Asuka River

The river through the village

The river rises in the mountains in the southeast of Asuka Village and flows through the village from south to north. It passes through Kashihara and Tawaramoto and joins the Yamato River at Kawanishi. It is one of the tributaries of the Yamato River system.

The river is only a few metres wide. Usually it flows gently, crossed by a number of small stone weirs.

The Man'yōshū and the river of impermanence

The river appears again and again in the Man'yōshū (Japan's oldest anthology of poetry), where its name is written "Asukagawa" with different characters. The best known poem about it is this one, later included in the Kokin Wakashū anthology:

Yo no naka wa / nani ka tsune naru / Asukagawa / kinō no fuchi zo / kyō wa se ni naru: "In this world, what stays constant? In the Asuka River, yesterday's deep pool is today's shallows."

What was a deep pool turns into shallow rapids after a single night of high water. The poem compares that changeability to the impermanence of the world. The river really is narrow, and the stones on its bed shift easily.

Many poems also play on "Asuka" and asu ("tomorrow"), weaving thoughts of tomorrow into the verse.

The water that sustained the capital

In the Asuka period, the river flowed right beside the palaces. The Asuka Palace Site and the Asuka Palace Garden Site border its east bank, so this water sustained life in the capital.

The water clock at the Mizuochi site was also placed on the flat land along the Asuka River. Drawing water, measuring time, running it through gardens: the capital of Asuka was built around this river.

Upstream and downstream

The upper reaches around Inabuchi, Kayanomori and Nyūdani are known as Oku-Asuka ("inner Asuka"), and in 2011 the landscape of terraced rice fields and villages there was selected as an Important Cultural Landscape of Japan. Persimmon trees on the banks stretch their branches down to the water, changing with the seasons.

At Inabuchi there are stepping stones across the river, and a little upstream a great rope called the Ozuna (male rope) is strung across the river; at Kayanomori there is another called the Mezuna (female rope). These are kanjō-nawa, sacred ropes replaced every January.

Further downstream the river flows across the plain and winds between the rice fields.