intellectual exchange

[Morgan Pitelka]

I hope Matthew will allow this message to slip through, as it is about intellectual exchange in general rather than specific messages or individuals on PMJS.

I'm sure we've all noticed that in our digital age students sometimes see information as a kind of entitlement that they really shouldn't have to work for. It is so easy to Google something or read a Wikipedia article these days that the idea of working hard to discover something online or in a book seems counterintuitive. Good students of course avoid these pitfalls, but the general internet public seems particularly prone to demanding information without offering anything in return. This can be frustrating.

The internet of course allows vibrant, new forms of scholarly communication as well. I'm sure we've all seen examples of shared, collaborative, semi-public scholarship. More and more scholars blog, some upload work-in-progress, some seek out online comments and suggestions on their ideas long before the peer review process has begun. PMJS Papers (http://www.pmjs.org/pmjs-papers) is an obvious example, but so are websites (which unfortunately lack the capacity to leave comments) like Tom Conlon's amazing Scrolls of the Mongol Invasions of Japan (http://www.bowdoin.edu/mongol-scrolls/) and Scrolls of the Heiji Disturbance (http://learn.bowdoin.edu/heijiscroll/), or the Freer/Sackler Galleries series of lecture podcasts (http://www.asia.si.edu/podcasts/curatorial.asp), to name just a few examples. Sharing work online gives wider access, allows more public debate, and helps others to know what you are working on.

A scholarly list like PMJS works to discourage the former (information entitlement) while facilitating the latter (scholarly communication). However the list also has to recognize that there has long been and always will be a kind of hermetic approach to the humanities in which manuscripts are not shared but hidden, dissertations are not published until they are perfect, and online lists are observed from afar and never participated in ("lurking"). Not everyone wants to share ideas online, which is fine and in many cases wise.

The recent exchange implies that even if it is not written in the PMJS guidelines, some form of intellectual exchange is expected in a message that asks for information. It may be that the more that is offered, the more a questioner can expect in response. PMJS members can be very generous with their knowledge and expertise, so it is probably worth it to take the risk and expose one's ideas a bit as a kind of invitation to begin a discussion.

Best,

Morgan

*****************
Morgan Pitelka
Associate Professor
Asian Studies Department

Mailing address:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
CB #3267, New West 113
Chapel Hill NC 27599-3267

Email: mpit...@unc.edu
http://artificialia.wordpress.com
http://www.unc.edu/~mpitelka
*****************

[Sharon Domier]

Matthew,
Feel free to stop this post if you will. The more we rely on email, the trickier it gets to actually read people's faces and intents. As a librarian, much of my job is untangling what people are saying they want help with to understand what it is that they really need. The only assumption I try to make is that their intentions are good. Many conversations are an intricate dance of asking questions, getting answers, exploring things, and finally honing in on the issue.

I read Ori's emails very different that some of you did. I read email of someone who might not be a native speaker of English and who was interested in learning more about his research but not wanting to fill up the inboxes of list members who were not interested. I might have misread his intentions, but I thought he was trying to be respectful of our time.

For many of us it is the end of the semester, nerves are frayed and it is much easier to take a self-righteous tone over email than you might in person. This has been a great list where people have been very well behaved and considerate. I hope it continues and that we don't scare anyone away from asking questions or sharing insights.

Sharon Domier
UMass Amherst

[Noel John Pinnington]

Something in the background of this discussion is the status of a graduate
student. Normally such a student has teachers to whom he can go to answer
his problems. The difficulties of reading here would not seem to have been
beyond the average professor of pre-modern language. Such teachers would of
course protect the students rights to any information or theory they had
developed.

If, however, a teacher wished the student to manage on his own, it would
seem inappropriate for the student to have recourse to other experts on a
public forum.

So why in this case did the student not have recourse to his teachers and
why instead did he turn to a public but expert forum? One cannot help but
feel in one way or the other it was inappropriate.

The situation in a public forum like ours should not be thought to be the
same as the teacher pupil relationship in a university. That is where the
problem arises, our members responded to an open request for help as if it
were an appeal from a student, so the sudden shift to a coy refusal to
identify a text changed the terms of the game, and the original request
appeared in retrospect to be an illicit attempt to get free information.

Noel Pinnington

--
Noel J. Pinnington
Assoc. Prof. Japanese Pre-modern Literature
Department of East Asian Studies
University of Arizona
1512 1st Street
Tucson AZ 85721-0105

520 626 3476 / 621 7505
Fax 520 621 1149

[Robert Borgen]

I think we can all sympathize with a graduate student who is
reluctant to prematurely share novel ideas for fear that a clever
thought might either be "borrowed" by someone else or turn out, upon
further research, to be incorrect. One the other hand, I do not
believe that the same can be said of a research topic. If a graduate
student is beginning to work on a fresh topic, there is no reason to
hide the fact. On the contrary, the student ought publicize it.
Someone else may be about to publish a 500 page disquisition on the
same topic, and, even if that is not the case, announcing one's
interest, in effect, stakes a claim and thus discourages others from
poaching on one's territory.

Personally, I found it disconcerting that a graduate student would ask
for help without offering more than the vaguest of hints at what he is
working on, but the tone of some of the discussion that followed was
also unpleasant.

Robert Borgen

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[Chris Kern]

Dear All,

I am a graduate student who has asked questions of the list in the
past, and who has considered asking other questions. It can be
somewhat intimidating to ask questions of the list because of the
number of highly recognizable names in the field (just in the past
thread, I had recently read an article by one of the responders and
used an article by another in my dissertation prospectus). It might
help if there were clearer guidelines on what sort of academic help
the list is willing to provide, and how such requests should be
formulated. The issues involved are not always clear in this kind of
mass-mailing forum. In the past I have written questions to the list
but then deleted them before sending because I was afraid that it
would appear like I was trying to get others to do my work for me or
would give the appearance that I had not done enough background
research on my own.

But maybe the issues involved are not clear enough in any case to
provide better guidelines. How does asking a research question on
this list compare to asking a reference librarian, e-mailing an
authority directly, or asking people in your own academic department
in person? Is it ever acceptable for a question to the list to be
your first (or second, or third) recourse? I don't have the answers,
but it seems to me that the traditional research ethics and propriety
do not always translate well to a list such as this where you are
contacting a large number of experts all at once -- especially since
the medium (unlike a personal letter or call) does not necessarily
demand a response from anyone.

-Chris

[Evgeny Steiner]

Yes, it looks as though he decided that he had the "ius primae noctis" for that text and he tried to protect his "right."

Evgeny Steiner

[Ross Bender]

At its best, this list seems to me a marvelous master seminar, "a feast where all hearts open and all wines flow", to paraphrase Rimbaud. Although my field is quite obscure and esoteric, I am already indebted to Sasha Vovin and Lord Bowring for ideas great and small, and I have duly footnoted them in recent articles, so that their assistance in discussion on this list does have its meager rewards. In future publications I intend to thank the members of this wonderful list in general.

As a gracious God has spared me the exquisite torture of an academic career and I now have the pleasure of being an "independent scholar", I suppose I can afford to be cavalier in my belief that "information wants to be free". But it does seem to me that PMJS is designed to be a forum where any questions, regardless of intent or origin, should be welcome. Any information which eminent scholars or beginning students wish to share should also be welcomed, and presumably its worth will be weighed in discussion and the chaff separated from the grain.

--
Ross Bender
http://rossbender.org

[Philip Brown]

I get inquiries from people out of the blue all the time, typically students asking for information about some subject on Japan relative to a project -- thesis, term paper, social studies project -- on which they are engaged. As a faculty member at a land grant institution, I feel an obligation to reply, but I do not want to act as a human dictionary or encyclopedia -- something clearly implicit if not explicit in the form of the inquiry.

To handle these situations, I first reply by asking the writer, "Before I can provide assistance, tell me where you have sought to resolve your issue already." Typically I never get a response, but I have at least presented a willingness to assist, while simultaneously weeding out the serious from the slackers. When I get a response, I direct the student to resources where then can explore the answer to the question on their own. Better to teach serious students how to fish than to give them the fish.

In a case such as that we are all discussing now, Ione appropriate approach would have been to state the questions/problems, then indicate the sources explored so far in order to resolve the questions. Without embarrassing any particular faculty member, it might even have been possible to indicate in general terms that professors had been consulted, but the problem still was not resolved to the writer's satisfaction. Other background on the subject could have been provided without revealing the author's interpretations. Just asking a question without explaining what steps have been taken to resolve the issue already can be readily understood as trying to take a short-cut, even if that is not the case.

Philip Brown
Department of History
The Ohio State University

[Robert Borgen]

Let me revise my final sentence. I should have written:

Personally, I found it disconcerting that ANYONE would ask for help
without offering more than the vaguest of hints at what he or she is

working on, but the tone of some of the discussion that followed was
also unpleasant.

[Lewis Cook]

(Assuming the Editor / Censor will allow the intrusion of these afterthoughts:) 

There are, clearly enough, various readily conflatable layers to this dispute, all of them significant, most vaguely symptomatic of the current malaise that afflicts both our field and, tangentially, the business of graduate school in the liberal arts in general (cf. a very cogent article on just that topic in the current issue of _The Nation_, available online ["Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education William Deresiewicz"],  the gist of which is that graduate students in the humanities in America are now, for the most part, hellbent on suicide missions for their faithless employers).

On the superface, there is the stiffiness from Cambridge (to the effect that grown men don't allow themselves to have thoughts), and the end-of-semester nerves theory. And much in between. Including Prof. Steiner's pithy comment on virginity and the rights thereto. 

Let me underscore two contentions of my own. 

First, I did not ask the poster to publish his text (a moot point, since John Carpenter had already posted a link to a "version" of it, available to all on the web, which was largely identical to the 'proprietary' version, if the original poster is to be taken at his word) - I asked for "rudimentary bibliographical facts," something far more modest. 

Second, more to the point, I'm guilty of having passed a peremptory _value_ judgement on the text in question (which judgement I stand by). The text is not well written; any competent reader of Muromachi prose would attest that it is dull and clumsy (and it should have been the responsibilty of the student's professorial advisor to have alerted him to this fact). It is not at all something I would choose to ask my students to read (in translation) if I were (as I am) concerned with getting them excited about medieval Japanese literature. It has been "marginalized" (left out of the canon) not because it deals with anaesthetic homoeroticism (the presumable programmatic excuse for its resurrection) but because it does not after all reward careful, critical, ruminative reading. 

I.e., it affords neither aesthetic nor intellectual pleasure. 

And what exactly are we left with when we are deprived of those? 

Lewis Cook

(For historians or sociologists, of course, the rules are otherwise - I speak as an advocate of literature.) 

[Mark Schumacher]

Dear PMJS Members

Today the Japan Times published a story about Kashima Jingu Shrine
and its earthquake deity. The article said: "As long as Kashima's deity is with us,"
according to a verse from the 8th century Manyōshū book of poems,
"the pivot stone may wobble but it will not break."
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/fl20110508x2.html

That sounded strange and incorrect, I thought. The Manyōshū says nothing like that.

• So I searched the online version of Manyōshū at the
  Electronic Text Center of the University of Virgina.
  http://etext.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/
  There is NO REFERENCE to the pivot stone (要石 kaname-ishi) in the Manyōshū.
  Is that a correct assessment?
  
  
• Next I contacted my good friend Gabi Greve. She did some digging
  around, and found the following 31-syllable tanka:
  ゆるぐども / よもや抜けじの / 要石 / 鹿島の神の / あらん限りは
  Yurugu tomo / yomoya nukeji no / kaname ishi / kashima no kami no / aran kagiri wa
  Lit. = "As long as the god of Kashima is majestically restraining it, even if there might be earthquakes,
  the Kaname Stone will never come out of the earth." Numerous Japanese-language sites, including Wikipedia
  Japan, cite the Manyōshū as the source of this tanka. Other sources say that, from the 19th century
  onward, reading this poem three times was believed to protect one from earthquakes
  
  
• But surely this is incorrect? I am working hard on an article entitled "The Evolution
  of Japan's Earthquake Deities." I have discovered that the above 31-syllable tanka came into
  use around the mid-17th century -- it appears on earthquake maps of Japan (maps showing the
  provinces of Japan surrounded by a dragon-like or snake-like creature).
  

QUESTIONS

• Is this 31-syllable tanka from the Manyōshū?
• Does the Manyōshū mention anything about a "pivot stone"?
• I think not, and want to stop such "misinformation" from spreading on the web.
  

sincerely
mark in kamakura

--

MARK SCHUMACHER Tel/Fax: 0467-24-2384 (in Japan) and 81-467-24-2384 (outside Japan)

[Michael Pye]

What wonderful questions! And beautifully introduced. A model for us all!
Sorry I have no answers, but I'm looking forward to them!
It made me think of the question recently posed to the Pope by a seven
year old Japanese girl (to iwarete imashita) as to why the great
earthquake happened. This led to an amicable debate in our house about
tectonic plates and catfish. The Holy Father didn't seem to be aware
of either of these explanations...

--
Michael Pye
Professor of the Study of Religions
University of Marburg, Germany (retired)
Research Associate (International Buddhist Studies), Shin Buddhist
Comprehensive Research Institute, Otani University, Kyoto, Japan

Zitat von Mark Schumacher <m...@onmarkproductions.com>:

> Dear PMJS Members
>
> Today the Japan Times published a story about Kashima Jingu Shrine
> and its earthquake deity. The article said: "As long as Kashima's
> deity is with us,"

> *according to a verse from the 8th century Manyōshū book of poems, *

> "the pivot stone may wobble but it will not break."
> http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/fl20110508x2.html
>
> That sounded strange and incorrect, I thought. The Manyōshū says
> nothing like that.
>

> * So I searched the online version of Manyōshū at the

> Electronic Text Center of the University of Virgina.
> http://etext.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/
> There is NO REFERENCE to the pivot stone (要石 kaname-ishi) in the
> Manyōshū.
> Is that a correct assessment?
>

> * Next I contacted my good friend Gabi Greve. She did some digging

> around, and found the following 31-syllable tanka:
> ゆるぐども / よもや抜けじの / 要石 / 鹿島の神の / あらん限りは
> Yurugu tomo / yomoya nukeji no / kaname ishi / kashima no kami no
> / aran kagiri wa
> Lit. = "As long as the god of Kashima is majestically restraining
> it, even if there might be earthquakes,
> the Kaname Stone will never come out of the earth." Numerous
> Japanese-language sites, including Wikipedia

> Japan, *cite the Manyōshū as the source of this tanka*. Other

> sources say that, from the 19th century
> onward, reading this poem three times was believed to protect one
> from earthquakes
>

> * But surely this is incorrect? I am working hard on an article

> entitled "The Evolution
> of Japan's Earthquake Deities." I have discovered that the above
> 31-syllable tanka came into
> use around the mid-17th century -- it appears on earthquake maps
> of Japan (maps showing the
> provinces of Japan surrounded by a dragon-like or snake-like
> creature).
>

> *QUESTIONS*
>
> * Is this 31-syllable tanka from the Manyōshū?
> * Does the Manyōshū mention anything about a "pivot stone"?
> * I think not, and want to stop such "misinformation" from spreading

> on the web.
>
> sincerely
> mark in kamakura
> --
>

> *MARK SCHUMACHER*

> Tel/Fax: 0467-24-2384 (in Japan) and 81-467-24-2384 (outside Japan)
>

[John Carpenter]

Dear Mark,

Look forward to reading more about this timely topic on your site. As
you correctly observe, the poem you cite isn't from the Manyo'shu --
Not sure, but I suspect that the incorrect citation arose from the
flurry of Tweeter communications triggered by the 3/11 earthquake
(many containing misinformation and groundless rumors).

A quick google search shows that indeed someone (not a PMJS member I'm
sure!) on March 11th tweeted the famous poem, citing it as being from
the Man'yoshu, and then it spread after that. Probably the reporter
from the Japan Times intercepted one of the tweets, or as you say
gleaned it from Wikipedia.

For an early ukiyo-e on the subject, see Kashima Shrine's site (with
what I think is the standard modern reading of the opening line):

http://www.kashimajinja.org/m_kaname.htm

Cheers, John

--
John Carpenter
Reader in the History of Japanese Art
Head of London Office, Sainsbury Institute
Dept. of History of Art and Archaeology
SOAS, University of London
Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
www.soas.ac.uk/art   www.sainsbury-institute.org

[Keller Kimbrough]

Dear Mark,

The poem appears on the last page of volume 3 of Asai Ryôi's Kanameishi, a kanazôshi published ca. Kanbun 3 (1663) concerning the earthquake that struck Kyoto on the first day of the fifth month of Kanbun 2 (1662).  Asai Ryôi describes the poem as a zokuka 俗歌 (a popular verse) and simply identifies it as "mukashi no hito no uta" (a poem by a person of old). 

I wonder if anyone can find an older citation of the poem than this?  It isn't in the first ten volumes of the Shinpen kokka taikan, and Fujiwara no Kiyosuke doesn't cite it in his Fukurozôshi of ca. 1157-1158.  

According to Tsuchida Mamoru's 土田衛 kaisetsu in a typeset Kanameishi volume (Ehime Daigaku koten sôkan, vol. 8, published by 愛媛大学古典叢刊刊行会 in 1971), p. 207, the poem also appears in Saikaku's Nippon eitaigura (section 5:4) and in Chikamatsu's Yômei Tennô shokunin kagami (section 4), but these works date from 1688 and 1705, at least 25 years later than Kanameishi. 

No more time to search -- I've got to run my daughter to see a movie! 

Best wishes,

Keller

--

MARK SCHUMACHER

<email-signature-image-montage.gif>

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R. Keller Kimbrough

Associate Professor

Dept. of Asian Languages and Civilizations

279 University of Colorado, Boulder

Boulder, CO  80309-0279

keller.k...@colorado.edu

[Lewis Cook]

Hello, Mark

There is a meticulously researched series of very thick volumes by Shibuya Torao, published from the mid-80s by Oufuusha (now Oufuu), consisting entirely of citations of -- alleged, apocryphal or simply misquoted in many cases -- Man'you poems, as cited in various documents, private collections, etc. from Heian through late Muromachi, with a volume of indices. These are apparently out of print (and were very expensive), but a good library should have them. If the poem in question was cited or circulated before Edo, it will very likely turn up there. 

Here's a link to a page on the web bookstore bk1.com that gives bibliographical details: 

http://www.bk1.jp/keywordSearchResult/?keyword=%E6%B8%8B%E8%B0%B7%E8%99%8E%E9%9B%84&storeCd=1&searchFlg=9&x=0&y=0

Regards, 

L Cook

--

MARK SCHUMACHER

<email-signature-image-montage.gif>

[Alexander Vovin]

Dear Marc and all,

To answer your questions:

• Is this 31-syllable tanka from the Manyōshū?

No, it is not. It is not a poem in Old Japanese either, as both 抜けじの and ゆるぐども are ungrammatical in Old Japanese (unless the last one is typo for ゆるぐとも)

• Does the Manyōshū mention anything about a "pivot stone"?

No, the word kanameishi does not appear in the MYS. But Kashima no kami appears once in the following Sakimori poem:

20 / 4370
C,00,阿良例布理 / 可志麻能可美乎 / 伊能利都々 / 須米良美久佐尓 / 和例波伎尓之乎
D,00,あられふり / かしまのかみを / いのりつつ / すめらみくさに / われはきにしを
E,00,あられ降り / 鹿島の神を / 祈りつつ / 皇御軍卒に / 我は来にしを
F,00,右二首那賀郡上丁大舎人部千文
G,00,右の二首、那賀郡の上丁大舎人部千文

Hope this helps,

Sasha

--
============
Alexander Vovin
Professor of East Asian Languages
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
University of Hawai'i at Manoa, USA
========================
iustitiam magni facite, infirmos protegite

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--
============
Alexander Vovin
Professor of East Asian Languages
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
University of Hawai'i at Manoa, USA
========================
iustitiam magni facite, infirmos protegite

[Michael Pye]

Dear Colleagues,

Permit me to draw attention to a project which could be of interest to
a post-graduate student of Japan-related librarianship, in Kyoto.

The NCC Center for the Study of Japanese Religions in Kyoto has a
library of a few thousand books and journals which are currently
catalogued on cards and urgently need to be digitised. The
digitisation process should also include a critical assessment and
partial reform of the catalogue. We currently have some "volunteer"
assistance in the library, but this task is beyond present capacities.

The library has been built up over the last fifty years and contains
standard works of Japanological interest, reference works of various
kinds, a wide variey of works on religions in Japan, works on Buddhism
and Christianity and some other areas of religious thought (Indian,
Chinese), and a good collection of works on Japanese religions
including materials on and from new religions which are now not easily
found (because the religious bodies prefer to hand out more recent,
corrected ones). Many of the books are in Japanese, and various other
languages occur as well as English.

This is therefore a "special library"; its digital cataloguing would
be a most instructive exercise in "special librarianship". Since the
card catalogues
have been most carefully done and in most cases follow categories used
at Doshisha University, it is thought that progress could be
considerably quicker than in the early days of digitisation. The work
would require the ability to work more or less independently, but it
would be carried out under my general direction. I am currently the
"academic director" of this center, and (with the trustees) handling
its genral business.

Unfortunately I have to say that this a non-financed opening, because
the institution simply has no money for it. So the costs would have to
be found from a funding body in the sending country.

Do any colleagues have an interest in recommending this to a promising
young academic librarian? Some idea of where to apply for funding
would be part of it. Of course, on reaching agreement, I would support
an application for funding from the Kyoto end of things.

Michael Pye
Academic Director (managing), NCC Center for the Study of Japanese
Religions, Kyoto.

[Mark Schumacher]

Dear PMJS List

Thanks to PMJS list members, I've been able to eliminate the Manyo'shu as the source of the poem, and to further pinpoint the approx. date of the poem's first usage. The poem appears on the Earthquake Map of Greater Japan (Dai Nihon Koku Jishin no Zu 大日本国地震の図). Dated 1624 (寛永元年). Size: 44 cm X 26.7 cm. From the Masaaki Harada Collection 原田氏蔵. Ishikawa Prefecture. Japan's oldest single-sheet block-print earthquake map. So I can confidently date the poem nearly 40 years before it's subsequent appearance in the 1663 Kanameishi by Asai Ryôi (thank you Keller-san for the info about Asai Ryoi's work).

Also, as Vovin-san pointed out, there was indeed a typo in my earlier email.
Incorrect = ゆるぐども, Correct = ゆるぐとも

Thanks as well to Carpenter-san、who mentioned that the current standard reading of the poem is slightly different,
as presented on the Kashima Shrine web site, http://www.kashimajinja.org/m_kaname.htm
The two readings (old and new) are presented below:
 
The 1624 map reads = ゆるぐとも / よもや抜けじの / 要石 / 鹿島の神の / あらん限りは
The modern Kashima Shrine reading = ゆるげども / よもや抜けじの / 要石 / 鹿島の神の / あらん限りは

Thanks also to Cook-san and his reference to a work by Shibuya Torao.
When I get a chance, I'll check this to further pinpoint the first appearance of the poem.

Finally, not sure if the PMJS list allows the sending of photos, but I attach one to this message,
showing the 1624 map and a closeup of the poem (which appears next to the representation of the Kaname stone).



sincerely
mark in kamakura

Dear Marc and all,

To answer your questions:

• Is this 31-syllable tanka from the Manyōshū?

No, it is not. It is not a poem in Old Japanese either, as both 抜けじの and ゆるぐども are ungrammatical in Old Japanese (unless the last one is typo for ゆるぐとも)

• Does the Manyōshū mention anything about a "pivot stone"?

No, the word kanameishi does not appear in the MYS. But Kashima no kami appears once in the following Sakimori poem:

20 / 4370
C,00,阿良例布理 / 可志麻能可美乎 / 伊能利都々 / 須米良美久佐尓 / 和例波伎尓之乎
D,00,あられふり / かしまのかみを / いのりつつ / すめらみくさに / われはきにしを
E,00,あられ降り / 鹿島の神を / 祈りつつ / 皇御軍卒に / 我は来にしを
F,00,右二首那賀郡上丁大舎人部千文
G,00,右の二首、那賀郡の上丁大舎人部千文

Hope this helps, Sasha

[Alexander Vovin]

Dear Mark and all,

 

Your picture came through OK, thank you. I believe that  と in ゆるぐとも is a hentaigana derived from 東, which is paleographically somewhat late, but given 1624 AD it should be of no surprise. In the given context ゆるぐとも makes much more sense than ゆるげども. I also haste to add that yurugu is not attested in Old Japanese.

 

Sasha

 

--
============
Alexander Vovin
Professor of East Asian Languages
Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
University of Hawai'i at Manoa, USA
========================
iustitiam magni facite, infirmos protegite

 

 

[William Wetherall]

Mark et al.

Interesting.

The layout of the mostly kana text appears to be as follows.

ゆるくとも / よもや
ぬけしの / かなめ石
かしまの神の / あらんかきりは

The lines appear to have been intentionally parsed as shown to accommodate justification toward the bottom of the block of space allocated for the poem.

A trivial question but -- assuming that the above representation is correct -- does anyone know how common such parsing was? I am not a student of this subject but just curious.

Bill

(2011/05/09 11:14), Mark Schumacher wrote:
> Dear PMJS List
>

> Thanks to PMJS list members, I've been able to eliminate the Manyo'shu as the source of the poem, and to further pinpoint the approx. date of the poem's first usage. The poem appears on the Earthquake Map of Greater Japan (Dai Nihon Koku Jishin no Zu 大日本国地震の図). Dated 1624 (寛永元年). Size: 44 cm X 26.7 cm. From the Masaaki Harada Collection 原 田氏蔵. Ishikawa Prefecture. Japan's oldest single-sheet block-print earthquake map. So I can confidently date the poem nearly 40 years before it's subsequent appearance in the 1663 /Kanameishi/ by Asai Ryôi (thank you Keller-san for the info about Asai Ryoi's work).

>
> Also, as Vovin-san pointed out, there was indeed a typo in my earlier email.
> Incorrect = ゆるぐども, Correct = ゆるぐとも
>
> Thanks as well to Carpenter-san、who mentioned that the current standard reading of the poem is slightly different,
> as presented on the Kashima Shrine web site, http://www.kashimajinja.org/m_kaname.htm
> The two readings (old and new) are presented below:
>
> The 1624 map reads = ゆるぐとも / よもや抜けじの / 要石 / 鹿島の神の / あらん限りは
> The modern Kashima Shrine reading = ゆるげども / よもや抜けじの / 要石 / 鹿島の神の / あらん限りは
>
> Thanks also to Cook-san and his reference to a work by Shibuya Torao.
> When I get a chance, I'll check this to further pinpoint the first appearance of the poem.
>
> Finally, not sure if the PMJS list allows the sending of photos, but I attach one to this message,
> showing the 1624 map and a closeup of the poem (which appears next to the representation of the Kaname stone).
>
>
>

> sincerely
> mark in kamakura
>
>
>> Dear Marc and all,
>>
>> To answer your questions:
>>

>> * Is this 31-syllable tanka from the Manyōshū?
>>
>> No, it is not. It is not a poem in Old Japanese either, as both 抜けじ の and ゆるぐども are ungrammatical in Old Japanese (unless the last one is typo for ゆるぐとも)
>>
>> * Does the Manyōshū mention anything about a "pivot stone"?

>>
>> No, the word kanameishi does not appear in the MYS. But Kashima no kami appears once in the following Sakimori poem:
>>

>> *20 / 4370*
>> *C,00,阿良例布理 / 可志麻能可美乎 / 伊能利都々 / 須米良美久佐尓 / 和例 波伎尓之乎*

>> D,00,あられふり / かしまのかみを / いのりつつ / すめらみくさに / われ はきにしを
>> E,00,あられ降り / 鹿島の神を / 祈りつつ / 皇御軍卒に / 我は来にしを
>> F,00,右二首那賀郡上丁大舎人部千文
>> G,00,右の二首、那賀郡の上丁大舎人部千文
>>
>> Hope this helps, Sasha
>>
>>
>> On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 11:50 PM, Mark Schumacher <m...@onmarkproductions.com <mailto:m...@onmarkproductions.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear PMJS Members
>>
>> Today the Japan Times published a story about Kashima Jingu Shrine
>> and its earthquake deity. The article said: "As long as Kashima's
>> deity is with us,"

>> *according to a verse from the 8th century Manyōshū book of poems, *

>> "the pivot stone may wobble but it will not break."
>> http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/fl20110508x2.html
>>
>> That sounded strange and incorrect, I thought. The Manyōshū says
>> nothing like that.
>>

>> * So I searched the online version of Manyōshū at the

>> Electronic Text Center of the University of Virgina.
>> http://etext.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/
>> There is NO REFERENCE to the pivot stone (要石 kaname-ishi)
>> in the Manyōshū.
>> Is that a correct assessment?
>>

>> * Next I contacted my good friend Gabi Greve. She did some

>> digging
>> around, and found the following 31-syllable tanka:
>> ゆるぐども / よもや抜けじの / 要石 / 鹿島の神の / あらん限りは
>> Yurugu tomo / yomoya nukeji no / kaname ishi / kashima no
>> kami no / aran kagiri wa
>> Lit. = "As long as the god of Kashima is majestically
>> restraining it, even if there might be earthquakes,
>> the Kaname Stone will never come out of the earth." Numerous
>> Japanese-language sites, including Wikipedia

>> Japan, *cite the Manyōshū as the source of this tanka*.

>> Other sources say that, from the 19th century
>> onward, reading this poem three times was believed to
>> protect one from earthquakes
>>

>> * But surely this is incorrect? I am working hard on an

>> article entitled "The Evolution
>> of Japan's Earthquake Deities." I have discovered that the
>> above 31-syllable tanka came into
>> use around the mid-17th century -- it appears on earthquake
>> maps of Japan (maps showing the
>> provinces of Japan surrounded by a dragon-like or snake-like
>> creature).
>>

>> *QUESTIONS*
>>
>> * Is this 31-syllable tanka from the Manyōshū?
>> * Does the Manyōshū mention anything about a "pivot stone"?
>> * I think not, and want to stop such "misinformation" from

[Michael Pye]

PS. Sorry, I should have explained that NCC stands for National
Christian Council (the Japanese arm of the World Council of Churches,
so to speak).
It publishes the journal Japanese Religions.

--
Michael Pye
Professor of the Study of Religions
University of Marburg, Germany (retired)
Research Associate (International Buddhist Studies), Shin Buddhist
Comprehensive Research Institute, Otani University, Kyoto, Japan

Zitat von Michael Pye <p...@Staff.Uni-Marburg.DE>:

[John Carpenter]

Dear Mark  -- 

Thanks for the excellent summary of the background of this poem.

As for the kana forms  -- hard to decipher with complete assurance since the paper has many wrinkles, which look like extra lines in the photo,  but the と in question I would have assumed is not derived from 東, but rather simply the abbreviated form of 止, and in that case not at all unusual for any post-Heian text.  

As for the arrangement of the poem on the page William Wetherall queried about, nothing particularly unusual about that either -- just breaking the columns to make it fit nicely next the picture -- only one line being divided artificially, but still logically -- allowing the entire poem to be attractively balanced with other texts on the page -- i.e, in this case the lines of the poem are not radically rearranged in chirashigaki format as sometimes happens when poems are merged with pictures in premodern manuscripts or printed material.    

Tori isogi, John 

[Mark Schumacher]

Dear Carpenter-san and Vovin-san

Here are two more examples of the poem as
appearing on two other dragon-serpent earthquake maps
of the mid 17th century. Perhaps easier to decipher................
They seem to read "ゆるくとも" rather than the expected ゆるぐとも.
Parsing is also slightly different, as Wetherall-san was wondering about.

POEM = ゆるぐとも / よもや抜けじの / 要石 / 鹿島の神の / あらん限りは



mark in kamakura

C,00,阿良例 布理 / 可志麻能可美乎 / 伊能利都々 / 須米良美久佐尓 / 和例波伎尓之乎
D,00,あられふり / かしまの かみを / いのりつつ / すめらみくさに / われはきにしを

[Eason, David A.]

Dear Mark,

   Thank you very much for sharing these images with members of the list.  I, for one, find them to be quite fascinating.  Plus, it is always nice to find other people who look at seventeenth century texts.

   As for the variant versions of the poem, however, I would only point out that the absence of dakuten is not at all unusual in texts from this time period (as well as from earlier, of course).  It appears that, as you note, the kana in these images reads ゆるくrather than ゆるぐ, but the same appears true for ぬけじ (which seems to be written as ぬけし) too.  

  The absence of dakuten is easy to remedy here, but in other instances it has led to all kinds of issues when seeking to determine, for instance, how the names of certain historical personages should be read.  There are, of course, also texts from this time and before that include dakuten, and these can sometimes be used for comparative references.  Lee Butler has written on this issue of naming, and there is also an essay by a Japanese scholar who name escapes me at the moment that Oda Nobunaga's family name is, based on the readings found in early seventeenth century texts, more properly pronounced "Ota."

  

Sincerely,

David Eason

--
Dr. David A. Eason
Assistant Professor of Japanese Studies

Department of East Asian Studies

University at Albany, State University of New York
(518) 442-4579
dea...@uamail.albany.edu
http://www.albany.edu/eas/eason.shtml

[Shapinsky, Peter D]

I would be grateful if you could post the following conference announcement.

Thank you!

-- 

Peter D. Shapinsky

Dept. of History

University of Illinois, Springfield

One University Plaza, MS UHB 3050

Springfield, IL 62703-5407

217-206-6595

psh...@uis.edu

Conference Announcement

 Title: “The Early Modern 'Medieval': Reconstructing Japanese Pasts”

Location: Michigan League, the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Dates: October 6-9, 2011

            In the early seventeenth century, Japan entered a period of prolonged, relative stability under the dominion of the Tokugawa shoguns and other regional lords.  This sustained period of peace, usually known by scholars as “early modern,” lasted until the mid-nineteenth century, and witnessed revolutions in printing, literacy, consumer culture, and scholarship in countless fields. The artifacts of this whirlwind of production were particularly shaped by their creators’ need to legitimize their present by reviving and revising motifs from earlier eras. Creators drew heavily from the period known to scholars as “medieval Japan” (c.1200-1600). Writers and artists across early modern Japan appropriated medieval terminology and reinterpreted the words and images to fit their own political, artistic, or social-economic agendas. These projects reconstructed the history of medieval men and women of all walks of life—from samurai to outcastes, from pirates to merchants, and from warrior monks to tea masters.

The chronological division between medieval and early modern times in traditional periodization reflects the actual transition of the country from war to peace. But the division between periods has also had the effect of impeding connections inpedagogy, research, and publication across the chronological boundary.  Scholars today on either side of themedieval-early modern divide share only rarely their sources or interpretations with each other.  Japanese academic institutions maintain a discrete section for each of the two periods.  As a result, relationships between the materials produced in each period have often been overlooked. Potentially more dangerous than the shape these particular chronological fields have taken is the impact this split has had on how modernity is understood.  Modern Japan unwittingly and uncritically claims itself to be the heir of an early modern that in fact projected imaginary histories onto its past in order to fit early modern agendas.  

This conference features keynote presentations by Professor Kurushima Noriko of the Historiographical Institute, University of Tokyo, and Professor Umezawa Fumiko of Keisen University; and panel presentations by Professors Kevin Carr, Thomas Conlan, David Eason, Suzanne Gay, Thomas Keirstead, Morten Oxenbøll, MorganPitelka, Eric Rath, Peter Shapinsky, David Spafford, Hitomi Tonomura, Melanie Trede, and Reinhard Zöllner. In addition, each speaker will offer a short presentation of the primary source that was used to formulate her/his argument. 

 

The conference is open to the public. We will announce more details soon. Please save the dates! 

[William Wetherall]

Dear Mark et al.

Thanks again, Mark.

The two other versions Mark kindly posted look like this.

Poem on right image:

▲ゆるくとも
よもやぬけし
のかなめいし
かしまの神の
あらんかき
りは

Poem on left image:

ゆるくともよも
やぬけしのかな
めいしかしまの
神のあ
らんかき
りは

Whereas the poem on the image Mark first posted is presented something like this.

ゆるくとも
よもや
ぬけしの
かなめ石
かしまの神の
あらんかきりは

As John Carpenter noted about the latter, it is "attractively balanced" in the allocated space -- whereas the two other versions appear mainly to flow and wrap to fill the available space.

The poem on the right fills a box cartouche. The poem on the left flows within a more complex space, bound by straight lines top and left, but on the bottom by the curvature of the thickly brushed arc -- skirting the titles below it and to the left -- or perhaps the titles were brushed first.

I get the impression that all use of space to visually break a text is "ARTificial" in the sense that such breaks are not linguistically required but are design and/or calligraphic options. The question, it seems, is when are such options intended to "show" (highlight) linguistic elements -- graphs, words, phrases -- possibly even force pauses (as Robin Gill has pointed out) -- whatever -- as opposed simply to "tell" the story with a flow of text?

The texts of all three versions Mark has shared graphically emphasize 神 (and the first version also stresses 石) in a stream of kana. Titles associated with two of the versions highlight 石 (かなめ石) while the title by the other version (left image) shows いし (かなめ / いし).

Again, all trivial perhaps, but interesting.

Bill

PS As for "dakuten" -- most early Meiji laws I have had reason to translate, and many of the stories on early Meiji news nishikie that I have translated or seen, and imperial rescripts as late as those ending World War II and into the Occupation of Japan, did not show voicing. However, in even the most formal material, transliterations of foreign names and words from alphabetic scripts usually showed voicing. In some texts the showing of voicing for Japanese is hit and miss.

(2011/05/10 21:41), Mark Schumacher wrote:
> Dear Carpenter-san and Vovin-san
>
> Here are two more examples of the poem as
> appearing on two other dragon-serpent earthquake maps
> of the mid 17th century. Perhaps easier to decipher................
> They seem to read "ゆるくとも" rather than the expected ゆるぐとも.
> Parsing is also slightly different, as Wetherall-san was wondering about.
>
> POEM = ゆるぐとも / よもや抜けじの / 要石 / 鹿島の神の / あらん限りは
>
>
>

> mark in kamakura
>
>
>
>> Dear Mark --
>>
>> Thanks for the excellent summary of the background of this poem.
>>
>> As for the kana forms -- hard to decipher with complete assurance since the paper has many wrinkles, which look like extra lines in the photo, but the と in question I would have assumed is not derived from 東, but rather simply the abbreviated form of 止, and in that case not at all unusual for any post-Heian text.
>>
>> As for the arrangement of the poem on the page William Wetherall queried about, nothing particularly unusual about that either -- just breaking the columns to make it fit nicely next the picture -- only one line being divided artificially, but still logically -- allowing the entire poem to be attractively balanced with other texts on the page -- i.e, in this case the lines of the poem are not radically rearranged in chirashigaki format as sometimes happens when poems are merged with pictures in premodern manuscripts or printed material.
>>
>> Tori isogi, John
>>

>> On 9 May 2011 06:08, Alexander Vovin <sasha...@gmail.com <mailto:sasha...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Mark and all,
>> Your picture came through OK, thank you. I believe that と in ゆ
>> るぐとも is a hentaigana derived from 東, which is
>> paleographically somewhat late, but given 1624 AD it should be of
>> no surprise. In the given context ゆるぐとも makes much more sense

>> than ゆるげども. I also haste to add that /yurugu/ is not attested

>> in Old Japanese.
>> Sasha
>> -- ============
>> Alexander Vovin
>> Professor of East Asian Languages
>> Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
>> University of Hawai'i at Manoa, USA
>> ========================
>> iustitiam magni facite, infirmos protegite
>> On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 4:14 PM, Mark Schumacher
>> <m...@onmarkproductions.com <mailto:m...@onmarkproductions.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Dear PMJS List
>>
>> Thanks to PMJS list members, I've been able to eliminate the
>> Manyo'shu as the source of the poem, and to further pinpoint
>> the approx. date of the poem's first usage. The poem appears
>> on the Earthquake Map of Greater Japan (Dai Nihon Koku Jishin
>> no Zu 大日本国地震の図). Dated 1624 (寛永元年). Size: 44 cm X
>> 26.7 cm. From the Masaaki Harada Collection 原田氏蔵. Ishikawa
>> Prefecture. Japan's oldest single-sheet block-print earthquake
>> map. So I can confidently date the poem nearly 40 years before

>> it's subsequent appearance in the 1663 /Kanameishi/ by Asai

>> Ryôi (thank you Keller-san for the info about Asai Ryoi's work).
>>
>> Also, as Vovin-san pointed out, there was indeed a typo in my
>> earlier email.
>> Incorrect = ゆるぐども, Correct = ゆるぐとも
>>
>> Thanks as well to Carpenter-san、who mentioned that the
>> current standard reading of the poem is slightly different,
>> as presented on the Kashima Shrine web site,
>> http://www.kashimajinja.org/m_kaname.htm
>> The two readings (old and new) are presented below:
>>
>> The 1624 map reads = ゆるぐとも / よもや抜けじの / 要石 / 鹿島
>> の神の / あらん限りは
>> The modern Kashima Shrine reading = ゆるげども / よもや抜けじ
>> の / 要石 / 鹿島の神の / あらん限りは
>>
>> Thanks also to Cook-san and his reference to a work by Shibuya
>> Torao.
>> When I get a chance, I'll check this to further pinpoint the
>> first appearance of the poem.
>>
>> Finally, not sure if the PMJS list allows the sending of
>> photos, but I attach one to this message,
>> showing the 1624 map and a closeup of the poem (which appears
>> next to the representation of the Kaname stone).
>>
>>
>>

>> sincerely
>> mark in kamakura
>>
>>
>>> Dear Marc and all,
>>>
>>> To answer your questions:
>>>

>>> * Is this 31-syllable tanka from the Manyōshū?

>>>
>>> No, it is not. It is not a poem in Old Japanese either, as
>>> both 抜けじの and ゆるぐども are ungrammatical in Old
>>> Japanese (unless the last one is typo for ゆるぐとも)
>>>

>>> * Does the Manyōshū mention anything about a "pivot stone"?

>>>
>>> No, the word kanameishi does not appear in the MYS. But
>>> Kashima no kami appears once in the following Sakimori poem:
>>>

>>> *20 / 4370*
>>> *C,00,阿良例 布理 / 可志麻能可美乎 / 伊能利都々 / 須米良美久
>>> 佐尓 / 和例波伎尓之乎*

>>> D,00,あられふり / かしまの かみを / いのりつつ / すめらみくさ
>>> に / われはきにしを
>>> E,00,あられ降り / 鹿島の神を / 祈りつつ / 皇御軍卒に / 我は来
>>> にしを
>>> F,00,右二首那賀郡上丁大舎人部千文
>>> G,00,右の二首、那賀郡の上丁大舎人部千文
>>>
>>> Hope this helps, Sasha
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 11:50 PM, Mark Schumacher
>>> <m...@onmarkproductions.com

>>> <mailto:m...@onmarkproductions.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear PMJS Members
>>>
>>> Today the Japan Times published a story about Kashima
>>> Jingu Shrine
>>> and its earthquake deity. The article said: "As long as
>>> Kashima's deity is with us,"

>>> *according to a verse from the 8th century Manyōshū book
>>> of poems, *

>>> "the pivot stone may wobble but it will not break."
>>> http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/fl20110508x2.html
>>>
>>> That sounded strange and incorrect, I thought. The
>>> Manyōshū says nothing like that.
>>>

>>> * So I searched the online version of Manyōshū at the

>>> Electronic Text Center of the University of Virgina.
>>> http://etext.virginia.edu/japanese/manyoshu/
>>> There is NO REFERENCE to the pivot stone (要石
>>> kaname-ishi) in the Manyōshū.
>>> Is that a correct assessment?
>>>

>>> * Next I contacted my good friend Gabi Greve. She did

>>> some digging
>>> around, and found the following 31-syllable tanka:
>>> ゆるぐども / よもや抜けじの / 要石 / 鹿島の神の /
>>> あらん限りは
>>> Yurugu tomo / yomoya nukeji no / kaname ishi /
>>> kashima no kami no / aran kagiri wa
>>> Lit. = "As long as the god of Kashima is
>>> majestically restraining it, even if there might be
>>> earthquakes,
>>> the Kaname Stone will never come out of the earth."
>>> Numerous Japanese-language sites, including Wikipedia

>>> Japan, *cite the Manyōshū as the source of this
>>> tanka*. Other sources say that, from the 19th century

>>> onward, reading this poem three times was believed
>>> to protect one from earthquakes
>>>

>>> * But surely this is incorrect? I am working hard on

>>> an article entitled "The Evolution
>>> of Japan's Earthquake Deities." I have discovered
>>> that the above 31-syllable tanka came into
>>> use around the mid-17th century -- it appears on
>>> earthquake maps of Japan (maps showing the
>>> provinces of Japan surrounded by a dragon-like or
>>> snake-like creature).
>>>

>>> *QUESTIONS*
>>>
>>> * Is this 31-syllable tanka from the Manyōshū?
>>> * Does the Manyōshū mention anything about a "pivot
>>> stone"?
>>> * I think not, and want to stop such "misinformation"

>>> from spreading on the web.
>>>
>>> sincerely
>>> mark in kamakura
>>>
>>
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