Murasaki Shikibu's tomb

On Fridays we all finish class pretty early so one of my friends took a bunch of us to Murasaki Shikibu's grave. As you do on a Friday afternoon. (It was actually a perfect time to go, and great weather for cycling!)

Murasaki Shikibu is the noblewoman from the Heian period (roughly 1000 years ago) who wrote The Tale of Genji, which some say is the world's first novel. Having made it all the way through the1200-odd pages of the English translation, some kind of pilgrimage to her burial site seems quite apt. And it looked like a lot of people feel that way - although the site itself is hardly signposted, and it's pretty far from the usual tourist destinations, when we arrived there were some people just getting back into a taxi having visited, and another set were arriving as we left.

I didn't manage to get a picture of how it looks from the street, but imagine this: there are walls right along the pavement, not exactly forbidding but definitely blocking any view inside. These continue right down the street, but just here there's what looks like an alcove in the wall and this stone:

This says "Lady Murasaki's grave".
My friend pointed out that the berries on these plants are actually purple! (Murasaki means purple, or violet - it's used for amethyst). That's probably on purpose - even such tiny things are very thought-out here.

To get to the tomb, you just walk a few feet along the path next to the stone, under this tree (I'm not entirely sure what this fruit is...)

Then - there you are. Very little ceremony. On the same plot there's also another Heian-era noble buried, in a noticeably smaller tomb. I should mention here it has been suggested that it's a little strange that Shikibu would be buried in such an out-of-the-way place in relation to the Heian city centre, and especially that she would be buried next to someone from an entirely different family. Well... be that as it may, it's not like people are going to roll up to dig the tomb up and check, and I'm glad that a little place like this exists to visit.

This is the stone apparently explaining her life. It's... incomprehensible to me, if anyone can tell me what it says please do!

And this is her tomb. It has candles that people can light, and a place for flowers.

It was an interesting little excursion, and only about 20 minute's cycle from university. I know London has a very long history too, somaybe I'm just paying more attention here because it's all new and exciting, but I really love the way that in Kyoto you can just kind of stumble across the tomb of a 1000 year old author on the side of a busy street.

It's the university's festival this weekend so I'll write again soon with pictures of that!