The Beauty of Everyday Things by Soetsu Yanagi

Author:Soetsu Yanagi
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241366363
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2018-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

IV

It never occurred to me then that this research would expand as it did. Neither had I thought it would grow so quickly. At first I had simply thought of Mokujiki as a priest from the Koshu domain (present-day Yamanashi prefecture) whose only works were to be found in Marubatake. Even if there were statues elsewhere, I had little hope of finding them. Yet the reality far surpassed my expectations. Here I would now like to say a word about how I came to discover his statues throughout the rest of the country.

From the fact that in his papers we find such words as ‘Made a statue as a fervent offering and installed it in a providential location’, as well as, on the back of a statue, ‘One of a thousand’, we can surmise that his works were not only numerous but that they were spread over a large territory. Yet there are few mentions of what was created and where. Sometimes there is a note saying ‘Yakushi offering’ or simply ‘offering’, but in spite of his great output there is almost no commentary at all. Undeterred, I decided that the sites of his creations could be determined in the following way.

Looking at the two volumes listing the names of inns where he stayed, I found a meticulous record of dates, locations, and names of places where he had lodged. There were some instances where dates had been skipped, or cases where only the dates of arrival and departure were given. Sometimes only the date of his leaving was recorded. I decided that periods for which no dates were given must refer to longer intervals, and that there must surely be extant Mokujiki statues there. With this in mind I selected the most likely sites and made plans for visiting them. This was my thinking when I went to Sado Island, desolate Kariyado in Shizuoka prefecture, and the villages of Miyazaki and Yamaguchi prefectures. My investigations frequently ran into difficulties, mostly because the places I visited were in remote parts of the country. For the most part, local inhabitants had no recollection at all of a person named Mokujiki. Rarely were any of his works receiving special treatment. Search as I might, there was nothing to be found, and in the depths of Sado I clearly recall feeling completely at a loss. In Shikoku I spent a week covering nine different places, but was rewarded with only two statues found at one spot. Still, all of my investigations were recompensed in some way. Wherever I went, there was something to be found. Thus my morale didn’t suffer as I followed his footsteps to the east and west in the hope of discovering something. Whenever I did make a find, it invariably had to be rescued from layers of dust.

I began to fully appreciate the value of firsthand documentation, even if it was only a few handwritten characters. If Mokujiki’s list of inns had not survived, most of his works would have undoubtedly been lost to time, eventually falling into decay.

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