The golden pavilion of Kinkakuji shrine Kyoto Japan

The importance of sabi for the way of tea was affirmed by the great fifteenth-century tea master Shukô, founder of one of the first schools of tea ceremony. As a distinguished commentator puts it: “The concept sabi carries not only the meaning ‘aged’— in the sense of ‘ripe with experience and insight’ as well as ‘infused with the patina that lends old things their beauty’—but also that of tranquility, aloneness, deep solitude” (Hammitzsch 1980: 46).
The idea of sabi also occurs in the haiku of the famous seventeenth-century poet Matsuo Bashô, where its connection with the word sabishi (solitary, lonely) is emphasized. The following haiku typifies sabi(shi) in conveying an atmosphere of solitude or loneliness that undercuts (as is usual in Japanese poetry) the distinction between subjective and objective:
Solitary now —
Standing amidst the blossoms
Is a cypress tree.
Contrasting with the colorful beauty of the blossoms, the more subdued gracefulness of the cypress—no doubt older than the person seeing it but no less solitary—typifies the poetic mood of sabi.
In 1950 a deranged Buddhist acolyte burned to the ground the late fourteenth-century Golden Pavilion at Kinkakuji in Kyoto. An exact replica was built on the original site in 1955.

The Japanese scholars have observed that the aesthetic qualities of the original structure are celebrated in Mishima Yukio’s novel The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1956), as well as in Ichikawa Kon’s classic film Enjo (Conflagration, 1958). In 1987, the burgeoning Japanese economy made it possible for the first time in the building’s history to cover the entire structure with gold leaf, according to the creator’s original intention. The result is breathtakingly spectacular—but totally un-Japanese. Old-time residents of Kyoto famously complained that it would take a long time for the building to acquire sufficient sabi to be worth looking at again. At the rate the patina seems to be progressing, probably several centuries.

Photo: R Hassan’s cellphone(2009)

Lord Hanuman Langur, a lonely sacred monkey visited the jackfruit tree and adjoining windows of the Department of Media and Communication, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) located at 90 Park Road in the Baridhara diplomatic enclave, Dhaka city, Bangladesh, at around 2pm on July 8, 2009.

The Lord, who is popularly known as ‘the ruler of monkeys’, in his Hanumanese language said ” I am a humble messenger…I have come here to serve Hanumandom…to do His work. By the command of supreme Lordship…I have come here. I am fearless by the grace of supreme Lordship..I am not afraid of death. I welcome death if it comes while serving the supreme power.”

Observers noted that unfortunately no human could read or understand the Hanumanese language.

The faculty members, students and staff of the department cordially welcomed banana-lover Lord Hanuman Langur. Housekeeper Mr. Morshed offered him couple of bananas  while others requested the Lord to visit the Department again.
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