“A GARDEN BASED ON PLANTINGS IS SUBJECT
TO GREAT CHANGE OVER TIME,
WHEREAS A GARDEN OF STONE MAY
ENDURE UNCHANGED.”
Shunmyo Masuno
Chapter 4
Stone gardens are said to be at their best after a light rainfall or when water has been poured over stones from a wooden dipper. When it rains, even just a light summer shower, plants on the fringes of gardens are engorged, moss swells into a spongy richness, sand and gravel seem to stir with life. A mineral smell of raw geology impregnates the air. Light, tone, a change in air currents, the garden is forever changing.
Gardens may have acquired some of the features of natural evolution through the accretions of age, but stone gardens, mindfully concerned with their own design, are hardly naturalistic. While characterizing karesansui as contemplation gardens, the more earthy side to their creation, the physical properties of rock, sand and gravel, should not be neglected.
Natural garden stones are found in riverbeds, valleys, mountains, marshes and seashores or are unearthed from construction sites. These are classified for convenience rather than accuracy as mountain, lowland, river and seacoast stones, and comprise suisei-gan (sedimentary rocks) of a smooth, water-worn variety; roughly textured kasei-gan (igneous rocks), the product of volcanic activity; and hensei-gan (metamorphic rocks), which tend to be of a very hard texture.
Japan has not been shaped to the same degree as China by the erosive forces of wind and water. Geologically younger, still racked by active volcanoes, igneous stones like granite (mikage ishi), chlorite schist (ao ishi), slate, pumice, marble, volcanic tuft and basalts dominate over sedimentary rocks.
Traditionally, black or white stones were not used in these gardens except as cobblestones or pebbles. Nor were combinations of strongly contrasting colors, Japanese tastes tending toward earth hues such as gray, russet and green-blue, or the streaked, flinty, flat-topped rocks on which Zen monks would sit to meditate. Only certain types of stones are used for the more accomplished gardens. These should be hard enough to endure weather conditions without disintegrating, have interesting “character“ surfaces and, at times, small crevices and broken veins so that moss can find an easy footing.
PAGE 55 The positions of stones are numbered in this print, which shows the increasing ornamentation of gardens in the Edo period.
Diamond and other geometrically shaped granite stones are a common motif on the approach paths to temples with gardens.
Ishi usu (flat-surfaced millstones) are sometimes used in gardens for their rustic effect. This stone has been integrated into the design of a garden wall.
NATURAL STONE, QUARRIED STONE
The mountains near Kyoto are rich in beautiful stones, which have been treasured as garden materials since ancient times. However, a reduced supply of natural stone in recent years, especially the weathered variety favored by traditionalists, combined with the influences from new styles of architecture, has led to the widespread use of processed stone, quarried and cut and with the surfaces sometimes polished. Synthetic materials, long held at bay, have finally entered modern gardens in the form of cement, plastic, steel, metal and even carbon fiber trimmings.
Kiirishi (cut rocks), traditionally used for making ornamental features such as lanterns, bridges and water basins, are also used as rocks in contemporary gardens. A variety of methods, including polishing, the application of matte lacquer, grinding and acid burning are used to alter the surface and color of stone.
Purists maintain that only stones in their natural form should be used. Landscape gardener and writer Erik Borja holds that “Under no circumstances should quarried stones be used in a Zen garden because the process of extracting them from the ground reduces them to the level of debris, with no sheen or soul.“ Others would argue that from raw matter, exquisite sculptural forms can be fashioned in both the spirit of Zen, nature and the soul/personality of the artist or stonecutter.
STONE FEATURES
Although purists still insist that the artificiality of hewn stone is antithetical to the Japanese garden, stone-worked objects were introduced into the garden as early as the Muromachi period (1333–1568) in the form of stepping stones, water basins and stone lanterns and stupas. The requisitioning of gardens for ornamental or talismanic purposes continued in the Edo period (1600–1868), with the placing of ying–yang rocks, resembling the male and female organs in gardens as symbols of fertility. A fief would automatically revert to the local daimyo or feudal lord should a warrior die without a male heir.
Granite bridge piers were often requisitioned to make chozubachi (water lavers), which were also made from natural sculptured stones taken from riverbeds and seashores and then carved into a clean and precise form. These hand basins were originally placed outside Shinto shrines so that pilgrims could wash and purify themselves before worship. Tsukubai, stone water basins that also include a lower arrangement of attendant stones, though more commonly found in tea gardens, are also features of the karesansui.
The first stone slab bridges used in Japan were set over rivers of sand in miniature landscapes like that at Daisen-in. Statues representing arhats, disciples of the Buddha, are often depicted sitting in front of or among stones, echoing the images found in paintings where Zen monks and patriarchs are seen meditating in caves, in front of cliffs or seated serenely on rock pedestals.
Black pebbles, known as nachiguro, are often used to create narrow strips called inu-bashiri along walls or under the eaves of temples and villas. Besides their aesthetic appeal, especially after rainfall, they have a practical function, helping prevent the runoff from rain inundating the garden itself. Flat tiles bordered by narrow strips of granite are sometimes placed at the edge of the sand to form a similar walkway for monks. Black tiles, requisitioned from temple roofs, are often placed in an upright position to form a border between pebbles and the main garden. A similar function applies to dry streambeds, which can provide drainage for garden runoffs.
A tsukubai (water was basin) at the seventeenth-century Keishun-in, a small and rustic sub-temple within Kyoto's great Myoshin-ji complex.
This stone path at Tenju-an in Kyoto was built in 1338, a year after the temple was erected. It survived the destruction of the buildings during the Onin War (1467–77) in central Kyoto.
A modern garden arrangement near the entrance to Myoren-ji, a quiet temple in the Nishijin district of Kyoto.
A water-fed bamboo “deer-scarer“ produces clacking sounds pleasing to the ear.
While Tokyo produces some of Japan’s finest colored sand, the Kyoto region is blessed with an abundance of white sand. The eastern range of hills, known as Higashi-yama, are made of a white granite composed of gray quartz, black mica and white feldstar. With exposure to the elements, granite is reduced to a grainy sand called masago, which then runs into local rivers and streams. The principal river exiting these hills is the Shira-kawa (White River), and the sand it deposits is known as shira-kawa-suna (Shira-kawa sand). Surrounded by hills rather than cliff or craggy coastal landscapes, there is an abundance of suhama (gravel seashores) and ariso (rock-strewn beaches) in the city Some contemporary garden designers use pieces of cut stone for garden surfaces, their quarried look allowing for greater diversity in scale and form.
A bed of blue-gray stones at Hogonin Temple in Kyoto creates a strong contrast to the moss surrounding the stones.
A stone bridge crosses a river of gravel at Zuiho-in, a sub-temple of the large Daitoku-ji complex.
PLANTINGS
Much is written about Japan's culture of impermanence, but many stone garden designs have endured for centuries, allowing the original work and intentions of the designer to achieve a more lasting legacy. Conversely, any shortcomings in the design will also endure. Unlike European gardens which, beside ornamentation, rely almost entirely on perishable plantings, the dry landscape garden, composed of rocks, replaceable sand, gravel and clay, has more chance of surviving the violence of nature than a garden composed mainly of plantings. Stone gardens are designed whole and complete and are not expected, like Western gardens composed of mostly organic matter, to change significantly over the years. In earthquake-prone Japan, stone gardens have fared far better than buildings.
The perennials and flowering shrubs of other Japanese garden forms are restricted in the stone garden to a limited palette of mostly green shrubbery, trees such as pine and maple, and hedges, although there are occasional splashes of camellia, peony and Chinese bellflower in the less severe dry landscapes. Azaleas are used as they can be trimmed into the shapes of clouds, waves, mounds and mountains. The Japanese holly, with its small evergreen leaves, also lends itself to topiary designs, especially the “cloud style“ so popular in Japanese gardens.
Camellias, whose flowers may fall in mid-bloom, are sometimes incorporated into gardens to suggest the frailty and uncertainty of life. Moss growing on the north sides of rocks conveys calm and quietude, a sense of warmth and ageing, softening some of the harder features of the garden.
Though not a stone garden, rocks are an important element in Tokyo’s Kiyosumi-teien. When the garden was restored in 1878, its owner, the wealthy industrialist Yataro Iwasaki, had rare and well-formed stones shipped from all over the country to Tokyo in his company’s steamships.
Water basins and stone lanterns surrounded by moss and low plantings are common elements in gardens.
Along with ferns and fatsia (yatsude), moss evokes the feeling of a forest floor or glade. The dark green of acers, aspidistra, sasanqua and hosta are sometimes planted near the base of rocks to suggest a verdant coastline.
By means of microscopic observation and astronomical projection, the lotus flower can become the foundation for an entire theory of the universe and an agent whereby we may perceive Truth.
Yukio Mishima, The Priest And His Love
In the small number of karesansui that have actual rather than abstract ponds, lotus are generally preferred to the water lilies and water hyacinth found elsewhere. Pleasing to the eye, with roots and pods that are edible, the lotus is also a symbol of Buddhism. Rooted in mud, the lotus rises to the surface of the water where it produces a flower of heart-stopping beauty. Buddhists hope that they, too, can rise above the impurities of life and attain enlightenment, an idea echoed in countless statues of the Buddha seated on a dais of lotus blossoms. This most exotic of Eastern plants, its blossom pink and fleshy between floating divans of green leaf is, moreover, explicitly voluptuous, evoking the “jewel in the lotus“ of the sutras.
THE VALUE OF STONES
Except in all but the most revered gardens, specifically those that have become official national treasures, gardens tend to undergo periodic changes. Stones only very rarely remain within the same garden. As private gardens and houses are sold or demolished and temples are altered, stones, together with lanterns, water basins and even plants, are disposed of to people in the trade who then place them elsewhere. Although stone gardens may give the impression of timelessness and permanency, in reality they contain the elements of a portable culture. In the case of Zen temples, materials are often donated so that the stones, gates and timbers of one temple may well resurface in another.
Stone lanterns and other garden objects in a stone yard in Kyoto.
Skillfully placed within gardens, stone, bamboo, tile and gravel can be surprisingly harmonious materials.
Traditionally, stones were always objets trouve, never quarried, cut or polished. The originators of the tea garden, however, introduced the idea of placing objects in a new context that would give them and the garden a fresh dynamism. This idea, known as mitate, is seen in the use of recycled temple and villa foundation and pillar stones and the use of millstones taken from demolished buildings. These ishi usu, round, flat-surfaced stones with blunt, serrated radials on the surface, were often used on farms as kitchen boards to wash, prepare and cut vegetables. These have now found their way into gardens as ornaments, accents in an otherwise flat surface of sand. Temple roof tiles (kawara) are also commonly used as borders or embedded in clay walls known as neribei.
The gardens at Tofuku-ji in Kyoto skillfully incorporate a number of mitate-mono or recycled or requisitioned materials. The northern garden here has a checkerboard pattern design made from cedar moss and sunken squares of stone once used as an entrance path. The eastern garden has an arresting design employing seven cylindrical stones set in white gravel, composed in the shape of the Big Dipper constellation. The stones were once used as supports for the temple’s latrine.
Distinctive stones bearing unique features have always been costly. After looting the gardens of vanquished enemies, soldiers in the service of the sixteenth-century warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi would send the best stones back to the generalisimo wrapped in silk. An earlier warlord, Oda Nobunaga, recognized the value of stones, exchanging in one incident a miniature landscape stone, along with a treasured tea bowl, for the strategically important Ishiyama Castle.
The longer the rock’s pedigree and the stronger its historical associations, the more valuable it will be. If a rock has, for example, been referred to in a poem or featured in a painting, or has sat within the garden of a renowned artist, court official or nobleman, its stock will have risen. Rocks often form part of a family inheritance and will be passed down through the generations.
This large chozubachi (water laver) has become a powerful visual element in this garden.
Because stones have always been associated with the eternal and the ageless, a ceremony, practiced until seventy or eighty years ago, used to be held between clients and gardeners in Kyoto. Oxen were used to carry stones from valleys to the north, a process that was conducted at night when the drover could bring his cart safely through the narrow streets of the city. As the cart approached the client’s home, just before dawn, the master and mistress of the house and other family members would be waiting at the gate, where a brief reception party was held, in which food and saké were shared between client, gardener and laborers, an event that symbolized an agreement between both parties to collaborate on making a fine garden.
The landscape design at Ninna-ji Temple in Kyoto represents interesting transitions from paradise and stroll gardens to the Zen model for the contemplation garden.
Sprinkling water over the Sea of Silver Sand at the Ginkaku-ji Temple after it is rebuilt helps to keep the mass in place.
Moving a heavy stone in a private garden by traditional methods, using wood rollers, planks and plenty of muscle.
Using a narrow sand-ripple rake to create lines.
A gardener at Ginkaku-ji Temple evens the sides of its famous truncated cone using a flattening board.