ABSTRACT
The art of garden-making, by no means the least important of the fine arts in which Japan excels, is of very ancient origin, dating back to the Asuka period (7th century). An old record, the “Nippon Shoki,” makes mention of a Korean naturalized in Japan. He was skilful in landscape gardening and this accomplishment of his was availed of in laying out a garden in the south court of the Imperial Palace. This man from Kudara seemed to be the father of landscape gardening in this country. Like many of the fine arts, landscape gardening is Buddhistic in origin. In the earliest gardens, Sumer, the lofty sea-encircled mountain of the Buddhist mythology, figured prominently, though of course on a miniature scale. This fact is borne out by philological evidence. In ancient times “niwa” simply meant a place, and a landscape garden was designated “shima”—island—in consideration of the practice of making a pond with an islet in the middle in imitation of the Buddhist fable. In those early days of Buddhism in Japan, the making of a garden was not a means of providing a source of recreation, but an act of accumulating virtues, a service of devotion to Buddha.
