"Suma no ura" (the shore of Suma, near present-day Kobe) appears in both The Tale of Genji and The Tale of the Heike, but it carries very different meanings.

 "Suma no ura" (the shore of Suma, near present-day Kobe) appears in both The Tale of Genji and The Tale of the Heike, but it carries very different meanings.

In The Tale of Genji, set in the mid-Heian period (around the 10th century), Prince Genji is forced to leave the capital for political reasons and temporarily lives in exile at Suma. The roaring sea, storms at night, and the lonely coast express his fall from glory, his anxiety and longing for the capital, and the turning point that will eventually lead to his return. This establishes Suma as a place of "isolation and rebirth."

In The Tale of the Heike, Suma appears in the context of the Battle of Ichi-no-Tani in 1184 (Juei 3 / Jūei 3, commonly known as the Genpei War). Here, the Heike are defeated by Minamoto no Yoshitsune, retreat westward, and young warriors are killed on the beach. Suma becomes the stage of collapse and the symbol of impermanence and the fall of the proud.

Both in the internal chronology of the stories and in their real-world dates of composition, Genji’s Suma comes first, and Heike’s Suma comes later.