Four Japanese Travel Diaries of the Middle Ages

FOUR JAPANESE TRAVEL DIARIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES Translated from the Japanese with NOTES by Herbert PJutschow and Hideichi Fukuda and INTRODUCfION by Herbert Plutschow East Asia Program Cornell University Ithaca, New York 14853 The CornellEast Asia Series is published by the Cornell University East Asia Program (distinctfromCornell University Press). We publish affordablypriced books on a variety of scholarly topics relating to East Asia as a service to the academic community and the general public. Standing orders, which provide for automatic notification and invoicing of each title in the series upon publication, are accepted. Ifafter review byinternal and externalreaders a manuscript isaccepted for publication, it ispublished on the basisof camera-ready copy provided by the volume author. Each author is thus responsible for any necessary copy-editingand for manuscript fo1·111atting.Address submission inquiries to CEAS Editorial Board, East Asia Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-7601. Number 25 in the Cornell East Asia Series Online edition copyright© 2007, print edition copyright© 1981 Herbert Plutschow & Hideichi Fukuda. All rights reserved ISSN 1050-2955 (for1nerly 8756-5293) ISBN-13 978-0-939657-25-4 / ISBN-to 0-939657-25-2 CAU'I'ION: Except for brief quotations in a review, no part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any for1n without per1nissionin writing from theauthor. Please address inquiries to Herbert Plutschow & Hideichi Fukuda in care of the EastAsia Program, CornellUniversity, 140 Uris Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853- 7601 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments INTRODUCTION • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1 - 1) TAKAKURA-IN ITSUKUSHIMA GOKO KI • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 25 - - 2) SHINSHO HOSHI NIKKI • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 45 3) MIYAKO NO TSUTO • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 61 - - 4) ZENKOJI KIKO • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 77 Notes to the Introduction • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 87 Notes to Takakura-in Itsukushima goko ki ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 88 - - Notes to Shinsho Hoshi nikki • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 97 Notes to Miyako no tsuto •••••••••••••••.•••••••..•••••••••••••••••• 105 Notes to Zenkoji kiko • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 112 BIBLIOGRAPHY • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 117 MAPS • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 120 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The translations of four medieval Japanese travel diaries is a result of genre study by Herbert Plutschow: Medieval Japanese Travel Diaries, an unpublished dissertation (Columbia University, 1973), which will soon appear in print. The translation of these four travel diaries would not have been possible without the assistance of Professor Fukuda (Professor of the National Institute of Japanese Literature in Tokyo) because it is based on largely unannotated and sometimes unpunctuated texts. Both authors wish to express their gratitude for the help of Margaret Robe of UCLA in improving the English style. Herbert Plutschow and Hideichi Fukuda Fall 1980 INTRODUCTION What is known as chusei Nihon kiko bungaku or medieval Japanese travel diary literature comprises about seventy accounts written approxi mately between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries. From among these seventy travel diaries I have selected four works which, I believe, best represent the genre's various styles, types- of authors and periods. These are: 1) Takakura-in ltsukushima goko ki of 1180 (Account- -of the Journey of the ex-Emperor Takakura to Itsukushima), 2) Shinsho Hoshi nikki of 1225 (Diary of Priest Shinsho), 3) Miyako no tsuto of the years 1350-52 (Souvenir for the Capital), and 4) Zenkoji kiko of 1465 (Account of a Journey to the Zenko-ji Temple). Together with the works that have 1 already been translated, the accounts I have selected count, in terms of literary quality alone, among the most interesting travel diaries of the middle ages. These travel diaries, by including poems, adhere to the rhetorical traditions of Japanese poetry, especially- - travel poetry as it appears in- early collections such as the Manyoshu (mid-eighth century), the Kokinshu (905) and the Shinkokinshu (1205). In general, poetic travel diaries, rhetorically and stylistically, continue the utamakura tradition of alluding to places mentioned in classical poetry. Travel diaries also follow, in addition to their poetry, the narrative prose styles and diction of traditional Japanese diaries, such as the Tosa nikki (935) and the Sarashina nikki (1056). Although travel diary literature to a large extent owes its existence to the traditions and rhetoric of classical Japanese poetry, it also de pends on religious traditions, especially pilgrimage and hermit life, and on the synthesis of Buddhism and the native Shinto religion. There is rarely a travel diary that does not give attention equally to both Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. The merger of religion and poetry makes the travel diary a sometimes highly symbolic and allusive genre of literature. 1 2 Therefore, if unaccompanied by an introduction to their complexity, most of these works would remain easily misunderstood, if not condemned out right as uninteresting. Travel diary literature is best illuminated by discussing what kind of authors kept travel diaries, why they both traveled and wrote, and the nature of the place names that appear in them as well as by discussing the relationships between these factors. Before I do this, especially in reference to these four works, let me try briefly to answer the ques tion: what are the travel diaries? First, travel diaries are mainly a phenomenon of the middle ages (chusei ca. 1185-1600), when the separation of government between the imperial court and the shogunate, and the general unrest created thereby, forced many people to travel. Second, travel diaries are generally short works in prose and poetry about one-way more often than round trip journeys. Titles of travel diaries such as goko ki (record of an imperial journey), michi no ki (record of the road), mode no ki (record of a pilgrimage) and kiko (travel record) indicate the authors' consciousness of the travel diaries as a separate genre of literature. The authors concentrate almost exclu sively on their movements, and mention little of their lengthy stays on the way. Though one may be tempted to classify travel diaries among Japanese literary diaries, one should not forget that diaries (nikki) consist of time units, whereas the travel diaries more often consist of geographic units. Therefore, the travel diary merits consideration as a legitimate and separate genre. Several forms of poetry appear in travel diaries: waka (a 31- syllable poem in 5 lines), hokku (a 17-syllable poem in 3 lines), haikai (an unorthodox waka) and various forms of Chinese poems. Most travel diaries contain one particular form of poetry, but a number of accounts, especially those written in the later middle ages (ca. 14th-16th cen turies), include a variety of poetic forms. As one can see in other genres of literature in which prose and poetry are combined, the mood in herent to a particular form of poetry tends to determine the mood and 3 content of the prose. Therefore, the author restricts his work to the 'world' of that particular poetic form he has chosen. Including poems in their travel diaries is one way the authors show their consciousness of readership. That is, poetic travel diaries unmis takably were written to be read. Travel diaries were available to later travel diarists who read and copied them, thereby transmitting them to later generations of poets and diarists. We can see their influence upon later generations through allusions and later war tales that incorporated sections of travel diaries. The authors' concern with form further indi cates their consciousness of readership. Most poetic travel diaries in clude a prologue and epilogue which clearly address themselves to the reader. When a diarist mentions a place name he usually introduces a unit that ends in one or more poems, and these units, in several combinations, form travel diaries. The place names generally belong to the category of utamakura--that is, famous place names--which appear in classical Japanese literature. Accordingly, diaries provide little realistic place description and refer more to the myths, legends and history as well as to past poets and poems connected with such ''famous'' places. The ''famous'' places comprise the single element, beyond travel, that appears in all travel diaries and therefore they unify the travel diary as a literary genre. Before we come to the function of place names in travel diaries we must say a few words about the places named, what the names signify and where they came from. A poem'os meaning often turns upon utamakura used as kakekotoba (pivot words) or an engo (word associations). The place name Mt. Kagami (Mt. Mirror), which appears in both the Shinsho Hoshi nikki and the Miyako no tsuto,

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