Imakagami

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title: "Imakagami" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1170s-books", "1170s-in-japan", "heian-period-in-literature", "late-old-japanese-texts", "monogatari", "12th-century-japanese-books", "history-books-of-the-heian-period"] topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imakagami" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

The Imakagami is a Japanese rekishi-monogatari (historical tale) written in the late Heian period. It is also called the Kokagami or the Shoku-Yotsugi.

Date and authorship

It has been speculated that the work was compiled in The author is uncertain,

Structure and style

The text is in ten volumes,

The work contains 140 waka and countless references to Japanese and Chinese literature.

Content

The work begins with a group of pilgrims visiting the temples of Yamato Province being approached by an elderly woman who, when asked if she lives in the region, says that she lived in the Capital for one hundred years and then in Yamashiro Province for another fifty, before moving to Yamato. The listeners are astonished at her great age, but she humbly replies by listing several others in China and Japan who had supposedly lived to great age, including her grandfather Yotsugi. She says her name is Ayame (iris), which was given to her because of her birth on the fifth day of the fifth month, the same day as the Iris Festival, although she had also been given the nickname Imakagami (the new mirror) by her mistress Murasaki Shikibu, in reference to a poem by Bai Juyi that described the casting of a new mirror on that day.

The rest of the work describes the old lady's recollections of the past. It describes the period of roughly 150 years and is primarily focused on an account of the imperial family and the Fujiwara and Murakami-Genji clans.

Relationship to other works

The work is classified as one of the four "mirrors" of history along with the Ōkagami, Mizukagami and Masukagami. It is considered to be a direct continuation of the Ōkagami.

Although it was written during the period of rule by the Taira military clan (Japanese Wikipedia article), its focus is on waka poetry and the affairs of nobles at court.

According to its preface, it was written during the reign of Emperor Takakura, in the 2nd year of the Kaō era (1170). The book is credited to Fujiwara no Tametsune. It is the second of the four mirror series and is some years following Ōkagami. While providing a glimpse into life in the royal court of the Heian period, it has been criticized for "ignoring [the] political reality" of the court.

It is a sequel to Ōkagami and is set in 1025-1170 from the reign of Emperor Go-Ichijō, in the 2nd year of Manju and ending with the Emperor Takakura's reign. The tale is supposedly by a fictitious grandson of Ōyake no Yotsugi who was visiting Hasedera of Sakurai, in Nara.

~Hijiri88, June 2015.

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References

Bibliography

  • {{cite book | last = Keene | first = Donald | author-link = Donald Keene | title = A History of Japanese Literature, Vol. 1: Seeds in the Heart — Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century | publisher = Columbia University Press | location = New York | year = 1999 | ISBN = 978-0-231-11441-7
  • {{cite book | last = Matsumura | first = Hiroji | author-link = Hiroji Matsumura | title = Rekishi Monogatari | publisher = Hanawa Shobō | location = Tokyo | year = 1979 | ISBN = 978-4-827-33016-8
  • {{cite book | last = Nishizawa | first = Masashi | author-link = Masashi Nishizawa | title = Koten Bungaku o Yomu tame no Yōgo Jiten | publisher = Tōkyō-dō Shuppan | location = Tokyo | year = 2002 | ISBN = 4-490-10600-9
  • {{cite book | last = Takehana | first = Isao | author-link = Isao Takehana | title = Imakagami* (3 vols.)* | publisher = Kōdansha | location = Tokyo | year = 1984 | ISBN = 978-4-061-58329-0

References

  1. NHK Publishing. (24 May 2016)
  2. ''Britannica Kokusai Dai-hyakkajiten'' article "Imakagami". 2007. Britannica Japan Co.
  3. ''[[MyPedia]]'' article "Imakagami". 2007. Hitachi Systems & Services.
  4. ''Digital Daijisen'' entry "Imakagami". Shogakukan.
  5. or shortly after 1170; [[Donald Keene]], citing [[Isao Takehana]], stated that the work was probably written between the eighth month of 1174 and the seventh month of 1175.Keene 1999 : 559, citing (566, note 28) Takehana 1984 : 620 (Vol. 3).
  6. Ōyake no Yotsugi
  7. Keene 1999 : 560, citing (566, note 32) Matsumura 1979 : 168-180.
  8. Keene 1999 : 560.
  9. Keene 1999 : 560, citing (566, note 31) Takehana 1984 : 38-39 (Vol. 1).
  10. Nishizawa "Rekishi-monogatari" ''IN'' Nishizawa (ed.) 2002 : 249.
  11. (1991). "Political Thought in Japanese Historical Writing: From Kojiki (712) to Tokushi Yoron (1712)". [[Wilfrid Laurier University Press]].
  12. (February 10, 2003). "The Power of Denial: Buddhism, Purity, and Gender". [[Princeton University Press]].

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1170s-books1170s-in-japanheian-period-in-literaturelate-old-japanese-textsmonogatari12th-century-japanese-bookshistory-books-of-the-heian-period