Introduction
Morita Teiko
(The following is an extract from “The Heian Cultural Revival in Edo”.)
In the latter half of the 18th century in Japan, the spirit of venerating antiquity, known as shōkoshūgi (尚古主義), became popular in both Kyoto, where the emperor resided, and Edo, where the shogun held power. In Kyoto, Emperor Kōkaku, who ascended to the throne in the eighth year of An’ei (1779), aimed to re-establish imperial authority by reviving and restoring numerous court rituals and Shinto ceremonies (cf. Satoru Fujita, Kōkaku Tennō: Jishin o Ato ni Shite Tenka Banmin o Saki to Shi (Emperor Kōkaku: Putting Himself Second and His People First), Kyoto: Minerva Shobō, 2018). In Edo, Tayasu Munetake, the second son of Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune, well-versed in ancient clothing, music, literature, and court practices, organized a “Plum Matching Contest” in the second year of Meiwa (1765) in a conscious attempt to restore traditional Heian period court customs. During the An’ei and Tenmei eras (the 1770s and 1780s) after Munetake’s passing in Edo, figures such as Mishima Kageo and Kamo no Suetaka, connected to the Tōshō (堂上) poetry school, and deeply knowledgeable in Heian period works such as The Tale of Genji, organized a series of events reviving the old “object contest” (mono-awase) tradition, including a “Fan Matching Contest” (ōgi-awase) and a “Garden Plant Matching Contest” (senzai-awase) in the eighth year of An’ei (1779).
But in this volume we are introducing another “object contest” organized by these poets, who were drawn to traditional Heian culture – a literary event that took place on the very banks of the Sumida River where the central figure of Tales of Ise (Episode 9), commonly believed to be Ariwara no Narihira (825-880), composed the famous poem “Capital bird / if you are true to your name / I have something to ask you: / Is the one I love back home / still there or not?” (Na ni shi owaba / iza koto towamu / miyakodori / waga omou hito ha / ari ya nashi ya to). It is known as A Match of Crickets in Ten Rounds of Verse and Image (Jūban Mushi-awase).
The Jūban Mushi-awase event has been discussed in several research papers since Kikuchi Andō’s introduction in 1984 (“Mishima Jikan no Jūban Mushi-awase hashigaki [Introduction to Mishima Jikan’s Jūban Mushi-awase]” in Edo no Wagakusha, Tokyo: Seishōdō Shoten). Eight locations within Japan were known to possess scrolls related to it (refer to Teiko Morita’s “Introduction”). At one point, Kiyoe Minami, a research associate at the Honolulu Museum, contacted me, mentioning that there was a set of scrolls related to Jūban Mushi-awase in the Richard Lane Collection at HoMA, and she requested my assistance in examining it. I followed up on this request, and on February 18, 2020, I examined the Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki in the Lane Collection vault. I realized that not only was it the equal of the copy held by the Daitōkyū Kinen Bunko (Gotoh Museum) in Tokyo, which until now had been considered the best edition, but indeed surpassed it. This is because the Jūban Mushi-awase scrolls in HoMA of Art were designed and calligraphed by Mishima Kageo (Mishima Jikan), one of the participants in the actual contest at Mokubo-ji. (See my “Jūhasseiki Mono-awase Fukkō to Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki, [The Jūban Mushi-awase Scrolls and the Revival of Object Contests in the 18th century”], Kagami, #52, Tokyo: Daitōkyū Kinen Bunko, March 2022, pp. 60-90.)
Sometime before I first saw the scrolls in 2019, Robert Huey of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, along with his graduate students, had started reading this Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki as part of their coursework (see Kiyoe Minami, “What Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki has brought to education in Hawaiʻi” in this publication). On February 21, 2020, when I was conducting my research, Huey and his graduate students visited HoMA of Art. With the original Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki before us, I provided them with an explanation of the scrolls. The students, brimming with strong interest and a voracious appetite for knowledge, bombarded me with questions one after another. I was deeply impressed by their enthusiasm, convinced that the charm of the original Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki itself was the source of their passion.
I thought it would be fascinating to engage in collaborative research on the Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki, a set of scrolls that captivates viewers regardless of nationality. Subsequently, I reached out to Huey, and after discussions in online meetings, it was decided to conduct international collaborative research workshops focused on transcribing and annotating the text in HoMA’s copy of the Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki. This initiative became part of the Grant-in-Aid for the Scientific Research and International Joint Research Acceleration Fund (International Joint Research Enhancement (B)) for the 2020-2023 fiscal years, titled “International Research on the Classical Revival in 18th-19th Century Japan” (20kk0006). These workshops included participants from Japan, including Morita Teiko (Principle Investigator), Iikura Yōichi (Co-Investigator), Nagasaki Kiyonori (Co-Investigator), Matsumoto Ōki (Co-Investigator), Yamamoto Yoshitaka (research collaborator), and Arisawa Tomoyo (research collaborator). International collaborators included Dr. Robert Huey and graduate students from the University of Hawaiʻi, as well as Jonathan Zwicker and graduate students from the University of California, Berkeley (UCB). Furthermore, Kiyoe Minami from HoMA also participated. The first research session took place on April 24, 2021.
The workshops, held approximately once a month for thirteen sessions, convened on Saturdays from 10 AM to 1 PM Japan time to accommodate the time difference. The first session involved a presentation by me giving an overview of HoMA’s Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki, with a total of sixteen participants from Japan, Hawaiʻi, and UCB. The second session included my presentation on annotations to the colophons detailing the events surrounding the mushi-awase, along with Zwicker’s presentation titled “Devices for Thinking About the Past: Literary Sociability and Historical Consciousness Around the Bunka Era,” examining the antiquarian tendencies of Edo period playwrights during the Bunka era. From the third to the thirteenth sessions, each meeting progressed by discussing one section at a time. Morita covered colophons and sections one, three, five, seven, and ten, Matsumoto covered sections two, four, six, and eight, and Iikura covered section nine. The seventh session was an exception, focusing on research reports and discussions without annotations.
During the first half of each session, presenters delivered their findings based on transcriptions, as well as modern Japanese translations, and annotations prepared in Japanese (providing a starting point for discussion and further research), followed by Q&A and discussions, moderated by Iikura. The second half, moderated by Yamamoto, involved discussions by the Hawaiʻi team, led by Huey, on the English translation and annotations for the same section. As Huey noted in the introduction to this book, the international collaborative research workshop achieved unexpected results. Each session featured lively, uninhibited, and enjoyable discussions, unveiling exciting arguments. Huey, in particular, offered insights often surprising to Japanese researchers from unique perspectives. At relevant times, Minami provided information essential to the annotations by sharing visual materials from HoMA collection. The workshop’s international context brought a unique and stimulating dynamic. Playing a significant role in bridging discussions between the Japanese and international teams were Yamamoto, who spent his high school and college years in the United States and is proficient in English, and Minami, who has had a long history in Hawaiʻi.
Recordkeeping for the workshop discussions was managed by Arisawa, enabling easy incorporation of discussions into the annotations. Starting from the seventh session, Kawarai Yūko, a graduate student specializing in classical literature, joined, contributing valuable insights from the perspective of a waka researcher. From the twelfth session onwards, Katō Yumie, a new research collaborator, also participated. Pier Carlo Tommasi from the University of Hawaiʻi joined partway through, adding sharp questions.
Starting from November 25, 2022, after going through the entire Jūban Mushia-awase Emaki in the international collaborative research workshop, Iikura, Matsumoto, and Morita held in-person annotation review meetings to prepare the annotation manuscript. The review meetings extended over thirteen sessions, each lasting between two to six hours. At the in-person review stage, the significance of the Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki waka and its relationship with topically-categorized waka collections (ruidai wakashū) from the Edo period became apparent. In light of this, Matsumoto compiled a list of potentially relevant waka from such collections.
This book presents the results of a three-year international collaborative research project along with an intensive annotation review process, centered on the scroll-set A Match of Crickets in Ten Rounds of Verse and Image (Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki). It is simultaneously published in Japanese (I. Main Text, II. Essays & Columns, III. Appendices) and English (I. Main Text, II. Research Articles, Perspectives).
For the Japanese version, the facsimile of the main text (I. Main Text) was produced using the Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki held at the Honolulu Museum of Art, which we had been deciphering during the international collaborative research meetings. The photographs were taken by Scott Kubo, the Digital Image Editor at HoMA. The collated main text, modern Japanese translation, and annotations were handled by the research team. Matsumoto was responsible for the collated main text and its notes, while Iikura, Matsumoto, and Morita were responsible for the modern Japanese translation and annotations. Morita contributed an introductory essay to the book based on the historical context of the Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki, and Minami, who has been involved in cataloging the Richard Lane Collection at HoMA, provided insights into the collection.
Regarding the essays and columns in Japanese (II. Essays & Columns), translations were provided by Iikura for the articles by Tanya Barnett, Robert Huey, Francesca Pizarro, Hillson Reidpath, Jonathan Zwicker, and Andre Haag. These translations underwent checks by the respective authors, with the final review conducted by Huey. Barnett, Pizarro, Reidpath, and Haag, despite not being specialists in early modern literature, actively participated in the research meetings, raising various questions and engaging in discussions, showcasing their enthusiasm for and curiosity about the playfulness and antiquarianism of Edo’s intellectual circles. Their contributions revealed a sincere engagement with the subject matter from their unique perspectives. Zwicker’s essay on the Sumida River, focusing on both pre-modern and modern landscapes, provided particularly stimulating insights.
The book also includes an essay by Katõ Yumie, titled “Uta-awase in the Edo Period,” which provides an overview of the history of poetry and object matches (uta-awase and mono-awase) in the early modern period, setting the stage for understanding the significance of the Jūban Mushi-awase.
During the An’ei and Tenmei eras when the Jūban Mushi-awase was held, there was a flourishing of playful gatherings by comic renga authors. Arisawa Tomoyo’s essay, “Intellectuals in Edo at the End of the 18th century and the Beginning of the 19th century: Their Pleasures and Considerations,” focuses on the intellectual play and inquiry in Edo during this period.
Essays relevant to the main text and literary background include Kawarai Yūko’s “Jūban Mushi-awase and The Tale of Genji” and Yamamoto Yoshitaka’s “Sinitic Elements in the Jūban Mushi-awase: From Insect Poetry to Bird-and-Flower Painting.” Kawarai delves into the handling of The Tale of Genji by Katō Chikage, who judged the arrangements (tsukurimono) for the Jūban Mushi-awase, while Yamamoto explores the possibilities of the Chinese literary context in appreciating the sound of insects and the depiction of scenes with insects.
In his essay titled “The Relationship between the Text of The Tale of Genji and Chikage Tachibana in the Early Modern Period,” Matsumoto Ōki also discusses Chikage’s treatment of The Tale of Genji in his judgments of the arrangements in the Jūban Mushi-awase.
This book includes color reproductions of the arrangements (suhama, also referred to as tsukurimono) as painted on the Jūban Mushi-awase scrolls. Although there was no art history specialist on the research team, we received valuable insights from Kadowaki Mutsumi, who not only provided guidance but also contributed a fascinating essay titled “A Study of Tsukurimono in the Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki from the Standpoint of Art History Research.”
As appendices for the Japanese version (III. Appendices), we included “Biographical Introductions” and “Transcription and Collation.” The “Biographical Introductions” provide explanations about the individuals who participated in the Jūban Mushi-awase. Based on information in the annotations, these introductions were compiled by Arisawa. The “Transcription and Collation” section features a faithful transliteration of the original text by Matsumoto and a collation of discrepancies with other versions by Morita.
For details about the English version, please refer to Huey’s “Introduction.” In the English version’s “I. Main Text,” translations and annotations by Huey and the University of Hawaiʻi team, based on the discussions and results of the international collaborative research meetings, are presented.
In this research project, Nagasaki Kiyonori, as a sub-investigator, took the lead in the initiative to provide the TEI (Text Encoding Initiative)-formatted text data for Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki to the world. This initiative was conducted concurrently with the international collaborative research meetings. As a result, the main text, modern Japanese translation, and English translation of Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki are currently available online, formatted according to the TEI guidelines. The data entry was diligently performed by Fujiwara Shizuka, a research assistant at Kyoto Sangyō University (and a Post-doctoral Programme Graduate Student at Kyoto Women’s University). Nagasaki presented the project’s outcomes under the title “Digital Representation of A Match of Crickets in Ten Rounds of Verse and Image: Text Encoding and Viewer Implementation for a Japanese Poetry Match” at the TEI conference 2023 held in Germany.
In September of the same year, Iikura, Matsumoto, Katō, Arisawa, Morita, and Huey conducted a final check of the original document at HoMA for confirmation before the book’s publication. Even though we had extensive discussions during the research meetings, seeing the original manuscript in person brought out the intricate details of the illustrations that we had not fully realized before. Each depiction of the bell crickets and pine crickets, caught at the moment that they were spreading their wings and chirping, was unique, surprising us with the lifelike representation of the Jūban Mushi-awase scenes. (See enlargements on pp. 55 and 56.) It is likely that the insights gained from the in-depth reading of the text during the research meetings contributed to this realization. On September 15, a workshop on Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki was held at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library, where Huey, Morita, Matsumoto, Reidpath, and Minami presented their research findings. Attendees included not only researchers but also individuals from libraries, museums, and the Consulate-General of Japan in Honolulu, leading to an active question-and-answer session. While the research project commenced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and international collaborative research had been conducted online for a long time, this was the first time that members met face-to-face for direct discussions, marking a significant step toward the publication of research findings.
In conclusion, I have focused above on a review of the process involved in our international collaborative research meetings, and I express my sincere gratitude to all those who participated. To our readers, we hope that through the words and illustrations of the Jūban Mushi-awase Emaki held at the Honolulu Museum of Art, you can touch the vitality of Edo people in the late 18th century in Japan, who, inspired by Kyoto’s court culture, sought to extract classical knowledge and create something anew across time and space. Additionally, if this attempt to report the findings in both Japanese and English languages contributes to Japanese literature studies worldwide, it would be an unexpected joy.
Finally, we extend our heartfelt thanks for the significant contributions of Iikura Yōichi and of Nishiuchi Tomomi at Bungaku Tsūshin (Bungaku-Report), in the editing of this book.
In addition, we received support from JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research JP23H03696 "Development of Data Structuring Methods for Japanese Historical Texts Based on Research Methodology in the Humanities" (Principal Investigator: Nagasaki Kiyonori) and JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research JP22K00303 "Practical Research on Construction of a Database and Text Analysis for Uta-Awase (Waka Poetry Match) in Medieval Japan: Presentation of an Advanced Model for the Next Generation of Humanities Research" (Principal Investigator: Katō Yumie). Additionally, the server for this website was provided by the Institute for Humanities and Informatics. We express our gratitude for their contributions.