What Happened On This Day in "Recent" Bonsai History?
AUGUST
| 1 | 1915 -- Peter Mutsumi Sugawara was born in Salinas, CA. [He would serve as a sergeant in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the all Japanese-American unit of the US Army, during World War II, and would be honorably discharged in November, 1945. He would then settle in Los Altos, CA in 1954 with his first wife, Kiyo (d. 1968), and four children. Pete would be the sole proprietor of the Monte Bello Nursery until his retirement in 1980. In addition to the usual fare, the nursery would carry rare and unusual, plants, many of which Pete propagated himself. Monte Bello would often be mentioned as a prime source in Sunset Magazine. The nursery would be among the first to carry fine Japanese bonsai pots. These would be sold in the Monte Bello gift shop presided over by his second wife, Amy (d. 2000). A well-respected nurseryman and bonsai enthusiast, Pete would be active in the California Nurserymen's Association, the Kusamura Bonsai Club (he'd be elected in 1961 as the group's first president), the Golden State Bonsai Federation (Pete and Amy were at the founding meeting), and the San Francisco chapter of Ikebana International. A 48"H formal upright Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) was created about 1954 by Peter Sugawara. Purchased in 1972, it trained with the advice of Peter Sugawara and donated by June M. Chambers of Woodside, CA to the North American Collection of the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. It resides in a Japanese container of Tokoname ware. Pete would pass away March 10, 2003. He would bequeath his entire collection of bonsai, pots, and tools to the GSBF and several of his bonsai would be on display at GSBF Collection North.] (Obituaries, Los Altos Town Crier, http://latc.com/2003/03/19/people/obituaries.news01.print.html ; "In Memoriam," Kusamura Bonsai Club, http://www.gsbf-bonsai.org/kusamura/april2003/memoriam.html ; "The National Collection of North American Bonsai," http://www.gwu.edu/~jeffstep/bonsai/nbf/bwc/bwc_no_am.html ) SEE ALSO: Feb 25, Nov 6 |
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1903 -- George Sherman Avery, Jr. was born. [He would go on to
become a botanical researcher with a Ph.D. in plant physiology from the
University of Wisconsin, director of the Connecticut Arboretum in New London,
and professor of botany at Connecticut College. In 1944 he would
be named director of the
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the
following year establish the quarterly
Plants & Gardens
journal. Special editions of these would be reprinted as a handbook series for
which the Garden would be recognized and acclaimed. In the first handbook he
would identifiy his intent "to make available to people everywhere the
horticultural experience gained in this institution." By 1948 Dr.
Avery would have hired Japanese gardener Frank Okamura to begin work on
the surviving trees from Ernest Coe's 1925 gift of bonsai to the BBG.
(Okamura would also have rejuvenated the BBG's Japanese Garden, which would
be cautiously called the "Oriental Garden" during the second world war.)
[After WWII and during the Occupation Period through the Korean Conflict, there would be increasing numbers of letters to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden from U.S. Army personnel in Japan inquiring how they could arrange to bring bonsai back into the States. Plant quarantine rules would make it practically impossible, though a few servicemen would manage to smuggle small bonsai in their rucksacks. Once back, there would be many inquiries on how to take care of these. (By the way, some of these "rucksack bonsai," including a Chinese juniper, would end up on display at the BBG.) [When these letters grew to several a week, the director of the Garden, Dr. Avery, would realize there was a need for a handbook on the subject. He would send a circumspect letter out to six well-known and highly respected horticulturists at different public gardens around the country, mentioning the growing interest as measured by BBG plant information correspondence. Did they think such a handbook was warranted or that there might be a demand for it? All of them would advise against the idea. [Avery would ignore them, and invite Japanese horticulturist Kanichiro Yashiroda to be the guest editor. A one-time student gardener at the Royal Botanic garden at Kew in London, Yashiroda would invite amateur and professional Japanese bonsaimen to write for the handbook-to-be and laboriously translate their articles into English. (Although he would have spend a year at Kew, during the war years his English would go unused.) The typed manuscript and photographs would arrive at the BBG late in 1952, and after a bit of editorial work by Frances Miner and Dr. Avery, Bonsai -- Dwarf Potted Trees was published as the Autumn 1953 issue of Plants & Gardens. It would be practically an overnight success and for a few years the only English-language guide to the subject readily available in this country. [The BBG Instruction Department then would set up a learn-by-doing bonsai class in 1954 with Dr. Avery and Frank Okamura presenting the 3-session beginners' course. Nearly a hundred people from all walks of life would initially attend. [In 1958 Dr. Avery would invite Japanese teacher Yuji Yoshimura to come to the BBG. Two years later Dr. and Mrs. Avery would go to Japan with instructions and gift funds (from 1958) in hand to purchase "distinguished" older bonsai for the BBG's expanding collection. He would head the BBG until 1969. And by the following year, some five thousand students would have graduated from the Garden's series of bonsai classes. Additionally, Dr. Avery would serve as secretary of the Botanical Society of America 1937-39, vice-president in 1943, and president in 1957. He would be recipient of the American Horticultural Society Professional Award in 1970, and receive the Scott Arboretum's Arthur Hoyt Scott Medal and Award in 1974. (Bonsai -- Dwarf Potted Trees would see thirty-eight printings through Nov. 1988 alone. Handbook on Bonsai: Special Techniques, a companion volume released in 1956 and also edited by Yashiroda, would see its twentieth printing by that date as well.) At his home in Connecticut, Dr. Avery would die on August 6, 1994 at the age of 91.] (Mae Pan, BBG Archivist, in correspondence to RJB Feb. 20, 2002, including Dr. Avery's obituary in Plants & Gardens, Vol. 50, No. 3, 1994; Scholtz, Elizabeth "Japanese Beginnings at Brooklyn Botanic Garden," Journal, ABS, Vol. 13, No. 1, Spring 1979, pp. 4, 6, 7; Hobbs, Mary M. "Wind Governs Gardening," Bonsai, BCI, Vol. XII, No. 1, January/February 1973, pg. 17; O'Connell, Jean "The Art of Bonsai," Science Digest, March 1970, pg. 38; "Bonsai in Brooklyn," Life, May 23, 1955, pp. 84, 87-88; Elvin McDonald's Foreword in Tomlinson, Harry The Complete Book of Bonsai (New York: Abbeville Press, Inc.; 1990), pg. 6; "Past and Present Officers of the Botanical Society of America," http://www.botany.org/bsa/membership/past-off.html ; "Scott Arboretum: A. Hoyt Scott Award Recipients," http://www.scottarboretum.org/pages/medalpast.html ; "Past American Horticultural Society National Award Winners," http://www.ahs.org/about/abpastwin.htm.) SEE ALSO: Jan 12, Jul 13, Aug 6. |
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1945 -- At 8:15 a.m., an American B-29 bomber dropped a 12 to 15 mega-ton-yield
atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, a designated miltary target.
The bomb exploded 1900 feet above the city, flattened all buildings
within a 3 to 4 square mile area, and initiated a firestorm which
burned nearly everything that had not already been destroyed by the
blast in a roughly circular area of 4.4 square miles around the point
directly under the explosion.
A hundred thousand Japanese died outright. [Close to that number
again would die from burns and radiation sickness. Hundreds would
be disfigured.] (The 16-day Potsdam Conference involving U.S. Pres.
Harry S Truman, Soviet Gen. Josef Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill had ended Aug. 2 with Tokyo rejecting a call upon Japan to surrender.
Two days later U.S. planes dropped leaflets over Hiroshima warning "Your
city will be obliterated unless your Government surrenders.") [On
Aug. 9 a 20 to 25 mega-ton-yield plutonium-core bomb would be dropped on Nagasaki,
killing 75,000 outright and close to that number again from lingering effects.
Imperial Japan would sue for peace the next day, and accept the Allied surrender
terms on Aug. 14. Signing those terms on Sept. 2, Japan would end
its eight year long war and prevent what potentially could have been a
drawn-out invasion by Allied troops of the Japanese islands.]
One reason why this is important to us: Three kilometers [sic] from ground zero was the Yamaki family compound. All the members were inside at the time and each was cut by flying glass fragments. Miraculously, however, none of them suffered any permanent injury. An old Japanese white pine ( Pinus parviflora 'Miyajima') and a large number of other bonsai were sitting on benches in the garden behind the house, which was also a commercial nursery. Amazingly, none of these bonsai were harmed by the blast either, because the nursery was protected by a tall wall. [The Japanese Broadcasting Cooperation would later film the bonsai garden and report on how the wall had saved the bonsai. That old bonsai, approximately 375 years old entering the 21st century, would be the largest specimen (41-1/4" or 105 cm tall) in the Japanese gift to the United States for the latter's Bicentennial some thirty-one years later. It would be donated by bonsai master Masaru Yamaki, who had been a very influential member of the Japanese bonsai community and who would live to the age of 89 years. Yamaki-san had learned the art and science of bonsai from his father and, following the close of WWII, would be one of the leaders of the effort to revive bonsai as a commercial enterprise in Japan. He would be well-known for both his masterpiece Japanese black as well as Japanese white pines, including some of the very unusual Nishiki (corky bark) Japanese white pines. The aforementioned large old tree originally came from Miyajima (literally "Shrine Island"), a 19 mile-in-circumference body south of the city a short distance across Hiroshima Bay, whose white pines are rare and therefore considered very valuable.] [P.S. The close call of this particular bonsai would not become known to the U.S. until the year 2001 when two young men came to the National Arboretum to see their grandfather 's gift, which had been given before they were born. On a return trip to Washington, Shigeru Yamaki brought documentation with him of his grandfather's illustrious career.] To recap: a rare Japanese white pine was born in the south of an Asian island-nation approximately a decade after the Pilgrims' ship Mayflower landed off of Cape Cod on the northeast shores of North America. In a few years the tree would be grafted and made into a hachi-no-ki, the deep-bowl predecessor to bonsai. The containerized tree would be aged about a century and a half and the leaders of its homeland would continue to be isolated from most of the rest of the world when a people, many traceable back to those Pilgrims, declared their independence as a new country. Their descendents, almost a hundred and seventy years later, would use a new weapon to stop the imperialistic expansion of the descendents of the group to which the tree's original caretakers belonged. The white pine was fortuitously protected by a wall although it was near the center of the weapon's blast The devestated latter people initially feared the victorious former would behave in a traditional post-war manner with rape and pillage, but the vanquishers instead helped rebuild the ruin and raise the nation to a higher standard of living than it had ever known. The assistance included having some of the briefly occupying troops and/or their families learn some of the native arts, including bonsai. When the younger nation celebrated its two hundredth birthday, a number of trees and stones were gifted by the older country as a living green sign of continuing peace, acknowledging that at least a few in the younger nation could truly appreciate and care for the islands' representatives. The largest and oldest member of which was, of course, that special Japanese white pine, a truly unique specimen in the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. (" Hiroshima Survivor " by Felix B. Laughlin, NBF Bulletin, Vol. XII, Number 2, Winter 2001, pp. 1, 5, 6 (the web site link to this article has additional wonderful pictures, some in color); The People's Chronology by James Trager, New York: Henry Holt and Company, revised 1994 edition, pp.225, 893; International Bonsai Digest Bicentennial Edition, ed. by Juyne M. Tayson, M.D., Los Angeles: IBD, 1976, pg. 27; The National Bonsai Collection Guidebook, ed. by John Naka and Yuji Yoshimura, Atlanta, GA: Symmes Systems, 1977, pp. 4, 13; Kucan, JO Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Review of the Consequences, Implications in the Post 9/11 World. J Burns & Surg Wound Care [serial online] 2004;3(1):8. Available from: http://www.journalofburns.com , which includes the paragraph "In both cities the blast completely destroyed everything within a radius of 1 mile from the center of explosion [emphasis added] . Hiroshima lost its identity as a city. Over one quarter of the population was killed almost instantly and an equal number was seriously injured, so that even if there had been no damage to structures and installations the normal city life would still have been completely shattered. Nearly everything was heavily damaged up to a radius of 3 miles from the blast, and beyond this distance damage, although comparatively light, extended for several more miles. Glass was broken up to 12 miles away." The statement that the family compound was 3 kilometers away from ground zero means that it was thus less than two miles from the center of explosion. The various articles seen -- including some not cited here -- give a range of bomb yields, casualties, areas of destruction, etc., so that true discrepencies between the tale of the survival of the family and trees and the "official" blast summaries are difficult to easily discern.) SEE ALSO: Mar 20, Jul 9. 1994 -- Dr. George Sherman Avery, Jr., who headed the Brooklyn Botanic Garden from 1944 to 1969 and built up its bonsai collection while popularizing the hobby, died. ( "In Memorium," Plants & Gardens, Vol. 50, No. 3, 1994 ) SEE ALSO: Aug 3. |
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2002 -- Lalbagh Botanical Garden in Bagalore inaugurated a bonsai park, probably the
first of its kind in India, during the bi-annual flower show opening which opened
today. (The January Republic Day Flower Show, organised since 1922 by the Mysore
Horticultural Society at the Glass House of the two hundred-year old 250-acre
Lalbagh, might be compared to London's Chelsea Show and has had bonsai displays
previously. Bangalore, the fifth largest metropolitan area in that country, is
known as the Garden City of India.) [The bonsai garden -- to be called Rathnamma
-- will be developed on 2.5 acres at a cost of Rs 1.08 crore. A collection of
some 700 private specimens said to be worth Rs 2.5 crore are being donated by expert
collector, Mr. S. "Bonsai" Srinivas, who will also be the principal adviser for a
bonsai training institute which will also be opened up in Lalbagh. The Japanese-style
garden will be developed in phases and will include waterfalls, a stream, hillock,
lawns and a serpentine walk, a pagoda, a Japanese bridge and a lotus pond. It
opened to the public by the end of 2003.]
(" Bonsai park at Lalbagh,"
The Hindu Business Line, Aug. 6, 2002,
http://www.blonnet.com/2002/08/06/stories/2002080601991701.htm
; "In Brief,"
Deccan Herald, July 2, 2005,
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jul22005/city222030200571.asp
; "Lalbagh entry fee may be doubled,"
Deccan Herald, Oct. 29, 2003,
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/oct29/i6.asp
; "Lalbagh to bloom with flowers"
The Hindu, Jan,. 17, 2002,
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2002/01/17/stories/2002011703020300.htm
) SEE ALSO: Apr 8.
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2005 -- Ernesta Drinker Ballard died in Philadelphia. Her career in bonsai began in 1960
when she took a class taught by Yuji Yoshimura at the Arnold Arboretum. In 1962 she wrote
what some say was the first book on the subject written by an American, The Art of Training
Plants. The book was reprinted in 1974. It was her interest in bonsai that
persuaded her husband, Frederic, to take up the art as well. Founding members of the
American Bonsai Society in 1967, the two were instrumental in introducing California teacher
John Naka to bonsai practitioners on the East Coast within a couple of years. She was
elected to the National Bonsai Foundation Board of Directors in 2004. (Frederic, who
died in 2001, had been the first president of the NBF). Ernesta was also the Director
and President of the
Pennsylvania Horticultural Society for almost twenty years, during which time she directed
the annual Philadelphia Flower Show. That event gained international recognition under
her leadership. And as a member of the Fairmont Park Commission she started an important
community gardening program. In 1977 she was presented with the Arthur Hoyt Scott Medal
and Award by the Scott Arboretum. (Ernesta Drinker Ballard" obituary in
NBF Bulletin, National Bonsai Foundation Newsletter, Vol. XVI, No. 2, Winter 2005, pg. 2;
"Scott Arboretum: A. Hoyt Scott Award Recipients,"
http://www.scottarboretum.org/pages/medalpast.html) SEE ALSO: Mar 13
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| 16 | 1914 -- John Yoshio Naka was born in Ft. Lupton, Colorado, just north of Denver. [He would go on to become a highly respected and influential local, national, and international teacher and author, a Grandmaster of the art.] (Bonsai Techniques by John Naka, pg. 257) SEE ALSO: May 19, Oct 1, Oct 10, Nov 5 |
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2007 -- Bonsai teacher E. Felton Jones died at his home in Durham, North Carolina. (Please see the Tribute Page at
http://www.bonsaicarolina.com/feltonjones.htm.)
(Jones' passing brought to RJB's attention by personal e-mail from
Clifton Pottberg, 30 Apr 2008) SEE ALSO: Jan 7, Apr 4, Nov 15
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1900 -- Frederick Lape was born on the family farm near Esperance,
Schoharie, NY. [He would earn a degree in English at Cornell and
start a teaching career at Stanford University, before he returned in 1928
to the farm to pursue a career in freelance writing. Prolific in
prose and poetry, he would be involved in music, art and theater. Fred
would teach for a few years in the late 1930s at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute in Troy, New York. By the time he inherited his family's
97-acre farm 25 miles west of Albany,
he would know what he wanted to do with it: plant an arboretum that would
be open to the public. Fred Lape would aim to grow every species
of woody plant from temperate regions around the world that would survive
in the hills of Schoharie County. Others would come to share his
interest and become an integral part of the operation of the arboretum.
George Landis, an academic colleague, plant collector and friend of Fred’s,
would be one of the early enthusiasts who helped bring about the creation
of the site. George would then pass away in 1950, leaving
most of his estate to Fred. This bequest would allow Fred to focus
his energy on planting an arboretum. The George Landis Arboretum
would be established in 1951 and named for the "friend who had made it
all possible both in life and in death." Fred would collect plants
from nurseries, other arboreta, and botanical gardens through seed exchanges,
and from the wild. Incorporated in 1961, the Landis Arboretum would
house a collection that includes both common trees and trees rarely found
in that area. It would grow from the 97 acres to over 200 through
donations and purchases of contiguous lands. Fred would keep careful
records of his plantings, providing valuable historical documentation of
his efforts. He would chronicle his prodigious efforts to collect
and study plants from nurseries, roadsides, forests, and fields in
A Garden of Trees and Shrubs, a book published by Cornell University in 1965.
[The book would contain a chapter (pp. 91-99) on bonsai based on a 1961 New York Times article about his early experiences and trials-and-errors with American plants. His interest had started during his college days and he began with two stunted junipers ( J. virginiana ) that were growing in his cow pasture. He made two shallow boxes out of thin pine to house the plants as bonsai containers -- and books on the subject -- were unheard of on the American market. Initial success with the long-suffering junipers led to repeated attempts with other plants. When the first books in English did appear (1940s), he got his first instructions in the proper technique of wiring and shaping. By the time the arboretum was begun, Fred's collection included about a dozen bonsai. At first public interest was casual, but gradually it increased. A dozen years later the collection included an American larch (his best specimen), juniper, red spruce, white pine, pitch pine, hemlock, white birch, beech, hornbeams, and shadbush. [Fred's friends, with the help of a few small grants, would continue to plant and maintain the grounds. In the later years of his life, finding increasingly difficult to manage the Arboretum, he would slowly transfer management to the Board of Trustees. He would create a small endowment fund prior to his death in 1985. Seven hundred volunteer members would continue his legacy.] ("The Lape Immigration: The 275 Year History of the Lape Family in America," http://home.twcny.rr.com/lape/move.htm ; "A Garden of Trees and Shrubs," http://www.catskill.net/purple/garden.htm ; "Landis Arboretum History," http://www.landisarboretum.org/history.htm, a search inquiry of this web site on 01/29/04 resulted in no records for the term "bonsai." What happened to Fred's trees?; "Listing of AHS Member Reciprocal Admissions to Arboreta, Gardens, and Conservatories: George Landis Arboretum," http://www.ahs.org/events/reciprocal_events.htm ; "Landis Arboretum," http://www.championtrees.org/oldgrowth/surveys/Landis.htm ; "A Pioneer of American Bonsai" by Dorothy S. Young, Journal, ABS, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1968 Spring, pp. 11-12 is mostly derived from A Garden of Trees and Shrubs ) 1972 -- The first edition of the Japanese book Bonsai Masterpieces to include the 90-page English supplement by Yuji Yoshimura and Samuel H. Beach was published. (The original 352-page Japanese edition of Nippon Bonsai Taikan (Grand View of Japanese Bonsai and Nature in Four Seasons) was published on April 29, 1970 by the Japanese Bonsai Society, Inc.) The full-size English booklet included a small b&w photo of each of the 208 full color images in the Japanese edition, along with a translation of most of the text. Both the booklet and the large Japanese edition came presented in a traditional cloth-covered slip case at the advertised price of ¥20,000 or US $110.00 by Tokyo's Seibundō Shinkōsha Publishing Co. (Advertisement, Bonsai, BCI, Vol. XI, No. 10, December 1972, pg. 21, which has Beach's middle initial as "S."; notes from the English booklet seen by RJB in the Phoenix Bonsai Society's library holdings) 1984 -- " The Eighteen Scholars," a set of four postage stamps based on a Northern Song dynasty hanging scroll which includes depictions of several types of penjing, was issued by the Republic of China (Taiwan). SEE ALSO: Jan 29, Feb 3, Feb 16, Mar 1, Mar 27, Mar 31, Apr 3, Apr 6, Apr 18, May 6, May 29, Jun 16, Jul 20, Aug 22, Sep 22, Oct 1, Oct 4, Dec 9. |
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| 22 | 1991 -- Gambia issued a set of 8 postage stamps plus three souvenir sheets to commemorate Phila Nippon '91. Walt Disney characters play Japanese games and sports. One stamp, which shows Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse playing go (notice the gameboard), has a 3-tree bonsai planting as a decoration just above and to the right of the center of the stamp. SEE ALSO: Jan 29, Feb 3, Feb 16, Mar 1, Mar 27, Mar 31, Apr 3, Apr 6, Apr 18, May 6, May 29, Jun 16, Jul 20, Aug 20, Sep 22, Oct 1, Oct 4, Dec 9. |
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| 24 | 1967 -- The Gold Coast Bonsai Club was organized in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Louis Strycharz was elected president and James Blackwell was named secretary-treasurer. ("Announcements," Journal, ABS, Fall/Winter 1967, p.13) |
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1967 -- The American Bonsai Society staged its first educational exhibit at the 43rd
annual meeting of the International Shade Tree Conference which ran through Sept. 1 in
Philadelphia, PA. The bonsai were on display during the entire conference which
was attended by over 1,000 members and guests.
("Announcements,"
Journal, ABS, Fall/Winter 1967, p.13)
1994 -- The Brazilian Bonsai Society was established in Rio De Janeiro. Its first two displays were presented about three months later, one week apart. (Sociedade Brasileira De Bonsai homepage, http://www.sbbonsai.org.br/ ) 1999 -- Teacher, worker and supporter Melba Tucker died in California at the age of 82. She became interested in bonsai in 1956, began to teach it a decade later, and in 1996 the Suiseki Pavilion in the U.S. National Arboretum was named after her. That was the same year her book on the American perspective of suiseki was published. A long-time member of the California Bonsai Society, she also served as treasurer of Bonsai Clubs International for a total of eighteen years. She taught bonsai, saikei, and suiseki worldwide and was equally generous in her financial support of many bonsai and suiseki organizations. ("In Memoriam: Melba Tucker," Journal, ABS, Fall 1999, pg. 113) |
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1975 -- Toshiji Yoshimura, a leader in both the bonsai and suiseki worlds and the owner
of the Kofu-En Bonsai Nursery, died at age 83. His most famous child was Yuji Yoshimura.
(Personal e-mail from William N. Valavanis to RJB on Feb. 12, 2006)
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| 31 | 1973 -- The San Antonio Bonsai Society's organizational meeting took place with seven prospective members in attendance. [Its first opportunity to present its talent would come during the San Antonio Garden Center's Spring Flower Show. The Bonsai members' efforts would be awarded several blue ribbons and the Society would win the Sweepstakes Award in Horticulture. By the end of its first club year, the Society's success would be reflected in a membership of 41 motivated enthusiasts. In 1988 the Society would incorporate and host the BCI 24th Annual International Bonsai Congress. In 1996 it would host the Lone Star Bonsai Federation Annual Convention.] ("San Antonio Bonsai Society, Inc. Purpose and History," http://shimagata.tripod.com/sabs/purpose.htm ) |
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Also this month,
1965 -- The first meeting of the Bonsai Society of Australia occurred at the Sydney suburb of Roseville. The group was founded by Dorothy and Vita Koreshoff. [Thirty years later the meeting place for the oldest bonsai organization in Australia would be moved to approximately 45 km northwest to Normanhurst, and in October 2000 the meetings would start to be held in West Pennant Hills.] ("Club Meetings," Bonsai Society of Australia Inc., http://www.bonsai.asn.au/meeting.html ) 1969 -- A major suiseki discovery was made when the "Hongwan Reiseki" stone was found after being missing for centuries. The "Hongwan Reiseki" is more than 700 years old. It was originally discovered by Shinran Shonin (1173-1262), the founder of the Jodoshu sect of Buddhism. During 1580, with the War of Ishiyama raging through the area, the stone was transferred to the Fukozu Temple near Kyoto for safe-keeping by Kennyo Shonin, the eleventh generation successor to Shinran Shonin. And then it disappeared until the twentieth century when it was discovered in a warehouse of the Fukuzo Temple. The authenticity of the "Hongwan Reiseki" was confirmed through writings found in the box with the stone. The writings, dated equivalent to April 13, 1585, were by Shoun, who wrote of the transfer of the stone by Kennyo Shonin. (In 1272, the principle temple of Shinran's sect in Kyoto, built by his daughter and grandson, was given the name of Hongwan-ji. The Shin Jodo Shu or True Pure Land sect became immensely popular, and while denying the necessity of a priestly organization, nonetheless gave rise to large communities of believers served by temples and priests, The Jodo-shin-shu sect is, perhaps, the Buddhist equivalent of Protestantism in Japan.) ("History of Suiseki" "With thanks to: Miss Sachiye Hirotsu and Kashu Suiseki Kai, Redwood City, Calif.," Bonsai, BCI, Vol. IX, No. 5, June, 1970, pg. 11; Papinot, E. Historical and Geographical Dictionary of Japan (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc.; 1972. Reprinting of original 1910 work. Seventh printing, 1982), pp. 576-577) |
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