Mount Utsu

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Mount Utsu

***** Location: Japan
***** Season: Non-seasonal Topic
***** Category: Earth

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Explanation


Lit. "Mount Reality", in literature indicating the dream world contrasting with the real world.

Utsu Mountain in Shizuoka prefecture

utsu no yama, うつのやま（宇津の山）
Utsuyama 宇津山　、うつの山


Pass road at Utsu Valley, utsu no ya tooge 宇津ノ谷(うつのや) 峠



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Along the Tokaido Road, Station Nr. 22
at Okabe 岡部, near Shizuoka town
"Narrow Road of the Ivy creeper",
Tsuta no Hosomichi 蔦の細道

This pass is famous in poetry for its moon viewing, the ivy and maples in autumn.


宇津の山峯の細道
僧正行意
つゆふかき
蔦のほそみち
わけ越て
をかべにかゝる
うつの山もと


家隆
宇津の山
月だにもらぬ
草の庵
夢路たえたる
松風ぞふく



Down in the valley there was a famous tea house where 10 rice dumplings stringed on a rope were served (to dango 十団子). They could be easily carried and eaten on the road.
The story of the 10 dumplings in more detail is below.
©　www.humi.keio.ac.jp


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This mountain and the Ivy pass was subject of poetry already in the "Tales of Ise" Ise Monogatari, in episode number 9, "Toward the East", Azuma Kudari 東下り. Written in the mid 10th century.
Ariwara no Narihira 在原業平 (825-880) travelled up this pass toward Azuma (Edo, Tokyo), when he met a travelling ascetic monk with a typical backpack, who was on his way back to Kyoto. Narihira then wrote a note for his beloved in Kyoto and entrusted the monk with delivering it:


©　narihira/ise


Suruga naru
Utsu no yamabe no
utsutsu ni mo
yume ni mo hito ni
awanu narikeri

駿河なる　宇津の山辺の　うつつにも　
夢にも人に　あわぬなりけり


in Suruga
close to Mount Utsu
you are not there
even in my dreams
I can not meet you
Tr. Gabi Greve



Further Reference
Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari 伊勢物語)


There are illustrations which only feature the ivy creepers and the special backpack of the ascetic. Poets will then know, which story the painting is referring to.


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Woodblocks by Utagawa Hiroshige
歌川広重: 「岡部 宇津の山」







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A Folding Screen (byoobu　屏風)
by Fukae Roshu (1699 - 1757)



The subject of Roshu's byobu lies in the later Heian era, tucked away in a poem contained in the anthology Tales of Ise: a courtier (in the blue outer robe) traveling far from the capital happens upon an itinerant monk on a pass on Mount Utsu in eastern Japan. He entrusts the monk with a letter to a former lover in the capital, Kyoto, from which he has been exiled.

The poignancy of the subject, set in this charged and luminous setting, attracted Roshu (who was not a prolific artist) more than any other Edo painter, perhaps because he found himself exiled at the age of sixteen on account of a scandal involving his father.

Roshu's painting could be mistaken for a copy of one from the twelfth century, or perhaps even a rediscovered original, were it not for the attractive splotches of watery ink that lend surface texture to the darker rocks and mountain forms. Known as tarashikomi, this diffused ink technique became popular among the Rinpa school artists early in the seventeenth century.

©　www.clevelandart.org

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Tales of Ise (Ise monogatari): "Utsu no yama"

by Tawaraya Sotatsu (died ca. 1640),
calligraphy by Takeuchi Toshiharu (1611–1647)



Property of Mary Griggs Burke
©　The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Incense container "Mount Utsu (Utsu no Yama) "
by Ohi Soshun (Rikichi Nara)
(1851-1927)


©　Photo curtesy of www.asianart.com



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In Hokkaido

Near to Hakodate Matsumae boasts well over five thousand cheery trees and a reputation as one of the best places for cherry-blossom viewing in the north of Japan. This is also the old Tokugawa Shogunate's stronghold on Hokkaido (under the Matsumae family) and has a castle (a replica of the original destroyed in 1949 by fire). Across the bay from Hakodate is Lake Toya, south of Sapporo.

This hot spring resort reminds you of the origins of the onsen - the nearby volcanoes are still active. The last eruption of Mount Utsu was 31 March 2000, and Shinzan 昭和新山 or "new mountain" at 402 metres high was formed in 1945, two years after a large earthquake in the area.
©　www.edutraveller.com




This mountain is usually called Mount Usu,
USUZAN 有珠山（うすざん）.
More Reference !


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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way


Book with photos of the Old Tokaido (Tookaidoo)
The Tōkaidō Road: Traveling and Representation in EDO and Meiji Japan
Von Jilly Traganou


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HAIKU

うらがれや馬も餅くふ宇津（うつ）の山
uragare ya uma mo mochi ku Utsu no yama

On Mount Utsu
All is withered and desolate:
The horse also eats the mochi.

榎本　其角 Kikaku
Tr. Blyth

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宇津の山女に夜着を借て寝る
Utsu no yama onna ni yogi o karite neru

Mount Utsu -
from a woman I borrow
a night quilt and sleep

a pupil of Matsuo Basho, probably Otokuni, in a renku
Saga Diary, April 25
Tr. Gabi Greve


Saga Diary (Saga Nikki)


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宇津の山捨たいやうな鑓に逢
Utsu no yama sutetai yoo na yari ni ai

Mount Utsu -
I find a spear
that I want to throw away

Mutama 武玉川

At this mountain pass, robbers and poor samurai often tried to get some provisions by assaulting the travellers.


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Ten rice dumplings, todango 十団子（とだんご）



十団子も　小粒になりぬ　秋の風
to dango mo kotsubu ni narinu aki no kaze

ten rice dumplings
getting ever smaller --
autumn wind

Kyoroku (aka Kyoriku) (1656-1715)
Tr. Gabi Greve

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These dumplings too
Have got smaller:
The autumn wind.


'Toodango' were specialties of Utsunoya Pass in the Province of Tsuruga, so named because ten were cooked at one time in a saucepan, and later, sold in batches of ten. Kyoroku says that they seem to have got smaller than before, and this is a delicate if somewhat gastronomical observation. However, when we read Basho's econiums of this verse--he says it has 'shiori'--we realize that there is more in this verse than meets the eye, or the mouth, for the decrease in size of the 'toodago' is part of that general tendency of things to decline in quality and quantity.
Tr. and comment by Blyth

... ... ... ... ... ... ...

According to 'Kyoraishoo' ... Basho praised the following hokku by Kyoriku for possessing 'shiori'.

even the Ten Dumplings
have turned to crumbs--
autumn winds

The tea shops at Utsunoyama (Utsu Mountain), one of the difficult passes on the Tookaidoo (Eastern Highway) in Suruga (Shizuoka), were famous for their Ten Dumplings ('toodango', a haikai word), small dumplings sold in units of ten skewered on a stick or string. The hokku suggests that the mountain villages, which made their living by selling special products to travelers, are now in straitened circumstances, causing even their famous dumplings to become smaller. The implied sense of pathos and disappointment is echoed by the "winds of autumn" ('aki no kaze'), a classical phrase associated with loneliness.

Tr. and comment by Haruo Shirane
"Traces of Dreams"

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Checking a bit more on these famous "Todango" dumplings.
宇津ノ谷の十団子

They were originally an offering for Jizo Bosatsu during his festival of "Jizo Bon" at the temple Keiryu-Ji 慶龍寺.
Some where made from rice flower and are as small as big soy beans; they are strung on a small rope, they were supposed to imitate a rosary. Five of these made one set. They are consecrated at the temple and then hung at the eaves of the home to ward off evil and bring good luck to the family.


Here is the beginning story about the
origin of these dumplings:

A priest at the temple Bairin-In 梅林院 had become very ill and made his apprentice monk suck the blood out of his boils. The young man leaned to eat human flesh in the process and turned into a man-eating demon who waited for people ascending the pass and attack them.

Later when Fujiwara Narihira passed the area, he prayed to Jizo for help in this. So Jizo turned himself into a wandering monk and walked along the pass. When the monk met the demon, they had a discussion and the monk challenged the demon to change himself into something so small that he could hold it in his hand.

The demon changed his figure and appeared as ten little balls in the hand of the monk/Jizo. The monk without hesitation swallowed the ten little balls and thus the demon disappeared from the area. Jizo became the protector deity of the area and travellers were safe from then on ... or so they say!




This is a different kind, with colored dumplings and the mask of the little demon, which is still sold today as a souvenir.
PHOTOS : www.m-mizoguti.com


. Ariwara no Narihira 在原業平 .


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At the shrine Atsuta Jingu 熱田神宮の 藤団子 "fuji dango" are also sold as souvenirs.There they have the form of ten rings in five different colors, purple, white, red, yellow and blue and serve as a talisman for the grain production. They are strung on a line of hemp. Since they also resemble the hanging flowers of a wisteria, they are written with the Chinese character for this flower, 藤. Others say the spelling with this character comes from the name of the Fujiwara 藤原　priest of this shrine in the Heian period.
© PHOTO : www.okashi-net.com

. Shrine Atsuta Jingu 熱田神宮 .



Here is another scene of these famous dumplings.
Some are stuck on skewers and held in a straw pillar to offer easily to the tired travellers. They look almost like barbequed fish on a stick.


©　PHOTO : blog.urban-green.jp


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Related words

***** Mountain, peak, hill (yama, gake, oka)

***** . The 53 stations of the Tokaido .
東海道五十三次

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