Deborah Brannan

Essay submitted for Prof. Usha Vishnuvajjala’s Fall 2023 Medieval Women Seminar

History is made up of countless unnamed women who fade into the background as daughters, mothers, or wives. Although the presence of these women alone is a powerful presence, their names remain anonymous. The Sarashina Diary features such women. Written in the Heian Era of Japan, the Diary was created by a woman whose name has been lost to time. The Heian period is important because it was “a rare moment in premodern human history when conditions favored women writing” (Arntzen and Moriyuki xi). As a writer in this period, the Diary’s author is surrounded by other women who impact her world and are identified by certain titles the author gives. This lack of names in the Diary helps readers connect with the author’s story and gives power to her readers through the power of names. In my exploration, I delve into the power of physical presence embodied through the written word and titles with which people associate.

Before delving into the names the diarist gives to her readers, an exploration into why there are no names should be done. There are several reasons for this lack of names. One reason is that “women’s names were generally not recorded in genealogical records” in the Heian period (Arntzen and Moriyuki xix). Male names were recorded, and women’s names were left out. Additionally, Takeshi Watanabe states that, “The feminine ideal in Heian court society demanded demure restraint” (40). As a courtly woman, the diarist needs to remain humble and giving her name can be seen as a form of excessive pride since names in themselves hold a type of power. There is a religious dimension to this power. In the Shinto religion, words and names have power. The Shinto concept of kotodama holds “language… to be a metaphysical act, which creates the possibility of the persistent formation of being in the world and the human presence in it” (Ignatieva and Trazanova 2). Language is not merely about recording: language itself contains a soul. Speaking, writing, or revealing names then has a metaphysical quality. Kazuya Hara notes, “A name is seen as the figure of a person himself or herself rather than a sign” (288). The name is not merely a title but a representation of the individual, and a person must earn that name. The diarist is mostly known as Takasue’s daughter, or Takasue no Musume. While there is a male-centric bias to her name only being known in relation to her father, this is the title she has placed on her work and chooses to represent her. Her work also circulated around family and friends rather than a larger circle (Arntzen and Moriyuki xi-xii). Her true name then remains a secret only her family and close friends are privy to, and they alone have the power to know her name. To be called and claim the name daughter then embodies her personhood and status in her society as well as creates an intimate dimension to her work.

Taking this representation into account, I explore Musume’s (or daughter’s) relationship with her father since it embodies parts of her experiences. When it comes time for her father to travel far away, she writes: “I never dreamt that such a thing could be —/ That you and I should part in this world even for awhile” (Musume 66). Dreams can predict the future or represent desires of a given individual. She never thought that she and her father would ever be parted. He has to go to work, and she must stay at home, unable to follow him and unable to visit him. She reflects on all the times they spent together and is unable to imagine how the future will be without him. Society separates them, and both are pained by this circumstance. Before she pens this poem, she notes how her and her father “wept bitterly” (65). This short phrase is significant to consider because both of them acknowledged the sadness and unfair qualities to being separated. This sorrow is not merely female nor male: the response is not gendered in this circumstance. Men feel sorrows as do women. By writing down his and her reactions, Musume shows readers the value of recording communal experiences of sorrow. Each child, son, or daughter shall be separated from their parent someday, unsure of when the parent shall be seen again. Yet, the child remains a daughter, even in their absence. Musume’s finishes writing the Diary at a time when her father is no longer alive, but she still retains the title as his daughter and embodies that connection in her writing. Musume may retain multiple titles over her life; still, her first title is that of daughter, and she uses this title to embody her experience as a child loving and being loved by her parent.

The word “daughter” means much because it is a state of being, and it carries with it a sense of presence. After leaving her family for a period of time and returning to them, Musume observes the reaction of her beloved father. She records the moment: “Now that you are back, the house is alive again. Look at all the people coming and going!’ The expression on his face as he sat there brought tears to my eyes” (Musume 76-77). Her father’s statement has key words such as “back,” “house,” “alive” and “again.” “Back” and “again” go together as actions and subjects. Musume went away for a while, and then she returned. When she returns, she brings life to the “house.” These words imply the house was dead before, and her presence has brought it back to life. Her youth compared to her parents is paramount here as well as the people coming to visit her. Looking at her father’s face, the “expression” or way he is expressing his inner feelings makes her cry. Musume then wonders “why my presence in the house should make such a difference” (77). Yes, she knew his presence was important to her, yet she was not aware how valuable her presence was to him. Musume sees the pain in leaving him behind as she lives her life. Her father, a once courtly man, is now old and finds himself adventuring less into the world. Without the presence of his young, vital daughter, his world slows down further. Despite Musume’s “wonder” about why her presence makes a difference, she is able to explore this wonder in her journals. As Joan Ericson notes, the diaries of the Heian periods involve the “Feminine tradition” of expressing the self’s “interiority” (90). In her writing and the innate power of it, she gives voice to what is happening within her, whether she understands it completely or not, and explores the importance of physical presence.

Another title that helps in this exploration of presence is mother. While Musume does not reflect as much on her motherhood, she speaks of the mother figures around her. There are three mother characters: the mother, the stepmother, and the nurse. These are important characters to consider because, during the tenth century, Japanese literature usually focuses on these three characters. This triad was broken into “a good (usually dead) mother,” “an evil mama-haha [stepmother],” and a compassionate menoto [wet nurse]” (Schmidt-Hori 450). They indicated parts of the female’s journey into adulthood with the evil stepmother acting as a key force in helping the young woman mature. Musume’s mothers are slightly different from the typical pattern. Her mother is alive and distant, and she has a stepmother. Her mother is kind to her as a child, yet it is the absence of Musume’s stepmother that is profoundly felt. Her stepmother leaves the family, and Musume is sad when she does not hear from her (45). She laments and wonders when she shall hear from her again. This departure from a typical pattern indicates that, although the stepmother was not her biological mother, she acted as a kind mother to the child. After a certain point in Musume’s life, her mother took on religious vows. Lori Meeks details that, when a mother did, they still lived with their family, but they did not have to enact the “household duties, meaning that the daughter was forced to take over the duties” (37). Musume, because of this, takes on household duties she priorly did not have. While she may do certain actions with her mother, Musume’s reactions to the presence of her stepmother are stronger because of the built connections and support between them.

Through this relation, the power of built connections is embodied, and so this relationship teaches her how connections with other people are built—through mutual understanding. Before her stepmother leaves, the stepmother tells her: “You have been kind to me…I shall never forget it” (44). The focus on kindness in her statement shows that Musume treated her kindly. She may have been a stepmother, but her stepdaughter did not treat her unkindly because of it. In fact, her stepdaughter asks her if she can get her more Tales when they arrive at the capital, and the stepmother ensures Musume gets her desired “Tales” (44). Her stepmother listened and observed the girl’s passion for Tales, and she ensured the girl received them. The Tales have a unique function here. They connect Musume to the voices of other writers, many of them women, and to the women around her. As Sonja Arntzen and Ito Moriyuki clarify, “access to vernacular literary works came through the female line” (xxii). Tales are imaginative literature, and they help Musume cope with the world around her after moving to the Capital. For one of the providers of these Tales to leave breaks this feminine connection that helps her cope, and this is coupled with other deaths that profoundly disturb her. Still with her, Musume’s mother observes this grief and attempts to console her daughter by managing “to find [Musume] some more Tales” (46). Only through the power of words, of women, and the gifts of those around her can she go forward and return to a state where she can connect with the world around her. This is done through experiencing the written word in relation to the other women around her, and Musume illustrates the power of providing a written and physical presence in one’s life.

The built connections Musume has made extend to the third character in the mothering triangle: the nurse. Nurses are typically backgrounded characters. Nurses fade so far into the background that they are marginalized to the point of not being written about at all. However, for Musume, the nurse is a figure of vital importance in her steps towards adulthood. Leaving the nurse behind, Musume declares “On our return I was utterly wretched; her face, still vivid in my memory, made me so sad that even the sight of the moon could not console me and I went to bed wilted with sorrow” (Musume 34). The nurse’s name is not mentioned, yet “her face” remains “vivid.” Musume notes how she “could read the suffering in her face as she lay there, so white and pure” (34). And the author falls asleep as the nurse strokes her hair in a tender scene. A nurse tends to her charge and spends everyday life with her. The whiteness of the nurse’s face coincides with the “sight of the moon” because both are similar pale colors. Because the nurse was so connected with her charge, the everyday reflects and reminds Musume of the woman who cared so tenderly for her. In his commentary on this scene, John Wallace posits this moment as “the first major loss of her life” as the nurse’s face is “transformed and somehow indicative of a moment of truth” (197). This first loss also hinges on the fact that the futures of both women are uncertain. Musume is traveling to a new home, and the nurse is being left in one as well. Their lives connected meaningfully in the everyday and in experiencing sites such as the moon, and for that security and structure to be gone creates great sorrows in both women.

This connection between them extends until the death of her nurse, which Musume aligns close to by the leaving of her stepmother and reflects Musume’s state towards the end of the Diary. Musume writes, “I was crushed by grief and even lost my interest in Tales” (45). The death of the nurse happened suddenly with a pandemic, and Musume loses interest in the world around her. Her grief crushes her personhood, and one of the only books that gives her comfort is that of the Counsellor’s daughter. Through the “sight of these verses,” she finds herself crying and expelling the emotions locked inside her. This moment is when her mother comes with more Tales, and one of her aunts too brings “fifty-odd volumes” of other Tales. Musume’s interactions with these books as a form of solace stretches to when she herself reaches a similar position to her nurse, where she too is a widow and alone to contemplate a state she does not write on at length—that of a wife. Her status as a daughter appears at the forefront for the majority of the narrative, yet she expresses profound loss at the loss of her husband. Musume writes, “He faded away like a dream. Never had I known such sorrow” (106). This statement is hyperbolic considering prior experiences she has had of sorrow. Still, this loss comes with different connotations than prior ones. The other losses were abrupt: this loss “faded” which indicates it happened overtime without her noticing right away. With his loss, she is no longer a wife, and she is alone in her home. Once scholar notes that “the most intense cluster of losses occurs” at this point because relatives are moving away, her son has moved on, and her husband is dead (Wallace 197). Her life, like that of the nurse, is that of widowed loneliness. Musume may not be alone with a child in a hut, but she is alone and has no other people to turn to.

Going from daughter interacting with mothers to wife and finally widow, Musume enters into the final portion of her life and shall claim a new title—that of nun. Musume ends the Diary with a poem by a nun: “Your sagebrush and your dew belong to worldly homes. / Think how overgrown the thickets are / In the cell of one who has finally renounced the world!” (110). This reply comes as a subtle chastisement, yet they are also giving advice to the woman. Musume focuses only on the physical world and her state within it, not the eternal. However, the nun also stresses that she wants her to “think how overgrown the thickets are” in her cell. To be alone is a terrible situation, but to “renounce the world” is to reject all the physical. This situation is joyous because the physical can no longer be focused upon, yet that also means that these thoughts are to be denied and untended to when one does so. During the Heian period, there was a customary practice of men and women becoming Buddhist practitioners during “the last years of their life as lay monks or nuns” (Meeks 5). Part of this life cycle moment was grounded in people desiring “to prepare for a favorable death” (7). And so, when a person became a nun or monk, it meant to completely renounce the world, the life it represents, and prepare to die. Musume slowly is getting closer to this final title in her life cycle. She still desires to not be alone though and has not completely renounced the world. To do so, Musume needs to reflect on her experiences and leave behind a physical remembrance of them, hence the creation of her diary. She needs to speak and be spoken to. She cannot renounce the world as others have for she is not ready.

Musume must use the words within her to represent and reflect on her experiences, and this is associated with her connection and seeming rejection of Tales. After growing older and realizing how much time she wasted on her fantasies, Musume askes, “how could I have let all these years slip by” (79) and sees herself as a “fool…to believe such nonsense” (80). Considering that Tales helped her cope and connect to other women, these moments of remorse are disheartening to the reader. I do feel the urge to note that, while she is upset about wasting her time on Tales, she does not “mention her own composition of tales” (Arntzen and Moriyuki xxx). Why does she write Tales and condemn them? The answer lies in how she used those tales. Musume wasted time on fantasies when she should have focused on making her life and those of others better. As she presents her nieces to the court, she sees that she did not make connections as she should have (80). She can only introduce them and do no more. As Takeshi Watanabe notes, “The Sarashina diarist found herself drawn in sympathy with others through the mode of apprehending the world presented by the monogatari [Tales]” (66). Musume should have built more on that sympathy, rather than getting distracted in the fantasies. Her presence could have impacted those around her more, as it impacted her father. Now, entering her final stage, she can only use that power of presence in her written work as a warning to others to live and use their presences, and not merely get lost in fantasies without living.

Presence is meant to be shared and meet in communion with other voices, not merely locked in fantasies. Throughout her text, though she is the one writing the diary, Musume includes the voices of other people, voices of men and women. They connect through the written word. When her sister dies, Musume includes poems by her sister’s old nurse, Musume’s nurse, her stepmother, an unknown relative, and finally their brother (Musume 55-56). Together these voices mourn the loss. They express their sorrows in writing, and Musume is allowed to process the great loss in their voices as well as her own in dialogue with them. While their hearts are broken with sorrow, they still can find solace in the written word. Although Musume writes, she also gives the “portrait of the writer as reader” (Arntzen and Moriyuki xvi). Musume is active as a reader reflecting and is a reader reflecting. Similarly, readers read her words, and they respond. Another example of this dialogue is found when Musume laments, “the constant flame of friendship…has now been buried” after the departure of a close friend (100). Her friend replies: “Even though little stones remain, / Though buried by Mount Shira’s snow. / So how can our bright flame be quenched?” (100). The flames of friendship and bonding cannot be fully buried and are instead embodied in the written word. Their exchange of words, of friendship, and knowledge of one another cannot be buried with time. Because words have power in themselves, they cannot be destroyed. Their power only converts and remains all the stronger with time and as they are shared with other voices.

Ending her novel with a sad awareness of death may appear disheartening to readers, nonetheless, it holds a satisfying conclusion to those living within her culture and to those who look deeply into the experiences it articulates. Donald Keene says that, though Western readers might not like the “incomplete” endings of a seemingly passive “Japanese hero…a poignant atmosphere at the conclusion is enough for Japanese readers, for whom the silent grief of a woman makes as satisfying an ending as the triumph of a hero” (570). Unpacking this quotation, the resilience of a hero or heroine is more important than the ending being “happy” or the hero actively acquiring his/her goal. In this acceptance, there is found a hope to endure, and an ending is left unfinished because life remains unfinished. This sentiment brings to mind a moment when Musume encounters a statue in a temple. Her prior self began work on a statue for the temple, yet “Someone else finished the job after your death. And it is he who dedicated the image” (Musume 77). Although one began the job, another finished it. The ending of one statue worker is the beginning of another’s work. No one knows the name of the original worker, similar to Musume. There is an element of eternity to life cycles: people dedicate their lives to a single object and then die—another comes and continues. As Arntzen and Moriyuki declare, “one could sense the author shaping her story to reach out to unspecified others who might choose to ‘tune in’ to her private world” (xiii). Musume, through her writing, creates a dialogue that speaks to her readers, allowing them to see into her “private world.” That initial audience may only have been friends and family, yet there is a life in them that goes beyond that initial circle. There is a constant exchange of words and communities within Musume’s words, showing the ending of one incarnation and showing the beginning of another. The endurance of her words and the person within them leaves behind work another may finish and dedicate to their purposes.

Arntzen and Moriyuki explain, “Although the text may appear transparent, it is not a simple transparency. Like the facets of a crystal that reveal different colors, each facet of the text offers different perspectives of meaning, depending on the angle from which it is viewed” (xxxii) Musume’s name is lost to time, as are the names of the women around her, yet their presences remain powerfully alive and filled with different facets to human existence. To those who hold or connect to those with similar titles, Musume’s written word comes alive and causes them to reflect on their worlds and their connections with it. She might not have realized the power of these presences until she herself drew to the end of her time, but now she sees and knows what she overlooked—the power of her words—the power of her presence within them. And now she must share this power with others through her words and build kinship with other voices who in turn go forward and live their lives, lives empowered by the titles they are known by and the words they use to define that world.

 

Works Cited

Arntzen, Sonja and Ito Moriyuki. “Introduction.” The Sarashina Diary, translated by Sonja Arntzen and Ito Moriyuki, Columbia UP, 2018, pp. xi-xxxii.

Ericson, Joan E. “The Origins of the Concept of ‘Women’s Literature.’” The Woman’s Hand: Gender and Theory in Japanese Women’s Writing, edited by Paul G. Shallow and Janet A. Walker, Stanford UP, 1996. pp. 74-115.

Hara, Kazuya. “The Word “is” the Thing: The “Kotodama” Belief in Japanese Communication.” Et Cetera, vol. 58, no. 3, 2001, pp. 279-291.

Ignatieva, Anastasia, and Natalya Trazanova. “The Concept of Kotodama as a Fragment of Japanese Linguocultural Code.” SHS Web of Conferences, vol. 134, 2022, doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/202213400157.

Keene, Donald. Seeds in the Heart. Henry Holt, 1993.

Meeks, Lori. “Buddhist Renunciation and the Female Life Cycle: Understanding Nunhood in Heian and Kamakura Japan.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 70, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1–59, doi.org/10.1353/jas.0.0041.

Musume, Sugawara no Takasue no. As I Crossed the Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a Woman in Eleventh-Century Japan, translated by Ivan Morris, Penguin, 1975.

Schmidt-Hori, Sachi. “Symbolic Death and Rebirth into Womanhood: An Analysis of Stepdaughter Narratives from Heian and Medieval Japan.” Japanese Language and Literature, vol. 54, no. 2, 2020, pp. 447–76, doi.org/10.5195/jll.2020.94.

Wallace, John R. Objects of Discourse: Memoirs by Women of Heian Japan. Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2005.

Watanabe, Takeshi. Flowering Tales: Women Exorcizing History in Heian Japan. Harvard UP, 2020.