The is a memoir

Memoir

A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...

 written by Lady Sarashina (as she is commonly known), a lady-in-waiting

Lady-in-waiting

A lady-in-waiting is a female personal assistant at a royal court, attending on a queen, a princess, or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman from a family highly thought of in good society, but was of lower rank than the woman on whom she...

 of Heian-period

Heian period

The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. The period is named after the capital city of Heian-kyō, or modern Kyōto. It is the period in Japanese history when Buddhism, Taoism and other Chinese influences were at their height...

 Japan. Her work stands out for its descriptions of her travels and pilgrimages and is unique in the literature of the period, as well as one of the first in the genre of travel writing. Lady Sarashina was a niece on her mother's side of Michitsuna's Mother, author of another famous diary of the period, the Kagero Nikki

Kagero Nikki

is a classical piece of Japanese literature from the Heian period that falls under the genre of nikki bungaku, or diary literature. Written around 974, the author of Kagerō Nikki is a woman who is only known by the title of Mother of Michitsuna...

(the personal name of Michitsuna's Mother is unknown, as it was common practice then not to mention a woman's birth name).

As with most works of the period, Japanese schoolchildren get only limited exposure to the work through small selections cited in their classical-Japanese textbooks.

The author and the book's content

Lady Sarashina (also known as Sugawara no Takasue no musume

Sugawara no Takasue no musume

Sugawara no Takasue no musume , also known as Lady Sarashina, was a Japanese author. "Sugawara no Takasue no musume" means a daughter of Sugawara no Takasue. Her real name is unknown....

, the daughter of Sugawara Takasue, since her real name is unknown) wrote her memoirs in her later years. She was born in 1008 CE and in her childhood traveled to the provinces with her father, an assistant governor, and back to the capital some years later. Her remembrances of the long journey back to the capital (three months) are unique in Heian literature, if terse and geographically inaccurate. Here she describes Mount Fuji

Mount Fuji

is the highest mountain in Japan at . An active stratovolcano that last erupted in 1707–08, Mount Fuji lies about south-west of Tokyo, and can be seen from there on a clear day. Mount Fuji's exceptionally symmetrical cone is a well-known symbol of Japan and it is frequently depicted in art and...

, then an active volcano

Volcano

2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...

:

It has a most unusual shape and seems to have been painted deep blue; its thick cover of unmelting snow gives the impression that the mountain is wearing a white jacket over a dress of deep violet.

Her memoirs start with her childhood days, where she shamefully remembers her joy at reading tales to the point of praying to the Buddha

Gautama Buddha

Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...

 to be able to read all of them, and relegating spiritual life as a lesser priority, despite several dreams which she interpreted as admonishments from the heavens. She records her joy when presented with a complete copy of the Tale of Genji, and how she dreamed of living a romance like those described in it. When her life did not turn out as well as she had hoped, she blames her addiction to tales, which made her live in a fantasy world and neglect her spiritual growth. These records are impressive memories from her returning, that is, travel and dreams, her father and sister, her almost complete ignoring of her husband and sons, and day-to-day life.

She spent her youth living at her father's house. In her thirties, when she was rather old by Heian standards, she married and became a lady-in-waiting. She was too shy and old to make a career in court and too indifferent to her husband and children, who are barely mentioned in her diary. She stopped writing at some time in her fifties and no details about her death are known. Heian aristocracy were expected to express gloom and sorrow about the shortness of life, and Lady Sarashina seems to have been especially straightforward about it as each death in her life (especially her sister's and father's) made her life more painful.

Lady Sarashina's birth name is unknown, and she is called either Takasue's daughter or Lady Sarashina. Sarashina

Sarashina District, Nagano

Sarashina was a district located in Nagano Prefecture, Japan.As of 2003, the district had an estimated population of 1,467 and a density of 31.99 persons per km²...

 is a geographical district never mentioned in the diary, but it is alluded to in one of the book's poems and for some reason was chosen as the name for the whole work: she maybe mentioned in the Sarashina.

Manuscripts

The most authoritative copy of Sarashina Nikki is one produced by Fujiwara no Teika

Fujiwara no Teika

Fujiwara no Teika , also known as Fujiwara no Sadaie or Sada-ie, was a Japanese poet, critic, calligrapher, novelist, anthologist, scribe, and scholar of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods...

in the 13th century, some two hundred years after Lady Sarashina wrote the original. Teika copied Lady Sarashina's work once, but his first transcription was borrowed and lost; the manuscript he worked from was itself a second-generation copy of a lost transcription. To compound the problems, sometime in the 17th century Teika's transcription was rebound, but the binder changed the order of the original in seven places, making the diary less valuable and more difficult for scholars to understand. In 1924, Nobutsuna Sasaki and Kōsuke Tamai, two classical literature scholars, examined the original Teika manuscript and finally discovered what had happened, leading to a reevaluation of Sarashina's work. It is from this correctly re-ordered version that all modern versions are made.