The Sun Sets over Mount Ikoma in Early Spring | Naoyuki Agawa (Vice-President in charge of Shonan Fujisawa Campus)

2009.03.30

In early March, I took a break from my duties as faculty dean and visited Nara. I had been asked to give a lecture at the Tenri City Library, and I took the opportunity to walk around and visit several temples.

The day before the lecture, the limited express train departed Kyoto Station on time, stopped at Kintetsu-Tambabashi and Yamato-Saidaiji, and arrived at Kintetsu-Nara Station in 36 minutes. I often took this limited express whenever I visited Nara during my student days. In the old days, they would hand out hot towels, and the train would arrive in Nara in 33 minutes without stopping at Tambabashi. Other than that, not much has changed. The Vista EX 30000 series train, a four-car formation with two double-decker cars in the middle, which was called the Vista Car back then, is still in service.

I left my luggage at the hotel and, as evening fell, walked around the Takabatakecho area. I passed through the primeval forest of Kasuga no Mori from Shin-Yakushiji Temple and returned to Naramachi. On the way, I encountered a family of deer. The father deer was cautiously guarding the area until the fawn crossed the temple path. The next morning, at the Kofukuji National Treasure Museum, I came face to face with the statue of Ashura just before its departure for Tokyo. Afterward, I took a train from Kintetsu-Nara Station, changed at Yamato-Saidaiji, passed by Toshodaiji and Yakushiji temples in Nishinokyo, and headed to Tenri via Hirahata.

I was invited to give the lecture by Ms. N and her colleagues, who have long been involved in the children's book movement at the Tenri City Library. A long, long time ago, the children's literature author Momoko Ishii opened a small children's library called the "Katsura Bunko" in her home. I, who was just about to enter elementary school, visited this library every Sunday for about five years from the day it opened and discovered the joy of reading. The children's library movement eventually spread nationwide from the "Katsura Bunko." I appear in a photograph in a book Ms. Ishii wrote chronicling the "Katsura Bunko," and as an "endangered species," I am somewhat known in this world.

Because of this connection, about eight years ago, I was invited to Tenri and spoke at the city hall about my memories of the "Katsura Bunko" and my childhood reading. Since this was my second time, I couldn't give the same talk. So, I decided to talk about how, after graduating from the library and becoming a junior high school student, I came to admire Nara and, after a long illness, spent my high school and university years walking around the temples of Nara.

Looking back, I'm not sure why I visited Nara so many times back then. In the last winter of my sixth year of elementary school, I traveled to Kyoto and Nara with my family and visited Todaiji Temple for the first time. In my junior high school Japanese class, I was made to read the poem by Nobutsuna Sasaki, "A single wisp of cloud above the pagoda of Yakushiji Temple in the land of Yamato in departing autumn," and a part of the essay "Yamatoji," in which Tatsuo Hori wrote about his feelings walking through Nara during the war. I also became familiar with the poems of Aizu Yaichi, who loved the temples and Buddhist statues of Yamato. I didn't have a girlfriend to spend time with, and as a sensitive young man who loved solitude (I haven't changed a bit), I would jump on the Tokaido Shinkansen "Kodama" with a student discount and head for Nara whenever school was out, with a paperback book containing Aizu Yaichi's "Jichu Rokumeishu" and Tatsuo Hori's "Yamatoji" in my bag.

This was during my student days. I usually stayed at a low-cost youth hostel not far from the Kaidan-in at Todaiji Temple. And I walked around, visiting the temples of Yamato one after another. Not just the major temples like Todaiji, Yakushiji, Toshodaiji, and Horyuji, but also Hokkeji, Kairyuoji, Akishinodera, Shin-Yakushiji, and Byakugoji around Nara City. I ventured north to Joruriji and Gansenji. I went southwest to Chuguji, Hokkiji, and Horinji, and southeast to Hasedera and Murouji. I even extended my travels from Asuka to Taimadera. And everywhere I went,

"On the chin of the stone Buddha of Narazaka, a light rain flows; spring has come."

"Stepping on the earth where the moonlight from the great temple's round pillars falls, I am lost in thought."

"Leaving the temple of Akishino and looking back, the sun is about to set on Mount Ikoma."

I read poems by Aizu Yaichi like these and their commentaries, and from Tatsuo Hori's short stories,

"I am writing this now in the pine grove of Toshodaiji Temple (...). This place is our Greece."

I read such passages, which seem quite sentimental when I read them now.

Around the same time I was traveling to Nara, I began to yearn for America. In the summer of my second year at Juku High School, I applied for an exchange program and spent six weeks at Punahou School in Hawaii, where a young Barack Obama might have walked. In the summer of my third year in the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law, I went to study abroad at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and ended up dropping out of Keio and not returning. When I got homesick while studying abroad, I would remember the temples of Nara. I talked about such rambling things in my lecture this time.

After the lecture, that evening my wife and I were treated to a tea ceremony and a meal at the home of Ms. M, a tea master and friend of Ms. N's who has deep ties to a family of the Komparu school of Noh theater. Several of my companions from the children's book world, whom I had nicknamed the "Yamanobe Girls" because we had walked the Yamanobe-no-michi path together on my last visit to Tenri, were also guests. Ms. M's house is also near the Yamanobe-no-michi. On the way back after sunset, when it was completely dark, a crescent moon rose in the western sky, shining brightly and clearly.

The next morning, after staying at the old wing of the Nara Hotel, which Tatsuo Hori loved, the "Yamanobe Girls" came to pick me up in a van driven by another of Ms. N's friends, Ms. A. We drove south and walked through Tanzan Shrine, where Prince Naka-no-Oe and Nakatomi no Kamatari secretly plotted the assassination of Soga no Iruka. Then we headed to Asuka and toured the Ishibutai Tumulus and Okadera Temple. Plum blossoms were blooming here and there. On the hill behind the Ishibutai, the tips of the bare trees were faintly tinged with red—a sight visible only for a very short time before the buds begin to sprout. A ray or two of sunlight streamed through the gaps between the giant stones of the Ishibutai, and the inside of the ancient tomb felt somehow warmer.

A single soft ray of light shines in; it seems spring has come to the stone stage.

Soon it was dusk, and for the first time, I went to see the Omizutori ceremony at Nigatsudo Hall of Todaiji Temple. It is a traditional event said to have continued for over 1,200 years without a single interruption. It is also called Otaimatsu or Shuni-e. Preparations begin in February, and in March, large torches are brought up to Nigatsudo Hall every day. There is a legend that if you are showered with the sparks that rain down from the torches on the hall's stage, you will be free from illness and misfortune.

I was told that if I went up to the hall early, I could see the torches up close, so I waited on the stage for about an hour beforehand. The western sky was clear and remained dyed in a madder red even after the sun had set. The air was clear, and the visibility was good, with the dark silhouette of Mount Ikoma lying on the horizon. Above it, Venus shone brightly, and to the southwest, I could see the lights of a passenger plane on its landing approach to Kansai Airport, slowly descending toward the runway.

When the surroundings became completely dark, with the sound of a conch shell horn, a large, long, and heavy bamboo torch carried by a temple attendant called a *doji* began to ascend the covered stairway next to Nigatsudo Hall, crackling, smoking, and blazing with flames. Following behind, one of the ascetic monks called *rengyoshu* ascends to the hall. Upon reaching it, he enters from the side and runs into the inner sanctuary, his wooden clogs clattering on the floor. His figure is visible from the outside through a white curtain, literally like a shadow puppet. Meanwhile, the torch is thrust out from the edge of the stage and spun around, scattering sparks. A roar of cheers erupts from the large crowd waiting below. The sparks that fly past our eyes are quickly swept up and extinguished with a broom by a temple person following behind.

A short while later, a second torch ascended to the hall. Another monk entered, stamped his feet as he went into the back of the hall, and the great torch was thrust out redly against the night sky, showering sparks once again. A third, and then a fourth. In total, there were ten, including some that went out along the way. Above each of the torches burning on the stage, the pitch-black sky spread out. When I bent down and looked up, I saw the brightly shining Venus in the sky, and above it, the crescent moon, which had been hidden by the hall's eaves until now, hanging in a straight vertical line.

The sun sets on Mount Ikoma in early spring; within the sacred hall, a monk's shadow is seen.

The great torch climbs to the sacred hall, burning red, as if to reach the moon, to reach the stars.

(Date of publication: 2009/03/30)