Nampō Roku, Book 6 (12): the Ro [爐] in the Sō-an [草菴].
12) With respect to the ro in the sō-an [草菴], in the beginning the dimensions of the ro were not fixed. Jōō [and] Rikyū, after extensive discussion, [decided that] everything should be cloaked in the rules [governing] the large daisu², resulting in the mukō-ro being fixed at 1-shaku 4-sun square.
The width of the naga-ita [長板]³, 1-shaku 4-sun, is the source of [this measurement]; [but the idea that] the “seat of the furo” [on the large daisu] is 1-shaku 4-sun square, was also used [when determining the size of] the ro⁴.
On the far side [of the mukō-ro], a board 2-sun 5-bu wide is inserted. When [the width of] this board is subtracted from the 4-sun 5-bu that was left on the far side of the daisu, the remainder [which is transposed to the front of the ro] constitutes the yū-yo [有餘] within the space used for placing the utensils – this is a secret⁵.
Adding all of these together yields 1-shaku 8-sun 5-bu, and it is on this space that the kane are superimposed⁶. These [concepts that were directly derived from the daisu] are the basis on which the rules that govern the ro were established⁷.
[The writing reads (above to below, and right to left): kabe-tsuke go-bu no yū-yo・ku-den (カヘ付五分ノ有餘・口傳)⁸; ita ni-sun go-bu (板二寸五分)⁹; isshaku yon-sun shi-hō・ro (一尺四寸四方・爐)¹⁰; kono ni-sun oki-kata no yū-yo nari・ku-den (此二寸置方ノ有餘也・口傳)¹¹; in-kane (陰カネ)¹², yō-kane (陽カネ)¹³.]
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◎ With respect to the sketch, the reader should understand that it shows a muko-rō [向爐] – not a sumi-ro [隅爐]* – according to the original configuration (where the guests are seated on the host’s left).
This section is covered in entry 6 in Kumakura Isao’s Nampō Roku wo yomu [南方録を読む]†.
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*A ro that is cut in the corner of the room).
†Though Kumakura sensei, rather predictably, asserts that the sketch shows a sumi-ro – and then goes off on a tangent discussing this within the context of Urasenke’s way of doing things.
My own explanation, which is based on the shiki-shi [敷き紙], will be found under footnotes 8 and 11.
¹Sō-an no ro ha, hatsu ha ro no sunpō sadamarazu [草菴ノ爐ハ、初ハ爐ノ寸法定ラズ].
As Shibayama Fugen points out at the beginning of his commentary on this entry, the sō-an [草菴] did not exist before Rikyū’s time – and made its first appearance during the last year of Jōō’s life. This is a fact that must not be forgotten, otherwise the result will be complete confusion regarding the development of chanoyu*.
The evolution of the ro proceeded from two directions. First, it seems that, toward the end of the fifteenth century (if not before†), certain members of the expatriate Korean community (who had arrived in Japan during the second half of the century‡) were already sinking a cooking pot (with the rim broken off above the flange) into a round hole cut in a board (which lifted the mouth to the level of the mats), arranging the ashes and charcoal therein, and suspending a kama over the fire, as a simple substitute for a furo (which, even if cast of iron in Japan, would still require a significant financial outlay, and long waiting period before the order could be filled), in imitation of the o-chanoyu-dana [御茶湯棚].
On the other hand, Jōō said that his own inspiration was the sunken hearth in the common room of a farmhouse – where four mats were arranged around a central square (equal to a half-mat), with the fire located toward one corner of that square (beside which the wife of the house would sit to cook the food over the fire). Because making the ro this size would make things difficult for the guests (since there was no room in front of their knees beyond the edgd of the mat on which they were seated), Jōō reduced the size to 1-shaku 8-sun square (with the actual well for the fire being around 1-shaku 2-sun square – the shaku-tate and futaoki being placed on the ro-dan [爐壇]**); and he suspended the kama over this ro on a chain or ji-zai, also in keeping with the mechanics employed in the farmhouse setting.
Though the details of their discussion were not recorded, it seems most likely that their ultimate solution took both situations into consideration – since, as shown here, the first 1-shaku 4-sun ro was the one cut in the far end of the utensil mat (which was precisely the part of the mat that had been originally enclosed), as a mukō-ro††.
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*And, indeed, because Kanamori Sōwa was either unaware of this fact, or chose to ignore it, his “history of chanoyu in Japan” (which is the only history bandied about in the books and believed by the modern schools) is responsible for a very large part of the confusion suffered not only by the people of his generation – but those of our own.
Later in the Nampō Roku, the discussion of the 3-mat room, and the 4-mat room, are discussed in some detail, and the implication is that these were the first forms of the “small room” (which is generally considered equivalent to the sō-an). However, both of these rooms (in their several permutations) resulted from architecturally fixing the earlier kakoi [圍], where the far end of a larger room was physically segregated from the rest by folding screens, with chanoyu offered within the enclosure – the 3-mat room representing the far end of a six-mat room (the typical size of the jō-dan [上段]), while the 4-mat size was created when the far end of an 8-mat room (a common size for the ni-no-ma [二の間]) was enclosed in a similar way. In rooms of this sort, either the daisu was used, or the naga-ita (meaning a simple board on which the furo and kaigu were arranged, with the other utensils carried out at the beginning of the temae). The Nampō Roku discusses how the ro came to be cut in these rooms, but it should be understood that this practice did not come about until the second half of the sixteenth century (even though the Nampō Roku implies that it occurred there much earlier – perhaps a conclusion interpolated by Tachibana Jitsuzan based upon his reading of Kanamori Sōwa’s writings).
One of the biggest points of confusion, if we exclude the 3- and 4-mat rooms from this discussion, centers on the argument presented in the present entry: namely, that the mukō-ro was fundamental to the creation of the sō-an – because the first sō-an (in Japan) are said to be Jōō’s Yamazato no iori [山里の庵], and Rikyū’s Jissō-an [實相庵] – both of which were 2-mat daime rooms.
The only way to resolve this conundrum is through the understanding that the 2-mat room derived directly from the 2-mat tsugi-no-ma [次の間], the “preparation room” that was appended to a shoin, and wherein the o-chanoyu-dana [御茶湯棚] was found. So, the mukō-ro came from a simplified form of o-chanoyu-dana where the furo was replaced by a large cooking pot with a flange that was sunk into a hole cut in the floor-board of the o-chanoyu-dana, with ashes and the kama arranged within it. This seems to have been the form that the Shukō-an [珠光庵] took; and, it is possible that Rikyū encountered similar small rooms being used in Korea (where Buddhism and chanoyu were only beginning to recover from the persecutions of the second half of the fifteenth century during the decade of his sojourn, and so where a state of utmost simplicity had arisen as a consequence of the destruction of the utensils and rooms that had been employed before the Ming invasions), thereby inspiring his, and Jōō’s, recollections of ideas that had been handed down from the earliest days of wabi no chanoyu in Japan.
†It is possible that this kind of thing was already being done on the continent – since, obviously everyone who was involved with chanoyu could not possibly have been able to afford the costly bronze utensils that were required when the daisu was being used. Arranging ones utensils in a sort of walled off recess would allow one to replicate the idea, while eschewing the costly objects. The idea of sinking a large cooking pot into the board that constituted the floor of the recess, and arranging the fire in there, with a kama suspended over it on a tripod, would have been a rather natural solution.
‡Shukō, for example, seems to have used this kind of arrangement to serve tea in his 2-mat cell. Though lacking the enclosure (and substituting the end portion of the mat for the wooden floor), the sketch of the ro that is included in this entry essentially replicates Shukō’s way of doing things. (The Shukō-an [珠光庵] preserves these original details, albeit with their purposes reinterpreted when the room was increased from Shukō’s 2-mats to three.)
**The ro-dan [爐壇] forms the actual well in which the fire is kindled. It is made of mud-plaster. It is surmounted by the ro-buchi [爐縁], a wooden frame, the upper edge of which is at the same level as the surface of the mats (when they are new).
With respect to this matter, while the height is the same when the tatami are new, if the tatami are older, and made in the traditional manner (with compressed dried-grass innards), they tend to settle, meaning that, after the passage of some time, the surface of the mats can be up to several bu lower than the top of the ro-buchi. Some schools considered this effect “wabi,” and so elevate the ro-dan slightly (in the case of certain schools, the discrepancy is up to 5-bu, in fact), so that even when the mats are new, they are noticeably lower than the ro-buchi.
In Rikyū’s day, the mats were usually replaced before each gathering.
††Reducing the ro to this size in the 4.5-mat room seems to have occurred a little later; the first examples were as the mukō-ro, and as the ro in the daime-giri setting. (Care must be taken when studying the architecture of the truly old rooms, since they were all rebuilt – and remodeled, so they would conform to then-contemporary standards – in the Edo period.)
²Jōō・Rikyū kure-gure sōdan no ue, daisu no hō wo motte banji wo yatsushi-mochiite, mukō-ro isshaku yon-sun ni sadamararuru nari [紹鷗・利休クレ〰相談ノ上、臺子ノ法ヲ以テ萬事ヲヤツシ用テ、向爐一尺四寸ニ定ラルヽ也].
Kure-gure [呉々] means repeatedly, time and again, over and over. In other words, Jōō and Rikyū discussed this qusetion extensively before arriving at any conclusions*.
Sōdan no ue [相談の上] means by mutual agreement or consent: sōdan [相談] means consultation, while ue [上], in this case, means after (the discussions were concluded).
Yatsushi-mochiite [窶し用て]: yatsusu [窶す] means something like to loose (oneself) in, to be absorbed in, to dress or cloak (oneself) as/in (something); mochiiru [用いる] means to employ, make use of.
In other words, after extensive discussions, Jōō and Rikyū concluded that the best approach was to bring the rules governing the large daisu over wholesale, and apply them to the ro in the sō-an.
A mukō-ro [向爐] is a ro cut on the far end of the utensil mat. It seems to have been because space on the utensil mat was extremely limited that the conclusion that the ro should be based on the large daisu was reached‡.
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*While the usual interpretation is that they discussed this matter for a long time before reaching any conclusions, in fact, this discussion, its conclusions and its application to the small room, and the proliferation of the various forms of the small room, all took place between Rikyū’s return from the continent, near the end of 1554, and Jōō’s death toward the end of in 1555 – and so, in the space of less than a year.
‡Retaining the original 1-shaku 8-sun format that Jōō was using in his 4.5-mat room would have made the utensil mat appear imbalanced. Furthermore, the precedent of the o-chanoyu-dana required the ro to be smaller than 1-shaku 5-sun front to back.
Nevertheless, this measurement of 1-shaku 8-sun will return later in this entry (please refer to footnote 6, below), though the derivation mentioned here is part of the ku-den (and so not explained openly in the text).
³Naga-ita [長板] refers to the ji-ita of the large daisu.
⁴Naga-ita no haba isshaku yon-sun wo moto to shite, furo no za isshaku yon-sun shi-hō wo ro to shi [長板ノハヾ一尺四寸ヲモトヽシテ、風爐ノ座一尺四寸四方ヲ爐トシ].
Moto to shi [元とし] means “(this) is the basis (of the idea that the ro should be 1-shaku 4-sun).” In other words, the measurement is based on the width of the ji-ita of the large daisu.
To shi [とし] means “(this argument) is (also) used.”
⁵Mukō ni ni-sun go-bu no ita wo ire-shi ha, daisu no mukō yon-sun go-bu wo, ni-sun wo dōgu no oki-kata yū-yo no hiji ni mochiite [向ニ貳寸五步ノ板ヲ入シハ、臺子ノ向四寸五分ヲ、二寸五步板ニトリ、二寸ヲ道具ノ置方有餘ノ秘事ニ用テ].
Ire-suru [入れする] means “is inserted.”
Ni-sun go-bu ita ni tori [二寸五步板に取り] means that the 2-sun 5-bu is taken (away) – is subtracted – from the 4-sun 5-bu that was located on the far side of the daisu.
Oki-kata [置き方] means placement, setting – here it refers to the space where (the utensils) are placed.
Yū-yo [有餘] literally means remainder, excess, above, over. In the Nampō Roku, it refers to space that is off limits – a space where objects should never be displayed. In other words, oki-kata yū-yo means a specific part of the mat within the space used for displaying the utensils that must never be used.
Hi-ji ni mochiite [秘事に用いて] means this (non-) use of this space is a secret.
The argument that is being made here is that this 2-sun strip was originally part of the 4-sun 5-bu wide space that was found on the far side of the daisu, that was not used. Though it has been transposed to the front side of the mukō-ro, on account of its origins, it is still forbidden to place objects in it – though this prohibition, and the reason for abstaining from making use of it, are secret matters (which apparently was the case, since the modern schools are generally not familiar with this concept).
⁶Tsugō isshaku hassun go-bu ni kane wo tori-orosaretari [都合一尺八寸五分ニカネヲ取ヲロサレタリ].
Tsugō [都合] means the total*.
Tori-orosaretaru [取り下ろされたる] means are to be lowered, let down, brought down. In other words, the kane are superimposed upon this area of the mat (specifically, as a guide to the host, when he is going to arrange the utensils prior to the shoza and goza).
The original purpose of the kane was as a guide to the correct arrangement of the utensils. However, they are also used during the temae, mirroring the shiki-shi [敷き紙].
Regarding this 1-shaku 8-sun 5-bu, as mentioned above, Jōō’s original ro was 1-shaku 8-sun square. Furthermore, there is a rule that the outer 5-bu on every side of the tatami is to be considered yū-yo [有餘], meaning that the 1-shaku 8-sun “seat of the ro” would have to be moved 5-bu away from the wall. This is the actual source of the 1-shaku 8-sun 5-bu dimension.
Jōō‘s original ro had a very wide ro-dan [爐壇]. The ro-buchi [爐縁] was 1-sun wide, and the ro-dan extended 2-sun beyond that, so the opening of the well was approximately 1-shaku 2-sun square, but the kama was arranged toward the corner closest to the kyū-dai daisu*. As the reader may recall, on the kyū-dai daisu the mizusashi is also placed on the side of the daisu closest to that same corner of the ro. And at the beginning of the temae, the shaku-tate was moved from the daisu to the ro-dan, and then the futaoki was also moved to that place. Thus, the arrangement of the utensils mirrored the way they were disposed when all of them (including the kama and furo) were on the daisu. As in the daisu temae, the hishaku was always stood in the shaku-tate, and the futaoki was used only as a stand on which the lid of the kama was rested. After the creation of the 1-shaku 4-sun ro, the futaoki had to be placed on the mat, and, on account of the distance from the shaku-tate, the custom arose of resting the hishaku on the mouth of the kama.
In the old writings, we occasionally encounter a reference to an “8-sun ro.” These references always postdate the creation of the 1-shaku 4-sun ro, and they mean an “old style” ro – one that measures [1-shaku] 8-sun [square], rather than [1-shaku] 4-sun. I mention this because even some Japanese scholars become confused, and imagine that there was some sort of miniature ro – which is the opposite of what was actually the case.
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*Since the kama used in the ro were originally the same kama that were used on the furo, they usually occupied no more than an 8-sun square space within the ro. Thus, on the far side, as well as on the side of the kama farthest from the daisu, was 4-sun of empty space that mirrored the 4-sun on the far side of the daisu. Because the 5-bu closest to the wall is always yū-yo, the actual space on the far side of the daisu should be understood to be 4-sun + 5-bu, rather than a single unit of 4-sun 5-bu. All of these details were secret teachings, and many of them have been lost between Rikyū’s and Nambō Sōkei’s day and our own.
⁷Kore sunawachi ro no hō wo tatashi sadametaru-konpon nari [コレ卽爐ノ法ヲタヽシ定メタル根本ナリ]
Sunawachi [卽ち = 即ち] means “for example;” “in other words.”
Tatasu [立たす] means to set up, raise, establish.
Sadametaru-konpon [定めたる] means the foundation (konpon [根本]) on which (the rules that govern the ro) are based.
The teachings that were derived from the daisu are the basis on which the rules that govern the ro were set up.
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⁸Kabe-tsuke go-bu no yū-yo・ku-den [カヘ付五分ノ有餘・口傳].
“The 5-bu that adjoins the wall is yū-yo; there is a ku-den.”
A 5-bu yū-yo is found on every side of every mat, not just on the side that adjoins the wall – it exists also on the outer half of the heri, and at the foot of the mat as well), and it must be subtracted before any discussion of kane-wari is possible. This has already been mentioned, with respect to the 1-shaku 8-sun 5-bu measurement, above.
Ultimately, this was a consequence of the shiki-shi [敷き紙]. As has been mentioned several times before in this blog, when the idea of the shiki-shi was applied to the wabi setting, Rikyū (perhaps in consultation with Jōō) decided that the temae-za should be limited to the space between the heri*.
In order to achieve this, the folds of the shiki-shi had to be removed, so that the three inner kane became simple lines, like the outer two (which corresponded to the edges of the shiki-shi); and the fold in the center was also reduced to a horizontal line as well.
When placed in front of the daisu, the utensils arranged on the shiki-shi are mostly found on the far side of the central fold, though the entire 1-shaku 2-sun 3-bu width is used to some extent. In the wabi setting, in consideration of the fact that much simpler utensils are used†, Rikyū concluded that the space necessary for the temae-za should be limited to one row of panels, and, as a result, he had the central line (previously fold) placed 2-sun away from the front edge of the mukō-ro (as can be seen above).
A second shiki-shi of this sort‡ was then placed on the far side of the first, allowing the space from the front edge of the 2-sun wide yū-yo to the end of the 1-shaku 8-sun area (that was derived from Jōō’s original ro) to be divided into thirds (again, as may be seen in the above sketch). The space covered by the shiki-shi stops 5-bu short of the far end of the mat, and this is the origin of the 5-bu yū-yo.
Under this system, the temae-za occupies the lower row of panels; the chaire or other objects displayed occupy the second ro, the mizusashi is centered in the third row, and the final row is generally not used (it being too far away for the host to reach easily from his seat on the far side of the temae-za). The host’s knee line is 2-sun below the lower edge of the shiki-shi, meaning he is seated 1-shaku away from the front edge of the ro.
While the above narration of the derivation of the 5-bu yū-yo actually seems to have been the ku-den, since all knowledge of these things was lost among his contemporaries with Rikyū’s death, by Jitsuzan’s day all that remained was the teaching that a 5-bu yū-yo is found on all four edges of the mat.
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*This contrasts with the original case where, as a consequence of the 3-bu wide folds, the temae-za was expanded to the middle of both heri, so that the space to the right and left of the shiki-shi would be equal to the space of each of the panels (meaning 5-sun wide). This was perhaps the origin of the idea of yū-yo [有餘] – since yū-yo actually means excess, extra, what is left over. This 5-bu on the outer edges of the heri probably came to be associated with the 5-bu at the head of the utensil mat later – perhaps only after the idea of kane-wari came to be applied to the wabi setting.
†And, specifically, that the large trays are done away with.
‡These were not actual, physical objects, but mental images, used to help the host partition the space, and so aid him in orienting the various utensils appropriately.
⁹Ita ni-sun go-bu [板二寸五分].
“[This] board [measures] 2-sun 5-bu.”
¹⁰Isshaku yon-sun shi-hō・ro [一尺四寸四方・爐].
“1-shaku 4-sun square - the ro.”
¹¹Kono ni-sun oki-kata no yū-yo nari・ku-den [此二寸置方ノ 有餘 也・口傳].
“This is the yū-yo found within the area [of the mat] where the utensils are placed; there is a ku-den.”
As mentioned above, the origin of this yū-yo can be found in the modified version of the shiki-shi that Rikyū envisioned as governing the arrangement of the utensils in the wabi setting.
Once the position of the mukō-ro had been decided upon, the mizusashi was placed in line with the kama (as it is on the daisu). The (fictional, foldless) shiki-shi was placed immediately in front of the mizusashi (as the real shiki-shi had originally been placed immediately in front of the daisu). Since the upper row of panels extends over the ro, it could not be used as the temae-za. Thus, the temae-za was pushed to the lower row of panels, with the chawan and chaire being oriented so that their far sides touch the line. Since the space between the line and the front edge of the ro is not used, it was considered yū-yo. This was the original ku-den.
As these teachings were lost following Rikyū’s death, an alternate system was created (this will be explained in the next post) which, while similar, differs in the interpretation of the space between the front edge of the ro and the front of the mizusashi. But since this system was created after the fact, no one is able to say exactly what the actual ku-den is.
I am afraid that it is unlikely that those people who prefer the “traditional” scholarship (which depends on repeating the explanations that were voiced by earlier generations of scholars) will be satisfied with any of this. Unfortunately, since these earlier assertions were all made without any knowledge of the existence of the shiki-shi, they will never be able to offer an explanation of where their arguments come from. When pressed, they either simply refuse to answer (usually by saying – as Tanaka’s source did – that these teachings are secret and inviolable, and cannot be disseminated even were the inquirer to offer vast sums of money), or by averring that they originate in the writings of this or that famous name (though if one manages to locate the source that is being quoted from, the reader will more than likely find that he is then referred somewhere else, eventually arriving at a dead end when the source has been “lost” – and so an actual explanation will never be found). Nevertheless, people who find the “speculations” related here distasteful are asked to simply ignore them (since they are always restricted to the footnotes: the translations themselves being strictly literal renderings of what the entries in the Nampō Roku actually say).
The vertical black (dashed) lines represent the yin kane.
The vertical red (dashed) lines represent the yang kane.
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