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History (Page 1) |
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Shinto and Rocks In Japan there is a long history for the appreciation of aestheticism in nature. According to the ancient religion of Shinto, the kami manifest themselves in certain natural places or things, including mountains and rocks, which are therefore regarded as "divine bodies" (shintai). In 260 BCE the Shrine at Ise was constructed, which is the first and single most important sacred space in Japan. This Shinto Shrine consecrated to Amaterasu, demonstrates the spiritual connection to nature. It is an open pebble enclosure called, yuniwa, a "purified space of ground." In Japan, sacred spaces were marked off (such as tying a rope around a tree) or sacred spaces or grounds were enclosed sometimes simply done with rocks, forming areas called iwasaka, and sometimes by joining rocks by means of loosely hanging ropes (himorogi). Rocks were thought to be especially favored |
abodes of the kami. One of the fundamental characteristics of Japanese gardens throughout history has been the aesthetic of naturalness and in all subsequent Japanese gardens, those of the iwasaka and himorogi were used in their natural state and were not sculpted or otherwise altered. Even in its most stylized form, the Japanese garden has always been conceived as a representation of a natural setting. Since before the 5th century A.D., the beginning of Japan's recorded history, Japanese believers in spirits had already been making meaningful arrangements of rocks both as altars to their gods and as actual manifestations of those divine beings. Even though their symbolism was of Buddhist or Daoist origin, the rocks adorning gardens were basically sacred objects according to the Shinto perspective. |
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