Yamaoka Tesshu Daruma Painting with Calligraphy (1885)

[Iaido dude]

Daruma

Yamaoka Tesshu (山岡 鉄舟) was born in Edo June 10, 1836 and died July 19, 1888.

The vast majority of his works were calligraphy from the Jubokudo lineage of Shodo established by Wang Hsi-chi (Wang Xizhi), a Chinese calligrapher of the 4th century. Yamaoka created a calligraphy manual based on the 154 Chinese characters of a poem – “The Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup” – by the Tang Dynasty poet Tu Fu (712 – 770 A.D.) that is still practiced by the Chosei Zen Rhode Island Zen Dojo in the US. This powerful depiction of Daruma, the patriarch of Japanese Zen Buddhism, is a rare subject matter for Yamaoka. The calligraphy is taken directly from a famous poem Xinxin Ming (心性铭) attributed to the great Chan master Jianzhi Sengcan (鉴智僧璨). The translation is "Directly pointing to the human heart/mind, seeing one’s true nature leads to Buddhahood [直指人心見性成佛]. Brushed by Yamaoka Tetsutaro, Senior Fourth Court Rank." The Chinese pronunciation is "Zhí zhǐ rén xīn jiàn xìng chéng fó." The origin of this line is the Platform Sutra of the 6th Patriarch of Chinese Chan (Zen) Buddhism who was named Dajian Huineng or Hui-neng (638-713). The scroll painting and calligraphy (kakejiku) comes in a fitted paulownia box on which has been brushed "Yamaoka Tesshu Buddhist Layman, Bodhidharuma" on the outer lid and "May 1990, Follower of Xuanzang (early and influential Chinese Buddhist Monk of the Tang Dynasty)" on the inner lid. This Zen painting with calligraphy dates to 1885 (3 years before Yamaoka's untimely death and well after his enlightenment experience at age 45, based on his seals and during a time when he was the personal bodyguard and advisor to the Meiji emperor. He played the central role in the bloodless surrender of Edo castle--one of the most important events in the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Fearing the loss of traditional

Yamaoka was born Ono Tetsutaro. A samurai and master swordsman who founded the Ittō Shōden Mutō-ryū (一刀正伝無刀流) school of swordsmanship ("Sword of No-Sword). He was also a master calligrapher who is said to have completed 1 million works, and a recognized lay Rinzai Zen master who died in the seated meditation position at the age of 52 from gastric cancer. Aside from being a master of Ken-Zen-Sho (Sword-Zen-Calligraphy), he was renown for his love of drinking sake and sleeping. At 62.5 cm x 137 cm (excluding mount), this work is among the largest of his works. 

[SteveM]

I saw this one from your other thread, and one thing that I got stuck on was

 

 直指人心見性成佛

 

the kanji in red doesn't look like the kanji that Tesshu has written. I was wondering if he wrote it in some idiosyncratic way, or if he deliberately used a different kanji. 

 

I couldn't get the other poem at all, but it is an odd coincidence that it uses the same 水せず phrase in both scrolls. 

[Iaido dude]

The passage he brushed is a very well known writing (my wife knew it from her study of Chinese classical literature and religious studies) and there is another example of this same daruma painting and calligraphy in which the kanji in question is rendered in an identical manner (below). The only difference is the variation in the way he signs. Yamaoka’s cursive script is very idiosyncratic (and recognizable), but also very consistent. His brushwork of “mu” and even his signature evolved profoundly over the course of adult life, dramatically informed by his enlightenment experience. 

 

 

 

 

I have asked the Rinzai master of Shodo at Chosei Zen Monastery for help translating the other work. I also noticed the commonality of those three characters to be striking (“…instead of water…”). When you study his many known works just focusing on recognizing the characters by form alone without comprehension of meaning, recognizable patterns emerge. The Chosei Zen approach is to experience the calligraphy for its expressive power rather than its literal meaning.