今日の床

Today's Tokonoma


紺色の本紙と清々しい表装が印象的な軸は、「二月堂焼経」（奈良時代）、
お花は、小葉のズイナと梅花空木です。


The impressive scroll in the tokonoma is part of the so-called Nigatsudō yakegyō ("Burnt Sutra from the Nigatsudō"), which dates to the Nara period (710 - 784).
The flowers are both native to Japan, the small-leaved zuina (Itea japonica), and the baika utsugi (Philadelphus satsumi).




さて、奈良・東大寺二月堂といえば、お水取りの行事。
お松明が焚かれ、火祭りのようになることは皆さまご存知かと存じます。
奈良国立博物館の西山厚先生が、和塾の講座の中で、その魅力をお話されていますので、
是非リポートをご覧になってみてください→（日本を学ぶ大人の学校「和塾」）


The Nigatsudō, a sub-temple of the Tōdaiji in Nara, is associated with a ceremony called Omizu-tori. Many of you surely know that during this event large torches are lit and carried through parts of the temple, leading it to be commonly called the fire festival of Tōdaiji. Nishiyama-sensei from the Nara National Museum discussed this fascinating event in his lecture here for the Wajuku study group, so please have a look at their entry for the event. (Wajuku)


しかし、よく火事にならないなぁと思いますが・・
過去にはやはりありました。
江戸時代の寛文7年（1667）、二月堂は全焼してしまいます。

このときに焼け残ったお経の断簡が、この二月堂焼経なのであります。


It's amazing that the building does not catch fire. But of course, it did burn down once in the past. In fact, the Nigatsudō burnt completely down in the early Edo period (1600 - 1868), in the year 1667. This scroll is a fragment of one of the sutras that was taken out of the temple after being slightly burnt in that fire.





一字一字、厳格に書かれた文字が、焦げてもなお銀色に輝いています。
そしてメラメラと焦げた跡が、なんともいえない景色を生み出しています


The silver characters of the sutra, painstakingly transcribed one at a time, seem luminous even today despite having been burnt so long ago. The pattern and changes in the color of the indigo paper brought about by the flames at the bottom of the fragment possess an indescribable beauty, adding all the more to the fascination of this piece.