The Tale of Genji: From Kyoto to Suma and Uji

Genji rides out to Kitayama, the hills north of Kyoto, and finds a beautiful ten-year-old girl who turns out to be a niece of Lady Fujitsubo, the woman he idealises. He cannot leave it there: he kidnaps her, takes her to his own palace and educates her to be like Fujitsubo. She is Murasaki no Ue, whom Genji later marries. The novel gives only the northern hills; Daiun-ji in Iwakura is named as the setting of this chapter.

Location precision: The novel says only Kitayama, the northern hills; the pin marks Daiun-ji in Iwakura, one identification of the chapter's temple.

In the tenth chapter, Sakaki, Lady Rokujo is staying at Nonomiya with her daughter, newly named the Ise virgin, and Genji comes to her there. Nonomiya was the place where a saigu, the emperor's priestess, purified herself before travelling to Ise, and the shrine in Sagano is traditionally taken for the setting. Signs around the grounds tell the story.

Location precision: The shrine is the traditional, not a proven, site of the scene.

Visitor guidance: Nonomiya Shrine is in Sagano, western Kyoto.

Genji withdraws to Suma, then a town in rural Harima Province and now part of Kobe. The exile is a low point of the story but not the end: he later returns to the capital. The Suma and Akashi chapters together form the novel's seaside interlude, far from the court, and an old tradition says Murasaki Shikibu began the whole tale with the Suma chapter.

Location precision: The novel gives no exact house; the pin marks Suma-dera, a temple in Kobe's Suma district.

Visitor guidance: Suma-dera is a temple in the Suma district of Kobe.

In Akashi a prosperous man known as the Akashi Novice entertains the exiled Genji, and Genji has an affair with the Novice's daughter, the Akashi Lady. She gives birth to his only daughter, who will later become the Empress, so this stretch of coast decides the future of Genji's line. The novel places the Novice's house nowhere precise.

Location precision: The novel does not place the Novice's house precisely; the pin marks the centre of Akashi.

Visitor guidance: The pin marks central Akashi, west of Kobe.

Sumiyoshi Taisha is a real shrine that the novel uses as an important stage in several chapters about the Akashi Lady. It is also a place you can stand in today: the main shrine of all the Sumiyoshi shrines, whose honden is a national treasure as the oldest example of its style of architecture.

Visitor guidance: The shrine is in Sumiyoshi ward, Osaka.

In chapter 16, Sekiya, Genji goes to pray at Ishiyama-dera and meets Utsusemi again at the Osaka Barrier on the way. Tradition adds a second layer: in 1004 Murasaki Shikibu stayed here, and on the night of the harvest moon conceived the Suma and Akashi chapters. The temple keeps a Genji room in its main hall, but neither her diary nor her poems record the stay, so treat it as legend.

Visitor guidance: The 13th stop of the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage; the Genji room is in the main hall.

The last ten chapters, Chapters 45 to 54, move to Uji, a short way from the capital. They follow Kaoru and Niou, rivals for the daughters of an imperial prince who lives there. Uji had long held noble villas, and the land of today's Byodo-in became Fujiwara no Michinaga's villa in 998. The Phoenix Hall, built in 1053, is a national treasure.

Location precision: The novel's Uji houses are invented; the pin marks Byodo-in as the best-known Uji site from the same era.

Visitor guidance: Byodo-in is in Uji, south of Kyoto.

Where did the author live? In 1965 the historian Tsunoda Bun'ei argued that the grounds of Rozan-ji were the site of Murasaki Shikibu's house, and a garden of white sand and moss with bellflowers was laid out that year to suggest the world of the Tale. It is a scholar's identification, not a certainty.

Location precision: Tsunoda's 1965 identification is a scholarly argument, not a proven site.

Visitor guidance: The temple has a Genji garden; check opening times.