![]() Prince Genji has been advised to go there to be cured of a “high fever” ( warawa-yami) by the conjurations of a “practitioner” ( okonaibito) who is reputed to be highly efficacious. ![]() 4 The story is set in one of the “northern hills” ( kitayama) located just beyond the limits of the capital. A brief summary of the first part of the chapter follows. The opening section of this chapter abounds in references to Buddhism and its texts, and many expressions in the chapter text are familiar to students of Buddhism. 4 The short quotations in the following summary are taken from NKBT vol. 14, pp. 177-180.ģThe passage under consideration appears in Chapter 5, “Wakamurasaki” (Lavender).This suggests that a Buddhist dimension must be considered in interpreting the work.ĢI will attempt to demonstrate, using a specific example that has apparently not yet been interpreted in this light, that acknowledging the role of Buddhist texts in the Genji yields a more accurate understanding of certain significant episodes. 1 As Kūkai writes at the beginning of his Indications of the Goals of the Three Teachings, “A man writes when moved.” 2 In my own case, I was moved-after having made a cursory reading of the Genji monogatari in the Iwanami Bunko edition, edited by the great scholar Yamagishi Tokuhei 3-to astonishment on discovering numerous, subtle Buddhist allusions embedded in the text. 6 vols.ġThat one as unacquainted with Japanese literature as myself should be participating in a symposium on The Tale of Genji calls for some explanation, if not an apology. Yamagishi Tokuhei, Iwanami Bunko (Tōkyō: Iwanami Shoten, 1965-1967). 2 Yoshito S. Hakeda, trans., K ū kai: Major Works (New York: Columbia University Press), 1972, p.Terada Sumie for her encouragement, corrections, and valuable suggestions. (It is a further twist to this word game, that the novel's Murasaki, the Lady of the West Wing, though certainly turning into a shining example of love and constancy, ends her life in pious resignation, with a jealous demon appearing at her bedside - thereby destroying Genji (the hero). Thus, in a word association game very characteristic of Japanese poetry, the similarity between the two colors – the deep purple of the violet, and the light purple of wisteria – led to the name Murasaki, a well-known name in Japanese literature. This lady Fujitsubo is little Murasaki's aunt. Genji, in his poem, names the murasaki or purple gromwell, because its color resembles the color of wisteria (in Japanese, fuji) thereby obliquely referring to Fujitsubo, "the Lady of the Wisteria Court", a woman he is violently in love with for the first part of the novel. Other translations include lavender, as used by Edward Seidensticker in his English version of Genji violet and violet root, which in Japanese poetry denotes love and constancy. Murasaki ( 紫) is the Japanese word for the color purple. How glad I would be to pick and soon to make mine that little wild plant sprung up from the very root shared by the murasaki. The name Murasaki is inspired by a poem that the novel's hero, Genji, improvises when contemplating his first meeting with the novel's heroine, then a little girl who will grow up to be "Murasaki": In most commentaries and translations, she is simply referred to as "Murasaki" for ease of identification and to improve readability.Ī Word Game, or, a Famous Color in Literature As such, the Genji character Murasaki is often referred to as the "Lady of the West Wing". The name remained a pseudonym, as due to court manners of the author's time (the Heian period, 794–1185), it was considered unacceptably familiar and vulgar to freely address people by either their personal or family names within the novel, the character herself, too, is unnamed, as most of the book's characters are never identified by any name, but by their rank and title (in the case of male persons), the rank and title of their male relatives (in the case of female persons), or after the name of their habitation (in the case of the great court ladies).
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