Kamakura and Mt. Fuji officially nominated as World Cultural Heritage Sites

[Matthew Stavros]

「武家の古都・鎌倉」と「富士山」世界文化遺産に推薦決定

Kamakura and Mt. Fuji have been formally nominated as World Cultural Heritage Sites by the Japanese authorities. Final approval will need to be granted by UNESCO after careful consideration of the Japanese application and the several sites themselves. 

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/culture/news/20120125-OYT1T00548.htm

One point to be made about this is that Mt Fuji was initially kicked back for nomination within the World Natural Heritage category because it was too polluted. Now they are promoting the mountain as a focal point of religious devotion and artistic expression. 

Also, I'm a little rankled by their use of the word "koto" (古都) with regard to Kamakura because of the second character's traditional association with the body of the sovereign and/or the walled space within which s/he exercised sacerdotal rule. I'm aware that "buke no koto" is commonly applied to Kamakura, but that doesn't mean it's strictly correct. I suspect that it's a reverse translation from the English or French "warrior capital."  

Matthew Stavros
www.mstavros.com
www.pmjs.org

[Jordan Sand]

Thank you for passing along this interesting news, Matthew.  Sneeky of them to try shifting from natural to cultural heritage.  Pollution, I suppose, can be deemed a cultural product too.

On the subject of the word 都, you may be right about the decidedly contemporary sounding label for Kamakura, but what do you do with 三都?  If a 都 was originally supposed to house the body of the sovereign, it would be interesting to know more about when and how the meaning drifted.

Jordan Sand

--
You are subscribed to PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies.
To post to the list, send email to pm...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe, send email to pmjs+uns...@googlegroups.com
Visit the PMJS web site at www.pmjs.org
Contact the group administrator at edi...@pmjs.org

[Luke Roberts]

Interesting issue.  I do know of usage in Japan in the Tokugawa period of daimyo domain castle towns being called kokuto/kunimiyako 国都 and am pretty sure that this comes out of Chinese warring states discourses, and if one looked I expect one could find such usage in Japanese warring states era documents.  I asked my colleague Tony Barbieri-Low about this and he said that after the Han the word 都 could only be applied to the imperial capital, but during the Han historians used the word 都会to mean a large city that attracted distant traders etc.--something like a metropole and many of which had earlier been capitals of a state, and that in warring states China that the term 国都was used by the kingly states of the time.  I am sure that in Japan the sense of order focused on the imperial clan would have had only the imperial city as the miyako, and other centers of authority designated by such terms as fu 府, but also that Chinese warring states literature had a large influence in warrior polities in Japan, so the discursive context is everything. 

How this information historically relates to Kamakura itself remains an issue.  I could imaging that someone using warring states era Chinese discourses of kingly government might have chosen such a term.  

I also agree that the origins of the modern usage in the UNESCO move probably has more to do with language used by modern Japanese historians that  emerged with an eye to translation of European concepts.  

Any Kamakura scholars know the various general terms for Kamakura?

 Luke Roberts

[Luke Roberts]

An addendum: Now that I think of it, as a further evidence of place
of warring states discourses in Japan, many Tokugawa era publishing
houses of Edo identified the city as tōto 東都 in their colophons.
Luke

[toby, ronald]

A couple of things.

1.  I seem to recall that one of the problems in getting Mt. Fuji recognized as a World Cultural Heritage Site was the presence of an SDF facility on the lower slopes of the mountain.

2. The meaning of 都 had long since 'drifted,' to use Jordan's term; indeed, it already means 'village' as well as the place where the monarch resides, as early as the Zhou Dynasty. That is, though I get Matthew's irritation with calling Kamakura a 古都, I think he's taking too restrictive a view of 都. Characters and words, after all, are often polyvalent, and miyako is surely no exception. Thus, while the 1st meaning offered in Morohashi is indeed 「天子の常居の在る聚落」, there are several other meanings that have no necessary association with the body of the sovereign, including, e.g., a note in the 戦国策 equating 都 with 邑. Interestingly, though, 古都・故都 does have a firmer etymological link to denoting a former royal city. It can even mean (again, according to Morohashi) just plain 居る.

3. I haven't encountered 古都 used to refer to Kamakura before, but the 日本国語大辞典 doesn't even cite an exemplar in Japanese usage before the 20th c.--despite the availability of the long-established Chinese loan word. That doesn't mean the term can't be found in earlier Japanese discourse, of course, only that the Shogakukan team didn't find one.

4. Muro Kyuso (d. 1734) refers to Edo as the 'Eastern capital' 『鳩巣先生文集』〔1763-64〕後篇・一五・題本多佐渡守藤政信論治道国字書「惟昔東都創業之初、以佐州君経済之才常為帷幄謀臣」, as does Hiraga Gennai (『根無草』（宝暦～明和）　「味噌を上るとは、自慢とイ減る東都の俗言なり」, etc. And then there's 『東都歳時記』(1838)

5. Luke's quite correct, of course, that many Edo publishers identified their location as 東都; others used 江都. On the other hand, I've not seen an attested instance of 国都 read as くにみやこ, a word that doesn't appear in the 日本国語大辞典--and a reading that doesn't appear in Morohashi. Perhaps Luke can point us to an example.

So there's plenty of precedent for calling a non-天子 capital a 都, though I can't offer any examples of Kamakura as a 都. I hope some of our medievalist colleagues can help out on that score.

Ron Toby

On 1/25/2012 7:30 AM, Jordan Sand wrote:

Thank you for passing along this interesting news, Matthew.  Sneeky of them to try shifting from natural to cultural heritage.  Pollution, I suppose, can be deemed a cultural product too.

On the subject of the word 都, you may be right about the decidedly contemporary sounding label for Kamakura, but what do you do with 三都?  If a 都 was originally supposed to house the body of the sovereign, it would be interesting to know more about when and how the meaning drifted.

Jordan Sand

On 1/25/2012 3:41 AM, Matthew Stavros wrote:

「武家の古 都・ 鎌倉」と「富士山」世界文化遺産に推薦決定

Kamakura and Mt. Fuji have been formally nominated as World Cultural Heritage Sites by the Japanese authorities. Final approval will need to be granted by UNESCO after careful consideration of the Japanese application and the several sites themselves. 

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/culture/news/20120125-OYT1T00548.htm

One point to be made about this is that Mt Fuji was initially kicked back for nomination within the World Natural Heritage category because it was too polluted. Now they are promoting the mountain as a focal point of religious devotion and artistic expression. 

Also, I'm a little rankled by their use of the word "koto" (古都) with regard to Kamakura because of the second character's traditional association with the body of the sovereign and/or the walled space within which s/he exercised sacerdotal rule. I'm aware that "buke no koto" is commonly applied to Kamakura, but that doesn't mean it's strictly correct. I suspect that it's a reverse translation from the English or French "warrior capital."  

Matthew Stavros
www.mstavros.com
www.pmjs.org

--
You are subscribed to PMJS: Premodern Japanese Studies.
To post to the list, send email to pm...@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe, send email to pmjs+uns...@googlegroups.com
Visit the PMJS web site at www.pmjs.org
Contact the group administrator at edi...@pmjs.org

[Ross Bender]

One thing that has always struck me about the site plan of Kamakura is that the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu is situated in the north central area, with a long roughly north-south approach along the Wakamiya Oji. That is to say, it stands where the Imperial Palace would stand if Kamakura were an imperial capital -- compare site plans of Nara and Heiankyo with the Suzaku Oji running north-south. Yoritomo's grave is somewhere to the north, where an imperial grave might have stood if it had been Fujiwarakyo or Nara -- eg Takano no Misasagi.

Perhaps I just have Hachiman on the brain, and I don't know anything about whether Kamakura was actually designed with this intention, but it looks more like an old Chinese-style imperial capital to me than the later jokamachi. Which is to say, more like Nara or Heiankyo than Edo.

Would someone who actually knows kindly tell me that I'm imagining things?

2012/1/25 toby, ronald <rpt...@illinois.edu>

--
Ross Bender
http://rossbender.org

[Matthew Stavros]

Thanks all for good insights. Let's keep them coming. 

Just on Ross' post, the PhD dissertation of Ron Roy covers Kamakura's planning in great detail, including some of the things you mention. 

And one more point: I wonder if Kamakura was ever referred to by premodern/medieval contemporaries as "都." My guess is "no". 

Matthew Stavros
www.mstavros.com
www.pmjs.org

2012/1/26 Ross Bender <ross....@gmail.com>

[Mark Schumacher]

Dear Bender-san and PMJS Members

What a fascinating discussion. As a longtime Kamakura resident, I am ashamed by my
woefully inadequate understanding of Kamakura's construction. Just a few things to add:

1. Kamakura is entirely surrounded by diminutive mountains on three sides (North, East, West), with the ocean to the south. Because of its "easily defensible" geography, Yoritomo Minamoto selected the city as his base.
2. Like Kyoto, the city does in fact run along a North-South and East-West axis, but the development of this "geomantic" orientation in Kamakura was quite helter-skelter and not part of the city's original layout. Kyoto, on the other hand, was built in imitation of Changan 長安, the capital of Tang China, and its geomantic orientation is immediately perceivable. Kamakura's main north-south avenue runs from the entrance of Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine (at the center of the city) to the ocean (Yuigahama Beach). Called both Wakamiya-oji 若宮大路 and Dankazura 段葛, the avenue was built by order of Minamoto Yoritomo to pray that his wife Masako would give safe birth to a male heir. Wakamiya-oji was reportedly modeled on Suzaku-oji Street 朱雀大路 in Heiankyo 平安京 (Kyoto). Excavations in the past few decades reveal that Wakamiya-oji was once about 33 meters wide. 
   
3. The offices of the Kamakura bakufu military government were located just to the east of present-day Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine. The eastern section of town doesn't attract too many tourists -- the bulk of tourists throng together at Tsurugaoka Hachiman, the Big Buddha, Hase Dera, and Zeniarai Benten (the town's main attractions). But here, in the east, we have Hokaiji and Sugimotodera (the only Tendai temples in Kamakura), and I find this part of the city most wonderful and largely untapped by tourist agencies (thank goodness!!). Just behind Hokaiji is one place in need of yearly rituals to "pacify" the spirits of the hundreds who committed mass suicide upon the collapse of the Kamakura regime.    
   
4. The Big Buddha of Kamakura (Amida Nyorai) is located in Kamakura's western quarter.......most befitting, as Amida is the lord of the western paradise Gokurakuji.
5. Yoritomo's grave, as Bender-san mentions, is located somewhere to the north (as would be an imperial grave). That is only slight incorrectly.....it is located to the northeast, about 500 meters to be exact.
   

Some Parting Shots. In order to be recognized as a World Cultural Heritage site, Kamakura city has installed "all-new" descriptive signboards outside all the main temples and shrines. These signboards provide a brief history of each site in four languages: English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. But the city government is not very clever. It continually fails to correct one of the biggest obstacles for gaining World Heritage status -- namely, traffic bottlenecks. Kamakura is not set up to handle large crowds. On weekends, Kamakura is home to hours-long traffic jams, carbon monoxide clouds, and herds of tourists.

For selfish reasons, I for one hope Kamakura "fails" to gain recognition as a World Heritage Site. The temples and shrines pay NO TAXES. The burden of paying for the services needed by millions of annual visitors falls of Kamakura residents. We residents pay some of the nation's highest city taxes. Our city officials also receive the third-or-forth highest salary among all civil employees. Even though I am a permanent resident of Japan, and pay my taxes, I do not have voting rights.

sincerely (and sorry for the rant)
mark in kamakura

PS. Geomantically speaking, my home lies directly behind Tsurugaoka Hachiman, on the north-south axis (the Dankazura axis),
so I am on a very auspicious fengshui 風水 line. Plus, my garden has a fox shrine to protect against ominous evil influences from
the Northeast direction. Not far from my home is Yoritomo's grave.

----------end message

One thing that has always struck me about the site plan of Kamakura is that the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu is situated in the north central area, with a long roughly north-south approach along the Wakamiya Oji. That is to say, it stands where the Imperial Palace would stand if Kamakura were an imperial capital -- compare site plans of Nara and Heiankyo with the Suzaku Oji running north-south. Yoritomo's grave is somewhere to the north, where an imperial grave might have stood if it had been Fujiwarakyo or Nara -- eg Takano no Misasagi.

Perhaps I just have Hachiman on the brain, and I don't know anything about whether Kamakura was actually designed with this intention, but it looks more like an old Chinese-style imperial capital to me than the later jokamachi. Which is to say, more like Nara or Heiankyo than Edo.

Would someone who actually knows kindly tell me that I'm imagining things?

2012/1/25 toby, ronald <rpt...@illinois.edu>

A couple of things.

1.  I seem to recall that one of the problems in getting Mt. Fuji recognized as a World Cultural Heritage Site was the presence of an SDF facility on the lower slopes of the mountain.

2. The meaning of 都 had long since 'drifted,' to use Jordan's term; indeed, it already means 'village' as well as the place where the monarch resides, as early as the Zhou Dynasty. That is, though I get Matthew's irritation with calling Kamakura a 古都, I think he's taking too restrictive a view of 都. Characters and words, after all, are often polyvalent, and miyako is surely no exception. Thus, while the 1st meaning offered in Morohashi is indeed 「天子の常居の在る聚落」, there are several other meanings that have no necessary association with the body of the sovereign, including, e.g., a note in the 戦国策 equating 都 with 邑. Interestingly, though, 古都・故都 does have a firmer etymological link to denoting a former royal city. It can even mean (again, according to Morohashi) just plain 居る.

3. I haven't encountered 古都 used to refer to Kamakura before, but the 日本国語大辞典 doesn't even cite an exemplar in Japanese usage before the 20th c.--despite the availability of the long-established Chinese loan word. That doesn't mean the term can't be found in earlier Japanese discourse, of course, only that the Shogakukan team didn't find one.

4. Muro Kyuso (d. 1734) refers to Edo as the 'Eastern capital' 『鳩巣先生文集』〔1763-64〕後篇・一五・題本多佐渡守藤政信論治道国字書「惟昔東都創 業之初、以佐州君経済之才常為帷幄謀臣」, as does Hiraga Gennai (『根無草』（宝暦～明和）　「味噌を上るとは、自慢とイ減る東都の俗言なり」, etc. And then there's 『東都歳時記』(1838)

--

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

[Luke Roberts]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all the information.  I hope we get some Kamakura scholars telling us about period usage.  Viz. Ron's question about reading of 国都 I should say that I was only writing on and kun readings for the word, and have actually not seen readings either way--just the kanji themselves.  When I get time I will see if I can find anything. 

Best, Luke

[Thomas Conlan]

Hi Everyone,

I think that the issue about whether Kamakura can be considered to be a "capital" or not is related to Hiraizumi's 2011 designation as a World Heritage site.  The characterization of Kamakura as the origin of a "warrior culture that originated in the twelfth century" is designed to conform to the UNESCO criteria that an area should  "bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization." As many temples and a network of old roads survive, I can understand why the Japanese authorities made the case for Kamakura to be considered as a World Heritage site, and described the region as an "old capital."

I am skeptical that Kamakura was conceived of as being a "capital" (古都) anytime in Japan's medieval era. I have not uncovered any evidence so describing Kamakura in the twelfth through sixteenth centuries, but I must admit that I have not exhaustively looked for this term. More often, I find references to the eight provinces of the Kantō as being an important administrative area, with Kamakura being the headquarters of the Kantō. Thus the Ashikaga who controlled the eastern provinces was known as the Kantō kubō, and his deputy was known as the Kantō kanrei. Kamakura remained politically and cultically significant, and indeed in my view should be designated as a World Heritage site, but I doubt that it was conceived as a capital.  When 古都 appears in medieval writings, it most generally refers to Nara.    

This is just a hypothesis, but I wonder if whether a city was laid out, or at some time was portrayed as being organized in accordance with  onmyōdō geomancy (shinjin sōō 四神相応 --e.g. moutains to the north, a river to the east, roads to the west and a body of water in the south) might be a good way to test if a settlement can make claims of being a "capital" of sorts.  If this were the case, then a stronger case exists for Yamaguchi as being considered a "capital" than Kamakura in the Muromachi era because it can be documented as being specifically identified as a sacred shinjin sōō spot（四神相応の霊地). Onmyōdō coordinates and directions are important to understand the placement of certain temples in Kamakura, but in my view Kamakura overall does not appear to have been commonly conceived as a shinjin sōō area. As for Edo, the 柳営秘鑑 explains its geography in terms of shinjin sōō, which might account for why it was at times conceived as an "eastern capital" 東都.

Tom Conlan

[Matthew Stavros]

[Posted on behalf of Brian Ruppert]

Dear All,



I wonder whether the answer the the "Kamakura" as 古都 is not simpler than we might otherwise think.  My sense is that it is related to the current prominence of 都市史 in Japan--especially in Kanto--and would just use one example (there are undoubtedly many many others).  I just happen to have my friend Takahashi Shinichiro's (Shiryo Hensanjo, charged with the Daigoji vols.) 2005 book 武家の古都、鎌倉 (Libretto series 21), a compact yet very interesting little book.  His first chapter lays out his conviction that we can think of Kamakura as an old capital for the warriors (buke) in the sense of the definitions used in urban studies (is that the term in English?):


「　若宮大路であるが、元来は源頼朝によって鶴岡八幡宮の参詣道として造成された道であった。若宮大路は国の史跡に指定されており、中心部の段葛は正月に限らず歩行行者専用となっている。市街の主要道路が史跡であり、しかも恒常的に歩行できるとは、なんとも「古都」らしい姿ではなかろうか。


さて、日本のいくつかの「古都」のなかでも、鎌倉がもつきわだった特徴は、はじめて本格的な武家の政権がおかれた都市である、という点である。。。


幕府成立後も京都の朝廷は西国を中心に支配権を保持していたことが明らかになっている。ただし、東国に独自の支配権を行使し、朝廷からある程度独立した武家政権が成立したことは確かであり、京都のほかに鎌倉という政治・経済・文化の一大中心都市がらたに誕生したのである。　」

（００１ー００２頁）

Takahashi seems to be emphasizing that Kamakura was a "capital" in the sense that the warriors, like those in Hiraizumi (he briefly mentions that), developed its major/central city in political, economic, and cultural terms inKamakura, just as the traditional aristocracy developed its own in the imperial/royal city of Heian/Kyoto.

Take care,
Brian

Matthew Stavros
www.mstavros.com
www.pmjs.org