Diary Of Sarashina

Relieving Emotions Through Diary Keeping in “The Diary of Sarashina” “The Diary of Sarashina” provides a personal first-hand account of what life as an upper class Japanese woman would have encompassed in the 11th century. Her journal entries indicate that writing out memories was useful as an outlet for emotions both blissful and melancholy. Sarashina’s diary reflects that elite women, who were evidently literate, could reflect on their past and find solace in expressing their own personal stories onto paper. Thus, “The Diary of Sarashina” may suggest that the invention of timekeeping documentation was an important tool for court women that needed a place to define their thoughts and feelings without societal judgement. Sarashina’s diary entries about her experience in the Court provides evidence that having an outlet for story-telling was important when young women were expected to be independent. In her entry, she describes her life in court as uncomfortable . Despite her discomfort with court-life and feeling like an outsider, Sarashina also expresses that, “there was no use in complaining,” about her unpleasant time spend in the Courts. With this, she also states that her own father
She recounts her pilgrimage to the Hasé Temple and writes about her devotion to Buddha . As a woman of a higher class, it seems that she had the privilege to make many trips to religious monuments in her area, writing about the visiting the Hasé Temple twice and visiting the Yamabé Temple, as well as a number of other locations. From these diary entries, it is evident that religion was an important part of Sarashina’s life, as she appeared to put enough importance on it to include it in her timekeeping entries. Thus the timekeeping aspect of the journal allowed Sarashina to express her full thoughts and experience about Buddhism in great detail for her own