In the classic garden, the basins are either hollowed out by an artisan or are naturally formed by a waterfall. Originally, taller versions where for nobility, but the tea ceremony abolished this distinction and both aristocrat and commoner must bend in equality.
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One of the most famous tsukubai (wash
basin) is the zenibachi sitting near the rear of the monks quarters behind the
famous Ryoanji Temple (The Temple of the Peaceful Dragon) in Kyoto which is one
of the UNESCO world
cultural heritage sites in Kyoto. The Tsukubai is a small basin into which
water continuously flows. At Buddhist temples in Japan Tsukubai allow visitors
to purify themselves by the ritual washing of mouth and hands. The lower
elevation of the basin requires the visitor to bend a little bit to reach the
water. This suggests supplication and reverence. Looking like an old-fashioned
Chinese coin (Zenigata Tsukubai 銭型蹲踞), the shape of the stone basins is a
circle representing heaven (yang) which is pierced by a square hole
representing earth (yin). It is said that the original Tsukubai has been contributed to the temple by a member of the powerful Tokugawa family, Mitsukuni Tokugawa (1628-1700), a feudal lord and well known for being the compiler of the 'great History of Japan', also known as "Dai-nihon-shi" containing 397 volumes that he started in 1657. The Ryoanji Tsukubai (蹲踞), which translates literally as 'crouch' has written kanji on the surface of the stone. These kanji are without significance when read alone. Read clockwise from the left side, the characters mean: arrow, five, short-tailed bird. The fourth and last character, at the bottom, has no meaning on its own, and that is the clue helping to solve the mystery. If each character is read in combination with 口 (kuchi), (the form of the central bowl), then the combined characters become 吾, 唯, 足, 知 which reads clockwise as 'ware tada taru (wo) shiru'. This is a Zen saying that translates literally as 'I only know plenty' (吾 = ware = I, 唯 = tada = only, 足 = taru = plenty, 知 = shiru = know). To interpret the meaning of the carvings a little imagination is required as this can be roughly translated as follows:
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J-23 Zenibachi Replica of the famous Tsukubai in the Ryoanji-Temple in Kyoto with engraved Zen Buddhist saying 'ware tada taru (wo) shiru'.
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(click to enlarge picture)
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