I am always looking for new places for us to visit and explore, and at my local train station recently, I chanced upon a flyer promoting the railway company's 67th annual Sawayaka (refreshing /crisp air) walk. The scheduling of this kind of event is a cultural marker that autumn has arrived in Japan, as it is the season when at long last after the draining humidity of summer, the temperatures abate, the air crispens, and spending time outdoors becomes pleasurable again. We resolved to join the hordes in this group activity mainly because the walking course outlined took in a temple in a teramachi (temple town) boasting of an intriguing connection to Miyamoto Musashi, author of "The Book of Five Rings". Musashi Miyamoto was a famous swordsman born in the late sixteenth century, who was undefeated in more than sixty sword fights before he was thirty years of age. His advice, despite being somewhat on the dry side in my opinion, is well-regarded by the business and management industry.
In preparation the night before the walk, I pulled my unread copy of this book off my shelf which I have had for some years now with its back cover proclaiming that it, "provid[es] the tools and wisdom necessary for success in any human endeavor" to see if I could find out more about this supposed connection with a temple in Chiba. Sadly, the walk was cancelled when Typhoon No. 27 (international name: Francisco) decided to grace Japan with its presence and clashed with our plans as it brought with it steady rain to the Tokyo region instead of sawayaka breezes. Generally the capital bears much less of the brunt of the force of a typhoon than other regions of Japan, and once again this was true with only medium-strength rain falling and not much wind so that rather than causing any damage in our immediate proximity, it merely put a dampener on our plans.
But not for long as post-typhoon Sunday dawned and the sky was a brilliant and clear bright blue. We went ahead and set out for the teramachi by ourselves. We crossed several rivers and left Tokyo behind us for Chiba prefecture. Chiba has a different vibe than Tokyo and it feels like being transported to the countryside. The blue skies were amazing and the sunshine warmed our spirits. Of course, I did ride my bicycle around in a circle (of which I was totally unaware) and grew a little heated without any outside help prior when access to the river bank eluded me for a short while, before we triumphantly reached our goal, Tokugan-ji temple. We were the only visitors, apart from one woman who was carrying a water pail on her way out after obviously tending to a family gravesite. Nice to have the place to ourselves and take photographs of an unimpeded temple. That doesn't happen often in Japan.
The gate to this temple (see picture above) was built in 1745, which as Musashi Miyamoto died a century earlier, makes the connection between the two of them unclear. We were surprised by how new-looking the structure was. It has been well-maintained despite being situated on a low-lying plot of land. Mr Engineer noticed signs of flooding in various sections, most worryingly around the grave markers at the rear. We hunted fruitlessly for any information about Miyamoto Musashi linking him to the temple. What is on the public record about him is that he was famous for his fighting skills in his early years and for his philosophical and writing skills in his later years. Less well-known is that he was also a talented sumi-e artist and painted the lovely work with the prosaic title, "Shrike on a Dead Branch" seen to the right. Sumi-e is brush-painting using ink ground from an ink-stick, various brushes made using hair from a wide range of animals and different paper textures. It requires many years of training and practise to master and is an extremely difficult art form to perfect as the artist cannot erase any strokes once they start. He must have been a patient man, as well as a great warrior.
After a little internet digging it seems that perhaps NHK TV filmed scenes at Tokugan-ji for its Taiga drama (year-long historical fiction series) but I cannot tell if it was a past or future production. I may need to do some additional research and watch some TV. You can read more about Miyamoto Musashi here. He lived to be over sixty years which is quite remarkable considering his vintage and his dangerous profession. Despite some disappointment felt for not finding out more about the legendary man, we derived great satisfaction from simply walking around the ageless buildings, and I wondered to myself whose footprints we were re-tracing so many years later.
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