Notes From The Tiger’s Cave

The BBC’s Julian May has produced an excellent - I want to say “beautiful” - radio programme for the Heart and Soul series about the bronze temple bells - bonshou - of Japan. The programme captures the physical and symbolic power of these bells and I strongly recommend that you listen to it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p006dg47/Heart_And_Soul_Japans_Buddhist_temple_bells/

David about to strike the bonsho, Nagasaki, Summer 2007

A bonsho bell differs from English church bells in several important respects. Firstly, a bonsho has no clapper. It is suspended from a wooden frame struck directly by a “ramrod” tree trunk that is swung on a couple of chains by the bell ringer.

Some of the biggest bonsho weigh more than thirty tons, and the biggest bell in Japan, the Rengein Tanjyoji Temple’s Flying Dragon bell - hiryu no kane - on the southern coast of Kyushu, weighs 37500kg or 82000 lbs. On a clear day it can be heard on an island 30 miles across the sea.

The Flying Dragon bell was cast in Kyoto in 1977, but the oldest bell mentioned in the programme was cast 1,225 years before, in the year 752, so temple bells can be expected to have a long life.

However, during the Second World War most of Japan’s temple bells were taken by the government and melted down for war materiel. Only 500 bells remained in place by the end of the war, but a few thousand of those which had been impounded had not yet been destroyed and some of them were returned to their temples. Since the end of the war bell makers have been busy casting bells for temples all over Japan. It must have been a terrible thing in war-ravaged Japan to have no opportunity to hear the sound of a temple bell.

The sound of a bonsho has three components. The impact sound - daoon. The great reverberation set up - oshi. The final tailing resonance - ookuri. There are also overtones as the form of the sound waves expand and contract - baion.

For those who are willing to listen, the tone of a bonsho changes with age and the season, and with the spirit of those who strike it. Sadly, however, many people fail to appreciate the beauty of the bronze temple bells. Nowadays, some people think the best thing to do is to strike them as hard as they can, and the resounding tone rings out the sound of their egotism. Then there are others who complain about the “noise” of the bells. As one Japanese monk observed on the Heart and Soul programme, “Those people must be a bit strange because the bells have been there much longer than they have and will still be there long after they have gone.”

Casting a large bell in bronze is a risky operation with a 50/50 chance of success or failure. In the Heart and Soul programme Ikko Iwasawa who runs the foundry which cast the Flying Dragon bell explains the process as a new bell is being cast and Buddhist monks pray for its success. Their recitation of the sutras is considered to directly contribute to the successful casting of a bronze temple bell, and after listening to this programme you may come to believe that too.

Spring twilight gathers in the mountain village,

arriving there to find, as the vesper bell booms,

scattering cherry petals.

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As spring unfolds in all her glorious panoply here in Japan, the sound of the Japanese bush warbler can be heard in the land.

Or, as far as I am concerned, the sound of chatter about bush warblers during English class can be heard in the community centres of Hiroshima.

For the callow warble of your common or garden bush warbler is as much a harbinger of spring in these parts as the sound of the first cuckoo is in the countryside around nether regions of Tunbridge Wells.

I wonder if retired Japanese Army (er, Self Defence Force, because “Japan does not have an army”) colonels inform the Asahi Shinbun that they heard the sound of the first uguisu of spring. I expect they would use a calligraphy brush and compose an elegant haiku, something like:

Uguiso ga

uchi no niwa ni wa,

uta no renshu

Which, being translated, is as much to say,

Regarding the bush

 warbler perched in my garden,

 it’s learning to sing.

Now, if I had been a bit cleverer I would have tossed in a blooming plum tree, because any early spring haiku worth its salt really needs to feature a bush warbler that has relinquished its bush in favour of a plum tree in blossom.

And another thing…

When talking about bush warblers in early spring, it is essential that you comment on how the callow hatchlings have not yet mastered the full bush warble and spend the early days of springtime practising, practising, practising and again, practising, just like Japanese tennis club members, who are all practice and no play.

To fully master the art of early spring Japanese conversation it is essential that you also master the sound of a bush-warbler’s warble, both in its fully formed perfection, and in its callow half-cocked sweetness.

As soon as early spring has passed and the plum blossom has fallen, all talk of the callow uguisu practising his song must be put away with the winter weeds and must not see light of day until next year.

David Hurley

http://grasp-the-nettle.com

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The portrait of Ellen Terry by George Frederic Watts shows her smelling a camellia flower. Notice the pointed leaves, which are nothing like fig leaves at all!

The Japanese word for camellia is tsubaki. The oil from the pods such as the one I plucked from the tree in my student’s garden is used to make hair oil, and the results can be seen in this video, plucked from YouTube!

What else can be said about the Japanese camellia?

The Samurai are said to have disliked camellia flowers because when they fall from the bough they remind them of someone having his head cut off and it sent a shiver down their spines.

The image of falling is associated with the camellia in a haiku by the poet, Bassho, who himself served a Samurai master for a while:

Falling upon earth,

of the camellia

Actually, the camellia was cultivated by some Samurai, and used for decoration in the tea ceremony.

PRIZES

Since nobody got the answer right, it is up to me to ALLOCATE two second prizes to the contributions that I enjoyed most. Very difficult really, with all that chat about quinces, kumqwats and coconuts, but here goes:

Second Prize First Class goes to Charles Boustany for the hilarious suggestion that it might be “dekopon”, which Steve Meyer enjoyed so much on the PPG forum!

Second Prize Second Class goes to Dobson O’Corrical for his inventive imagination.

If you would like me to send you your prize please send me your address via the form on this page: http://grasp-the-nettle.com/contact.html

David Hurley

Internet Marketing Strategies

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Here’s another photo to help you identify what it is that I plucked from one of the trees in my lady’s Japanese garden: 

 
If men can touch

even the forbidden sacred tree,

why can I not touch you

simply because you are another’s wife?

Otomo Yasumaro, Manyoshu, vol 4.

David Hurley

Internet Marketing Strategies

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