Sparks from the Clouds: a modern Buddhist poem

3.2.1 Some critiques

^[5]One reference-point will be a recent analysis of the poem by a graduate student, which echoes comments made about the whole “Haru to Shura” series by Prof. Umehara (1983). This analysis illustrates the dangers of reliance on the sociolectic versions of concepts in a poem (Riffaterre’s “referential fallacy”). This student, like Umehara ignoring the poet’s omission of the initial “a,” goes straight to the dictionary and finds that, as noted above, in Buddhist lore an a-shura represents those beings who are too bound up in selfish desires to achieve enlightenment. The title of the relevant chapter of Umehara’s (1983) book, Shura no Sekai o Koete (Going beyond the Shura’s world) implies that this world is an unfortunate state from which the Shura-poet is trying to escape. Other commentators, too, lean heavily on this negative, sociolectic, version of the shura. Mita Munesuke is an exception in that he points out that the ashura was originally a benign Persian deity, demoted to an evil opponent of their god Indra by the Brahmans, partly reinstated by early Indian Buddhism to one of the eight kings who guard the scriptures, and then finally demoted to his more recent position because of his contentiousness. He concludes that Miyazawa was simply aware of both positive and negative tendencies in the ashura’s background, and thus used the god as a figure for his own contradictory self. Even Mita persists in this kind of autobiographical approach: the Shura is supposed to represent the poet’s psychological state – and this throughout the whole “Haru to Shura” collection, although Mita, like so many commentators, does not present a detailed reading of a single complete poem (Mita 1984: 110 ff.).

Umehara’s notes (1983) are among the most recent specific treatments of at least parts of this poem; his approach to Miyazawa’s poetry in general evinces a refreshing disenchantment with most past readings – quite justifiably, I believe, in the light of the autobiographical kind of approach outlined in this section (Umehara 1983: 207). He insists that “No-one has yet known how to read correctly these poems of Miyazawa’s” (Umehara 1983: 207).

Some of Umehara’s observations tend to support a bimatricial interpretation. First of all, his idea that all of humanity finds itself in the state represented by the conventional ashura – in the same way, according to the Buddhist example, as those animals which live by killing others, being killed themselves in turn (Umehara 1983: 223).

This interpretation agrees with the negative opinion of Man adopted by the Shura of our poem. But Umehara must then face the problem of distinguishing between this ashura state of all living beings, and the Shura of this text. He refers us to a Buddhist parable according to which a falcon is revolted by the fact that it must live by killing others. Umehara seems to mean that, like our Shura, the falcon is the only one to be conscious of the dog-eat-dog side of social life. However, he tends to identify the falcon rather with Miyazawa himself. That is to say that, having decided that all the beings in the poem are ashuras, he has recourse to an extra-textual authority to distinguish between the Shura and Man; one wonders why he had not thought to do so in light of the conditions of the text. Further, regarding the textual meaning of Haru (Spring), Umehara treats only the Haru of the title of the collection, suggesting that it represents “the eternally renewed brilliance of Nature” – an image far from the negative Spring painted in such somber colors by this poem (Umehara 1983: 217). He does not perceive that the Haru of the poem is a figure designed to convey the negative state of Man himself. This proposition of Umehara’s provides an example of the Shintoist bias (for Shintoism venerates spirit-infused Nature) of this critic, which distorts Buddhist concepts throughout his notes. At this point, Umehara parts company with our text and returns to the themes that he imagines run through the collection in general.

3.4.1 Overview

The text in fact alternates neatly between groups of images generated by each matrix. Matrix no. 1 (MP1, involving the human – or relatively negative – world) underlies lines 1–4, 15–20, 25–26, 29–31, 35–38, 43–46, and 50–52. Matrix no. 2 (MP2, the Shura’s – or a relatively positive – world) underlies lines 7–11, 21–24, 27–28, 39–42, and 47–49. There are certain groups of lines which may seem to contain elements of both positive and negative matrices; they are thus microcosms of the text’s total matricial structure, and some of them sound rather like authorial comment. The negative part of each is a product of matrix no. 1, and the positive, of matrix no. 2. For instance, the dark/light imagery of lines 12–14 and perhaps also the light/dark imagery of lines 50–51, and the specific statement about the duality of existence in lines 32–34, have to do with two related ideas: (a) the duality of the shura-nature itself: the Shura’s consciousness of the warring of good and evil within himself (cf. Tanikawa in Kusano 1958: 46); and (b) the larger duality of the worlds of the divine and that of man.

Lines 12–14 are especially revealing in this second regard, the word for ‘sacred’ – an explicit reference to the world of the divine – being reinforced by the use of an archaic word for ‘glass’ or ‘crystal’ (hari), which originally derives from Sanskrit Buddhist terminology. Likewise, just before the Shura’s self-destruction, the way in which the ginkgo tree glows again in line 50 in contrast to the cypresses’ blackness is not contradictory: rather, in its role as another of these “bimatricial” images, this image asserts the primacy of the duality of good and evil in Nature itself. One other image-group that might be treated in the same way is in lines 25–26: the pearly clouds represent the positive matrix and the following rhetorical question (“where, in this Spring, can one find a bird that sings?”) represents the negative one, since it expects a negative answer. More specifically, metonymies enable the clouds to represent the Shura, whose abode they are (cf. 3.4.2), and the lack of birdsong to represent the “dark” Spring of Man’s world.

A reading of the text from beginning to end does not necessarily mean that images must be read in linear progression. From the outset, the poem’s Shura is a being who inhabits an extra-human world; he is benign, in a reversal of the antisocial connotations mentioned in 3.1, and looks down from the clouds on a Spring landscape, the dark-toned side of which symbolizes the negative attitude of humanity throughout the poem. The Shura seems to have at least some hope that all of the world below may not be dark, and this is reflected in the images which point to the existence of a world of brightness. He spies a peasant below, who for a moment appears to be looking up; however, the peasant cannot see into the world of the Shura, whose hopes are therefore outweighed by the images of darkness: forests of spear-like cypresses, never usually associated with Spring in Japanese literature, figure three times in the text. Miyazawa uses the German word Zypressen, which sounds suspiciously like the English “depressing”; such a paronomasia would provide an explanation for the overdetermination of the choice of this word. The lack of response from humanity totally destroys the Shura, who chooses to lose his existence as an individual being and be absorbed back into the totality of Nature, where at least there is the possibility of a brighter side of things (symbolized by the occasional flashes of light in the abovementioned images).

The above images expressing a portrait of the Shura in the text should be viewed as “mapping onto” each other, rather than as parts of some linear progression. Thus, the Shura’s various features and faculties are part of his nature from the outset, for example, his tears foreshadow his ultimate disintegration (this would not exclude the possibility of representing the poem as a fabula. The situations in “Haru to Shura” and “The Waste Land” will be compared below, Section 4).

3.4.2 MP1

Lines 1–4 obviously deal with the human world, to which we will assign our first matrix. The akebi-vine is specific to the Japanese and other far Eastern countrysides, to which the swamplands or wetlands add a negative touch, also a clue that this is a rice-growing landscape. It is important to point this out, if only to emphasize that the “sanctimoniousness” or “hypocrisy” (tengoku) of l. 4 is that of human society, and not an attribute of the Shura. As Ono Ryûshô notes, some commentators have suggested that, because tengoku is explicitly linked with the shura-nature in Nichiren’s teachings, this must also be the case in the poem. Ono rightly objects to this, and yet not for reasons based on the text; he is more concerned to pin down a “Miyazawa version” of the shura-concept, which is supposed to apply throughout the poet’s work (Ono 1979: 138–139).

There is, moreover, a clever pun on the word for ‘heaven’: the pronunciation of the four characters tengoku-moyô, divorced from their logographic form, could also imply a ‘heavenly prospect.’ But what the Shura sees in the human world below – ironically, in view of this pronunciation – is far from being a “heavenly prospect”; the phonetic form of the word itself is virtually an example of hypocrisy. Lines 8–9 tell us that the Shura is definitely the viewer of this prospect, who is located above the scene of lines 1–4 – somewhere up in the “atmosphere.” From on high, he can see that anything that looks like religious activity in human society is really only pretense.

In sum, we know already by line 8 that this first matricial concept (MP1) is concerned with the human world’s lack of a genuine response to the divine. This is of course the Japanese society of the early twentieth century; against the background of the age-old animistic beliefs and superstitions of a still half-agrarian society, it was hard to find – outside the priesthood – people interested in anything as intellectually sophisticated as Buddhism. In the light of line 4, then, the “grey steel” of the “heart/mental image” in line 1 is a figure for the darkness and hardness of human hearts and has nothing to do with the Shura, as one commentator would have it.

In lines 15–20, the darkness and sadness of the Spring scene – both before and after the peasant’s appearance – are quite explicit, for example in lines 16–17, (cf. also ll. 31 and 42); the sky may be blue elsewhere in the poem (e.g. l. 27), but it’s a sad blue. The repeated comment that “there is no truth in the world below” (ll. 20 and 45) I have put with matrix no. 1, as this seems to be made by the narrator rather than the Shura, and in any case refers to the world of Man.^[6]

Turning to lines 25–26, as noted above, line 25 really characterizes the positive side of the Shura; however, it is part of the same sentence as line 26, which – in negatively characterizing the world of Mankind – plainly sets the scene for the Shura’s final disappointment.

In lines 29–31, the word “dazzling” is of course part of the general scheme of “enlightenment” imagery; but here this is juxtaposed (in a disturbing piece of ungrammaticality) with “collapsing,” which gives a sense of something drastic about to happen. In fact, the latter image seems to prefigure the demise not only of the Shura himself, but even that of a whole heavenly order.

Lines 30–34 provide the poem’s clearest indication that the darkened features of this Spring are figures for the negative world of mankind.

The section most obviously related to the world of Mankind is that covered by lines 35–38: the simple description of the peasant’s approach. Yet, even here, we have a positive element in the “gold” of the grasses (the original uses the meliorative term ôgon – lit. ‘yellow-gold’). It’s as though we have a reminder that, although mankind may be oblivious to higher things, the natural environment is full of signals of their existence. By contrast, the silent cypresses of line 36 add a somber note (cf. l. 31).

In lines 43–45, the cypresses stand as dark witnesses to the final statement of the absence of the ‘True Word’ among mankind; the “birds” – which reappear here – are evidently the negative birds of line 34.

Although already mentioned in 3.4.1, lines 50–51 may also stand on their own as an image directly characterizing mankind’s world: the ginkgos’ “glow” is like a final glimmer of positive light before the ultimate darkness expressed by the cypresses in the next line.

3.4.3 MP2

Our second matrix (MP2) has to do with the quest of the Shura. It may be formulated thus: A quasi-divine being wishes to make contact with the human world. This notion of the will to contact mankind coming from the divine side is a commonplace of religious theory, but this poem’s version of it is quite innovative: in this search the seeker is defeated. There is no hint of a conversion of Mankind.

In lines 7–11, the Shura is already depressed or disappointed; in retrospect (cf. ll. 39–42) the human attitude of sanctimoniousness (l. 4) is the cause. The flecks of amber (ll. 5–6) falling from the sky are also less puzzling in a retrospective light; they belong to MP2 as images that use vocabulary containing the seme ‘shining’ to represent the divine world and its possibilities (cf. ll. 50–51). On the way, the landscape “wobbles” (yusureru) through the Shura’s tears (l. 11), which T. Amazawa has called the “key” to the whole text (though nowhere in his book does he actually give a close reading of the whole text). Amazawa even suggests that the up-down movement (in Japanese script) of lines 12–36 is meant to represent this wobbling movement; but if so, (a) why does it not start from line 11, and (b) – more important – why does it not extend throughout the text? (Amazawa 1976: 209). This movement may have more to do with the “blowing to and fro” of the “sacred crystal breeze” (l. 14), the depiction of which begins precisely at line 12; the way in which this movement stops at line 36 could then be explained by the appearance of the peasant in line 37, putting an end to the positive possibilities symbolized by the crystal breeze. A possible alternative view of this graphic movement may be that it is an attempt to represent the movement of cypresses in the wind – but then objection (b) above would still apply.

Lines 21–24 repeat the Shura’s self-identification. The clouds’ ungrammatically sudden dispersal reflects the Shura’s agitated movement in reaction to the immediately preceding statement about the loss of the True Word. The “shining bowl of April” (l. 29) is another in the abovementioned set of expressions representing the divine world: note that it is the abode of the Shura, suspended above the world of Man.

In lines 27–28, we learn that the Shura comes down into Man’s world. The “blue” (besides indicating the time of day) raises echoes of the use of the same color in lines 7 and 42 to characterize the Shura’s mood of sadness or anger: it’s as though, even in seeking to contact Man, he holds out little hope of success.

Lines 39–42 confirm that the Shura is indeed interested in contacting the human world. Lines 39–40 state: “he looks at me, but can he really see me?” And then we have the repetition of the statement that the “True Word” is not to be found in the world of man, followed by the Shura’s tears (definitely generated by matrix no. 2).

Lines 46–49 and line 52 represent the resolution of MP2. The final six lines come after a one-line break on the page (which exists in two different editions of Miyazawa’s works). But just before this, in line 46, the Shura’s tears show his profound disappointment with Man, and prefigure the “sparks” of the final line. The Shura returns to his abode in the clouds, but even there his body no longer functions properly. Then we have his dramatic death-wish – that his body be scattered into fragments.

Line 52 confirms that this has been realized: he self-destructs because of his defeat in the attempt at contact with the human world. The sparks of cloud falling down are plainly enough fragments of the disintegrating Shura, who is repeatedly represented by cloud, or associated with cloud (cf. l. 21, where the clouds’ sudden dispersal expresses the Shura’s agitated movement; also the pearly clouds of l. 25, which are a neat figure for the optimistic, spiritually enlightened side of the Shura). The “sparks” represent his positive, divine side which now can no longer hold together in the face of Man’s lack of interest; yet their fall to earth may still represent a final gift by the Shura of this bright world to Man. These highly ungrammatical sparks are able to have this function because of their place – within the semiotic system of matrix no. 2 – as part of the ‘light/shining’ motif which represents the immanence of the divine throughout the text. This light is no longer the sparkling sea of line 13, the shining snow and white polarized light of Tian Shan (lit.: ‘celestial mountains’: ll. 18–19), or the dazzling heaven of line 29: it has finally been broken into fragments. Thus, these changes in the ‘light’ motif through the text reflect the growing disappointment of the Shura’s hopes of Man. These sparks may also echo the tears of line 46, which now seem in retrospect to have been prefigured by the flecks of amber which fall from the sky in line 6.

3.4.4 Textual matricial structure (TMS)

The poem’s TMS may be summarized as The Shura’s (= spiritual world’s) sacrifice is caused by humankind (= the earthbound world). In more detail, in matrix no. 1 Man is characterized as unheeding of the “True Word”; in matrix no. 2 the Shura – who belongs to a realm less earthbound than mankind’s – is made to suffer from this deficiency of man’s, the resulting relation between the two matrices (IMR) being that Man’s attitude causes the Shura’s demise.

The fact that Miyazawa chooses a being whose connotations are negative contributes to establishing the ironical character of the central proposition of the poem: the comparison of Man with the Shura implies that a Spring without contact between the human world and the divine is much more negative than the purgatory which is normally associated with the Buddhist ashura. If the Shura of the poem recognizes the existence of this “True Word” – in contrast to Man – at the same time, he resembles the sociolectic ashura from the viewpoint of his disquiet, of his contradictory nature. Whereas a bodhisattva would be expected to show only compassion toward Man, the human beings of the poem make our Shura angry and distressed. As a result of the ironical reversal of roles of Man and Shura, Man’s lack of interest in any world other than his own makes him all the more culpable.

3.4.5 The intertext

Our Shura’s fruitless quest for the True Word among men and his own final destruction – indirectly because of the incomprehension of Man – inevitably recalls the mission of Jesus and the incomprehension of his compatriots. It is worth noting that Miyazawa was strongly influenced by a Christian friend, Saitô Shûjirô (Janome 2006). Although Miyazawa himself may not have had access to Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” any reader coming across “Haru to Shura” over the decades since the 1930s certainly will, and thus will be able to choose it as an intertextual model.

In “Haru to Shura,” there is a religious figure from another dimension – the Shura – who longs to get in contact with Man, in the form of an uncaring collection of peasants who keep their eyes fixed on the soil. Likewise, in “The Waste Land” there is the rehabilitating Christ figure (the “road to Emmaus” section, lines 359–365) in relation to the great world-focused majority. In that section of the poem, Christ is a shadowy figure who is “seen but not seen.”

We may assume that this thematic analogy occurred independently of Eliot. But it remains as an example of the international nature of semiotic structure in modernist poetry. Both poets held long-lasting religious convictions – Eliot in Anglo-Catholic Christianity and Miyazawa in Mâhâyana Buddhism – which strongly influenced the propositional content of their poems. “Haru to Shura” came out just two years after first publication of “The Waste Land” (in English), seeming to make any question of direct influence unlikely (Japanese translation by Ueda Tamotsu, 1938). Yet, in a broad thematic sense, Eliot’s poem could be an intertextual model of Miyazawa’s.

From such a standpoint, Miyazawa’s poem is a virtual miniature of “The Waste Land.” The countryside on which the Shura looks down is a wasteland of the spirit, being populated by earthy peasants with no interest in spiritual things. If the Shura’s action seems more positive than Christ’s in Eliot’s poem, we must remember that the shadowy figure encountered by the disciples on the road to Emmaus is after all the resurrected Christ, who has already willingly “self-destructed” by death on the Cross.

The essential structure of any intertext must serve as a model for the TMS of our text: Man (in general) refuses the message of the being who could save him, obstinately clinging to his own mindset – thus causing his would-be savior suffering. The poem’s propositional structure implies that, if only mankind would take the trouble to acknowledge the Shura’s existence, it would gain access to that higher world consistently symbolized in the text by “light” imagery (cf. my note on lines 35–38 in 3.4.2 above.) It’s as though we have a reminder that, although mankind may be oblivious of higher things, the natural environment is full of signals of their existence. Eliot does something quite similar from time to time in his poem, for example, the “inexplicable splendour” of “the walls of Magnus Martyr” (ll. 263–265).

That mankind is in need of being enlightened is abundantly clear from the text (cf. especially l. 4). It is perhaps not explicit in our text that the Shura desires man’s salvation, but he certainly is very concerned about man’s spiritual attitude.^[7]

3.5.1 The interpretant

In both Miyazawa’s and Eliot’s poems, rather than the compassion of the divine being, what counts is Man’s will to “hear”– to take seriously – the “True Word,” in the most generalized meaning of that term. It does not necessarily refer to any particular scripture, but in the background lie the Lotus Sutra of Buddhism and the Christian gospels. The interpretant, then, consists of (MP1), The difficulty that Man finds in recognizing the divine, and of (MP2), the sacrifice, because of this human blindness, of a being who exists beyond the human world. Let us note that the intermatricial relation (IMR) remains constant: the idea that the unreceptive attitude of Man provokes the sacrifice of the divine being.

3.5.2 Sociolectic context and change

To return to the title, in retrospect, this is an encapsulated version of the text’s matricial structure: the Shura is seen to represent something like a hope for human interest in higher things; this particular Haru is then the negative Spring of unheeding humanity – a complete reversal of the Japanese sociolect’s image of that season.^[8]

The SC, on the other hand, is precisely the sociolectic reading of the title – taken out of the poem’s context – which unfortunately is what our student tended to do, abetted by not a few published commentaries. According to this reading, of course, Spring can only be good, and our Shura has the conventional negative meaning of ashura. It is important to note that, according to convention, “Spring” is read as a figure for the world of mankind (MP1), and the Shura as a figure for a higher form of existence: thus the SC retains its character as a kind of “hypogram” of the interpretant, containing lexically very similar expressions which are, however, related in a very different way. The conventional view of the components of the SC are that Spring/Man’s world is morally superior to an ashura-like existence; this is radically reversed by the matricial structure of the poem.