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The World of Sankai Juku
| Article
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12293 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1987 |
1,727 Words |
| Author
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Roku Hasegawa
Roku Hasegawa, an architect, is former editor of Dance Work, a
magazine devoted to the dance in Japan. A former actress, she
gave up the theater after having met the celebrated Butoh
dancer, Tatsumi Hijikata, so that she could support the field
of Butoh as a dance journalist. |
Sankai Juku - these fascinating living beings guide us to the wonderful and faraway world of ancient times. They inspire our imagination to wander upstream through time into holy lands we cannot hope to see with our eyes and to picture how divine rituals must have been performed in those times. The people of Sankai Juku exist always in a realm that transcends the limits of our ordinary imagination. They rest serenely in the holy Takamagahara, where the gods of Japan are assembled with their servants and where we cannot venture.
For us Japanese, the gods of Takamagahara are the creators of this world. The gods are numerous. They live in the mountains and rivers, and are as beautiful as we can possibly imagine. They are both visible and invisible spiritual existences.
Japan's divine nature is found at holy grounds in its forests and in specifically designated mountainous areas. Those who would possess this divinity must continually discipline their bodies through rigorous training. For example, there are those called Mokujiki no Gyosha - "those who eat trees" - whose discipline consists of subsisting only on the fruits of trees and grasses.
This rigorous training is aimed at attaining Buddhahood while still in the flesh and is carried out most commonly in the mountains. At the time of day when the spirits of the ancestors grow still, those in training enter the mountains where the spirits dwell. Purification rituals are performed to cleanse the body. The training begins in order to escape from all the illusions of daily life.
Mountain Womb
In the spiritual grounds of the Tohoku region, the trainee must perform his own funeral before entering into a nine-day course. Having died, he can return to the womb, that is, the mountain. In the mountain, he must overcome the harshest pain - experienced through the course of hell and the course of fasting (also known as the course of Preta) being reborn with new life. The body is thought to be purified through this actualization of the pain of rebirth.
The trainees cut trees and offer a sacred fire for invocation. A special form of wrestling, symbolizing combat, is used in the course of Asura to beat the body into total exhaustion. The idea is to receive the energy of the mountain - to commune with life energy that has been passed down through the life span of the trees. At the end of the training,
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