The Tea Ceremony

Tanaka, Seno & Sendo Tanaka & Edwin O. Reischauer

ISBN 10: 4770025076 / ISBN 13: 9784770025074

Published by Kodansha, 2000

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 100820

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Tea Ceremony
• Publisher: Kodansha
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 4770025076
• ISBN 13: 9784770025074
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

In Japan, serving tea is an art and a spiritual discipline. As an art, the tea ceremony is an occasion to appreciate the clean lines of the tea room's design, the feel of the bowl in the hand, the company of friends, and a simple moment of purity. As a discipline, it has roots in the twelfth century and intimate connections to architecture, landscape gardening, ceramics, painting, flower arrangement, and, of course, Zen Buddhism.

Written by contemporary tea masters, The Tea Ceremony takes a clear and comprehensive look at the sources and inspiration of this ancient discipline. The authors trace the practice from its earliest origins to the present day, considering in detail the individuals who helped it evolve. They discuss all the elements of the ceremony-including art, architecture, incense, flowers, and the influence of Zen-and show how readily the study of tea can serve as a spiritual path to greater insight and calm.

Originally published in 1973, The Tea Ceremony has been revised extensively. Along with a rewritten and updated text, entirely new photographs and line drawings have been selected. Over 75 step-by-step stills of the tea ritual itself, featuring a number of close-up shots, give the reader a fuller visual understanding of the ceremony. Numerous line drawings illuminating the more important elements of the ceremony have been inserted for the first time, and for those readers wishing to delve further into the subject, bilingual charts of tea terms have been appended.

This lavish new edition of The Tea Ceremony adds an important dimension to the literature of tea, capturing the aesthetic spirit that lies at the heart of the ritual.

Includes:
o More than 330 photographs and illustrations of tea houses, gardens, prize tea utensils, and scenes from the ceremony.
o An extensive photographic sequence illustrating the tea ceremony.
o Appendices of famous tea houses, tea terms with their equivalents in English, line drawings of the numerous shapes for tea utensils, and a lengthy glossary.

About the Author

SEN'O TANAKA was born in 1928, the grandchild bf Sensho Tanaka, founder of the Japan Association of the Tea Ceremony (Dai Nihon Chado Gakkai). A graduate of the Tokyo Higher Mercantile Marine School, he studied Chinese literature at Nisho Gakusha University, and did graduate work in Oriental philosophy at Waseda University, where he earned a master's degree. Mr. Tanaka became the president of the Dai Nihon Chado Gakkai in 1961. In 1990, he became the senior executive director of the Santoku-an Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the tea association. He is the publisher of the monthly magazine Chado no Kenkyu (Studitis in the Tea Ceremony) and regularly contributes articles to the journal. He is the author of several books on the tea ceremony, including Chado Nyumon Handobukku.

SENDO TANAKA was born in 1958, the eldest son of Sen'o Tanaka. After receiving a master degree in sociology from the University of Tokyo, he went abroad to study at Université Laval in Quebec. In 1988, he became vice president of the Dai Nihon Chado Gakkai and the following year became a lecturer at Nihon University. He now teaches the art of tea at the association and lectures at Keio University. He has published several works, including the book Usucha no Temae.