奈良墨 Nara-sumi Nara-sumi
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Nara-sumi is high quality India ink and a local specialty of Nara prefecture which once housed the capital city of Japan and is still filled with temples, relics of the Imperial Court, and other significant historical artifacts. Sumi-making techniques were originally brought to Japan from China by Koubou-Daishi Kuukai in the Heian period. Later, in the Muromachi period, a priest of Koufuku-ji Temple manufactured Yuen-zumi by burning rapeseed or sesame oil, this is said to be the origin of Nara-sumi making. Sumi-making, which once thrived all over Japan in the Heian period, began to wane and eventually, it was only the main temples in Nara that continued to make sumi. Among those temples, Kofuku-ji Temple, which was built by the Fujiwara clan in the Nara period, was the leading sumi-maker and produced sumi exclusively for writing, transcribing sutras or woodblock - printed sutras, called Kasuga-ban. As is evidenced by a history of over 1000 years, the best way to preserve written documents for decades, or hundreds of years, is to write them on Japanese paper, using sumi. Even now, with computers integrated into our everyday lives, sumi-making remains one of the great traditional crafts that will surely continue successfully into the future .
- address
- 7-576 Minamikyobate-cho, Nara, Nara Prefecture, 630-8141
- name
- Nara Seiboku Cooperative
- hp
- http://www.sumi-nara.or.jp/