More thoughts from Episode 30: A sarasoju by any other name

I’m back! There was no blog post last week because at the time I’d normally write it, I was in Torino, at the InTO MANGA: Critical Paths in Manga Studies conference. It was a privilege to be on a panel and get to talk about part of my project alongside such clever people! In my presentation, I focused on something I touched on a bit in this post from last August, using Episodes 15 and 16 as an example of how Saito expands on smaller plot points, adds cliffhangers, etc in service of telling the story of Torikaebaya monogatari the way she wants to tell it. And apart from that, I had a lot of fun throughout the conference, and I was really struck by the variety of subject matter – people had so much to say about manga from all kinds of angles!

Now that I’ve returned, I actually want to stick with Episode 30 just a wee bit longer, as it offers a good jumping-off point for another topic I wanted to return to. A couple of months ago, I wrote about the significance of the word 散る (chiru – to fall, to scatter, to die nobly) in relation to Sara’s departure from the court and in relation to his name. So just as I foretold back then, today I’ll say some more about the meaning of sarasoju!

Page from volume 6, page 154.

©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

Episode 30 opens with flowers falling from a tree. Before Tsuwabuki comes rushing to Uji to learn of Sara’s miscarriage, Sara narrates:

庭に花をつけていた

沙羅双樹の花が――

散った――

Sara uses the word 散る again, referring specifically to the flowers of the 沙羅双樹 (sarasoju) tree. The images and words parallel the opening of Episode 23 – the one in which Sara leaves the capital – where we see a blooming cherry tree in the court and Sara tells us he will disappear (also 散る). Both of these moments use seasonal flowers as a metaphor for death or departure.

Later in this chapter, the word 散る comes up once more. Before going to see Shi no Hime and help with her childbirth, Tsuwabuki vows to cherish Sara always, but Sara knows better, and thinks:

言葉だけが．．．

私たちの間を

舞い散るばかり

Page from volume 5, page 80.

©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

This time, he’s saying that Tsuwabuki’s words are falling between the two of them. The word used for “fall” is 舞い散る (maichiru), a variation on 散る meaning to fall down softly, as if dancing, particularly when talking about flowers, petals, etc. This time, of course, the subject is words rather than flowers – but “word” (言葉) itself contains 葉 (leaf)! So with that in mind, I see this as a clear evocation of the same imagery as all the previous uses of 散る, suggesting something fleeting, inconsequential. In an effort to preserve this link, I chose to foreground the botanical theme in my translation:

Mere words…

flutter down like leaves

between you and me.

And now finally, what’s so significant about sarasoju? I mentioned way back that Sara is named after a tree that was growing nearby when he was born. Sarasoju is the Japanese name for the Indian sal tree. The “soju” part (双樹 – two trees) specifically references the story that the Buddha died under a pair of sal trees which then spontaneously bloomed out of season. The tree’s short-lived flowers thus represent impermanence, and their most famous appearance in Japanese literature is the opening lines of the Tale of the Heike, which use the sal flower as a reminder that all good things must come to an end.

Not the most cheerful thing to be named after, and the then-Emperor thinks so too when Sara enters court service early in Torikae baya. He relates the story of the Buddha’s passing and says, “It's an odd name for a vivacious young lad like you.” Sara is familiar with the story, and with the fact that the flowers are known for blooming in the morning and falling by the evening. But as eloquent as ever, he concludes:

Gracefully living one's life to the full for only one day.

I believe that is a beautiful way to live.

I am proud to bear such a name.

Apart from showing that Sara is suave and discerning enough to deserve an instantaneous promotion, this foreshadows the life Sara ends up having in Heian-kyo: bright, but sadly brief. 🥲

View fullsize

“Sarasoju” trees and fallen flowers at Torin’in in Kyoto.

By the way, the flowers that fall in the garden of Tsuwabuki’s Uji villa are actually not sal flowers – or at least, they’re not the same flowers that appear in Buddhist teachings. That’s because in Japan, sarasoju also refers to a different tree. Japan doesn’t have the right climate for real sal trees to grow, but rather than give up on the idea, temples opted to use an unrelated but visually somewhat similar briefly-blooming tree in its place. And so the term is used both for the original tree found in India and for the natsutsubaki or “summer camelia” (incidentally not really a camelia either).

I can’t quite get my head around what role that last element would play in this big nesting doll of metaphors, but at least I got to see the flowers myself when I was in Japan! I went to Torin’in, a temple in Kyoto that has the trees in its garden, and although they were already shrivelling up on the ground by the time I saw them, it was nice to get a real feel for how quickly they come and go, and maybe get a bit better at spotting them when they keep showing up in Torikae baya…

Thoughts from Episode 30: Two for the price of one

At the end of the previous chapter, Sara was having a medical incident, and at just the same time, Suiren came to the conclusion Sara couldn’t be found in Uji. In Episode 30, Tsuwabuki rushes back to his villa to learn that Sara’s baby was stillborn. Tsuwabuki is shocked, but Sara insists that he return to Shi no Hime, who is ready to give birth herself.

Having unknowingly caught sight of Sara last time, Suiren is worked up over the fact that she can’t stop thinking about the mystery woman. After worrying about being drawn to somebody other than Togu, it finally occurs to her that Sara too might’ve changed his appearance. She takes her attendants to Uji again, and some rumours lead them to the villa. While Aguri, Torako and Toramitsu head out for ingredients to make Sara’s favourite foods to cheer him up, Suiren enters the villa, alarming the maids who think they’ve seen a ghost. Finding that Sara is already gone, she hurries outside. She finds Sara wading out into the Ujigawa, calls out to him, and they embrace happily.

Suiren and Sara spot each other in Episode 29.

Page from volume 6, page 149. ©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

And so, as Volume 6 comes to a close, Sara and Suiren have found each other again, with much having happened since their last contact. The chapter title reflects this: 魂合う (tama au) means something like “becoming one” or “understanding one another” in a soulmate sort of way. This is of course a bit tricky to translate into English given that their mysterious connection isn’t a romantic one, so what did I do about it? Wanting it to be similarly short and snappy, I decided to associate it with how the siblings describe their connection. There’s a scene in the previous chapter, when Suiren is fearing what might’ve happened to Sara, and she says:

I've felt like I’m in a trance, seeking out a lost half of myself…

And I don't know what will become of me if I can't find my other half…

So when it came to translating the title of Episode 30, I went with “Two Halves”, diverging from the original line to instead call back to Suiren’s line in a way that (hopefully!) will give readers the same sense of the siblings’ connection that 魂合う is supposed to express.

And on that note, I want to say a bit more today about that connection, as it’s a major focus of this chapter. After worrying that she’s attracted to the mystery woman in Uji, there are a couple of steps before Suiren realises that she saw Sara. First, it occurs to her that what caught her attention was the woman’s resemblance to herself; she then imagines that she witnessed another version of herself, from the past.

How could the same person be in two places at once? The maids at the villa offer one answer: they question whether the person visiting the house is a yurei (ユーレイ, a spirit of the dead, “ghost” in my translation) or an ikiryo (生霊, something more akin to an astral projection, tentatively “doppelganger” in my translation). The latter was a popular idea in the Heian period, even famously appearing in The Tale of Genji, and obviously doesn’t require the apparition to be of someone who is deceased.

The idea of Sara and Suiren as the same person aligns with the argument that Torikaebaya monogatari basically has one main character “played” by two individuals. The manga gives each sibling more time to shine, so we know they’re separate people, but as far as the people who know them are concerned, they might as well be one and the same. We’ve seen this in the way that Tsuwabuki looks at one and imagines the other, and the incident where Sara impersonates Suiren in a conversation with the Emperor.

Suiren shouts out to Sara and pictures them as children in Episode 30.

Page from volume 6, page 187. ©Chiho Saito／Shogakukan

I’m also interested in the sense of Sara and Suiren as two equal parts of a whole as it relates to yin and yang. This concept was relevant to religion and philosophy of the Heian period, as seen earlier in the manga when the divination experts from the on’yoryo show up to give advice about the eclipse. The manga even prominently shows a taijitu (aka a “yin-yang symbol”) in Episode 27, when Sara is thinking about Tsuwabuki’s flighty, divided-loyalties nature. I find it really quite funny that the most explicit reference to yin and yang is a bit of a superficial application of the concept, given that it’s actually very fitting for Sara and Suiren.

Like yin and yang, Sara and Suiren are opposites with an interdependent relationship. They live in separate spheres and harbour secrets that are mirror images of each other, and when Sara disappears, Suiren feels the need to go in search of him. Notably, yin and yang are associated with the female and male principles respectively – so how does this show in Sara and Suiren? Well, Sara exhibits many of the qualities associated with yang: he’s bright and energetic, and he’s regularly compared to sunlight. Suiren, meanwhile, is more quiet and passive, and has the personal name Tsukimitsu, meaning “moonlight”. But it isn’t totally straightforward! Despite his cheery demeanour, Sara isn’t seen to be quite as outgoing as a young man should be, especially with the ladies. Meanwhile, Suiren worries in this chapter that some kind of masculine unfaithfulness has awoken in her.

In the context of yin and yang, this apparent contradiction still makes sense. As the taijitu demonstrates with the smaller circles in each half, the interconnectedness of the two means that each contains the other. Sara and Suiren are unusual compared with the other people around them, but the fact that they each have facets of the other gives them this special bond, and we’ve seen many times – since Episode 1, in fact! – that it also makes them able to achieve things that others might not.

It might come as a surprise that this deep connection between the siblings is something that isn’t actually present in Torikaebaya monogatari! In the Heian period version, they don’t know each other very well and interact quite rarely until the time comes for them to trade places, hence the idea that they basically take turns playing the “lead” role. But there’s obviously something interesting about the dynamic of these characters following a similar but opposite path, and so it’s one of many things that the manga explores to a degree that the source material never did.