My short trip to Nara was a very good and comfortable during the season of brilliant green leaves and fabulous weather.

I’d visited to almost of the temples in Nara city, but the last one I’ve never been was Shin-Yakushiji, which is famous for several Buddha statues of National Treasures such as Yakushi-Nyorai and Juni-Shinsho: The twelve divine generals, so I’d been looking forward to seeing them.

After I got off the JR line at the Nara station, I happened to get a free sightseeing guidebook of Nara city looking for a map of neighboring at JR Nara station. I was interested in a photo on an ink stick, which was called Sumi in Japan, and I decided to come by the shop on my own way to Shin-Yakushiji. The shop’s name was Shojudo “松寿堂” and was in an old town. It took about ten minutes to go there from the station by walk.

I hesitated to enter the shop for a while because its facade seemed to be an old-established and really high-toned. However, the master of the shop was very happy and welcomed me to enter the shop. The shop room was very beautiful and traditional Japanese style, there were many Japanese-traditional furnitures such as wooden step-like chest of drawers.

The master showed me some products, which were the same ones in the guidebook, and explained how to make them. According to the master, the Sumi made in Nara was called Nara Sumi, which has been for more than 600 years since Muromachi period. Shojudo has been making Nara Sumi scince 1865 and is a royal warrant shop. There were a few Sumi makers in the district a few years ago, but now Shojudo was the only shop around there. And then, he showed me a Sumigata, the decorative wooden molds made from Asian Nashi, Asian pear, used to form ink sticks.

As I remembered that Prof. Hermann Zapf used a Japanese ink stick in the movie “The Art of Hermann Zapf”, I told him that I’ve heard some of Calligraphers, who are not only East-Asian style but also European style, used a Japanese Sumi as a black ink, so I proposed him that he would be better to introduce about Sumi to Calligraphers who lives in Europe area. The master was very interested in this topic.

I bought two pieces of Sumi shaped lovely form of Japanese deer, which lived in Nara Park and was considered sacred of Kasuga Taisha shrine, in a small box of paulownia wood.
It was a pity that I didn’t have much time left to get untill the Shin-yakushiji temple would be closed. I hoped I would like to visit again so that I could get enough time to chat with the master.

(Above) The wooden shop signages and “Noren: 暖簾”, which is a store curtain hanged on the shop entrance, read “古梅園: Kobaien”on another shop that I found out during return to the Nara station from Shin-Yakushuji temple. (Lower right) The letter “墨: Sumi”, which means ink stick.

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