Issa Kobayashi (1763-1828) - Issa and his Nagano
Utagawa Hiroshige - Aoi Slope, Outside Toranomon Gate
From the series of woodblock prints 'One Hundred Views of Edo'
Zenkō-ji temple
With buckwheat flowers in bloom
Under the moon of Shinano.
(Season word: buckwheat flower - autumn)
そば時や月の信濃の善光寺
Soba doki ya/tsuki no shinano no/ zennkōji
そばの花咲くこの季節、
信州の月に照らし出される
善光寺のたたずまい。
In this haiku poem, the two most important tourist attractions of Nagano are mentioned. Now let us see what those are, and what relation our poet Issa had with them.
Soba
The fields of mountainous Nagano are filled with volcanic ash, which makes the cultivation of rice, the staple food of Japan, not impossible but difficult. For that reason, people in the region have been cultivating buckwheat - 'soba'- as a substitutional food for a long time. In this way the region also became the best known district for producing soba noodle.
buckwheat flower
In one woodblock print of Hiroshige (above), we see portable stalls of soba noodles. Soba was a fast food for the diligent workers of the city of Edo. In modern times soba is eaten in restaurants and specialized stores and, in the period following the Second World War, ramen stalls became popular. In fact, at first ramen was called 'Shina (China) -soba'.
The love of Edo people for soba became even bigger for health reasons. Even if they were very fond of soba, their principal food was still rice. They especially liked polished white rice, which does not contain vitamin B1 unlike unpolished rice, other grains, and buckwheat. Lack of this vitamin caused beriberi disease to Edo citizens, so the disease was called the 'Edo-disease'.
The rumor among Edo people that eating soba would help prevent the disease would be proven true in the first part of 20th century. As increasingly japanese people continued to eat white rice, which was relatively luxurious in the first place, beriberi was feared as a mortal disease up until the 1950s. Edo people were eating soba for a just cause, if eating it was reducing the number of victims of the 'Edo disease' among them.
Soba served chilled on sieve - 'Zaru-soba'
Issa's Haiku works
Original text, with modern Japanese and English translations
1.
With fighting words
I boast of my country of buckwheat
Viewing the moon.
(Season word: the [harvest] moon - autumn)
蕎麦国のたんを切りつつ月見哉
Soba guni no / Tan wo kiritsutsu / Tsukimi kana
そばの本場、信濃の国。
故郷を自慢して啖呵を切った。
月見をたのしむこの席で。
2.
Buckwheat flowers -
These guys in Edo,
What the hell do they know?
(Season word: buckwheat - autumn)
そばの花江戸のやつらがなに知って
Soba no hana / Edo no yatsura ga / Nani shitte
そばの花が咲いている。
いったい何を知っているというのか、
江戸の連中なぞが。
3.
The edge of the mountain -
White buckwheat flowers
Recalling the snow with a shudder.
(Season word : buckwheat - autumn)
Recalling the snow with a shudder.
(Season word : buckwheat - autumn)
yamabana ya / Soba no shirosa mo/Zotto suru
山の端が天にかかっている。
そばの花の白さを見ていると、
雪と冬の寒さがこわくなる。
4.
A heat haze -
In front of the soba shop,
A pile of chopsticks.
(Season word: heat haze - spring)
* There weren't disposable chopsticks yet during Issa's lifetime and soba shops dried chopsticks outside after having washed them.
陽炎やそば屋が前の箸の山
Kagerō ya / Soba-ya ga mae no / Hashi no yama
かげろうが立ち上り、
そば屋の前には、
箸が山のように干してある。
5.
Blooming for twenty days
On this mountain with steril soil -
The buckwheat flowers!
(Season word: buckwheat - autumn)
痩せ山にはつか咲けり蕎麦の花
Yaseyama ni / Hatsuka saki keri / Soba no hana
二十日も咲いたんだ、
この山の土地はやせてはいても
白い蕎麦の花が！・・・
6.
Red dragonflies -
People say mine is
The country of buckwheat.
(Season word: dragonfly - autumn)
そば所と人はいふ也赤蜻蛉
Soba dokoro to/Hito wa iunari/Aka tonbo
人がいうには、
おれの国は「そば処」らしい。
赤とんぼがとんでいるよ。
A spring breeze -
To the Zenkōji temple
Led by a cow.
(Season word: spring breeze - spring)
Syunpū ya/Ushi ni hikarete/Zenkōji
春風がふくと、
牛が善光寺にみちびくという
あの言い伝えを思う。
Zenkō-ji is still today the biggest work of wooden architecture in eastern Japan, and in the Edo period people desired to make a visit to it 'once in a lifetime'. Founded in 642, it is said to hold the oldest Buddhist statue in Japan, which was presented by the king of the Baekje kingdom of the korean peninsula, brought originally from India. The statue is a 'secret statue' and hidden to the public, even to the priests. The temple is in Nagano city, capital of Nagano prefecture.
In this haiku, Issa speaks about a legend, according to which an old woman once saw a cow that with his horn picked up her laundry that she was hanging out to dry, then began to run away. Following him, finally she found herself at the Zenko-ji temple, where she saw the cow's slobber shining on the floor with a mysterious light though the sun was already set. The line of slobber was forming letters and it suggested that the cow was in fact an incarnation of the Goddess of Kannon. The woman deepened her faith and lived pious until her peaceful death.
This is the story, but generally speaking, 'Going to the Zenkō-ji temple led by the cow' means 'to achieve something good by unpredicted chance', not by one's own will, but invited by something else. This idea seems to resemble somehow the belief of the buddhist Jōdo-Shinshū sect, of which Issa was an adherent. In this sect, one must not hope for salvation as a reward for your own deeds, instead only believing the will of Amida-Buddha to save all humanity.
The majority of people in his native village were followers of the sect, including his family. Zenkō-ji was founded when there still weren't diverse sects of buddhism in Japan, and even today welcomes believers of any sect without distinction. Issa visited the temple on many occasions throughout his life and made some haiku about it.
This is the story, but generally speaking, 'Going to the Zenkō-ji temple led by the cow' means 'to achieve something good by unpredicted chance', not by one's own will, but invited by something else. This idea seems to resemble somehow the belief of the buddhist Jōdo-Shinshū sect, of which Issa was an adherent. In this sect, one must not hope for salvation as a reward for your own deeds, instead only believing the will of Amida-Buddha to save all humanity.
The majority of people in his native village were followers of the sect, including his family. Zenkō-ji was founded when there still weren't diverse sects of buddhism in Japan, and even today welcomes believers of any sect without distinction. Issa visited the temple on many occasions throughout his life and made some haiku about it.
Central hall of Zenkōji temple
References (in Japanese)
Zenkō-ji temple web site
Shinran-kai, lectures on Jōdo-shinshū
Text and translation by Yamatologos 2018 with the help of Forest Muran
Text and translation by Yamatologos 2018 with the help of Forest Muran
