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5 The Eloquent Stillness of Stone Rock in the Dry Landscape Garden Graham Parkes Japanese studies in the West have often been intoxicated by exoticism to the point of uncritical adulation of their subject, while the corresponding enterprise in Japan has frequently taken the form of Nihonjinron, beginning as discussions of what it means to be Japanese but then degenerating into “theories of Japanese uniqueness.” Some of the writing on Japanese gardens has tended to overemphasize their uniqueness in terms of generalized oppositions of the “Western gardens are this” versus “Japanese gardens are not-this” variety . Recent scholarship on Japan in the United States, however, has sometimes overreacted to the silliness of the Nihonjinron literature by claiming that in fact the Japanese are not as different from us as they like to think, thereby dissolving all cultural practices (and discourses) into a flat postmodernist mélange of indifférance. There is a danger in overlooking features of Japanese culture that make it genuinely different and eminently worth studying. The Japanese dry landscape (karesansui) garden is a distinctive cultural product, significantly different even from its antecedents in China, and full aesthetic appreciation of it depends on understanding some of the philosophical ideas behind the development of the genre. Of particular importance in this context is the way that stone has been understood in the East Asian tradition, which differs significantly from the corresponding conceptions in mainstream Western thought. The history of the Japanese garden is a long and complex one, and the reflections that follow concern only those aspects that will enhance our appreciation of the karesansui style in particular. Because stone has in general been understood differently in the Western traditions from the way it has been regarded in East Asia, a focus on the role of rock in these cultures may be especially helpful for the foreign viewer of—or reflector on—such gardens. Let us begin by considering a concrete case. 44 1 Saihōji—recently better known as Kokedera, the “Moss Temple”—lies nestled against the hills bordering Kyoto on the west and harbors the oldest surviving example of karesansui. When visiting the dry landscape there, the best strategy (after the obligatory calligraphy practice and chanting of the Heart Sutra) is to take up a position at the rear of the phalanx of visitors as it makes its way around the famous pond of the lower garden. This will allow one later to linger for a while in undisturbed contemplation of the upper garden, after the other visitors have moved off down the hill to the main temple buildings and exit. From the steep path that leads up to the garden, one sees to the left a magnificent group of rocks floating on a bed of moss and arranged in the “turtle-island” style, evoking the Daoist Isles of the Immortals. This group was probably set originally on a sea of white gravel, which was dispersed and covered by moss during a period when the temple grounds were left derelict.1 It is a wonderfully down-to-earth rendering of the paradisal Chinese topos. The angular shapes of the rocks together with their arrangement, which leaves spaces among them, make for a composition that looks perfect from whatever angle it is viewed. The turtle-island group is like an overture to the main body of the work, the “dry cascade” (karetaki) in the uppermost part of the garden. Here fifty or so rocks in three tiers descend the hillside, evoking a waterfall deep in the mountains. Most of the rocks are covered with lichen and surrounded by “pools” of moss. They are bordered by some moderate-size trees, several of which describe graceful arcs over the edges of the arrangement. The moss, together with the lichen that clothes the rocks in varying thicknesses, offers a remarkable array of colors: browns, dark grays, mauves, oranges, and many shades of sometimes iridescent green. A few miniature ferns and a scattering of dead pine needles add contrasting touches. The warm colors of the moss pools stand out against the cooler hues of the bare stone, and when wetted by rain all the colors become impressively more saturated. If the sun is shining, its rays filter through the trees and highlight different elements of the composition differentially. When the branches sway in the wind, light and shade play slowly over the entire scene, the movements accentuating at first the stillness of the rocks. Further contemplation brings...

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