The Cambridge History of Japan, Vol. 3: Medieval Japan

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THE EVOLUTION OF NEW INTERIOR SETTINGS 469

and the like and did not necessarily imply formal association with the

Ji or any other Buddhist sect.

Some of those who took ami names entered into the direct service of

Shogun Yoshimitsu and his successors and formed a group known as

the

doboshu

(companions). Although there are still many unanswered

questions concerning the role of the doboshu during the Muromachi

period, it appears that they began simply as menials who ran errands

and performed miscellaneous chores for the shogun. They became

important to cultural history when they were given responsibility for

arranging and overseeing the social and ceremonial functions of the

bakufu.

One manner in which Yoshimitsu attempted to transform the office

of shogun into what I call a feudal kingship was the institutionalization

of a calendar of formal events for warriors imitating the annual events

(nenju-gydji) of the imperial court. Perhaps the most conspicuous of

these events was the procession of the shogun (onari) at New Year's

and other times to the Kyoto mansions of his leading vassals, who by

this time were obliged to maintain nearly full-time residency in the

capital. There were also important events held on special occasions,

such as the six-day visit of Emperor Goen'yu (1358-93) to the Hana no

Gosho in 1381 and the twenty-day visit of Emperor Gokomatsu (1377-

1433) to Yoshimitsu's Kitayama estate in 1408.

The parties and celebrations that were arranged during such events

were similar to the social affairs held by the earlier

basara

daimyo and

included music, dance, dengaku and sarugaku (noh) performances,

waka and

renga

compositions, and the drinking of tea. Besides promot-

ing these arts, they helped create a new interior setting, known from

contemporary records as the kaisho (banquet chamber), for socializing

among members of both the warrior and courtier elites. The evolution

of this new setting in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries

was so significant that historians often discuss the period in terms of

kaisho culture. This is because several of the most important forms of

Muromachi art and culture, such as

renga

and chanoyu, were premised

on intimate social intercourse for which the kaisho and, from the late

fifteenth century on, the shoin served as settings.

Moreover, as the

kaisho and shoin rooms and appropriate decorations evolved, other

36 H. Paul Varley, "Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and the World of Kitayama: Social Change and Sho-

gunal Patronage in Early Muromachi Japan," in John Whitney Hall and Takeshi Toyoda,

eds.,

Japan in the Muromachi Age (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,

I977)> PP- 188-9. 37 The shoin room will be described later in this chapter.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

470 CULTURAL LIFE

arts,

including ink painting

(sumi-e)

on vertical hanging scrolls and

flower arranging, were also greatly advanced.

The shogun's

doboshu

played a central role in the development of

both the

kaisho

and

shoin.

Although many

doboshu,

such as the famous

"three ami" (Noami, 1397-1471; his son Geiami, 1431-85; and his

son Soami, d. 1525), were artists in their own right,

their main

function as a group was to establish criteria for the evaluation and

display of

karamono.

The best source for information about these

criteria and the work of the

doboshu

in this area is

Kundaikan

sochoki.

Begun by Noami and completed by Soami, it contains three sections: a

listing and evaluation of some 150 Chinese artists and their works,

illustrated descriptions of ways to display paintings and other

karamono,

and a discussion of the kinds of Chinese works of art and

craft that should be shown to guests.

In the last years of his life, Yoshimitsu devoted much time to the

construction of his Kitayama estate, where he lived after 1397 in the

manner of a retired emperor. Of the many buildings that once made up

this estate, only the Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion) has been preserved

into modern times, and it remains

striking symbol of the brilliance of

the Kitayama epoch of cultural history.

Architecturally, the

Kinkakuji is an amalgam of the older courtier

(shinden)

style of con-

struction and newer features associated with the buildings of medieval

Zen temples. Perhaps the strongest impression one receives when view-

ing the Kinkakuji, with its low ceilings and gently sloping

roof,

is of

much greater intimacy that in earlier Japanese buildings. Such inti-

macy seems quite in keeping with the new habits of social intercourse

and standards of artistic tastes than brought about the

kaisho

during

this same period.

SOCIAL IDEALS AND AESTHETIC VALUES OF THE

HIGASHIYAMA EPOCH

Study of the cultural history of the mid-Muromachi period usually

focuses on the two peaks of Yoshimitsu's Kitayama epoch and the late-

fifteenth-century Higashiyama, or "Eastern Hills," epoch of the

eighth Ashikaga shogun, Yoshimasa (1436-90). The obvious danger in

concentrating on these two periods of cultural brilliance is the implica-

tion that little of significance occurred during the three intervening

38 For example, both Geiami and Soami were noted painters.

39 The Kinkakuji was burned down by a deranged monk in 1950 but was rebuilt a few years

later.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

SOCIAL IDEALS AND AESTHETIC VALUES 471

decades. Because shogunal patronage was so important to both the

Kitayama and Higashiyama epochs, we might suppose that the sho-

guns of the interim period, Yoshimochi and Yoshinori, were less ear-

nest in their support of the arts. This was by no means the case. Both

Yoshimochi and Yoshinori were men of great artistic discrimination

and taste, and they actively continued the bun policies inaugurated by

Yoshimitsu.

For example, Yoshimochi and Yoshinori markedly ex-

panded the warrior calendar of annual events, instituting, among

other things, monthly waka and renga gatherings. Yoshinori was also

responsible for urging the compilation of the twenty-first and last

imperially authorized waka anthology, Shinzoku kokinshu, which was

completed in 1439. Also, it was during Yoshinori's bakufu rule that

Noami became a member of the dobdshu and played a leading role,

along with the shdgun, in the evolution of the first major form of the

tea ceremony, denchu chanqyu (the aristocratic tea ceremony).

A simple division between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

provides a periodization more meaningful than that yielded by focus-

ing only on the Kitayama and Higashiyama eras, for the new century

brought important developments that led to the Higashiyama flower-

ing. These developments included the establishment of standards for

evaluating and appreciating karamono, evolution of the shoin room

setting, formalization of the preparation and serving of tea, a deepen-

ing nostalgia for the past, and the rise in popularity of linked verse

among all classes to a nearly consuming passion.

We can also observe, by the beginning of the fifteenth century, a

new emphasis on certain social ideals and aesthetic values of earlier

origin but that collectively gave the Higashiyama epoch its special

coloration. The main social ideals were those of the inja (or

tonseisha,

person who has taken Buddhist vows and placed himself outside the

official class ordering),

the wandering priest, and life in a hut (soan).

The aesthetic values included sabi, wabi (the austere and irregular),

and hiekareru (cold and withered).

People who took Buddhist vows in early and medieval Japan did so

with various intentions, the most important distinction being between

those who joined particular sects or temples and devoted themselves to

the true life of religion and those who took vows either to break free of

the restraints imposed by a class system based almost exclusively on

40 Zeami, who had no reason to love Yoshimochi, said that he possessed finer taste than did

Yoshimitsu.

41 Inja means, literally, a "hidden person," whereas

tonseisha

means a "person who has with-

drawn from the world." The closest English equivalent to these terms is eremite.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

472 CULTURAL LIFE

birth or to avoid the normal duties and responsibilities of

society.

The

second group of priests are commonly known as inja or

tonseisha

and

included (among those who have already appeared in this chapter)

Saigyo, Kamo no Chomei, Kan'ami and Zeami, and the members of

the shogunal

doboshu.

Some inja, such as Saigyo, gained distinction

through their frequent travels throughout the country. In the Japanese

literary tradition, traveling implied at least two important things.

First, it meant the opportunity to visit the famous sites of history and

literature, view them firsthand, and express one's feelings about them,

usually in verse. Second, it symbolized release from the ordinary social

and material attachments of life and acceptance of human existence for

what, in Buddhist terms, it really was - fleeting and insubstantial, a

state of ceaseless flux.

The

inja

were also associated with the renunciation of material things

by retirement to reclusive life in a hut. One of

the

most famous

soan

Japanese literature is Kamo no Chomei's "ten-foot square" hut.

Chomei's desire, expressed so movingly in

Hojoki,

to prepare himself

for rebirth in the Pure Land by rejecting all worldly possessions and

retreating

to a

bare existence in

tiny hovel, however,

was

not shared by

most other inja. Rather, as we shall see in the discussion of

renga

and

chanoyu,

the

soan

became more of an aesthetic than a religious ideal: It

was not conceived by

inja

mean hovel but as

microcosmic setting

of beauty based on

sabi,

wabi, and similar aesthetic tastes.

Sabi and wabi are probably the two key aesthetic terms of the

fifteenth century. I wish to reserve further analysis of wabi until I

discuss the wabi form of

chanoyu

that was first evolved by Murata

Shuko (d. 1502) in the Higashiyama epoch. But it should be noted

here that the two terms are commonly used together to connote a wide

range of Muromachi-period tastes, including a preference for the aus-

tere,

the old, the worn, the irregular, the imperfect, and the lonely. In

general, we may think of

sabi

and

wabi

as representing the monochro-

matic aspect of the Muromachi period, as contrasted with the vividly

colorful quality of Heian-period court culture.

One of the earliest depictions of the sabi-wabi realm of Muro-

machi culture is to found in

Tsurezuregusa

(Essays in idleness), writ-

ten in the early 1330s by Yoshida Kenko (1283-1350), a minor-

ranking courtier and poet who became an inja.

Tsurezuregusa

is a

miscellany (zuihitsu, or flowing brush) in the tradition of the mid-

Heian-period Makura no

soshi

(Pillow book) of Sei Shonagon. It is

characteristic of the

zuihitsu

genre that the author writes impressionis-

tically rather than with any clear attempt to be logical. Kenko cer-

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

LINKED-VERSE POETRY 473

tainly did not present a consistent or overall philosophy in Tsurezu-

regusa, and commentators over the centuries have variously regarded

it as a work of didacticism, aesthetics, and even social criticism.

Yet

we can note some significant consistencies in Tsurezuregusa. Kenko

was always nostalgic for times gone by, proclaiming "a longing in all

things for the past," and he was driven by an urge to preserve even

the smallest of ancient practices and customs (yusoku kojitsu).** In

addition, Kenko rigorously criticized ostentation and repeatedly

urged simplicity of taste and moderation in behavior.

Perhaps the most important thing to be said about Kenko is that he

possessed an excellent "eye" for things, and in this sense his book is a

treasure trove of medieval aesthetics. The following passages exem-

plify Kenko's sabi-wabi sensibility:

house, though it may not be in the current fashion or elaborately decorated,

will appeal to us by its unassuming beauty - a grove of trees with an

indefinably ancient look; a garden where plants, growing of their own accord,

have a special charm; a verandah and an open-work wooden fence of interest-

ing construction; and a few personal effects left carelessly lying about, giving

the place an air of having been lived in. Somebody once remarked that thin

silk was not satisfactory as a scroll wrapping because it was so easily torn.

Ton'a replied, "It is only after the silk wrapper has frayed at the top and

bottom and the mother-of-pearl has fallen from the roller that a scroll looks

beautiful." This opinion demonstrated the excellent taste of the man. People

often say that a set of books looks ugly if all volumes are not in the same

format, but I was impressed to hear the Abbot Koyu say, "It is typical of the

unintelligent man to insist on assembling complete sets of everything. Imper-

fect sets are better." In everything, no matter what it may be, uniformity is

undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives

one the feeling that there is room for growth.

LINKED-VERSE POETRY

One of the most characteristic arts, and indeed fervid preoccupations,

of the medieval age was linked-verse

(renga)

poetry. Because the great-

est renga master, Sogi (1421-1502), lived his life almost entirely dur-

ing the fifteenth century, it is fitting to discuss the development of

linked verse here.

The technique of dividing the waka into two discrete links of three

42 The Japanese of the Tokugawa period generally regarded

Tsurezuregusa

as a didactic work,

whereas during the Meiji period its aesthetic content was stressed. More recently, scholars

have made much of what they perceive as the social criticism in Kenko's writing.

43 Donald Keene, trans., Essays

in Idleness

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 29.

44 Ibid., pp. 10,70.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

474 CULTURAL LIFE

lines of five, seven, and five syllables and two lines of seven syllables

each dates back to the Kojiki, the oldest extant Japanese book.

But

there was little experimentation in the use of such links until the Heian

period. True

renga,

wherein several poets gathered together and alter-

nately composed links of verse and joined them into chainlike se-

quences of

hundred or even a thousand or more, did not evolve until

the early thirteenth century in the salon of the retired emperor

Gotoba, compiler of

the.Shinkokinshu.

Renga remained popular among court poets for the rest of the

Kamakura period. Meanwhile, the composition of linked verse also

spread among members of the lower classes and was sometimes called

renga

"under the blossoms," because of the practice of holding parties

on temple grounds in the spring to compose verses beneath the blos-

soming trees.

The widespread growth of a commoner tradition in

renga

caused

considerable variations in the methods, purpose, and general quality

of composition throughout the country. For example, an anonymously

written satirical tract posted in Kyoto in 1334, a year after the over-

throw of the Kamakura bakufu and during the Kemmu restoration,

claimed that in the capital the vulgar Kamakura and elegant Kyoto

styles of

renga

were being freely intermixed, distinctions between he-

reditary and newly formed

renga

schools were being ignored, and

everyone deemed himself qualified to serve as a judge at versing com-

petitions.

The authors of Kemmu

shikimoku,

a brief formulary of

admonitions issued by the Ashikaga bakufu in 1336, asserted that

people then were "addicted to the pleasure of loose women, and en-

gage in gambling. . . . Under the pretext of holding tea parties and

renga

competitions, they make great wagers, and their expenses are

beyond calculation."

We can deduce from this that

renga

versifying,

like tea competitions, had become a popular diversion among the

basara

daimyo and others in the early Muromachi period.

Yet developments were also under way that merged

renga's

aristo-

cratic and commoner strains and established it as a recognized, serious

art. The two people chiefly responsible for the

renga's

success at this

time were Nijo Yoshimoto (1320-88), the imperial regent and later

confidant-adviser of Yoshimitsu, and the inja poet Gusai (or Kyusai).

45 See Donald L. Philippi, trans., Kojiki (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969),

pp.

242-3. This so-called oldest renga contains the place name Tsukuba, and linked-verse

poetry later became known as the way of Tsukuba.

46 The Nijo-Kawara lampoons in Kemmu

nenkan

ki in Hanawa Hokinoichi, ed.,

Gunsho ruiju

(Tokyo: Zoku gunsho ruiju kanseikai, 1933), vol. 25, pp. 503-4.

Gunsho

ruiju, vol. 22, pp. 33-34.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

LINKED-VERSE POETRY 475

Working together, they compiled Tsukubashu, whose appearance in

1356 gave renga a status in poetry that had previously been reserved

exclusively for waka. Although lacking the ancient tradition of waka,

renga was thereafter regarded as a pursuit of significance and high

artistic purpose.

Nijo Yoshimoto who wrote several pieces on the history and art of

renga, expressed the belief that the work he, Gusai, and their contem-

poraries were doing was a coming-of-age for renga, an achievement of

poetic maturity that would serve as a model for all linked verse in the

future. Yoshimoto also sought to distinguish between the

renga's

tradi-

tion (or relative lack of it) and that of the waka: "Although the way of

waka is transmitted orally and in secret,

renga

- which has no fixed

rules for versification from ancient time - is intended to give pleasure

merely by arousing the emotions of those who join together in composi-

tion."

Yoshimoto further explained the essence of renga in these

words:

The poet of

renga

does not seek to tie the idea of one moment in with that of

the next but, like this fleeting world, shifts through phases of both waxing

and waning, of sadness and joy. No sooner does he reflect on yesterday than

today has passed; while thinking about spring it becomes autumn; and even

as he admires a scene of new blossoms it turns into one of crimson leaves. Is

this not proof that everything is impermanent, like scattered flowers and

fallen leaves? In ancient times poets of waka pursued their way with such zeal

that we have examples of one person who offered his life in return for the

inspiration to write a superior poem and of another who died from criticism

of his poetry. But in renga such things do not happen. Because the sole aim is

to give pleasure to those who have gathered to compose verse, there is no

room for such attachments and zeal. And because the poets exclude all extra-

neous thoughts from their minds, bad notions are not apt to arise.

Above all, renga was conceived as a means for expressing the constant

flow and changeability of life. As we have seen, impermanence was a

religious and philosophical concept that underlay nearly all the think-

ing of the medieval age, and it evoked intense feelings about the

evanescence of the beauties of nature on the one hand and of the

fundamental pathos of human existence on the other. Yet, to the

renga

poet, nature's beauties were not entirely evanescent nor human exis-

tence entirely pathetic, and to dwell even on these presumed verities

was to distort reality. In renga, the highest value was placed on move-

ment and progression, and strict rules were formulated to ensure that

Tsukuba

tnondo,

in Kido Saizo, ed., Renga

ronshu

(Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1961), p. 80.

49 Ibid., pp. 82-83.

476 CULTURAL LIFE

poets steadily advanced from one theme to another. Some scholars

have likened renga to modern jazz. In much the same way as jazz

musicians harmonize extemporaneously, medieval renga poets sought

to blend their verses with those of

others,

even to the point of subordi-

nating their own creativity.

Although some famous renga are contained within multiverse se-

quences, many anthologies, such as Tsukubashu, have their verses ar-

ranged in pairs. As a rule, the first verse of each pair is anonymous,

and the second is identified by its composer's name. Renga poets were

thus given the opportunity to respond to the verses of others. Here,

for example, is an anonymous verse and Nijo Yoshimoto's response:

Flying squirrels

Screeching in the mountains!

The moon sinks

Below the treetops

the

forest at dawn.

In this poem Yoshimoto used a device he much favored when compos-

ing responses to action or sound-oriented verses. Rather than seek to

explain why the squirrels were screeching or what their screeching

might mean, he simply provided a visual setting for the verse. The

image of the moon sinking as dawn breaks over the forest creates an

eerie impression that heightens our awareness of the sound of the

squirrels.

As Yoshimoto and others were advancing the literary status of

renga

in the late fourteenth century, an important institutional basis was also

established through its association with the Kitano Shrine in Kyoto.

This shrine was dedicated to the spirit of the Heian-period scholar and

statesman Sugawara no Michizane (845-903), and the Ashikaga had

formed close affiliations with it. It became the location of poetry ses-

sions known as Kitano horaku

renga,

or "linked verse for the entertain-

ment of the gods," that were regarded in Muromachi times as the most

important formal occasions for

renga

composition.

Kitano horaku renga began about

1391,

when the shogun Yoshimitsu

sponsored and attended, along with his usual kingly retinue of court-

iers,

daimyo, ecclesiastics, and others, a gala affair that not only set the

precedent for an annual

renga

event at Kitano but also inspired daimyo

to hold similar affairs at the shrine. In this way, the Kitano Shrine

became the undisputed center of

renga,

with sessions most commonly

held on the twenty-fifth of the month, the day when Michizane, who

Tsukubashu,

no. 384.

LINKED-VERSE POETRY 477

became apotheosized as the god of renga, died. To handle such bus-

tling

renga

activity, the bakufu founded an office entitled Magistrate of

the Kitano kaisho (Kitano kaisho bugyo) and, by combining appoint-

ment to it with the designation of

renga

master (sosho), made the office

tantamount to poet laureate of

renga

in Japan.

It was the renga's good fortune to be championed by so illustrious a

courtier as Nijo Yoshimoto, who may have been individually responsi-

ble for its acceptance as a major art. Interestingly, the commoner

strain represented by Gusai also had its most pronounced influence on

renga

during Yoshimoto's day. Although many linked-verse masters of

later times were of low social origin, they often became the leading

advocates of a more classically oriented, aristocratic poetry. In other

words, they sought to elevate renga to elite status in much the same

way that Zeami raised sarugaku.

Linked-verse poets of the Higashiyama epoch regarded the Eikyo

period (1429-40) of the shogun Yoshinori as the starting point of a

new flourishing of renga that climaxed during their own age. One

reason for this flourishing was the active patronage of Yoshinori. More

fundamentally, it occurred as part of the antiquarianism in scholarship

(wagaku) and culture in general that grew in intensity from about this

time.

In their study of the ancient literary masterpieces of the Heian

period, wagaku scholars (some of the best known of whom, like Sogi,

were also

renga

masters) strongly influenced the aesthetic tastes of the

age by contributing to a reenunciation of the classical courtier vision of

beauty. In this regard, we should keep in mind that Zeami did most of

his theoretical writing on aesthetics and the art of noh during roughly

the same period.

The enduring ties between waka, the richest repository of the court-

ier vision of beauty, and

renga

may be illustrated by reference to Sozei

(d. 1455), one of the leading linked-verse poets of the Eikyo period,

and his relationship to the waka master Shotetsu (1380-1458). It was

said that "upon meeting the noted master Shotetsu, he [Sozei] studied

Genji monogatari and acquired a deep understanding of the way of

poetry. He selected his models for renga on the basis of the great

knowledge he came to possess and prized especially the ushin-yugen

style of ancient times."

Another student of Shotetsu and one of the finest linked-verse poets

in Japanese history was Shinkei (1406-75), who not only stressed the

51 These remarks were made by Sogi. Azuma mondo in Kido, ed., Renga ronshu, pp. 208-9.

Ushin means "elegant."

478 CULTURAL LIFE

inseparability of waka and renga but also asserted that poetic inspira-

tion was equal to Buddhist enlightenment. Such an assertion was in

keeping with the syncretic thinking of the Muromachi period, when it

was commonplace, for example, to argue the congruence of Bud-

dhism, Shinto, and Confucianism or to seek to enhance one's artistic

way - whether it be poetry, flower arrangement, or incense - by en-

shrouding it with the divine.

As analyses of medieval taste, Shinkei's critical writings on renga,

including Sasamegoto (Whisperings, 1463), are second in quality only

to the works of Zeami on noh. Imbued with the aesthetic of yugen

through his study of waka under Shotetsu, Shinkei expressed the

conviction that the highest level of yugen was in the sphere of the cold,

withered, and lonely:

When a master poet of the past was asked how poetry should be composed,

he replied: "Grasses on the withered moor/The moon at dawn."

This was his way of saying that one should concentrate on things that

cannot be expressed with words and should become aware of the sphere of the

cold and lonely

(kie-sabi).

The poems of those who have attained the highest

level in the art of poetry are invariably in the cold and lonely style. Thus, in

response to a verse like "Grasses on the withered moor," one should always

reply with a line of similar feeling such as "The moon at dawn."

In teaching poetry, the ancients urged that the following poem [by Mina-

moto no Saneakira] be kept in mind as a model for composing in this style:

Faintly it beams,

The light of the moon

At dawn.

Crimson leaves blow down

With the piercing mountain wind.

Shinkei entered Buddhist orders in infancy, but unlike the more

typical artist-priest kind of inja, he remained devoutly committed to his

priestly responsibilities throughout his life. This was one reason that he

participated in public

renga

gatherings to a much lesser degree than did

most other poets. Another reason, it appears, was that Shinkei was less

interested in the composition of multiverse

renga

sequences than in the

construction of the basic statement-and-response links (known as tan-

renga, or short renga). He approached naked verse with an extraordi-

nary intensity and evidently felt ill at ease in sessions where it was

necessary to mute this intensity of feeling to achieve an overall emo-

tional balance among the participants.

52 Shinkei,

Sasamegoto,

in Kido, ed., Renga

ronshu,

p. 175.