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Summary
Travel is an act for human beings to visit new places and experience different cultures and histories. Through travel, people can actually feel historical events and people’s lives by visiting historical places and cultural heritage sites, and can gain a deeper understanding of history and broaden their own perspectives. In this section, we will discuss the historical background of the trip and the places visited based on Ryotaro Shiba‘s “Kaido yuku” (On the Road) about this journey and history.
Kaidou wo Yuku Volume 26 Saga sampo
The previous trip was to Aomori. This trip will take us to Sagano, a natural beauty spot in western Kyoto. The trip to Sagano begins at Suio, a mountain gorge that was described in ancient times as a “ravine in the middle of a ravenous desire,” where you will come into contact with Emperor Seiwa, who arrived here long ago, and see the care of the villagers who continue to protect the shrine dedicated to him. At Watarigetsukyo Bridge in Arashiyama, the author describes the Hata clan, a warrior tribe from the ancient times who settled in the Yamashiro Province (Kyoto) and are said to have pioneered the Tano region with their civil engineering skills. Next, he visited Tenryu-ji Temple and ate Saga’s specialty, yudofu (tofu), at Chion-in, the pagoda of Tenryu-ji Temple, while describing the origin of tofu.
The destination of the trip was Mizuo. Mizuo is a village in the mountains, and was once described as “isolated in a ravine,” which means a deep ravine. MIZUO is located on the Kyoto side of Mt. Atago, on the border between Kyoto and the Tamba Province, as described in the article “The Tamba-Sasayama Highway“. In old Japanese, a rise in the mountainside is called a “wo,” which means “tail” or “male. Therefore, in Kyoto, where there are many mountain foothills, there are many place names with “wo” in them. For example, Takao, Makinoo, and Tsugao.
Ryotaro Shiba imagines that Mizuo was so named because a mountain stream runs through a “ravine” far below.
After passing through Mizuo, the mountain stream runs through the mountains without any smoke, and eventually joins the Hozu River on which the Sagano Kanko Trolley Railway runs.
Further down the river, you will pass by the famous Arashiyama Hoshino Resort, a resort hotel accessible only by boat at the foot of Arashiyama
It leads to the famous Watarigatsu Bridge, which is also a famous sightseeing spot.
The bridge was first built about 1,500 years ago during the Jouwa period (834-848), and has been rebuilt many times since then, with the current bridge being built in 1934. The name “Wataritsukibashi” comes from Emperor Kameyama’s comment that the moon moving over the bridge “resembles the crossing of a bearless moon. The main body of the bridge is made of reinforced concrete, but in order to harmonize with the landscape, the design is inherited from the old wooden bridge, making it a very beautiful bridge.
From here, the river becomes the Katsura River, which joins the Uji River and the Kizu River to form the Yodo River, which flows into Osaka Bay.
Back to Mizuo. One person associated with Mizuo was Emperor Seiwa (850-880), an emperor in the early Heian period. Emperor Seiwa lived only 31 years, but he reigned for 18 years at the age of 27 before passing the throne to his son, who became a monk and hid in Mizuo, where he died shortly after.
Emperor Seiwa himself did not leave behind any major accomplishments, but his name is still widely known. His grandson, Rikuson-o, became a vassal and took the name Minamoto no Tsunemoto, and his son, Mitsunaka, became the leader of a powerful warrior clan based in Tada-so in Settsu, and his descendant, the Minamoto clan, took the name “Seiwa Minamoto”. This is because the Minamoto clan is the originator of the historical family that would transform the course of Japanese history.
To get to Mizuo, we met near the Togetsu Bridge on Arashiyama and drove along Atago Road to Mizuo, arriving at Saga Toriihon. Saga-Toriihoto was called “Adashino” in the old days, and was the burial place of the people of Kyoto. The present townscape developed as a torii-mae town of Atago Shrine, with the Kano Nenbutsu-ji Temple as the border between the lower district with its rows of tile-roofed machiya-style houses and the upper district with its many thatched-roof farmhouses.
Exiting the car from Torii-moto, we headed for Shimorokucho Pass along the road in front of the torii gate. This mountain road is in the mountains of Mt. Ogura, and it is said that Fujiwara Teika, the poet who selected “Ogura Hyakunin Isshu” (One Hundred Poems of Ogura), built a villa on the Sagano side at the eastern foot of this mountain.
Further up the foot of the mountain, the Hozukyo Station on the Sanin Line comes into view.
Hozukyo Station is a bridge station, sandwiched between tunnels in the middle of a gorge, and is a secluded station that railroad enthusiasts should visit at least once.
Further past Hozukyo Station, you will arrive at Mizuo. The Seiwa-tenno-sha Shrine, dedicated to Emperor Seiwa, who died there, stands quietly in Mizuo.
The reign of Emperor Seiwa was the beginning of the regency government by the Fujiwara clan that lasted until the end of the Heian period, and it was also a period of stable politics known as the “Jokan-no-ji. Emperor Seiwa had become a Buddhist priest before his death, and he had willed not to hold excessive festivals even after his own death, so this shrine of Emperor Seiwa was also a modest one built by local villagers.
After thinking about Emperor Seiwa at Mizuo, Ryotaro Shiba returned to Watarigetsukyo and wrote about Ryouichi Kadokura, who broke rocks in the Hozu River, which was an impassable river, to allow boats to pass through and transport lumber from Tamba to Yamashiro (Kyoto) via a canal.
Ryouchi Kadokura’s wooden structure is anchored in Daihikaku (temple name: Senkoji), located on one of the peaks of Arashiyama, overlooking the Hozu River.
Daihikaku Senko-ji Temple is one of the best places on Arashiyama to view the autumn leaves, and it is not easy to reach the trailhead in Kaido Yuku.
Ryoi Kadokura had invested his own money in all the flood control works along the Hozu River, which indicates that he had an astonishing amount of wealth. These riches were obtained through overseas trade (trade with Ming Dynasty China), and in this context, the Kadokura family’s ties to Tenryuji Temple in Saga were apparently very deep.
Tenryuji Temple, one of the five temples of the Rinzai sect in Kyoto, as mentioned in “Ryotaro Shiba’s Street Walk: Famous Temples of Kyoto and Daitokuji Temple, Dada, Zen and Rest“, was also a temple and a trader to the Ming Dynasty. The Kadokura family was also a capital provider and shareholder in the profits of the temple.
At the entrance to Senko-ji Temple, there is a monument with a haiku by Basho.
Two towns up the mountain of flowers is Daihikaku
The trip ends with a description of Musho Soseki, who founded Tenryuji Temple, and Tenryuji’s specialty, yudofu (tofu).
Musho Soseki was a Zen monk, gardener, Chinese poet, and poet of the Rinzai school of Zen Buddhism from the late Kamakura period (1192-1333) to the Muromachi period (1333-1573). In addition to his achievements as a Zen monk, he was one of the world’s greatest gardeners of all time, a perfectionist of Zen gardens and karesansui (dry landscape gardening). He was also a shrewd businessman who, in consultation with Naoyoshi, sent a Tenryuji ship to Gen and used its profits to pay for the temple’s construction. He was also a leading poet of Chinese poetry in the Gozan school of literature and left his mark on the history of literature, with 11 waka poems included in the Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry.
Tofu is a food that has been in Japan since ancient times. It is made from soybean milk made from soybeans and the juice left over after boiling down seawater to make salt, called nigari, which is used as a coagulant.
Until the middle of the Showa period (1926-1989), nigari was made from the salt manufacturing method, but later, it was only necessary to chemically synthesize magnesium chloride, the main ingredient of nigari, and the tofu that had been made in various places with different characteristics gradually became the same throughout the country. Incidentally, the Kochi tofu mentioned in “Yusuhara Highway – A Journey to Kochi and the Shikoku Mountains” was called “Nawa-karage” tofu because it was very hard and could be brought home after being tied with a rope.
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