While flower arrangement for many people in the West consists of symetrically arranging flowering plants in a vase, Japanese Ikebana (literally " flowers kept
alive") is a lot more complex. There are many schools, of which the most popular are Ikenobo, Sogetsu and Ohara.
There are also different styles depending on each school, on the plants and vase used. Ikenobo is the oldest school of ikebana, founded by Buddhist priest Ikenobo Senkei in the 15th century. He is thought to have created the Rikka (standing flowers) style. This style was developed as a Buddhist expression of
the beauty of nature, with seven branches representing hills, waterfalls, valleys
and so on, arranged in a formalized way.
This school, now in its 45th generation, is based in the Rokkakudo temple in Kyoto, believed to have been started by Prince Shotoku.
Among the priests and aristocrats, this style became more and more formalized until -in the late 17th century- the growing merchant class developed a simpler style, called seika or shoka. Shoka uses only three main branches, known as:
ten (heaven), chi (earth) and jin (man), designed to show the beauty of the plant itself. Another old form of ikebana is nageire, used in the tea ceremony.
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