Gōdanshō

From Gōdanshō 江談抄, an early 12th-century collection of court etiquette and lore, Chinese poetry, supernatural tales, and so on, dictated by the prominent Japanese Confucian scholar and courtier Ōe no Masafusa 大江匡房:

被命云、倩案物情、云官爵云福禄、皆以文道之徳所経也．何況才芸名誉殆過於中古之人所思給也．雖以自讃又非無謂．於寿命者及七十事、近代之難有之事也．非短寿之類．顔回至聖僅三十歟．仍世間事全無所思シ．

Masafusa said, “When I reflect on my current position, I realize that all things—rank, happiness, and so on—come from my adherence to learning. I feel it is only natural that my abilities, techniques, and reputation are superior to those of the preceding centuries. It may sound like I am boasting about myself, but it is not as though I have no reason not to. Reaching the age of 70 is a rare accomplishment these days, although the short life is perfectly fine. After all Yan Hui, a man of unparalleled wisdom and virtue, lived only to the age of 30. So there is really nothing in this world that troubles me.

The collection, probably recorded by Fujiwara no Sanekane, is written in a form of hentai kambun similar to that used in courtier diaries (kambun nikki) that were produced from the 10th century on.

Hierophany

Mircea Eliade. The Sacred and the Profane. Trans. Willard R. Trask. 1957. pp. 8 - 65.

Simple, but massive in implication. How does Buddhism fit into the sacred/profane dichotomy? I have a feeling it's no mistake that, so far as I read, Eliade makes not one single note about Buddhism.

Them Bones

今野達編『今昔物語集　一』新日本文学大系（岩波書店）二七二〜二八九.

I'm reading a series of stories (説話) that have to do with the death of the Buddha (S. parinirvana, J. 涅槃), trying to approach some sort of broader historical context for understanding the painting. One point of interest: after the Buddha attains parinirvana, he is to be cremated. All the necessary preparations are undertaken and his coffin is lit on fire. This fire burns and burns, showing no sign of petering out. Several deities visit the burning coffin and attempt to extinguish the fire with perfumes, but to no avail. Why? Because they're hoping to take the bones back to their respective realms. Poised on the edge of death (as in the painting), the Buddha provides a focal point for the diverse beings of the universe. Once he dies, however, the universe is shaken: what used to be a centripetal cohesiveness is reduced to a few objects, rife with symbolism, that will be claimed and warred over.

The painting displays this transitory moment between life and death, order and chaos. Everyone is watching (and not only watching the Buddha) but no one knows for sure what is going to happen. Mental wheels are turning and age-old rivalries are in the process of being ressurected again on the grand cosmological stage.

Useful visual metaphors

Michel Foucault, "Panopticism," Discipline & Punish: the Birth of the Prison [Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la prison], pp. 195 - 228.

『平治物語』小学館日本古典文学全集、四〇九〜四三八.

『愚管抄』岩波書店日本古典文学大系、二二五〜二三九.

"The right to conquer and humanize"

Pam Morris, ed. The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev and Voloshinov. pp. 194 - 206.

Clifford Geertz. Negara: the Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. pp. 98 - 120.

An attempt to reevaluate the interpretation of "uncivilized" cultures. Geertz does a compelling reading of negara, the Balinese ritual that celebrates/laments the death of a king, making the interconnectednes of "inside" and "outside" into a holistic paradigm for understanding it. Instead of transforming the ritual--which involved several of the king's concubines hurling themselves into pits of fire--into a justifcation for Western imperialism and modernization (as does the British observer whose account of negara prefaces this chapter), Geertz focuses on the meaning of the ritual for its practitioners. Set against the British observer, Geertz emerges as open-minded and far less ideological -- but it would be a mistake to think that he doesn't have his own agenda. If I were to read more of the book, I'd ask myself: What is this agenda? Where does he place himself as the scholar/investigator/observer? And is he up-front about it?

Michel Foucault. The History of Sexuality, Volume I: an Introduction [La Volenté de savoir]. Trans. Robert Hurley. 1978 [1976]. pp. 3 - 131.

Between mask and face

Mimi Yiengpruksawan. "What's in a Name? Fujiwara Fixation in Japanese Cultural History." Monumenta Nipponica, 49:4, 1994. pp. 423 - 453.

A spirited (and no doubt controversial) critique of the dominant image of eleventh- and twelfth-century court culture. Yiengpruksawan digs through kanbun nikki (diaries of male courtiers written in Chinese) as though they were treasure troves, pulling up countless invaluable novelties. On the basis of this and other evidence, both documentary and stylistic, she argues that the paradigm of Fujiwara as representing a unified and unifying period, culture, and style (what she calls the Fujiwara construct) is based on the privileging and totalizing (and, I would add, suppressive) of select cultural artifacts. It's hard to get away from such a monolithic construct: for example, I recall my Japanese history professor in college lecturing romantically about the splendor, sensuality, and effeteness of the Heian court from the eleventh century onward. But the Fujiwara construct has led us to dwell so much on the mask that we have transformed it into a face, forgetting that there exists something underneath.

Futurity

Gayatri Spivak, Death of Discipline, 2003, pp. 1 - 24.

Spivak attempts to reorient comparative literature: cultural studies falls by the wayside as she calls for collaboration with area studies. Depoliticize the discipline and expand your sensitivity to text and language, she says, and read literature that has not been read before (viz., that written in the southern hemisphere).