Abstract
Murasaki Shikibu is from the Fujiwara clan of poets, lawyers and government officials. Her thought is grounded in a combination of Japanese animist Shinto, Japanese versions of Mayahana Buddhism (Tendai and Shigon), as well as Confucianism and its Daoist foundations. Murasaki’s great philosophical epic novel, Genji Monagatori (Tale of Genji), her diary, (Murasaki Shikibu Nikki) and her Poetic Memoirs (Murasaki Shikibu shū) discuss metaphysical issues such as the nature of being, women’s souls, women’s rights, the nature of love, and other topics too detailed to present here. Murasaki is Japan’s first-known female philosopher. Her serially-published epic has been translated into many languages and has never been out of print.
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Notes
- 1.
See Jeremy Ingalls’ Preface to her translation of the contemporary novel Tenno Yūgao by Yoichi Nakagawa (1897–1944): “Tenno Yūgao never explicitly mentions Genji but through a series of signals repeatedly points to it.... pointing not solely to the situation in Murasaki’s ‘Yūgao’ chapter but to the import of the fictional career of Prince Genji, inclusive of his state of mind in his middle years and just prior to his death. The ingenuities of Nakagawa’s design also accommodate allusions to the life-history of Murasaki herself.” Nakagawa’s Tenno Yūgao (Boston: Twayne, 1975), 25–26.
- 2.
The title of the closing chapter of Genji, 54.
- 3.
For a detailed discussion of the Murasaki-Genji relationship, including the erotic symbolism of the sparrows, see Bargen, Chap. 7, “Murasaki: Kaimami through a Woman’s Eyes,” Mapping Courtship, 146–95.
- 4.
Bowring in Murasaki (1982), pp. 135–37. The passage continues with some insights into the author’s avoidance of moral judgements in her novel: “No matter how amorous or capricious one may be, as long as you are well-meaning at heart and refrain from anything that might cause embarrassment to others, you will be forgiven”.
- 5.
Murasaki’s daughter Kenshi or Katako (999- ~ 1080), later known as Daini no Sanmi, continued the family’s literary tradition, distinguishing herself as a poet.
- 6.
The conversation then turns to general types of annoying women—those who flaunt literary accomplishments they lack and those who misuse and abuse poetry. Both types also are criticized by Murasaki in her diary, with special mention of Sei Shōnagon; (Murasaki 1982, p. 131).
- 7.
In this chapter contains a decisive rejection of the Five Obstacles that prevent women from becoming Buddha, accompanied by a clear case of an awakened female—the dragon king’s daughter. The next chapter, “Encouraging Devotion,” includes Buddha’s prophecy for the future Buddhahood of the 6,000 nuns in attendance, led by Buddha’s aunt Mahāprajāpatī; Watson, pp. 190–95. (See also Chap. 5 of this volume, Mahāprajāpatī Gotama).
- 8.
Near the end of the Heart Sūtra the bodhisattva of Compassion, Avalokiteśvara, states: “In the three worlds (past, present, future)/every Buddha depends/leans on wisdom gone beyond (prajñā-pāramitā),/then realizes the supreme ultimate awakening (Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi).” (My translation.) Wisdom Gone Beyond is in fact all-encompassing Compassion in Mahāyāna Buddhism.
- 9.
See also Bargen, A Woman’s Weapon, for a discussion of this poem and Murasaki’s unorthodox psychological perspective regarding spirit possession; 23–25.
- 10.
Cf. Morris, 250, note 3.
- 11.
If Murasaki did author the response, Bargen argues that she “doubly endorses her own unorthodox view by demonstrating the clever readiness with which one projects the inner demons outside oneself.... There is a suggestion that the audience’s degree of involvement to some extent determines the perception of phenomenon”; A Woman’s Weapon, 25.
- 12.
Plato, Republic, 607b5‒6. We easily forget that the Pre-socratic philosophy Parmenides emulated Homeric poetry in his metaphysical treatise On Nature (Peri Physeos). See Wawrytko (2014), “Interpenetration of Art and Philosophy”.
- 13.
Quoted by Caddeau, 109.
- 14.
Caddeau refers to this as “an aesthetics of ambiguity”; 109.
- 15.
Richard Rutt (The Book of Changes (Zhouyi), 1996) explains this how process unfolds in the Shijing: “the poem moves directly from this visual image to a reflection on the matter in the poet’s mind or heart, bearing a relation to the image that is by no means obvious.... Lack of connecting words, too, is typical of Zhouyi [Yijing]. When read beside the Odes [Shijing], this construction, half rational, half emotional, clearly appears as part of the budding of literature, the discovery of images and experimentation with figures of speech”; 141–142.
- 16.
See Morris for a more detailed analysis of possible timelines suggested by scholars, 274.
- 17.
Observing low ranking workers struggling under the weight of a palanquin, Murasaki muses: “Are we really that different? Even those of us who mix with nobility are bound by our rank. How difficult life is!” Bowring in Murasaki 1982, 77.
- 18.
The term aware evolved from “a mere exclamation, devoid of aesthetic connotations” to “an emotion containing an element of balance.... deep impressions produced by small things,” “elegance rather than... grandeur or magnificence”; Hisamatsu Sen’ichi, The Vocabulary of Japanese Literary Aesthetics (Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1963), 14–15.
- 19.
The view of Genji “as a source of enlightenment” also is found in other Genji-related Noh plays, such as Ukifune; Goff, 184.
- 20.
Genji competes with his nemesis Tō no Chūjō to focus the attention of the young emperor on the women they seek to pair him with, demonstrating the ladies’ aesthetic taste through rival collections of paintings. Thomas LaMarre (2000) notes “there was an element of potlatch to these large-sale competitions, in which each team strove to outdo the other in lavishness of expenditure and which resulted in a redistribution of wealth and status,” 71.
- 21.
Awareness or mindfulness in Buddhist philosophy, Pāli appamāda, indicates the antithesis of carelessness or inattention- a (not) pamāda (careless) (不放逸). In the Appamāda Sutta Buddha describes it as the foundation of meritorious conduct (X, 15). Richard F. Gombrich hails it as “the most distinctive contribution of Buddhism in India’s (or the world’s) soteriological practice,” 80.
- 22.
The Four Exalted Dwellings (brahmavihāras 四住)—empathy, compassion, joy, and equanimity—arise once the Three Poisons are eliminated. They are promoted by the Buddha in multiple suttas, including the Tevijja Sutta and the Kalama Sutta.
- 23.
A contemporary analysis of empathy reveals its deep significance: “the ability to feel, for example, their fear over a threat; or thrill over a newly found food source; or sorrow over a loss, which has as much to do with the fabric of a community as any other. Empathy, in this sense, can be thought of as the source of all emotion, the one without which the others would have no register.” (Terrell, 2014).
- 24.
Chapter 14, “Peaceful Practices,” is the final chapter in the Wisdom section of the sūtra, which then transitions to the theme of Compassion (Chaps. 15–27). It has been cited as refutation of Chap. 3, because it warns against associating with “those who compose works of secular literature”; Watson in Lotus Sutra,1993, p. 197. The chapter offers a parable about a wheel-turning Buddhist king and his troops. He “presents them with the city of nirvana,” intent on seeing them “wiping out the three poisons, emerging from the threefold world” (the Burning House). Significantly Buddha notes the sūtra (like the Genji?) “is capable of causing living beings to attain comprehensive wisdom. It will face much hostility in the world and be difficult to believe”; Watson in (Lotus Sutra, 1993, p. 207).
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Wawrytko, S.A. (2023). Murasaki Shikibu of Japan 紫式部 Circa 978–Circa 1000. In: Waithe, M.E., Boos Dykeman, T. (eds) Women Philosophers from Non-western Traditions: The First Four Thousand Years. Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28563-9_12
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