Save time & have a better time anywhere in Japan (since 1990) with my expert private custom Japan tours & travel services. Learn more! WhatsApp: +1-415-230-0579. Email me today!

Kura storehouses, Kyoto geomancy, Rakkudo Temple, Heian poets!

Kurashiki, Okayama, is full of kura in use today!

This post covers just a few things that I love about Kyoto. For example, fireproof kura storehouses. I had a friend who lived in a fireproof kura storehouse in the early 1990s. He was a young American software genius, who was "employed" by an older American Kyoto mentor of mine. I also spent more than a few nights in a kura storehouse 35 minutes NW of central Kyoto in a 400-year-old samurai farmhouse where David Bowie dined more than once! The same house was rented by the month by a member of the Australian media Fairfax family complete with Jaguar and chauffeur. I love kura storehouses and what they overlook! Today, many are restaurants and boutique businesses, in Kyoto and Tokyo. Learn more!

I have also been to Rakkudo Temple in the very center of original Kyoto, a location that is intimately related to the perfect geomancy of the Kyoto valley as a capital. The Kyoto valley was chosen after Nara was the capital because it had everything Chinese geomany demanded of capital feng shui. It was divided by a river; it had a big mountain in the NE corner and it was ringed by mountains on three sides. Kyoto is a magical location for these reasons, and, on the valley edges, a nature paradise beyond imagination! Many feel the Kyoto valley is a chakra of planet Gaia. I agree and I have never experienced the power of spring more than in Kyoto. I admire the geological beauty and natural aspects places, not what humans did there (good or bad). For example, how the Santa Monica mountains make an unforgettable line leading to the Pacific. And right next door to Rakkudo are two amazing other places: 1. The displays of the Ikenobo ikebana school, Japan's most powerful. 2. A massive but discrete Starbucks that looks over swans, the temple and more! Check these places out as they are a stone's throw from the main intersection in downtown Kyoto: Shijo Street (EW) and Karasuma Street (NS).

And before I forget, I was a poet in Kyoto for the first 20 years I lived there. I was the founder of the Kyoto Connection variety night that was monthly from 1986-2000. The last part of this post is about two of Japan's most famous poetesses: Ono no Komachi, who went mad at the end of winter as the plus blossoms came out; Izumi Shikibu, who wrote a diary in the 3rd person; a world first almost, I believe . . . Learn more!

Content by Ian Martin Ropke, owner of Your Japan Private Tours (est. 1990). I have been planning, designing, and making custom Japan private tours on all five Japanese islands since the early 1990s. I work closely with Japan private tour clients and have worked for all kinds of families, companies, and individuals since 1990. Clients find me mostly via organic search, and I advertise my custom Japan private tours & travel services on www.japan-guide.com, which has the best all-Japan English content & maps in Japan! If you are going to Japan and you understand the advantages of private travel, consider my services for your next trip. And thank you for reading my content. I, Ian Martin Ropke (unique on Google Search), am also a serious nonfiction and fiction writer, a startup founder (NexussPlus.com), and a spiritual wood sculptor. Learn more!

Kura Storehouses

According to an old proverb, four things strike fear in the Japanese heart: lightning, fathers, earthquakes, and fire. Since fireproofing the entire house would have been next to impossible, the logical solution was to construct separate and virtually indestructible storehouses. These are called kura. Within the kura’s moisture-free interior the family placed it most valued possessions: scrolls, screens, lacquerware, kimono, etc.

The kura most commonly seen today in this area date mostly from the late 19th century. Essentially, they are strong wood skeletons to which are attached bamboo lattices. The whole structure is then covered with clay to form walls about 60 cm. thick. The walls themselves are then thickly plastered and painted white.

They are typically two stories tall, with gable roofs that are separated from the walls at the top by a narrow aperture that allows air to circulate, providing insulation and preventing mildew. The walls themselves are plastered over and painted white, their smooth planes broken only by the tiniest of grilled openings with ultra-solid fireproof doors, or by windows in the shape of plum blossoms.

The very first kura in Japan were built in the Yayoi Period (200 BC--250 AD) when wet rice cultivation and iron casting were both introduced. These were elevated constructions with timber walls and thatched roofs, designed primarily to keep out rats. Their walls were made of interlocking timbers, a precursor to the Aze-kura style of architecture of the Nara Period.

Storehouses, naturally, were (and often still are) a sign of past or present prosperity. Edo Period (1603-1867) paintings depict rows of kura along trade canals, or abutting the house and garden of some plump merchant, testifying to the commercial vitality of that time. The 1853 Manko ('Random Sketches') collection by the artist Kitagawa Morisada features fine drawings of contemporary kura.

The thick, draft-sealed fireproof doors of a kura storehouse!

Designs vary from region to region. While most kura have tile roofs, those of northern Japan are sometimes thatched. Kura in western Japan have distinctive half-tiled walls with decorative mesh grouting. The town of Kitakata in Fukushima Prefecture (a few hours north of Tokyo) boasts more kura, in more variations, than anywhere else in Japan. And the famous willow-lined canals of Kurashiki, Okayama, are lined with kura from former merchant wealth; many are part of famous private art museums. Learn more!

In the age of the safety deposit box, the function of these handsome and impregnable structures may have changed, but they continue to demonstrate their usefulness. Several Kyoto businesses have rehabbed their former storehouses (see below).

Kyoto is a big university town with a college town's constant shortage of cheap living space and more than a few kura have ended up housing poor or artistic students.

In the mountains north of Kyoto is a place called Haison ('deserted') Hatcho. Before the war there was a village here. Now the rice fields have all reverted to forest and today only hikers visit the site. Two things remain that speak of human habitation: a small graveyard and a lone kura, its white walls still standing solid and sturdy among the green Kitayama cedars--a monument to the craftsmanship of a bygone era.

For tourists who'd like to experience or see a kura put to modern use there are quite a few options.

Kyoto geomancy: Designing a perfect city!

Though perhaps few of us may realize it, Kyoto is a city that is ideally situated—from the viewpoint of an Oriental geomancer, that is—to ensure the peace and tranquility of its inhabitants. To understand Kyoto’s perfect location, one needs to have a basic understanding of the foundation ideas of Feng Shui or Chinese geomancy. On a broad level, the directions of the compass were thought to be connected with the principles of ying and yang.

Since the light principle rises, like heat, and is symbolized by the sun, it is connected with the south. South is symbolized by a phoenix. It has five large tail feathers to represent the five elements (Earth, Metal, Wood, Fire, and Water) and five colors for the same reason. The south is synonymous with red, the color of happiness and festivity, and the lucky odd number 7. In Japan and China there are Seven Gods of Good Luck.

Meanwhile, the dark principle sinks, like cold, symbolizes water and the moon, and connected with the north. All evil is said to come from the north or northeast, and whenever possible settlements and graveyards were situated with a mountain range to the north for protection. Failing this, woods or bamboo groves were planted there. In Japan, corpses are laid out with their heads towards the north and superstitious people won't sleep in that position. North is represented by the color black and the unlucky even number 6. The execution grounds in Heiankyo (the original name of Kyoto) were situated on the banks of the Kamo River at Rokujo (Sixth Avenue) and the area between there and the Toribeno graveyard to the east represented the six fields through which souls traveled along the six roads to rebirth.

In China there are snow-covered mountains in the west where tigers were known to live. This direction is therefore represented by a white tiger, which in turn represents the negative female principle and the lucky odd number 9, autumn, and the element Metal.

The Azure Dragon is symbolic of the east. If you visit the Heian Shrine in Kyoto, you will notice a statue of a dragon on your right and one of a tiger on your left. The buildings behind them are named the Azure Dragon Hall and the White Tiger Hall. East is an unlucky direction and so has an even number which is 8.

The center is occupied by a yellow dragon, or sometimes a cow, and has the lucky number 5.

The ideal site for a city should, according to the geomancers of Kammu's time, be protected by mountains from the evil influences of the north and should have one mountain range to the east representing the Azure Dragon and another to the west representing the White Tiger. The perfect city should also be open to the south in order not to deter good from entering it. The site now occupied by Kyoto was perfect except that a river ran through the middle of it where Horikawa Street is now situated. This was very bad from a geomantic viewpoint as it would divide the city, while wealth, represented by the flow of water, would be carried away. Kammu, however, decided to locate his new capital there, and to that end moved the river to the east side of the old city.

Kammu's Heiankyo was like an old Japanese coin: round, with a square hole in the middle. The outer part, the surroundings of the perfect city, was representative of Heaven; the square hole in the center was the earth, or the city itself which was divided into nine, smaller, numbered squares which formed a Chinese magic square.

618

753

294

The most obvious virtue of the magic square is that the numbers in any rank, file or diagonal add up to 15, which is the number of days in each of the 24 divisions of the solar year. Lucky odd numbers are found at the cardinal points and unlucky even numbers are situated at the inter-cardinal points. In temples, the number 1 square in the north was reserved for images of the gods and in the original layout of the city of Kyoto it was occupied by the Imperial Palace and its grounds. Eight, one of the unluckiest numbers in the square, is appropriately located in the northeast corner. If you visit the Old Imperial Palace in Kyoto, you will see that it has an indented northeast corner to fool the evil spirits. Many Buddhist temples have the same feature. As for the center of Kyoto, it was marked by a stone with a hole in its center. It is called the Navel Stone, and can still be found in the Rokkaku (Hexagonal) Temple on Rokkaku Street.

Rakkudo Temple: center of Kyoto

The origins of Rokkaku-do Temple, a rare hexagonal construction, are wrapped in a tale from the court of Emperor Shotoku Taishi. Wishing, for whatever reason, to build a temple in Kyoto, the Emperor roamed about the town in search of the perfect site. On his way he came across an inviting pond. Before entering the waters he took care to have his servants set a Buddhist statue in a tree nearby. After his swim the Emperor Taishi, ready to depart and continue his search, called for the statue to be brought back down. All attempts to move it, however, come to nought, leading the Emperor to conclude that this was a place of divine power, the very spot to build upon.

A simple temple was carefully erected around the statue. Much later, when the city of Kyoto was being formally laid out, and this temple was found to be blocking a planned road, the Emperor came from his palace, sat before the temple and pondered the matter. A mysterious, heavy cloud came up, darkening the sky. After a few fearful moments the fog subsided, whereupon the Emperor found that the temple had somehow moved about 15 paces to the north, out of the way of the road. This was clearly a sign, too powerful to ignore.

The Emperor went to inspect the original site, and found a stepping stone with a neat hole in its middle. This Heso-ishi ('Belly-button Stone') was deemed by the court seers to mark the exact spiritual center of the city, the very navel of Kyoto. It, and the Nyoirin Kannon statue, are still the property of the temple.

As with many other Kyoto temples, Rokkakudo became a center of certain craft guilds, notably that of the sweetmakers, who were once legion in this neighbourhood, and kimono merchants, who still are.

In the fifteenth century a priest named Senke used to come around to pick up leaves, flowers and branches which he would use to invoke spiritual powers in the alcove of his room nearby. His flower ritual became famous in the area, and he earned much praise from all who saw his arrangements, laying down the foundations for what was to eventually become one of Japan's most enduring and popular customs, ikebana. Rokkakudo is now part of the grounds of the Ikenobo School of flower arrangement. The headquarters of this famous School are on the west side of the temple.

Rokkaku-do is open free to the public. One can enter, and not only view the structure of the temple, the rock and the pond, but also pray before the willow tree, itself famous for bringing couples closer together. The temple itself is worth a look for its construction, from which Rokkaku (Six Corners) Street gets its name. There are always people praying here, as it is number one on a route of 33 Temples of Pilgrimage, sacred to the Tendai sect of Buddhism. Hours: 8 am to 4.30 pm.

Heian Ladies: Ono no Komachi & Izumi Shikibu

Ono no Komachi, known for her beauty, poetry and madness, lived in the middle of the ninth century and served as a lady-in-waiting in the Heian court. Despite her legendary beauty and obvious passions, she never married. But her poems more than make up for whatever she may have missed in the way of martial bliss.

On such a night as this

When no moon lights your way to me,

I wake, my passion blazing,

My breast a fire raging, exploding flame

While within me, my heart chars.

(from An Introduction to Japanese Court Poetry by E. Miner)

In mid life she was sent out of the capital to Yamashina, where she supposedly resided for some years at Zuishin-in Temple. She is said to have gone mad there and the temple now honors her every year with the Hanezu Odori (see page 3). She probably wrote this poem during her stay at the temple:

The color of the blossoms have faded

Vainly, I age through the rains of the world

Watching in melancholy.

(translation by N. Teele)

Izumi Shikibu (circa 1000), world-class poet!

Izumi Shikibu (circa 1000), another great woman writer of the Heian period, also wrote lasting poetry and had a difficult personal life. We know a lot more about her life than Komachi. Izumi Shikibu got her name from her marriage to the governor of the province of Izumi. She divorced him after their first child and returned to the court in Kyoto, where she had been raised. Soon she was having an affair with a prince, who died, and then his brother, who also died. She recorded both of these affairs in her diary, including a number of passages and poems that clearly indicate how much she loved and how much she had lost.

Lying down alone,

I am so confused in yearning for you

That I have forgot

The tangles of my long black hair,

Desiring the one who stroked it clear

.

But she continued to see and be with other men. She eventually married (and then left) her second husband, the governor of the province of Tango. Her final years were spend on Mount Yoshiya at Toboku-in. And for the past hundreds of years Seshin-in, a subtemple of Toboku-in has been celebrating her life. The temple moved its location to the east side of Shinkyogoku, a little south of Rokkaku in the Momoyama period (1568-1600). Every March 21 at about 11:00, Noh chants are performed here and Edo period reproductions of handscrolls of her poems are displayed in her honor. Including this one:

Seeing the plum blossoms

I wait for the song of the warbler

Spring has come

Veiled in mist

She wrote her most famous work, the Izumi Shikibu Nikki diary, at the beginning of her relationship with Prince Atsumichi, which continued for about nine months (1003–1004). The work is one of the first to be written in a third person narrative. Her diary contains over one hundred poems including renga. Her important work can all be found in the Izumi Shikibu Collection and numerous imperial anthologies. Her life of love and passion is why she was known as The Floating Lady in her lifetime.

Content by Ian Martin Ropke, owner of Your Japan Private Tours (est. 1990). I have been planning, designing, and making custom Japan private tours on all five Japanese islands since the early 1990s. I work closely with Japan private tour clients and have worked for all kinds of families, companies, and individuals since 1990. Clients find me mostly via organic search, and I advertise my custom Japan private tours & travel services on www.japan-guide.com, which has the best all-Japan English content & maps in Japan! If you are going to Japan and you understand the advantages of private travel, consider my services for your next trip. And thank you for reading my content. I, Ian Martin Ropke (unique on Google Search), am also a serious nonfiction and fiction writer, a startup founder (NexussPlus.com), and a spiritual wood sculptor. Learn more!