Roses In Japan
Roses in Japanese Classics
Text
Hitachi Fudoki (Culture and History of the Hitachi Province [Today's Ibaraki Prefecture])
This document is supposed to have been compiled between 715 and 718. Opinions are divided about its authors, but they seem to have been people versed in Chinese classics and the geography of China. They discuss the origins of place names and people's legends in detail. This document is often said to be "the first in Japan to refer to the rose". In Section 16, there is a story which explains the origin of the place name "Ibaraki" literally "briar castle"). It tells us how the Minister Kurosaka-no-Mikoto defeated the enemies, using "Ibara" or "Ubara" (briars, most likely Rosa multiflora): The translation is given below.
"While his enemies were out of the caves which they used as their bases and hiding places, Kurosaka ordered his men to fill those caves with branches of briars, and then to launch a surprise attack on the enemies. As usual, they tried to run into their caves, but were all killed, caught in briar branches. To commemorate this victory, "Ubara" came to be used as the name of the province."
Man'yōshū
A huge collection of poems - 4,500 poems in 20 volumes. The compilation
work started about 745, and took over 80 years for completion. The exact date of
its completion is not known. This is "the oldest collection of poems in Japan", and
is the work of Japanese classic literature often referred to as the starting point of
"the Japanese spirit". The authors of the poems are diverse, from common
citizens to emperors and noblemen, amateurs and professional poets.
There are two short poems which refer to roses - "Ubara" or "Umara", a wild
briar. Let us take up one of them, No. 4352, which was witten by a soldier from
Kazusa [today's Chiba Prefecture] who starts on a long journey to Kyushu to
serve as a coast guard soldier there.
He sings how sad he feels to have to travel to a distant land, leaving behind the
one he loves - a feeling many common citizens must have experienced in those
days.
It goes:
"How sad it is to have to part from my dear one, who, like wild bean-vines
clinging on to the branches of a briar on the roadsides, holds on tight to me!"
Another poem referring to a rose appears in Man'yo-shu No. 3832. The wild briar here, which grew in many places in Japan over 1200 years ago, is again supposed to be Rosa multiflora. Today, it is distributed in nearly all areas in Japan, and gives small white flowers in large clusters in May. This wild rose was used in the hybridization of modern roses such as Polyanthas and Floribundas.
Kokin Waka-shū
This is an anthology of ca 1,100 short poems in 20 volumes, the first of the anthologies compiled by imperial order. Under the order of Emperor Daigo, Ki-no-Tsurayuki and three other poets started work in 904, and completed it in 9 or 10 years. Until then, the literature loved in the emperors' court had been mostly poems in Chinese classic styles. With the completion of Kokin-Waka-shu, Japan's traditional literature came to assume the principal role in the literary circle of the court.
Volume 10 of this anthology is assigned to poems concerning the names of
things. One of the poems in this volume, written by Ki-no-Tsurayuki, is entitled
"Saubi" [(Garden) Rose], and it goes as follows:
This morning, I first saw the flower. How attractive the colour of that flower
was! The Rose!"
The poem is made up of a pun, with the name "saubi" (rose) included in its lines. This rose was most likely the "Koshin" rose introduced from China, a variety of Rosa chinensis. It gives dark crimson flowers, which must have looked much more gorgeous and attractive to people in those days than the small white flowers of R. multiflora mentioned in Man-yo-shu. We also learn that such roses used to be planted in noblemen's gardens in those days. Some Japanese noblemen had been sent to the court of Chinese emperors as diplomats, and some of them might have brought those Chinese roses into Japan.
Ise-Monogatari (Ise Stories)
From early days, this work has been attributed to Arihara-no-Narihira, a poet, though there are researchers who are strongly opposed to this view. It is thought that this work was completed between 947 and 957, or later.
In one of the stories, "Mubara", "Ubara", or "Bara" is referred to, but it is
mentioned as an obstacle in the road which hinders the smooth traffic of passers-by.
The translation of the story is given below.
Since the man did not visit her after that, one day the woman went to his home,
and tried to look inside. The man caught a glimpse of her, whispered a short
poem : "An elderly lady with short gray hair seems to love me, for her face
somehow appears in my mind," and looked as if he was leaving for her home.
The woman hurried back, caught by briars and prickled orange trees on the
Way,....
A nobleman's garden. The small tree with red flowers nearer the white wall is the rose in question. We can see a pheasant near the tree. We can also see a bonsai (or more exactly, a bonkei - a landscape bonsai) on the table in the middle of the picture. This is an important picture, revealing the fact that the technique of raising bonsai plants has over 700 years' history, as well as being the first pictorial record of the China rose in Japan.
Kasuga-Gongen-Kenki (948-1309)
This is a work containing 56 stories with illustrations which tell us about the miraculous virtue of the avatar of Kasuga Shrine in Nara. The stories were witten by four generations of chancellors including Takatsukasa Mototada, and the illustrations were made by Takashina Takakane. In vol. 5, (1309), we find a picture of a Koshin rose bush planted in a nobleman's garden. This is "the first picture of a rose of Chinese origin in Japan".
Makura-no-Soshi (Pillow Book)
A two volume collection of essays by Lady Sei-Shonagon. It was written between 994 and 996 while she was serving the empress as a court lady. With The Tale ofGenji, this collection is by far the most important work of classic Japanese literature of the early age written by women witers - a national treasure so to speak.
In one of her essays, the author mentions the rose as follows: "It is wonderful to see roses in bloom here and there on the shore of a pond or near the log steps, particularly in the evening sunlight after the rain stops."
There is also a passage referring to a rose (Saubi) in Section 8 of Vol. 4. "Flowers of roses, when looked at from close-by, are fine and attractive, though their branches do not look so."
Genpei Seisuiki (The Ups and Downs of the Clans of Minamoto and Taira)
The work is attributed to Fujiwara-no-Tokinaga and Mitsuyuki. It is supposed to have been completed around 1247 - 1249. A passage similar to the one quoted in "Eiga-Monogatari" is found in this work, too.
Genji-Monogatari (The Tale of Genji)
This 54 volume novel, written more than 1,000 years ago by Lady Murasaki, is a story which represents the best of Japanese culture which flourished in the emperors' court of the Heian period. The exact date of its completion has not yet been determined. At present, it is known that the author started writing it between April of 1001 and the end of 1005. Since she is supposed to have died in 1014, she must have completed this great novel in approximately ten years. In this story of great length, there are two passages referring to the rose.
1) Vol. 10 (the Volume of Sakaki [sakaki: an evergreen tree of Camelia family, Cleyera japonica]), when the hero Hikaru Genji was 23 - 25 years old. "Roses are barely open near the stairs. They look soft and quiet, even more attractive than when [their?] flowers are best in spring and in autumn, and provide a pleasant scene for the noblemen's party in the court."
Since the passage could be interpreted as referring to the repeat-flowering of the roses in the court garden - in spring and in autumn - those roses might not be spring-flowering Rosa multiflora, but a variety of R. chinensis (aka China Rose, Bengal Rose, Rosa nankinensis, etc.), which is said to have been grown in noblemen's gardens in those days.
2) Vol. 21 (the Volume of Otome [Maiden]) when Genji was 33 to 35 years old. In the description of the garden of a huge house he owned: "Bamboos in the front hedge add the feeling of coolness to the wind that goes through it; trees and shrubs planted thick in the garden look attractive; there is also a hedge of deutzias, a feature of mountain villages, also many flowering plants such as citrus trees, reminders of people you knew in old days, pinks, roses, gentians (peonies?), with other spring and autumn flowering trees and grasses."
The passage clearly indicates that in those days roses were commonly grown in noblemen's gardens as a flowering plant.
Eiga-Monogatari (A Tale of the Days of Splendour)
Anonymous, supposed to have been completed around 1028 - 1037, which tells
us about the glorious life of Michinaga Fujiwara (966 - 1027). Strongly influenced
by the Tale of Genji, the story gives the impression that it likens Michinaga to
Hikaru Genji, the hero of the Tale of
Genji. Vol. 11 of the book, the
chapter of "Flowers in Buds", depicts the
garden in the imperial court in a new
year as follows :
Everlasting is the reign of the
emperor, and so is the green of bamboo
leaves in the sake-fermenting crocks.
Roses under the stairs look as if
they were longing for the summer to
come....
This passage seems to have been written with a line in a poem by a famous Chinese poet in mind, a favourite of men of letters in those days.
Meigetsu-ki (Bright Moon Diary)
The diary (1162-1241) written by Fujiwara-no-Teika, the most respected poet of
the period, and an editor of famous collection of tanka poems. In one passage
(16th December [Lunar Calendar], 1213), he writes:
The Choshun rose by the hedge still keeps red leaves....
The Choshun rose is a name of a repeat-flowering variety of Rosa chinensis.
Painting
The Picture of a Koshin Rose in Entsuin Temple in Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture
The miniature temple kept in this temple has a picture of a Koshin Rose on it. It is supposed to have been painted in 1647. The colours of the red Koshin rose on the door of the minitature temple, painted with supposedly never-fading dyestaff obtained from verdigris and coral, always look fresh and bright. Entsu-in is also known as a rose temple, where roses of different colours are planted in its precincts with an area of ca 6,000m2. This rose garden is open to the public.Paintings on the wall of a room on the keep of Nagoya Castle (in the Edo period [1603-1867])
Japanese paintings made by artists of Kano School. There are red and white rose flowers seen in part of those paintings. The double red flowers of one rose tree, as well as its leaves, look like those of a Koshin Rose, While the white flowers look like those of Naniwa-Ibara (Rosa leavigata), though, puzzlingly, the leaves have five leaflets.Honzo-Zufu (An Illustrated Guide to Medicinal Herbs)
Compiled by Kan'en Iwasaki during 1830-1843. It gives pictures of two roses: Koshin Rose (Monthly Rose) and Naniwa Ibara (Rosa leavigata).
Acknowledgement :
This article first appeared in WFRS Triennial Report on Roses 2006, which was published by the Japan Rose Society on the occasion of the 14th World Convention of the World Federation of Rose Societies held in Osaka in May, 2006.
We extend our sincerest gratitude to the Japan Rose Society for kindly permitting us
for permitting us to use it on our homepage, and to …… for permitting us to use here the photos of roses, and of pages from Japanese classics.
Reference :
Nagata, T.,(2006) "Roses in Japanese Classics From the 700s(the Nara Period) to the 1800s(the Meiji Era)", WFRS Triennial Report on Roses 2006, published for the World Federation of Rose Societies by the Japan Rose Society, pp.125-140
Dr.Takeo Nagata
Chief Executive Director, The Japan Rose Society