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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 eo yuku Volume 7 Yamato.
In the previous article, I described the Iron Sand Road to Izumo, Shimane Prefecture. This time, I will describe the road to Tsubozaka in Yamato, Nara Prefecture. The journey begins at Yamato Yagi Station, stopping at Takamatsuzuka burial mound on the way to Tsubozaka, and then descending from the castle town of Tosa to the Tsubosaka Temple, where Li describes the steep slope to the Takatori Castle and enjoys the view from the top.
This trip is to Nara Prefecture. It will start in the town of Imai, a medieval commercial town, where the town itself now has the ancient color of a relic. The town of Imai has many buildings left over from the Edo period and will be a town that has been used as a filming location for movies and TV dramas.
Imai-cho, with its rows of townhouses surrounded by a moat encircled by a moat like a grid, is a temple town that developed around Shonen-ji Temple. The entire town is designated as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings.
Imai-cho developed as a temple town, with its own currency in circulation and strong financial power. The moat that surrounded the town made it a fortress, and it resisted Oda Nobunaga, who later granted it autonomy. Imai-cho was also the birthplace of Munehisa Imai, a wealthy merchant of Sakai, who was mentioned in “Kaido yuku Sakai/Kishu Kaido.
On the way to Tsubozaka from Imai-cho is Asuka Village, where Asuka Temple and a cluster of ancient tombs are located.
Asuka Village is also the birthplace of the centralized Ritsuryo (law-enforcement) state in Japan, and is known for the many palaces and historical sites that have been excavated there, and is sometimes referred to as “the spiritual home of the Japanese people.
Asuka-dera Temple, founded by Soga Umako, is the successor to Hokoji Temple (meaning “temple where Buddhism flourishes”), which was a clan temple of the Soga clan. It was built between the 6th and 7th centuries, and was the first Buddhist temple in Japan to have a full-fledged temple complex.
Another famous burial mound is the Ishibutai burial mound.
Ishibutai Kofun Tumulus has one of Japan’s largest stone chambers with a horizontal hole, and the mound is a square or upper-round lower mound, but the earth seal was lost early on, so the giant stones are exposed as they are today. The Ishibutai tumulus is said to be the tomb of Soga Umako because he lived in this area and the tomb is huge, but this has not been confirmed.
The name “Ishi Butai” (stone stage) is based on various theories. It is generally believed that the name is derived from the exposed giant stone, but there are also various stories, such as that traveling entertainers performed on the stone because there was no stage around the area, or that a fox disguised itself as a woman and danced on it.
Another famous site in Asuka Village is the Takamatsuzuka burial mound, which dates back to the late 7th to early 8th century. It is a two-tiered round burial mound with a diameter of 23 m (lower section) and 18 m (upper section) and a height of 5 m. It was built between the end of the 7th century and the beginning of the 8th century.
The most famous mural paintings in this tomb are those in the interior stone chamber. The eastern wall depicts, from the front, a group of male figures, a blue dragon among the four gods with the sun above it, and a group of female figures, while the western wall symmetrically depicts, from the front, a group of male figures, a white tiger among the four gods with the moon above it, and a group of female figures.
The group portraits of men and women are all depicted in pairs of four, for a total of 16 figures. The women’s group portraits on the west wall are particularly colorful, and have been introduced in color photographs in various places, including history textbooks, and have become known by the nickname “Asuka beauties” (Asuka beauties).
Numerous other burial mounds can also be seen in the vicinity, including the burial mound of Emperor Monmu and the Kitora burial mound, which contains the oldest astronomical chart in Asia.
Next, the group headed for the ruins of Takatori Castle. The view from the castle town was sung in a song, “Tatsumi Takatori, if it looks like snow, it is not snow, but a castle of Tosa. Tosa” is the old name of Takatori. It is the largest mountain castle in Japan and one of the three largest mountain castles in Japan, along with Bitchu Matsuyama Castle (Okayama Prefecture) and Iwamura Castle (Gifu Prefecture).
The castle was originally built in 1332 by the Ochi clan, a powerful Takatori family belonging to the Southern Court, but was rebuilt in 1584 by Junkei Tsutsui as a filling castle for Koriyama Castle, and then Toshihisa Honda, a vassal of Hidenaga Toyotomi, became the castle’s lord. The castle had a large and small castle tower, 27 turrets, and 33 gates, and the three-dimensional beauty of the castle was likened to that of a hibiscus flower.
Today, only a portion of the stone wall remains, and its full extent has been preserved only in pictorial form.
The journey will end at Tsubosaka-ji Temple.
Tsubosaka-dera was founded in 703 by Emperor Monmu, making it a very old temple.
In the next article, we will discuss the Tendai sect and Mt. Hieizan, the largest academic center in the Middle Ages, which was founded by Saicho and gave birth to Dogen, Honen, Shinran, and other schools.
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