Japanese Emissaries to the Tang Court 遣唐使

遣唐使 versus 献灯使

In my last post, I mentioned that it seems like every page of Genji is a celebration of things from China, the glorious continent and origin of all glamor and wisdom during the Heian period.

By Murasaki Shikibu’s day, the missions to Tang China had long since ceased (遣唐使, kentōshi). Starting from the very beginnings of the Tang dynasty, during Taizong’s reign, Japanese missions were dispatched to look, pay homage, and learn from what was considered a superior civilization.

The waters between Japan and China were rough and many ships went down. Some say that a third of those ships that took to the waters met with disasters. But there was so much to learn on the continent, so missions continued for several centuries, with one of the last ones carrying the great monks Kukai and Saigyo.

By Murasaki Shikibu’s day, the missions to China had ended more than a century earlier.

The story itself is supposed to take place in the past. Emperor Daigo is one possible model for the Kiritsubo Emperor. Daigo reigned from 885 -930), which roughly was around the last planned dispatch to Tang China—the one carrying the great scholar Sugawara no Michizane. The trip was cancelled.

So in the Tale, the longing for China was real and manifested in the historical reality of the supposed time of the novel.

I keep mentioning my current favorite book about the Tale of Genji.

Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji: Philosophical Perspectives (Oxford Studies in Philosophy and Lit) by James McMullen

One of the best essays in the volume is by Wiebke Denecke, called “The Epistemology of Space in The Tale of Genji.” Despite the fact that Genji is often cited as the representative Japanese novel, Denecke makes the point that it is also a book about China. And not just any China but an imaginary China as present in thr Japanese imagination of the time.

In fact, in my first post about Genji, Yang Guifei in Japan 日本に渡った楊貴妃 I talked about the way the myth of Yang Guifei and Bai Juyi’s The Song of Everlasting Regret informs not just the opening pages of the novel, but the entire story. I would go as far to say that the more you read Tang literature, the more you will fall in love with the Tale of Genji. From chapter one when Genji’s receives his sobriquet from emissaries from the Koryŏ kingdom (not China, but China adjacent) to the chapters where Genji happens upon Murasaki on to chapters nine and ten, where we are now, things from China —called karamono 唐物— mark prominent points of plot inflection. Think of the wondrous gift Genji receives from a bishop not long after he first glimpses the child Murasaki: thea rosary made of embossed seeds from fruits of the Bodhi tree that Prince Shōtoku acquired from the Korean kingdom of Paekche and medicine jars of lapis lazuli….

To be cont—

Note 1: I already mentioned how Heian Court music is divided into three types: Saibara (native Shinto), Komagaku (Korean and Manchurian) and Togaku (Tang Music). Togaku is the other pronunciation of the same kanji for Tang-derived music 唐楽. In tea ceremony, ceramics from Chinese lineages (also called karamono 唐物) are highly prized and in Urasenke, I think (?) they are the most priced since the bowls.

Note 2: Yoko Tawada’s novel The Emissary is called Kentōshi in Japanese. But the characters to write kentōshi are not the same as used for the Tang Emissaries "遣唐使" as she used an original expression, " 献灯使" which mean something like Lantern Bearers. It is an interesting choice since no Japanese would see the characters and not think of the Tang Missions—and yet her character is not just an emissary for a new world but a lantern barrier.