Month: December 2010

The Nightingale Floor (Kyoto, Japan)

by LediaR, posted in Japanese Culture, Mysterious Japan

Main gate to Ninomaru palace
Image by thaths via Flickr

Are you secretly a ninja? Here is a test. It is the dead of night when you enter Nijo Castle. Everyone is asleep except for the two guards that were served a special tea flavored secretly by you. They now snore unaware at their posts. Tomorrow, they may lose their heads because of you.

You are dressed as a lowly peasant though your warlord master pays you sweetly for your work as a spy. In fact you are actually a samurai in disguise. Your katana is tucked inside your robe tie. You never know when you may need it. You have all the right equipment, but the true test comes when you step onto the nightingale floor. If it “sings” you are dead…

Built 400 years ago by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Edo shogunate, Nijo Castle is situated so that it guarded the once Imperial city. It actually resembles the Imperial Palace in Kyoto. When all the floors were laid throughout the castle, they were suspended in a special way above the frame using a particular type of iron clamp so that the floor moves up and down when walked upon. The nails rub against the wood creating a sound like the cheeping of nightingales. Only a trained ninja can walk across the floor without making it “sing”.

Other places to find nightingale floors are:

Daikaku-ji temple in Kyoto

Chio-in temple in Kyoto

Toji-in temple in Kyoto

References:

YouTube demonstration of a “Nightingale Floor” http://is.gd/jEBhr

Common Misconception Concerning Ninja http://www.chinatownconnection.com/misconception-ninja.htm

Zen-garden.org “Nightingale floor, Uguisubari”  http://www.zen-garden.org/html/page_nightingalefloor.htm

Related articles

The “Roaring Dragon” of Shokoku-ji Temple (Kyoto, Japan)

by LediaR, posted in Dragons, Japanese Culture, Legend of the Cherry Jewel, Mysterious Japan

Kyoto imperial palace garden in Kyoto, Japan
Image via Wikipedia

You enter the temple. An eerie quiet surrounds the few pilgrims, besides you, inside the hall of the inner sanctum. Yet it feels as if someone or something is watching from above. Your gaze travels toward the ceiling where a giant dragon is coiled in painted wood above your head. While you stand transfixed, yours and the creature’s eyes lock.

Then the unthinkable occurs. Someone claps their hands disturbing the peace of the sanctified place. Before righteous indignation registers, an amazing thing takes place. The dragon, in all its Imperial majesty, roars.

You cannot believe it. A trick of imagination and the awesome surroundings must have caused the breathtaking phenomena. Yet, another clap summons the dragon once again and you smile.

“So this is what calls the creature to wake.”

You hear someone whisper that the sound is a reverberating echo traveling between the parallel planes of the floor and the ceiling. A subtle overlapping of acoustic reflections is what brings the dragon to life. Still, you clap your hands knowing the sea god, Ryujin has communicated to you on a mystical level that words cannot express.

Facts:

Located in the old neighborhood near Doshisha University, just north of the Imperial Palace.

The Main Hall was completed 1394 by Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408).

Destroyed by fire and rebuilt many times, only the Dharma Hall and the Imperial Gate are what is left of the original structures.

A Zen sect temple, Shokokuji has treasures and cultural collections displayed in the Shotenkaku Museum, onsite.

References:

Kansai Window: Japanese Architecture in Kansai, Echoes, “The Secret of the Dragon and the Mysterious Urns”       http://www.kippo.or.jp/e/culture/build/archi.html

Draconian.com: “Dragon Sculptures, The “roaring dragon” of Sokoku-ji” http://www.draconian.com/dragons/dragon-sculptures.php

Related articles

Risshakuji Temple (Yamadera, Japan)

by LediaR, posted in Japanese Culture, Legend of the Cherry Jewel, Mysterious Japan

A view half way up the Yamadera temple complex.
Image via Wikipedia

The sun sets behind Mount Hoju as you hurry through the forty temple buildings scattered in the midst of the old forest, across sheer cliffs over-looking the tiny village of Yamadera. Purple twilight filters through the canopy of grandfather Cryptomeria trees. In the near distance you hear the ringing of the evening bell that calls the monks to worship Amida Buddha, the blessed protector of humankind.

Halfway down the stone path, you enter Nio-mon gate. The carved stone tunnel serves as both the entrance to and exit from the sacred site. The last faint rays of sunset slant through the arched tunnel as the walls seem to press in like an invisible force. Your gaze shifts back and forth toward the rows of statues that line the tunnel. Beneath flickering torchlight they stand. Three images on each side, six in all carved identically.

Shoki!

The word hisses through your mind as flames of torchlight sputter eerily against the walls and the stone guardians of the spirit world. The statues’ eyes of limestone seem to follow your every movement. When you stop to look directly at the sculptures, you see only stillness, only carved rock.

You have heard the monks speak of the “Shoki, Demon-queller” who brandished swift swords of justice to bar the wicked from entering all holy places. At one time, Shoki lived on the earth as a human man, a physician of kindly, yet hideous countenance. Now Shoki returns from the spirit world when called upon to serve as avenger against evil.

Bristled beards sweeps the faces of the carved stone above six menacing grins. You hold your breath, half expecting the stone guardians to declare you unworthy, though you have done nothing to incur their wrath, so menacing are the statues of Shoki.

In the wavering light, it seems their feet break loose from the slabs of rock. You can feel their cold fingers clutch your throat. Throw you to the ground to grind your face into the dirt. Your ribs ache as if the sharp steel of all six flashing swords slice into you. You expect nothing more than to see your blood run red against the dirt and stone path.

But it is all a dream. The statues have not moved from their spot and you stand staring mouth agape at them, while you are altogether safe and sound.

As your feet clear the gate, a gasp of relief rushes from your lips. Though the passage has taken, but a few moments it seems like the long stretch of eternity.

The remaining stone steps down the mountain are a blur of motion beneath your swiftly moving feet. You run from the cliff’s edge down the side of the mountain, winding your way toward Mida-hora. The volcanic crag of sheer rock face, carved by human hands and years of wind and rain, juts like a finger toward Heaven. It is said that the crag serves as a boundary dividing this world from the next, its weathered countenance sweeping toward the lush valley below.

Long shadows of nightfall creep around you alongside ephemeral shapes that appear, gliding through the rock wall. The kami, spirits of the departed, waver around you dancing to the rhythmic drums of Obon—dance of the dead, that thrums on the air from Yamadera Village…

(this is a “personalized” excerpt from the novel: LEGEND OF THE CHERRY JEWEL, “Chapter Fifteen, Whirling Blades” where you slip inside Hinata Jin, the main character’s skin to see, feel and hear what he does.

For more information:

Great Photo! Yamadera (Risshakuji) Temple, Miyagi prefecturehttp://www.theodora.com/wfb/photos/japan/japan_photos_77.html

Wikipedia, “Yama-dera‘”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yama-dera