Zen Buddhism and Sand Gardens
As did many things in Japanese culture, the Japanese garden ("niwa") style came over from China. In the 550s, Chinese gardens were being styled after the Buddhist cosmos. They usually held a hill in the center, representing Mt. Sumeru. A pond symbolized the lake Anavatapta (which became Munetsunochi in Japan). A collection of rocks in the pond were the nine islands and 8 seas of mist.
This style caught on in Japan, especially in Nara, which was the capital from 646-794. Here the Taoist ´Isles of Blest´ joined the collection, and the Ige island of P´eng-lai (Horai in Japan) as the dwellings of immortal beings.
Kare-sansui is the name for the dry-landscape style which joined this initial layout. The Buddhist triad is called "Sanzun", and many gardens added triads of rocks. The gravel beds were soon raked into ripple-like patterns, imitating water around the rocks and other objects therein. Often a central feature would be a large rock - iwakura or iwasaka. Typical trees would include the mandarin orange, cherry, and bamboo.
Use of objects became more and more intricate. Sand ´ponds´ gave way to sand waterfalls, often very realistic as they ´tumbled´ down rocky pathways. Gardens moved from being hilly to being flat, and using ´borrowed scenery´ of mountains and forests in the background. This style is called ´shakkei´. A famous garden of this time was made for Ashikaga Yoshimitsu, called the Golden Pavilion, or Kinkaku-ji. This is when compositions were becoming more abstract, focusing more on proportion and balance, with only vague references to triads and the old Buddhist structures.
Another important movement in gardening during the 1500s and 1600s is the rise of the tea ceremony. Whole gardens were planned around tea houses, and the paths, or roji, which lead from the outside world to the inner sanctuary. The dewy path would begin wide, to lure the walker in from the hectic world, and then in stages become smaller and more twisted, requiring more and more focus to follow. The garden fostered both a sense of isolation and of invitation.
A key feature of most Japanese gardens is that they fit in closely with the surrounding land, and also with any structures within them. Japanese were very in tune with nature. Japanese houses were made of wood - partially because of their warm, humid climate, but partially because they enjoyed the natural texture. Shoji, or thin, paper walls, were often the only separation between inside and outside. They could be slid aside to give complete access to the garden. A person walking would move from the grass tatami mats of the house, to the wood porch, to the rounded stones and moss of the garden, without experiencing a real sense of difference.
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