Models of the Way in the Theory of Noh

Models of the Way in the Theory of Noh, 源氏物語

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//-->Japan Review,2006,18:29-55Models of the Way in the Theory of NohNoel John PINNINGTONKyushu University Asia Center, Hakozaki, JapanFrom the late Heian period, Japanese practitioners have written a seriesof works describing their arts. Underlying them is a vision of the arts asmichi,paths through life, an image which implies an underlying unityto all human specializations. This unity resulted in a series of creative in-tellectual borrowings across different areas of knowledge, and an intenseinvestigation of the processes by which the artist is trained and the artifactis produced, but there is a corresponding lack of aesthetic analysis andlittle interest in the artist as an individual. In this study, the writings offifteenth-century noh actors, Zeami and Zenchiku, are investigated as ex-emplars of the intellectual approaches ofmichiin its formative period. Inclosing the character of writings aboutmichiis contrasted with approachestaken in the European tradition to theorizing about the arts.Keywords:NOH, DRAMATIC THEORY, ART THEORY,MICHI, ZEAMI, ZENCHI-KU, MEDIEVAL INTELLECTUAL HISTORY, AESTHETICSIn the late Heian period, Japanese specialists in the literary and other arts began toattempt detailed, comprehensive descriptions of their traditions. It is striking the extent towhich these descriptions borrow terminology and ideas from other activities, religious as wellas artistic. The works of the noh actor Zeami in the fifteenth century might be consideredthe pinnacle of such writing. They display a vigorous bricolage1in which paradigms from awide range of other activities are applied, modified, and stretched to fit the players’ needsand circumstances. A unifying idea informing such descriptions of the arts is the treatmentof human activities as “paths,” progressions through stages to a destination, and an associ-ated expectation that those who travel such paths are transformed thereby. This approachis of such power that it has found unending application in Japan. Nevertheless, one cannothelp wondering whether its comprehensive fertility lies behind, for example, the failure ofmedieval Japan to produce what in the Western tradition might be considered a theory ofaesthetics. In this essay we shall trace how a number of models of the way converged to create2930Noel John PINNINGTONa general “way of the arts” in medieval Japan, and look in particular at the use of the paradigmby performers of noh. We shall then consider some of the ramifications of this paradigm forartistic theory in Japan.Buddhist Cultures: Marga, Tao and MichiBuswell and Gimello argue that the prominence in studies of comparative religion ofsuch matters as faith and prayer, reflects a bias deriving from the European tradition.2Theyparticularly highlightmarga(Sanskrit: path) as a theme central to Buddhism that might bemore widely employed in cross-cultural discussions. The path or way is important in anyreligious life; it is fundamental to Christian culture, for example. Buddhism, however, hasspecial reasons for emphasizing the path. It proposes two contrasting realities, a world of illu-sion and a world of truth. It teaches (in the fourth noble truth) that there is a path from thefirst to the second. Its central narrative is that a man found that path and thereby became theBuddha. All Buddhists are enjoined to tread the path. The centrality of the path in Buddhismmight be expected to have privileged action and performance over conceptual systems andbelief. Buddhism certainly has its philosophical systems, but the priority of actually walkingthe path is frequently stressed, and is reflected in the many schematic descriptions of spiri-tual progress. Buswell and Gimello summarize various schema: the noble eightfold path, thefour approaches, the thirty-seven factors of awakening, the five paths, the six or ten stages,the bodhisattva path in fifty-three stages according to the Hua-yen華厳(Jp. Kegon) tradi-tion, the five ranks according to Sōtō曹洞Zen. These analyses demonstrate the fertility ofthe metaphor of the path. In them the elements of the path are conceived in different ways;some list places to be passed through and left behind, others skills to be mastered in turn andcarried with one as qualifications, and others are typologies of living beings or mental states,classified according to their distance from enlightenment. All images of the path in Buddhismare problematic, for they represent a bridge between states that are either exclusive (delusionand awakening) or, from another point of view, identical (samsara and nirvana), but in anycase difficult to see as linked termini at the ends of a continuum. They also, moreover, bringcertain matters into easier focus than others. The emphasis on the process, for one thing,tends to give priority to experience over discursive knowledge; knowledge arrived at throughpracticing a certain life is different from that attained by argument or discussion, not least inits non-verbalized elements.The path may be a good perspective from which to compare religions, but it is morethan that. Religions are actually instances of a broader category: traditional ways of livingone’s life. In medieval Japan, the termmichi道(ordō,as it is usually read in compounds)described such a category, for it embraced religious and secular traditions, particularly certainoccupations and artistic vocations. At first sight, the image of the path might seem an inno-cent one for describing professional ways of life, but in fact it carries with it inherent notions.The prioritizing of experience mentioned above is one. Another, generally unremarked, aspectof the path is its focus on the individual. On the face of it, there is the path and then thereModels of the Way in the Theory of Nohare the people who travel it. But the path is itself no more than the tracing of individuals, andalthough they can be multiplied into a whole community, each travels the path on his own,no one can do it for him. Preconceptions also inhere concerning the nature of the individualthat travels. Within Buddhist ways at least, the personal characteristics of the individual areactually the reflections of loci on the path, and thus not essential. That is to say, the path is ajourney through potential personalities, from ignorance, greed, and hatred to the ideal per-sonality of the Buddha. Thus while individuals are central units in any discussion of the path,they are divorced from their personal qualities, which are seen as mere habits, to be disposedof where necessary, and replaced by better ones. This of course has significance for the waythe arts were conceived in Japan; the outlook is very different from a theory of the arts thatmight derive from, say, the parable of the talents.3Konishi Jin’ichi, in his study ofmichias a medieval ideal, has sought the defining char-acteristics of artistic occupations self-nominated asmichi.4The stance he adopts is not un-problematic; he reifies the concept ofmichi,treating it as a distinct essence whose variouscharacteristics can be perceived in medieval writings, much as a biologist might reconstructthe dodo by referring to nineteenth-century observations. Konishi never seems to doubt thatthere was a single consistent phenomenon referred to by the term “michi,” although he seesits different characteristics coming into expression at different times. Konishi’s approach leadshim to a schematic description: amichiis one possessed of certain characteristics—an ethosof conformity in teaching, a restrictive requirement of specialization, transmission over sev-eral generations, attainment of a universal wisdom, and so on. His formulation is valuablefor the discussion of particular cases, but it obscures the kind of tensions and negotiations ofmeanings that we find in practice. The graph formichiwas used in Heian Japan in differentcontexts with fairly precise and separate connotations. These distinct usages were not lost inmedieval Japan. Nevertheless there is evidence of a growing assumption that differentmichimight share structural similarities, and that statements made by experts in one field might beuseful for those active in other fields. In the fourteenth century this developed into the ideathat there is an art of living, themichiof human life. The sayings of experts in separate fieldswere seen as appropriate sources for general wisdom. Later we find arts identifying themselveswithin a number of polarities related to the path; for example we can read Nijō Yoshimoto’s二条良基analysis of renga (linked-verse) as an anti-path, defining it in contrast to waka(by which I mean tanka, thirty-one-syllable poetry). Fifteenth-century writers were able tonegotiate these and other examples. There was, however, another tendency to idealize a pro-found structural identity among paths. The Chinese idea of the unity of the three creeds—Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, became popular in a Japanese form as the unity ofShinto, Chinese philosophy and Buddhism. An important aspect of such cross-fertilizationand structural identification was that of prestige or of legitimation. In earlier times, a paral-lel perceived between an art and, say, the Buddhist path, lent it authority. Such connectionswere used as a defense against the supposed sinfulness of court arts, an idea deriving fromBuddhism itself. The identification of Buddhism with a particular art, even metaphorically,enabled that art to cross the border from profane to sacred, drawing the teeth of a Buddhist3132Noel John PINNINGTONcritique. In the medieval period, with the adoption of Zen paradigms for the path, we findthat matters of authority, legitimacy and prestige become more complex, for the adoption ofreligious models for the path entails the adoption of their legitimating ideologies as well.Geidō:Ways of the ArtsProfessor W. J. Boot of Leiden University once remarked that a particular characteristicof Muromachi thought was the intense expectation that all things should turn out to be “one.”With regard to the concept ofmichiqua artistic way, the balance between this expectationand an actual requirement that truemichishould be demonstrably identical seems to havebeen crossed in one generation in noh. While Zeami Motokiyo世阿弥元清(1363-1443),of the Kanze troupe, used intellectual systems from other ways of life in the explication ofhis own, Konparu Zenchiku金春禅竹(1405-1468) believed that if his own systems wereintelligible in other spheres, this was evidence for their validity. This is an important stage ina long dialogue stretching back to earlier times, when different ways weresui generis.To ap-preciate Zeami and Zenchiku’s positions, let us briefly survey the earlier development of theconcept ofmichi.The term “michi” is used in an abstract sense as early as theMan’yōshū万葉集,wherewe find it signifying “lives,” in the sense of paths through life, from birth to death:kaku ba-kari / subenaki monoka / yo no naka no michiかくばかり術無きものか世間の道(are theyall such desperate things, lives lived in this world?).5This usage persists, and carries with it asense of one’s fate, or perhaps karma—we are born into a certain social and physical positionin this world, and consequently have to live in a certain way, until we die. It is thus similar tothe significance of the Chinese reading ofmichiasdōinrokudō六道,the six paths or realms,birth into which fixes both who we are, and what we must do.Where families make their living by a single trade, then,michimight be expected tohave referred to that occupation, and indeed this is one usage found in Heian court writ-ings. In theGenji monogatari源氏物語,we find the well-known reference toki no michi notakumi木の道の匠,“one skilled in the way of wood,” i.e., a master carpenter.6Such usagesofmichihave been understood as fields of specialization, and hence the related termmichino hito道の人(a man of the way) understood to signify an expert.7Thussukuyō no kashi-koki michi no hito宿曜のかしこき道の人can be interpreted as an expert with a superiorknowledge of fortune-telling.8There is another nuance to this example, however. The Sinifiedreading for “many paths,”shodō諸道,is used with the specific meaning of the branches ofChinese learning. A Japanese term with a similar meaning ismichimichi道々,which is metin the adjectivemichimichishi道々しmeaning “academic,” “studious,” “learned,” or “stiff.”Althoughmichimichiare generally visualized as studies of Chinese classics, history, and law,they include simply writing poetry in Chinese, as well as those court arts that derived from themainland—music, dance, and calligraphy (see particularlymichimichi no mono no jōzu道々のものの上手in theHana no en花宴chapter)9. Something of the expectations concerningthe practice ofmichimichican be seen in theEawase絵合chapter: they require teachersModels of the Way in the Theory of Nohand are studied through the copying of standard models. An important contrast is made inEawasebetween talent and training. Effortless talent, which in Prince Genji’s case reflects hisdivine descent, is superior to disciplined training. Such distinctions, perhaps characteristic ofaristocratic cultures, disappeared in medieval times.Whilemichicould mean specialist occupations, andmichimichisignified studies ofChinese origin, more general uses of the termmichipersisted. It could mean a set of circum-stances, as in the frequently cited verse:人の親の心は闇にあらねども子を思ふ道にまどひぬる哉hito no oya no / kokoro wa yami ni / aranedomo / ko o omou michi ni / mayoinurukana(The mind of a parent is not darkness, but in the path of thinking of his child it becomesconfused).10Ko o omou michiseems simply to have meant: when thinking of his child.Michialso continued to mean a way of life, and, in the mouths of lay priests is understood to referto life in Buddhist orders—that is,butsudō仏道.In the twelfth century we find a growing fascination among courtiers with the odd waysof life of non-aristocratic specialists. For example, inKonjaku monogatari今昔物語there arediscussions ofyumiya弓矢no michi,the way of the warrior, describing the whole warriorlifestyle; and there are also forerunners of the genre of tales about artistic specialists whosevalues are beyond the grasp of ordinary people. Such stories, in fact, theorized aboutmichi,the dedication required and the mysterious powers achieved, through the mouths and acts ofthe characters described.11Meanwhile, specialists in court arts began to write comprehensiveaccounts of their areas of expertise (geijutsuron芸術論)in which they treated them as waysof life. We find in such writings a cross-fertilization of ideas between arts and borrowingsfrom Buddhism; in particular writings on Japanese poetics adopted images of practice andtransmission.12Poetry, the common phatic practice of eleventh-century courtiers, becamethe province of lineages and specialists. A number of ideas of secrecy became part of the self-image of the arts—kuden口伝,secret works, were used to legitimate the authority of theirpossessors, and the performance of secret pieces (hikyoku秘曲)were forbidden to those notformally certified.13By the fourteenth century, the distinction betweenshodō—courtlyeducation inChinese arts—andmichiqua occupation began to dissolve. We see inTsurezuregusa徒然草Yoshida Kenkō’s吉田兼�½fascination withyorozu no michi萬の道(the many paths),which included poetry, music,kagura神�½,bugaku舞�½,calligraphy, painting, preaching,biwa hōshi琵琶法師,shirabyōshi�½拍子,archery, riding, falconry, medicine, cooking,construction, physiognomy, yin-yang prediction, kickball (kemari蹴鞠),and various boardgames. Underlying Kenkō’s interest is his perception of parallels between the paths troddenby specialists and the journey from birth to death, and from delusion to enlightenment,enjoined on us all by Buddhism. He is clearly alert to the special character of differentmichi,and finds a fine balance between the particular and the general in each case.14Occupations, aristocratic arts and the Buddhist path at this stage have all come to seemmutually paradigmatic, possessing ideals of training by which an authorized master couldguide pupils through the imitation of standard models to the mastery of secrets, certifyingthem to carry out restricted practices, and leading them to enlightenment. Simultaneously,33 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]