Analysis Of The Roof Tile Of Tempyō

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The Roof Tile of Tempyō is an emotional historical novel depicting the story of 4 Japanese monks on their study mission in China. Apart from the 4 student monks, the novel also focuses on two other main characters, namely Gōgyō, a monk who spends his entire life transcribing Buddhist texts for Japan and Ganjin, a renowned Buddhist master who is persistent in travelling to japan.

The novel begins with a rough voyage to China, showing the perilous journey weathered by many before them. (Inoue, 1975, 17) Upon reaching China and accustoming themselves to the new culture, the monks request for Tao-hsüan, a teacher of monastic rituals, to go to Japan. [Inoue, 1975, 23] However, this was insufficient as Japan lacks qualified monks to assist in the …show more content…

(Inoue, 1975, 6) With this mission, individuals such as Gōgyō are passionate and driven enough to spend their entire life transcribing texts for the transmission to Japan. With this life-time sacrifice, the amount of knowledge and effort placed into the transmission hence greatly increases the pace of cultural borrowing between the nations. Some may argue that poets and traders facilitate cultural borrowing as well which is certainly true. However, in both cases, cultural borrowing is a by-product because unlike religious individuals, the main goal for merchants is to make a profit and the main goal for poets is to write poems for their own country. Their main intention is not to spread their work to Japan, hence if they achieved their goals, they would be contented even if their works never touch Japanese soil. Furthermore, Gōgyō stated that texts brought back to japan are hardly reliable hence he paid much attention to transcribe accurately for the sake of japan. (Inoue, 1975, 32) If traders were left in charge of the scrolls, they will only care about their profits and not the accuracy of the …show more content…

Unlike regular citizens, the monks were braver in facings the voyage as they believe they have divine protection from mishaps. This can be seen from the novel as monks such as Ganjin, will have occasional visions regarding the journey ahead, giving them strength to face the voyage ahead. (Inoue, 1975, 76-77) In addition, regardless of effectiveness, it is without a doubt that praying and chanting help religious individuals mentally prepare themselves for the journey. Hence, before they set sail, they will attempt to quell the wrath of the sea god through the Sutra of the Dragon King and on board the ship, they will offer prayers to the Shinto and Buddhist deities. (Inoue, 1975, 5 &

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