Beginnings

Alright, so for those who are new to this or just sort of floating around in the art we'll start from the beginning. So some time around 200 B.C.E the evolution of bonsai started during the Han dynasty first with miniature artificial mountain and later evolving from the many potted flowers and miniature trees of the Shang Lin Park of Emperor Wu. Bonsai may have been brought to Japan around 1300 as told by books like A Collection of Springtime Sketches (1304) which depicts several miniature potted trees in its illustrations. Although Japan is credited with being a world bonsai center it is China that is believed to have founded the art but also new evidence points to Bonsai beginnings having started further west. It is the herbal system of medicine, Ayurveda, that supports this as the herbs of this system were potted and pruned which, as the Dyana Buddhists found out, cuased the plants to dwarf themselves. However, Ayurveda works were not translated into Chinese until around 400 A.D. and the illustrations of the Western Han Dynasty seem to say  bonsai started earlier. Regardless, now bonsai is appreciated all of the world by the young and old.


Sources: The Living Art of Bonsai, Amy Liang, Sterling Publishing Co., 2005
-ArtofBonsai.org, Babylon: The Origin of Bonsai?, Will Heath