Roof Tile of Tempyo

by Yasushi Inoue

OURS HAS THE SAME COVER AS STOCK PHOTO SHOWN. BOOK HAS SOME WAVINESS OF PAGES THROUGHOUT, NOT AFFECTING READABILITY. AUTOGRAPHED BY AUTHOR. NO OTHER MARKING OR WRITING NOTED WITHIN BOOK. LOTS OF GREAT BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY.

Genres: Japan, Japanese Literature, Religion, Literature, History

157 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Yasushi Inoue (井上靖) was a Japanese writer whose range of genres included poetry, essays, short fiction, and novels.

Inoue is famous for his serious historical fiction of ancient Japan and the Asian continent, including Wind and Waves, Tun-huang, and Confucius, but his work also included semi-autobiographical novels and short fiction of great humor, pathos, and wisdom like Shirobamba and Asunaro Monogatari, which depicted the setting of the author's own life — Japan of the early to mid twentieth century — in revealing perspective.

1936 Chiba Kameo Prize --- Ruten,流転
1950 Akutagawa Prize --- Tōgyu,闘牛
1957 Ministry of Education Prize for Literature --- The Roof Tile of Tempyo,天平の甍
1959 Mainichi Press Prize --- Tun-huang,敦煌
1963 Yomiuri Prize --- Fūtō,風濤

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Douglas Penick · Rating 4 out of 5]

All of Inoue's historical fictions offer extraordinarily concise evocations. This, about the earliest visits to China by Japanese monks is one of the very finest

[Moushine Zahr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first novel I read from Japanese author Yasushi Inoue. This book falls more in the category of "History" book than a novel. Readers follow 4 Japanese monks, from the 8th century during the Tenpyo emperor era, traveled to China during the Tang dynasty to study within their Budhist monasteries. Their travel and study in China lasted 2 decades with different fate for each of the monks. Although we cannot retain any details of the long journey and the story is obsolete for Today's readers, there are many valuable lessons and morales for each reader.

The one thing I appreciated most is the FREE environment of study during this era: people and monks from different countries came to China to teach and/or learn, free to study whatever they wanted, how they wanted and for whatever duration they seemed fit. Learning was the Main purpose; free from economic and/or political considerations.

It is thanks to these sorts of books about History that readers can learn what had been lost through time and whate had been gained with time.

[Lachlan Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A moving account of a quest to bring purer teachings back from China to Japan.
A very human account where the internal challenges of the monks are shared without any emotive overlay.
Very readable. Although no advernture story it did keep me engaged until the end.

[Ad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tenpyo no iraka (“The Rooftile of Tempyo”) by Inoue Yasushi is a faithful account of the tribulations of the 8th c. Chinese monk Ganjin (Ch. Jianzhen) to bring the authentic Buddhist precepts to Japan.

The “Tempyo” in the title is the name for an era (729-749) when Japan was engaged in her first attempt to acquire the culture of a more advanced civilization, the Tang empire of China. Why was it important to bring “Vinaya-master” Ganjin to Japan? Because the orthodox transmission of the Law in Buddhism is from master to disciple. That disciple, after passing several tests, is then officially ordinated on an ordination platform, where a certain number of officially ordinated elder priests has to be present. By bringing Ganjin with a number of his already ordained followers to Japan, the “orthodox transmission” of Buddhism was finally established on Japanese soil.

The determination demonstrated by Ganjin was most impressive. In the eleven years from 743 to 754, Ganjin attempted six times to travel to Japan. Five times, he was thwarted by unfavorable weather conditions and government intervention (the Chinese at first did not want this important monk to leave). In 748, during the fifth attempt, his ship was blown so far off course that Ganjin landed on the southern island of Hainan. This journey alone, including the long trek back to Yangzhou, took a full three years and cost Ganjin his eyesight due to an infection.

In 753 at long last an official Japanese embassy visited China, and Ganjin could travel with this group. They landed in Kyushu and in 754 arrived in the Japanese capital of Nara, where they were welcomed by the Emperor. A large ordination platform was built at Todaiji Temple and thus, finally, took place the orthodox transmission of Buddhism to Japan (Buddhism had trickled into Japan in the 6th century, and by the 8th c. had become a state religion).

By the way, the "roof tile" of the title is a shibi, an end tile in the form of a mythical sea monster. This tile was sent from China to Japan and was installed on the roof of Toshodaiji (the temple founded by Ganjin and his disciples) as a symbol of the spread of Buddhism.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an ordinary work of fiction at all, but fascinating in its way. This is a story based on the 8th century journeys of Buddhist monks from Japan to China and back again, a long and hazardous undertaking of many years that some did not survive. The historical core of the story has to do with a highly revered monk/guru named Ganjin coming to Japan to establish an official version of Buddhism. What struck me most about it were the details of what it took to move from one place to another, as well as a cultural frame of reference well outside my ordinary ways of perceiving the world. Although I got tangled up in the names sometimes, and the details of where exactly they went when the place names were antique ones (wish there'd been a map!), I eventually came to respect and enjoy the glimpse it gave me of such a very different time and place that still has threads of connection to the present.