As a symbol of the oldest, most formal, and most secret style of tea service, the daisu (台子) and its origin are among the major mysteries of tea ceremony history and scholarship. The classical narrative is that the original daisu was a Chinese tea shelf that was brought to Japan in the 1200s, forgotten about, and rediscovered by Murata Jukō in the late 1400s. Already, a good handful of tea scholars do not believe this tale, but rather suggest that it was of Japanese invention. But that is the topic for another post.

Here I wish to provide my translation of a document which may well be the earliest mention (at least that I know of or have read of) of a daisu that matches our current understanding of the word, that is a roughly 90cm (3ft) wide tea ceremony shelf with a bottom board and a top board supported by four corner pillars:

Fig. 1: Daisu Arrangement in the Tokugawa Museum, 2023

While the word daisu (台子・臺子・タイス) appears in historical papers before this document, such as the 1437 Muromachi-dono Gyōkō Okazari-ki (室町殿行幸御飾記), its referent might not be our modern understanding of the term, but merely some generic stand or table. Other early uses of 'daisu" are actually referring to tenmoku-dai (天目台). Some of the references to chanoyu-dana (茶湯棚), especially those that are not built-in structures and are half-ken in width, might point to early daisu or proto-daisu but it is difficult to be certain. The chanoyu-dana remains an intriguing mystery...for another time.

With that in mind, here is the excerpt in question, taken from the Ninagawa Family Documents in a 1523 entry titled Record Concerning Tea Ceremony Utensils (茶湯道具事書), with a colophon naming Sōju (Murata Jukō's adopted son and successor) as the author. Other than these excerpts about the daisu, the text gives measurements for byōbu, koita, and ro-buchi. It also contains sections that appear to be heavily inspired by the Kundaikansōchōki (which we know Sōju to be in possession of), namely describing tenmoku, including a particularly clear and early description of hai-katsugi tenmoku (translation available in this blog post on tenmoku).

I've left many of the tea ceremony utensils and related chanoyu terminology in the original Japanese:

 

Daisu Excerpts from Record Concerning Tea Ceremony Utensils, by Sōju - 1523

Translation by David Lavecchia

 

Concerning the Dimensions of the Daisu :

Height: 2 shaku, 6 bu
Width: the fit the space to the inside of the tatami heri
Depth: 1 shaku, 4 sun, 3 bu
Board thickness: Top: 6 bu, Bottom: 1 sun 6 bu
Thickness of the Square Pillars: 6 bu, with a 1 bu facet
Bottom Board: The edge is beveled by 2 bu from the center, with the middle section rounded; the top board is finished in the same manner.
Pillar Placement: 4 bu inwards from the edge, the top is the same. 
4 bu border around each pillar. Should be made to fit the room, be it a kyō-ma or inaka-ma¹.

[Intervening entries on dimensions for 2-panel byōbu, koita, and ro-buchi]

When using a daisu in either migi-kamae or hidari-kamae², a two-panel byōbu should be placed ahead of the daisu in the half-ken space next to the toko³, and the daisu should be pulled out two sun from the front of the byōbu.

A dai-tenmoku and a chaire should be arranged on a naga-bon and placed together on the top shelf of the daisu. The dai-tenmoku should be on the left and the chaire on the right. When using a yōhō-bon, only the chaire should be placed, and it should be placed in the same location. If the tenmoku is suitable, it should be placed in the toko at jiku-waki⁴ or on the daisu, near the right corner. If the chawan is of inferior quality, it should be placed in the kutsurogi⁵ and brought out only when the tea is to be prepared.

The utensils inside the daisu: the furo and kama should be on the left, the mizusashi on the right, and the shakutate should be placed in the middle, in a suitable position. The mizukoboshi⁶ should be placed a short distance in front of the shakutate. These are the four utensils placed together. The kakureka⁷ is placed between the daisu, the furo, and the pillar. If a flat kettle is used, the kakureka should be rearranged and placed on the tatami, and the lid should be placed there. The shin-nari kama should have a small lid; the lid should be placed directly on the futaoki without adjustment. The hishaku should be placed in the shakutate from the beginning. The hibashi should also be of good quality and placed alongside it⁸.

The arrangement of these various utensils is very important. If even one of the utensils is of poor quality, it should not be included in the arrangement. The decoration of the daisu requires particular attention. This is all.

 

Commentary

Fig. 2: Daisu arrangement based on this document

¹These measurements are more or less in line with those given in the Nampo Roku and with the modern large daisu when adjusting the width to fit a kyō-ma. When adjusted to fit an inaka-ma, it matches the small daisu. Kyō-ma (京間) refers to the large tatami used in Kyoto, measuring 191x95.5cm. These are the tatami most commonly used in tearooms, especially koma (小間 - small rooms). Inaka-ma (田舎間) refers to the smaller tatami used in the countryside, measuring 176x88cm. This is also referred to as Edo-ma (江戸間). It is unclear if these exact measurements were firmly established at this early date, as we see the length of 1 ken variously defined at the end of the century. It's possible the sizes were general guidelines: larger in Kyoto and smaller elsewhere. 

Ensuring the daisu fits snugly between the borders of the tatami mat is further evidence that early daisu were entirely of Japanese manufacture, or at least adapted to Japanese spaces and that this matching of daisu size to tatami size was more important than actual size alone. The photograph of the daisu from the Tokugawa Museum above shows this 'to the tatami heri' sizing.

²Migi-kamae (右構え - Right Setup) and hidari-kamae (左構え - left setup) are equivalent to today's gyaku-gatte (逆勝手 - Reverse katte) and Hon-gatte (本勝手 - true/original katte), respectively.

³ Original Japanese: 床のわき間中の所. 
The half-ken space next to the toko(noma) is, in my opinion, an interesting mystery that requires further exploration. The text uses the term 間中 (manaka), meaning half a ma/ken and is used in other Muromachi texts to describe the widths of tana, toko, and oshi-ita. One ma is the length of a tatami, so half a ma is the same as the width of one tatami. Other tea texts and chakaiki also mention a 間中板 (manaka-ita - half-ken board) and an 押入 (oshi-ire - closet) space next to the toko as a place to put the kama and mizusashi. This space may be related to existing toko-waki and chigai-dana structures. 

Below is an illustration of something resembling this practice from a text called 相阿弥茶傳書 (Sōami Cha Denshō - Soami's Tea Transmission), a variant of the 烏鼠集. The content is seemingly identical, but the illustrations contain tatami border lines, where the 烏鼠集 does not.

Fig. 3: Tana arrangement from the Sōami Cha Denshō

Placing tana or daisu in this half-ken space next to the toko also recalls the Shino-ryū school of incense and their placement of the tana in the one ken tokowaki space. It's possible that these two practices share a common Higashiyama-era lineage as the successor of using built-in shelves for tea and incense.

The best research on these topics I have read has been 水屋の研究 茶書から見る成立と変遷 by 飯島照仁.

I'll probably be writing more posts on this.

Alternately, the half-ken space next to the toko could refer to the regular mats, thus implying a more 'normal' (by today's standards) daisu setup. But the phrase 床のわき (toko no waki) suggests to me something more like the situation detailed above.

 

⁴Placing good tenmoku in the toko is a practice recorded in other early tea texts, and displaying temae dōgu in the toko is likely another descendant of the display-shelf oriented shoin-cha/kaisho-cha of earlier eras. Jiku-waki has multiple interpretations, typically the left side of the hanging scroll in the toko.

⁵Another early word for katte/mizuya, as per 飯島照仁.

⁶Early word for kensui

⁷Early word for futaoki, perhaps specifically a gotoku-shaped one

⁸Utensil placement is per our typical daisu imagining, unlike some early daisu and chanoyu-dana illustrations which have the shakutate on the far right instead of between the kama and mizusashi as is standard today. Below is an example of this from one of the 土佐光元 editions of the 酒飯論絵巻:

Fig. 5: Chanoyu-dana from the Shunhanron-emaki