What makes a garden “Japanese?” This question is not as easy to answer as it might seem. At the Portland Japanese Garden, there are five distinctly different garden styles to consider:
- Stroll Garden
- Tea Garden
- Natural Garden
- Sand and Stone Garden
- Flat Garden
Every day as I stroll through the Garden, I ponder the same question: What is the common thread that brings these unique spaces together into the single category of a Japanese garden? The answer seems to lie in their common design intent, which is more fundamental than the form or components. For me, nothing else ties all of these gardens together except for the fact that historically Japanese gardens are created around and inspired by the native landscape of Japan—in other words, by Nature itself.
Sacred rocks at Funami
Rocks and Water
Mountains and oceans represent much of the landscape of Japan, and they are reduced to the two primary and enduring components in the Japanese garden—rocks and water.
In ancient Japan, a group of huge boulders was often the site of sacred rites or worship of nature. For example, rituals were conducted at the boulders on Oki-no-Shima Island, the heart of Munakata Grand Shrine in Kyushu, as early as 4th century. A group of such rocks is called iwakura or iwasaka meaning “rock seat” or “rock boundary,” respectively. While the original meaning and function of the boulders has changed over time, these rocks are thought to be the origin of rocks as the most pronounced element of the Japanese garden today.
Japanese indigenous belief also considered a body of water, whether a river, lake, or ocean, a sacred entity. Forms of water sanctuaries vary: from a natural pond called shinchi or “deity pond” to the pebble-strewn sacred precinct of Ise Shrine for example. The “empty” space at Ise Shrine illustrates the customary use of pebbles as tangible and accessible forms of rock only to represent visually the notion of prohibited space. Shrines and torii gates were erected to delineate the entry to a sacred space with a mountain or ocean beyond, such as Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima Island. Water has been featured in the center of Japanese gardens from the beginning of 7th century (essentially the beginning of Japanese garden history) and its presence, small or large, real or abstract, is consistent throughout the entire course of Japanese garden history.
Garden of Tenryu-ji, Kyoto
“Niwa,” the Garden
Early Japanese literature provides us with a glimpse of the origin of the Japanese word for garden with the term niwa. The word “niwa” as it is used today means garden, though it appears to have evolved from the earlier meaning of an “environment” or “territory.” In the Manyoshu (or Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves, a compilation of 5th–8th century poems), there is a poem about a fisherman’s boat floating in his “niwa” on Muko Bay (present-day Bay of Kobe). Niwa in this context is his “fishing ground” or “territory,” representing a much larger area or context than the “garden” of the present-day definition. Moving from a hunting-gathering to a rice-growing culture, the early settlers’ environment or “niwa” was confined to and around their dwellings. However, as linguistic history has evolved, the word niwa now has the sole meaning of “garden.” What we call the Japanese garden today, conceptually represents our “environment.”
The Japanese attitude toward nature is evident in the Japanese garden as an “environment.” Objects such as stone lanterns and other manmade features assert the presence of man in the garden. Yet man’s attempts to recreate nature inevitably fall short of the sublime quality of nature itself. Understanding that one can never totally capture the beauty of wild nature, the gardener continues to strive nonetheless for that unattainable goal, knowing we are always finally subordinate to its incomparable beauty. Perhaps this is the key to an authentic Japanese garden.
