context: gardens > general points

Sakutei-ki

The earliest surviving text on gardens in Japan is the Sakutei-ki or Secret Book of Gardens, from around 900 years ago. Its author is uncertain (one book I read confidently gives different authors in different chapters), but it might well have been one Tachibana no Toshitsuna, a nobleman rather than a gardener or designer. It describes how to create a good garden, its methods and rules.

Much of it is derived from Chinese gardens (as were early Japanese gardens) and gardening books, but local distortion is already in evidence. For instance, it repeats many rules from Chinese Feng Shui, but offers easy new alternatives: nine willow trees can replace a river; three cypresses will do if you don't have a hill handy. If you're going to have bonkers metaphysical rules limiting you, you might as well make them easy ones. This is a pretty typical example of Japan taking ideas from somewhere else - usually China - and making them over to suit themselves.

forwards: borrowed scenery