ATTRACTION OF NATURE IN YAMAZATO: Attraction of life in mountain in literary works (1)

Japanese people have longed to “live in mountain” since early times. Yamazato is mountain villas built by aristocrats in the Heian Period to satisfy the longing for such lives. This paper focuses on the attractions of nature in yamazato and clarifies the followings in reference to literary works from the Heian Period. 1.Aristocrats living in “miyako”(ancient capital of Japan) would put their worries aside and be relaxed with beauties of nature in yamazato such as “okashi”,”mezurashi” and “aware”. 2.The “miharashi”(views) seen from yamazato also healed their depression and took them to different worlds far away from “miyako”. The attraction of nature in yamazato was its ability to liberate minds of aristocrats from this annoying real world.