SAKUTEIKI　作庭記

KEY WORD :　architecture / gardens

Lit. Treatise on Garden Making. The oldest and most revered Japanese text on garden design, it was probably complied by Tachibana Toshitsuna 橘俊綱 (1028-94). As son of Fujiwara Yorimichi 藤原頼通 (992-1074), the builder of the Byoudouin 平等院 in Kyoto, Toshitsuna was well acquainted with both the practice and theory of shinden style garden *shinden-zukuri teien 寝殿造庭園 and Pure Land garden *joudo teien 浄土庭園. The two dominant types of Heian period gardens. Toshitsuna's unillustrated treatise is the product of a long oral tradition passed down among generations of gardeners. SAKUTEIKI is largely concerned with shinden style gardens and includes instructions on their proper layout and function. The work details techniques for arrangement of waterfalls, waterways, stone, path and other garden elements. For instance, SAKUTEIKI classified 17 types of waterscapes, eight types of waterfalls, and 16 varieties of plants. Reflecting the look of shinden style gardens, there is relatively little on rocks, although the treatise does stress the proper orientation of stones emphasizing auspicious directionality of Chinese geomancy. Toshitsuna is quite erudite, frequently quoting from Chinese sources and grounding his instructions in continental tradition. In addition to its specific advice on garden design SAKUTEIKI indicates the general Heian attitude to garden theory in its insistence that the properly crafted garden not only recreate the appearance of nature but surpass it in its controlled "ambience" fuzei 風情. A supplementary volume was added in 1289, and the subsequent two-volume work called ZENSAI HISHOU 前栽秘抄 (Secret Text on Gardens) was secretly transmitted through the Muromachi period. In the Edo period it acquired the title SAKUTEIKI and was excerpted in a number of other works on garden design. The Japanese text can be found in Hayashiya Tatsusaburou 林屋辰三郎, ed., KODAI-CHUUSEI GEIJUTSURON 古代中世芸術論, vol.23 of NIHON SHISOU TAIKEI 日本思想大系; it is translated into English by Shimoyama Shigemaru in SAKUTEIKI: (The Book of Garden).

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