The Subject:     Born Norikiyo into the Sato sub-branch of the vast and powerful Fujiwara clan, he became a captain in an elite corps of guards who protected the imperial family and the highest courtiers.  Suddenly at age twenty-three, he asked permission of the emperor to leave his commission, and then abandoned his wife and children.  (There is some historical question whether or not he had a wife at the time, or more than just one son.)  Becoming a bonze, he travelled throughout the provinces preaching, reciting poetry and demonstrating the bow, at which he had always been an expert.
     After trying a couple of Buddhist names he settled on Saigyo, which means "West-Go," and serves as the one he has since been called.  At first he lived on the outskirts of the capital, apparently in a private hermitage rather than in a temple or monastery.  Beginning in 1147, he made two journeys to the far north of Japan, and many shorter pilgrimages.  He selected lovely sites in the mountains for the practice of Buddhist austerities.  His poetry gives candid portrayals of the ongoing conflict between his still being very much attached to the world, and his quest for detachment and metaphysical probings.
     He died at Kyoto in the spring during the full-moon period of the second lunar month.  Traditionally in Japan, this is taken to be the anniversary of Shakyamuni's departure from this life.  A poem Saigyo  had written many years earlier predicted this, and his contemporaries viewed him as a Buddhist saint.  His two volumes of verse came to be widely recognized as a remarkable achievement and in the next major imperial anthology, Saigyo's poems outnumber those of any other poet.

The Author:     Attributed to Fujiwara Tsunetaka. 1

The Work:     The scroll Ippen Shonin Eden is dated from 1299. 

The Subject:     Ippen Shonin was born Ochi Michihide, and at age seven entered the Tendai's Keikyo-ji temple.  There he successively studied the Tendai, Jodo, and Nembutsu sects.  Afterwards, he travelled through the provinces preaching a new doctrine, the Ji sect.  "Shonin" (lit. "superior man") was a suffix added to names of certain bonzes famous for their virtue. 2

The Works:     There are said to be two early works, Natural Methods of Figure Painting (1300) and A Collection of Springtime Sketches (1304) which contain pictures of dwarf potted trees.  3

The Work:     From 1309, comes an emaki-mono titled Kasuga-gongen-genki.  Dwarf potted trees are seen in the 16-1/3" high fifth scroll in a series of twenty scrolls. This scroll is the one most widely known to be the oldest authenticated Japanese depiction of dwarfed potted trees.  Dwarf trees and grasses are seen in a shallow rectangular wooden tray -- actually a long wooden box with carved extensions (handles for carrying?  See below) -- which rests on a bench or stand out in a garden, all under the left edge of the main building roof.  The box or tray is filled with earth to suggest hills planted with trees neatly encircled by small light-colored pebbles.  Two light-blue dish-like pots on the other end of the bench also has this same ground cover. The beautiful pots of Chinese origin played a major role in the appreciation of dwarf potted trees.  The two together must form a single entity. (Even to this day, the most highly sought after containers for the finest bonsai in Japan are very often antique Chinese pots.)  Were the plants in the trays also from China?  Why didn't flat trays "catch on" in Japan this early?

The Subject:     The series of scrolls comprising this work concerns the bonze Honen Shonin (1133-1212), as part of the fifty-six accounts depicted in the Records of the Miraculous Virtue of the Kasuga Deity.  During the so-called Kamakura awakening, minor doctrines once confined solely to longstanding monastic orders were taught openly by new leaders creating independent orders.  Honen was the first such leader to break with established Buddhist order by founding the Jodo or Pure Land Sect in 1175 (?).  Inspired by the earlier teachings of the bonze Genshin concerning the efficacy of prayer, Honen taught that salvation, which must be gained by relying on forces outside of oneself, can only come through faith in Buddhist's original vow.  Such faith is expressed by repeating with utmost sincerity the nembutsu, or name of Amida (the Supreme Buddha of the Paradise of the Pure-Earth of the West).  To Honen, the continued repetition of the nembutsu, thousands of times a day, was all sufficient and nothing more was needed for salvation.  Neither temples, monasteries, rituals, nor priesthood were required.  Furthermore, he taught that all were equal in the eyes of Buddha, high and low, male and female.
     These extreme views were naturally opposed by the older sects.  In 1207 (?) Honen was exiled from Kyoto.  His subsequent travels into the provinces spread and popularized his teachings, and he returned to Kyoto in 1210.  There he built the Chion-in temple the following year, and died the next.  (Chion-in, a celebrated Buddhist temple, was destroyed by fire in 1633, rebuilt by the shogun Iemitsu, and solemnly reopened in 1639.  It is to this day the seat of the Jodo-shu sect, which has the second largest number of adherents in contemporary Japan.)
     Honen is quoted as saying that "a [dwarfed potted] tree can dominate your life."

The Artist:     Takakane Takashina was a Yamato-e painter known to have been attached to the Imperial Court painting bureau as chief painter at least during the years 1309-1330.  His commissions included making copies of several earlier paintings -- an art tradition in both the East and West which faded only with the development of lithography and photography -- of Buddhist deities and festivals and historical subjects.  At the request of the powerful political leader Saionji Jinhara (1264-1315), Takakane executed the series of scrolls to be presented to the Kasuga Shrine in Nara for dedication in March 1309.  This was the patron shrine of the Fujiwara family, of which the Saionji family was an offshoot.
     One of Takakane's most important extant works, this particular opus is delicately painted in rich color with selected pigments and gold and silver on silk.  Depicting various manifestations of the supernatural associated with the Kasuga Shrine, the scrolls begin with a scene in which the daughter of the lord of the old and honored Tachibana clan announces an oracle in the year 937 C.E.  The scrolls end with the miracle of the sacred fire flying into the shrine, purported to have happened in 1304.  Text was written by members of the clan. 
     The scrolls give evidence of the painter's acute observation of nature, the lifelike depictive power of Kamakura period painting, and the refinement one would expect of the work of a court painter.  It gives a general idea of the style that prevailed among the artists attached to the painting bureau during that period.  4

The Work:    From the year 1317 comes Honen Shonin Eden (Life of Saint Honen in Pictures), a series of forty-eight scrolls.  The seventh scroll has a small/medium-sized rock-growing tree in a bowl/dish on the veranda outside of where the seated and praying Honen is having a vision of a white elephant, a venerated animal in India (for both the Buddhist and Hindu faiths) and in lands directly to its east.  Scroll #46 shows a larger aged tree in a deeper pot on a rectangular wooden table.  A small bowl of companion grasses resting on a small display stand is also on the table.  The potted tree is historically significant in that it uses deadwood branches for what is clearly a calculated artistic effort. 5

The Subject:     The story portrayed is that of the famous Buddhist saint Kakujo-Shonin (aka Kakunyo, 1270-1351), the great grandson of Shinran-Shonin.  Shinran (1173-1262) was born at Kyoto, and at an early age was introduced to the Tendai-shu sect doctrine.  At age thirty, Shinran became a pupil of Honen.  Not satisfied with either of these doctrinal systems, he went into meditation concerning the question of celibacy and abstinence imposed upon the bonzes.  Delivered from his doubts by a vision of the goddess Kwannon, he soon after married the daughter of Fujiwara Kanenori and founded a new sect.  Shinran declared that a single sincere call upon the name of Amida was sufficient for salvation.  He strenuously argued against the establishment of monasteries, and led the way in breaking traditional discipline by marrying, eating meat and living a normal secular life.  The new sect was named Shin Jodo Shu or True Pure Land sect.  This became known eventually as the Shinshu (True Sect), and later as the Ikkoshu or Single Minded Sect.  Shinran's preaching and his attacks on the other sects brought upon the animosity of the bonzes at Kamakura, and so he was exiled.  He was pardoned after five years.
     In 1272, the principle temple of Shinran's sect, built by his daughter and grandson, was given the name of Hongwan-ji in Kyoto.  Both the Pure Land and True sects became immensely popular, and while denying the necessity of a priestly organization, nonetheless gave rise to large communities of believers served by temples and priests.  The Jodo-shin-shu sect is, perhaps, the Buddhist equivalent of Protestantism in Japan.  The Shin sect in contemporary Japan has the largest number of adherents of any of these sects. 

The Authors:     These were executed by Fujiwara Takamasa and Fujiwara Takaaki (the latter is specifically credited with scrolls #2, 5, 6, and 8). 6

The Work:     Said to be from around the year 1480, another painting shows a landscape in one more of these "winged boxes."  A dark-clad, fan-wielding nobleman is entertaining at least four light-clad persons in his study.  The two walls behind them are lined with thin vases or vases on trays.  The study is open to the garden.  (Across the garden a black and red trouser-clad servant is carrying a round tray of apparently reddish delicacies.)  In the garden there are two miniature landscapes almost completely covering a long low splotchy green-and-brown-topped table.  The "winged box," long and tan in color, either rests on a thin slab of dark wood or else has such an edging applied to its bottom.  The box contains a large curiously shaped rock island: its left half is a light-colored flat plain whose edges show a slight rounding as they go into the "sea" of swirled sand, while its right half is a darker brownish-gray mountain dropping into billowing multi-colored cliffs.  A forest of dark green-leaved, thin-trunked dwarfed trees covers the mountain.  A few bare-branched trees are at the "water's" edge of the plain and at the foot of the backside of the mountain.  A smaller island of similar stone is off the back of the plain.
     A smaller, square "winged box" of lighter wood, more intricately crafted and with four full-corner feet, sits to the left on the low table.  A single dark rock island rises from the swirling sand and is graced by a few slightly larger versions of the leaf-less trees.
     Due to the cracked and faded appearance of the print, the original painting was probably executed on a wall or screen, exposed to everyday changes in light and humidity. 7

The Work:     Presumably from the same period is a special emaki-mono called Sairei-soshi.  Illustrating scenes from a festival, this scroll has a picture of two wooden trays, placed just outside of the veranda, each with little trees planted on what suggests a hill or a range of hills. 8

The Work:     A screen from the sixteenth-century, Portuguese in Japan shows European traders unloading various imported Chinese goods from a ship.  At least one of the merchants walking in the procession down the street is seen carrying a quatrefoil tray (equivalent to perhaps 30 cm wide by 2 or 3 cm deep) holding a multi-peaked mountain viewing stone (perhaps 23 cm tall). 9

1.     Okudaira, Hideo Narrative Picture Scrolls, Arts of Japan 5 (New York: Weatherhill Inc. & Tokyo: Shibundo; 1963, 1973), pg. 135, there are no dwarfed trees visible in the three sections of the second scroll pictured here; Perl, Philip and the Editors of TIME-LIFE Books  Miniatures and Bonsai (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books; 1979), pp. 13-14; Koreshoff, Deborah R.  Bonsai: Its Art, Science, History and Philosophy (Brisbane, Australia: Boolarong Publications; 1984), pg. 6; Saigyo, Mirror For the Moon (New York: New Directions Books; 1978, 1977.  Translated with an introduction by William R. LaFleur) pp. xix-xxv; Papinot, E. Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan (Toyko: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc.; 1972.  Reprinting of original 1910 work.  Seventh printing, 1982), pp. 526-527; Toda, Kenji  Japanese Scroll Painting (New York: Greenwood Press, Publishers; 1969.  Originally published in 1935 by the University of Chicago Press), pg. 92, which attributes scroll to Fujiwara Tsunetaka (while others say it is anonymous), plus for background on scrolls in general.  One scroll's location is given as at Tokugawa Reimeikai in Tokyo, a second scroll is in the Ohara Collection in Okayama Prefecture (west of Kyoto), an Important Cultural Property from the thirteenth century.; cf.  Nippon Bonsai Association  Classic Bonsai of Japan (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International; 1989), pg. 143, which has "...there is the Saigyo Monogatari Emaki (The Story of the Priest Saigyo Picture Scroll, around 1250-1270), in which the priest Saigyo is shown sitting close to a bonsai growing on a large rectangular piece of rock on a large stand."

2.     Nippon Bonsai Association Classic, pg. 143; Papinot, pp. 208-209, 590; possible b&w photo of this on pg 371 of Fairbank, John K., Edwin O. Reischauer and Albert M. Craig East Asia, Tradition & Transformation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company; 1989), with the caption: "A segment of a picture scroll of the late Kamakura period, depicting the life of a popular Buddhist religious leader, Ippen Shonin (1239-1289)."  One small tree seen right of center on a bench under a small roofed stall.

3.     Liang, Amy The Living Art of Bonsai: Principles & Techniques of Cultivation & Propagation (New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.; 1992), pg. 107 and 102 which lists the latter work as an illustrated scroll.  The titles infer that these are artist copy books.

4.     A Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Oriental Arts (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc. and Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Company; 1969.  Compiled from the Oriental Section of the Encyclopedia of World Art, 1968), Color Plate 67 (detail), which gives location as in the Imperial Household Agency Collection; Toda, Plate XVIII has part of the left half with the caption "In a Japanese Garden," and pg. 109, which states there are fifty-seven accounts; Nippon Bonsai Association Classic, b&w picture on pg. 142, which says the light blue dishes contain suiseki; Tatsui, Matsunosuke  Japanese Gardens (Tokyo: Japan Travel Bureau; 1957,  Ninth edition), small color frontispiece, with the caption "The Garden of a Wealthy Noble in the Heian Period (794 - 1185)"; Koreshoff, pg. 7; Chan, Peter The Complete Book of Bonsai: Principles and Practice (New York: Marboro Books Corp.; 1989), pg. 10; Yanagisawa, Soen  Tray Landscapes (Bonkei and Bonseki) (Tokyo: Japan Travel Bureau; 1955, 1956, 1962, 1966), pg. 77-78, which also mentions that "Another emaki-mono dating back to the thirteenth-century and illustrating the life of a noted Buddhist priest named Honen-Shonin (1133-1212) contains a picture showing a pot with a tree growing on a rock, placed on the veranda of a house."; Papinot, pp. 116-117; Honen quote per Hall, Doug and Don Black The South African Bonsai Book (Cape Town: Howard Timmons (Pty) Ltd.; 1983 Third Impression), pg. 15; Okudaira, pg. 121; Roberts, Laurance P.  A Dictionary of Japanese Artists (Tokyo: John Weatherhill, Inc.; 1976), pg. 169; Tazawa, Yutaka (super.ed.)  Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art (Tokyo: Kodansha International, Ltd. In collaboration with the International Society for Educational Information, Inc.; 1981), pg. 246; Hirota, Jozan Bonkei, Tray Landscapes (Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd.; 1970), pg. 24; The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen (Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc.; 1991  Based on material from The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion, ©1989 by Shambhala Publications, Inc., a translation of Lexicon de östlichen Weisheitslehren, edited by Stephan Schumacher and Gert Woerner, © 1986 by Otto-Wilhelm-Barth Verlag, a division of Scherz Verlag, Bern and Munich.  Translated by Michael H. Kohn), pg. 105, describes the Paradise of the Pure-Earth as '"the Boundless Light" of the state of consciousness known as the pure land.';
     cf. the 1310 date in “The Amateur Bonsai Fancier” by Kan Yashiroda in Yashiroda (ed.) Handbook on Dwarfed Potted Trees: The Bonsai of Japan (Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Botanic Garden; 1953, revised 1959), pg. 81, Chidamian, Claude  Bonsai – Miniature Trees, Their Selection, Culture, and Care (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc.; 1955), pg. 4, Hull, George F.  Bonsai For Americans (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc.; 1964), pg. 23, and O'Connell's article (pg. 38); per Kobayashi, Norio  Bonsai – Miniature Potted Trees (Tokyo: Japan Travel Bureau, Inc.; 1951, 1962, 1966), pg. 23, "dating from the beginning of the thirteenth century"; and Shufunotomo, Editors of  The Essentials of Bonsai (Portland, OR: Timber Press; 1982), pg. 8: "There are, however, earlier hear-say references [than Kasuga-gongen-genki].  It is said that Honen Shonin (1133-1212), a revered Buddhist figure, was a bonsai enthusiast and there is a much later [sic] scroll showing his collection.";
     cf. Folsom, Barbara "Bonsai: A Living Koan, Part I (A University Thesis) in Bonsai, BCI, September 1971, pg. 16: "Kasuga Gongen Genki-e pictures a boxed pine and some palms in containers.  Section two of the fifth scroll shows Toshimori, who has paid monthly homage to the shrine and risen to a high rank, enjoying the fruits of his prosperity in a luxurious home with an elaborate garden, and aviary, and a small rock and tree garden set into a table top."  Also per this page, the scrolls were executed at the request of Saionji Kimihara.

5.     Nippon Bonsai Association Classic, pg. 143, with two b&w sections on pg. 144; Hirota, pg. 24, has a b&w line drawing of the table area.

6.     A Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Oriental Arts, b&w Plate 17, location given as in Nishi Hongan-ji, Kyoto; Classic, has two b&w sections of on pg. 143, while stating that the scroll has four scenes showing a total of eight different bonsai, only shows four of the trees in two b&w photos; Papinot, pp. 576-577; Lesniewicz, Paul  Bonsai: The Complete Guide to Art & Technique (Poole, Dorset: Blandford Press; 1984), pg. 12, has a small color picture and states that the three trees are a pine, an apricot and a flowering cherry; Webber, Leonard  Bonsai For the Home and Garden  (North Ryde, NSW, Australia: Angus & Robertson Publishers; 1985), pg. 3, has a small b&w copy with a slightly larger portion of the scroll with the caption: "This early Chinese [sic] painting shows three specimens."; Bonsai Today, No. 26, pg. 56, which has five color photos of and seems to imply that Boki Ekotoba was "done around 1480" along with a following work (Sairei-soshi), and pg. 57, which has a reversed color print of the Lesniewicz/Webber scroll and shows a little more of the scene, including the green and blue tunnelled rocks on light blue sand (or water?) in a dark brown wooden box; Yanagisawa, pp. 173, 178, which state that "Another tray-like pot in one of the pictures contains a stone" and in the scroll "we find on the veranda a wooden tray-like pot planted with water plants."

7.     Bonsai Today, No. 26, pg. 56, no other identification of the painting is given.

8.     Yanagisawa, pg. 78.

9.     Colvello, Vincent T. and Yuji Yoshimura  The Japanese Art of Stone Appreciation, Suiseki and Its Use with Bonsai (Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle; 1984), pp. 18-19, Fig. 1 with detail also shown.  Location given (pg. 13) as the Freer Gallery.