reader irresistibly smile. You can say that the one above has comical haiku qualities, as Kawano says in her short essay with it.
Rokuhara-mita Temple (六波羅蜜寺) is in the Higashiyama Ward of Kyoto City and famous for its statue of Saint Kuya (空也上人). The statue is really unique: From Saint Kuya’s opened mouth several little Buddhas are flying out! (Every Japanese pupil sees a picture of it in their history textbook; of course, they love it!). Kuya in his life walked around Japan, preaching and chanting 南無阿弥陀仏(Nam-amida-butsu). So, the thumb-sized bodies coming out of his mouth are Amitabha Buddhas.

Statue of Kuya at Rokuhara-mita Temple

Kawano notes the temple was built on the border of Kyoto City in Kuya’s time, and to the west of it were hills generally called Toribe-no (鳥辺野), where people took the dead for cremation. Saint Kuya built Rokuhara-mita Temple to pray for them. Knowing this you might sense religious feelings even behind the matter-of-fact description of Tsubouchi’s poem.
Kawano adds her own tanka after the essay, which shows the historical connotation of the place more clearly:

風花のこの道を空也も歩きしと土は記憶せり六波羅蜜寺へ   河野裕子

The earth remembers
Saint Kuya too
walked on this road
with snowflakes in spring
to Rokuhara-mita Temple

**********************************

This text and translations by Keiji Minato. Keiji writes a guest blog for Deep Kyoto once a month introducing Kyoto’s poets and poetry. You can find former articles by Keiji Minato here.

Here is a map to Rokuhara-mita Temple. It lies just east of Yamato-Ooji St., between Gojo St. to the south and Matsubara St. to the north.

Of Related Interest:
Cities of Green Leaves 青葉の都市 – Ginko no Kukai
The Hojoki – Visions of a Torn World
Irish Haiku!
One Hundred Poets on Mount Ogura, One Poem Each
Introducing Keiji Minato
Songs and Stories of the Kojiki retold by Yoko Danno
Japan International Poetry Society


Filed Under: Keiji Minato, Poetry, Temples

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Kyoto: A Literary Guide #AD

Kyoto mon Amour by Eric Schaefer

https://youtu.be/FURg-f3wZeQ

Kyoto mon Amour by Eric Schaefer #AD

Streaming, MP3, CD, Vinyl

Amazon Explore #AD


Virtually explore Gion, Kyoto’s traditional Geisha district
Ken’s Tours Kyoto
$55.00
40 minute session

Virtually stroll & shop Kyoto’s Teramachi Street
Beauty of Japan
$55.00
60 minute session


Zen Buddhism and meditation: a virtual
tour of Kyoto’s Nanzenji Temple

Ken’s Tours Kyoto
$35.00
40 minute session


Virtually explore Kyoto’s traditional
Higashiyama neighborhood

Intrepid Urban Adventures
$90.00
75 minute session

Deep Kyoto’s Best…

BARS
CAFES
DINING
EVENTS
HOTELS

Deep Kyoto Essentials #ad

Follow Deep Kyoto on Twitter

Tweets by @deepkyoto

Japan Station

Japan Transportation Guide
Japan Transportation Guide
Kyoto Transportation Guide
Kyoto Transportation Guide
Osaka Transportation Guide
Osaka Transportation Guide

Online Courses From Keio University

Online Courses from Keio University

Exploring Japanese Avant-garde Art Through Butoh Dance

The Art of Washi Paper in Japanese Rare Books

Japanese Culture Through Rare Books

An Introduction to Japanese Subcultures

Search for Hotels

Search hotels and more...

Destination

Check-in date

Check-out date

Booking.com

Copyright © 2021 · Deep Kyoto.