In 1902 Taneda Santōka enrolled in the literature department of Waseda University in Tokyo. There, following the custom, he took a pen name; from then on he called himself Santōka ("Burning Mountain Peak"). He began to drink heavily, suffered a nervous breakdown, and was unable to complete the first-year requirements. In addition, his father was in financial straits and could no longer afford the tuition, so Santōka had to return home.
Career
Gallery of Taneda Santōka
1926
Japan
Taneda Santōka portrait photo in between 1926 and 1940.
Gallery of Taneda Santōka
1933
Japan
Taneda Santōka on his way in between 1926 and 1940.
Gallery of Taneda Santōka
1933
Japan
Taneda Santōka sittig portrait in between 1926 and 1940.
Gallery of Taneda Santōka
1933
Japan
Taneda Santōka portrait photo in the hat and glasses in between 1926 and 1940.
Gallery of Taneda Santōka
1933
Japan
Taneda Santōka holding a hat in his hands in between 1926 and 1940.
Gallery of Taneda Santōka
1933
Japan
Taneda Santōka portrait photo in between 1926 and 1940.
Gallery of Taneda Santōka
1933
Japan
Taneda Santōka photoed from the back in between 1926 and 1940.
Gallery of Taneda Santōka
1933
Japan
Taneda Santōka in the smoke in between 1926 and 1940.
Gallery of Taneda Santōka
1933
Japan
Taneda Santōka wandering in between 1926 and 1940.
Gallery of Taneda Santōka
1933
Japan
Taneda Santōka sitting on the rock in between 1926 and 1940.
Achievements
2016
Shin-Yamaguchi Station, Yamaguchi, Japan
Sculpture of Taneda Santoka in front of the south entrance of Shin-Yamaguchi Station.
In 1902 Taneda Santōka enrolled in the literature department of Waseda University in Tokyo. There, following the custom, he took a pen name; from then on he called himself Santōka ("Burning Mountain Peak"). He began to drink heavily, suffered a nervous breakdown, and was unable to complete the first-year requirements. In addition, his father was in financial straits and could no longer afford the tuition, so Santōka had to return home.
(The poet Santoka (1882-1940) continued the tradition of t...)
The poet Santoka (1882-1940) continued the tradition of the great Zen eccentrics into the twentieth century. He is admired in Japan for his free-style haiku and pursuit of a pure Zen life. His life parallels those of the earlier Zen poets, Ryokan and Ikkyu, a life of simplicity and honesty, free from material possessions, set concepts and social conventions. MOUNTAIN TASTING offers a representative collection of over 370 of Santoka's haiku to the Western reader for the first time. Santoka's unadorned style and profound Zen spirit shine directly through John Stevens's fresh, clear translations, accompanied by the romanized Japanese originals.
(A new translation of Sumokuto, Santoka's personal selecti...)
A new translation of Sumokuto, Santoka's personal selection from his collected haiku, in the inimitable style of Hiro Sato, a PEN/Faulkner Award winner for translation.
(In April 1926, the Japanese poet Taneda Santoka (1882–194...)
In April 1926, the Japanese poet Taneda Santoka (1882–1940) set off on the first of many walking trips, journeys in which he tramped thousands of miles through the Japanese countryside. These journeys were part of his religious training as a Buddhist monk as well as literary inspiration for his memorable and often painfully moving poems. The works he wrote during this time comprise a record of his quest for spiritual enlightenment.
(This book is made of selections which previously appeared...)
This book is made of selections which previously appeared in the Tohoku Gakuin Review under the titles: Weeds We'd Wed: English versions of more than fifty haiku by Taneda Santoka, and A Life to Live: Santoka. Taneda Santoka, was born 1882 - died 1940. Scott Watson presents each haiku in Japanese (kana and kanji) followed by his English versions. Explanation is added where needed.
Taneda Santōka was a Japanese author and haiku poet. He was also a Zen priest. He is famous for his free verse haiku - a style which does not conform to the formal rules of traditional haiku.
Background
Taneda Santōka was born Taneda Shōichi in the village of Sabare in the Hōfu district of Yamaguchi Prefecture on December 3, 1882. His father, Takejirō, a large and impressive figure, was a landowner and active in local politics but not very good at running his business or personal affairs. Shōichi was the second child, first boy, and one more sister and two more brothers were born in the next few years.
Shōichi was good at his studies and displayed an interest in literature as early as elementary school. Unfortunately, his father was a dissolute womanizer who carried on with several mistresses at a time. When he wasn't playing with the ladies he was politicking, so he was rarely home. While he was vacationing in the mountains with one of his mistresses, his wife, Fusa, committed suicide by throwing herself into a well on the family property. She was thirty-three years old. Shōichi, just eleven at the time, never completely recovered from the shock of seeing his mother's lifeless body being lifted from the well, and this tragic event affected him throughout his life. Afterwards, he was raised by his grandmother.
Education
In 1896 Taneda Shōichi entered middle school and began to write traditional-style haiku. In 1902 he enrolled in the literature department of Waseda University in Tokyo. There, following the custom, he took a pen name; from then on he called himself Santōka ("Burning Mountain Peak"). He began to drink heavily, suffered a nervous breakdown, and was unable to complete the first-year requirements. In addition, his father was in financial straits and could no longer afford the tuition, so Santōka had to return home.
Taneda Santōka arrived in his home town in July 1904 at the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War. His father sold off some of the family land and purchased a sakè brewery that he opened with Santōka in 1907. Two years later, at the insistence of his father, who thought a wife might help cut down Santōka's drinking, an arranged marriage took place with Sakino Satō, a pretty girl from a neighboring village. However, the union was troubled right from the beginning, and Santōka never adjusted to married life. The following year their only child, Ken, was born.
In 1911 Santōka came under the influence of Seisensui Ogiwara (1884-1976), the founder of thejiyūritsu, or freestyle, school of haiku. Beginning in 1913, Santōka became one of the main contributors to Sōun and the freestyle school. Seven of Santōka's verses were printed in 1913, and the following year Santōka met Seisensui for the first time at a poetry meeting. Santōka was active composing poetry and essays for the next few years and became an editor of Sōun in 1916. In the meantime, however, the sakè brewery was turning into a disaster. The father continued to run around with women, and the son kept drinking up what little profit they occasionally made. More and more family property was sold off to prop up the brewery. In 1915 the entire stock spoiled, and in April the next year the brewery went bankrupt and the Taneda family lost everything. The father fled one night with one of his mistresses, while Santōka and his family moved to Kumamoto City, where one of his friends offered to help him.
Santōka originally planned to open a secondhand bookstore, but that failed to work out, so his wife took over and started a store specializing in picture frames. Santōka continued his heavy drinking, and the marriage deteriorated. In 1918 his younger brother Jirō committed suicide (his other brother had died in infancy), another shock for the high-strung poet.
Santōka and his wife drifted apart, and in 1919 he decided to go to Tokyo to seek work. His first job was a part-time position with a cement firm. Later he found a temporary position as a clerk in the Hitotsubashi municipal library. Santōka and his wife were legally divorced in 1920. Sakino continued to operate the store and raise their son. The following year Santōka's father died. Santōka was offered a permanent position at the library and he accepted. Unfortunately, he proved no better at this job than at making sakè. He suffered another nervous breakdown and was forced to retire a year and a half after he began. On September 1, 1923, the Great Kantō Earthquake struck Tokyo and destroyed much of the city. Santōkaescaped injury, but his boardinghouse was reduced to rubble. He decided to return to Kumamoto, where he helped his former wife with the store.
Near the end of December 1924, Santōka, drunk and apparently intent on committing suicide, stood in the middle of some railroad tracks facing an oncoming train. The train screeched to a halt just in time, and Santōka was pulled out of the way. He was taken to a nearby Zen temple called Hōon-ji. The head priest there, Gian Mochizuki Oshō, did not reprimand or question Santōka: he didn't even ask his name. The monk fed Santōka and told him he could stay at the temple as long as he wished.
Santōka had long been interested in Zen. In 1925, at the age of forty-two, Santōka was ordained a Zen priest. After Santōka was ordained, Gian arranged for him to stay at Mitori Kannon-dō, a small temple on the outskirts of Kumamoto. Santōka supported himself by begging in the neighborhood, occasionally making longer trips to visit his friends in nearby towns. After a year of living alone in the temple, Santōka decided to make a pilgrimage. His first intention was to train at Eihei-ji, the head temple of the Sōtō Zen school, but he apparently realized it would be difficult for him as a forty-three-year-old man to practice with a group of priests in their early twenties, most of whom were putting in the required time in order to someday inherit their family temples. Santōka's monastery turned out to be the back roads and mountain paths of the countryside.
In April 1926 Santōka started out on his first pilgrimage. His only possessions were his black priest's robe, his begging bowl, and his kasa, a large woven straw hat worn by traveling monks to shield them from the sun and rain. For the next four years, Santōka was on a continual journey throughout southern Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku. He prayed at innumerable shrines and temples, visited famous sites, met with his friends, and attended poetry meetings. After a lapse of almost five years, his poems began to appear in Sōun again.
In December 1930 he returned to Kumamoto and rented a small room. With the help of some friends who were publishers, he put out three issues of a little magazine called Sambaku, named after his boardinghouse. Six months after moving into Sambakukyo he was taken into custody for public drunkenness. (This requires some effort since Japanese are very tolerant of drunkards.) He stayed at the picture-frame shop for a few months and then began another series of trips. In 1932, his friends found a small cottage for him in the mountain village of Ogōri in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Santōka called it Gochū-an after a verse in the Lotus Sutra. The cottage was rather dilapidated yet spacious, with three rooms, a well, and a tiny field surrounded by many fruit trees. This year also marked the publication of his first collection of haiku, Hachi no Ko (The Begging Bowl), produced by a friend's small publishing house.
From 1932 to 1938 Santōka divided his time between Gochū-an and traveling. He made trips to Hiroshima, Kobe, Kyoto, and Nagoya. In 1934 he fell ill and returned to his hermitage, Gochū-an. Sick and penniless, he contemplated suicide for a time but abandoned the idea after regaining his health, and began an eight-month journey to northern Honshu, retracing much of the route taken by the famous haiku-poet Bashō ( 1644-94) as described in Oku no Hosomichi (Narrow Road to the Deep North). During this period he published more issues of his journal Sambaku, in addition to putting out four more collections of his poetry: Sōmokutō (Grass and Tree Stupa, 1933), Sangyō Suigyō (Flowing with Mountains and Rivers, 1935), Zassō Fūkei (Weedscapes, 1936), and Kaki no Ha (Persimmon Leaves, 1938).
When he was staying at Gochū-an, he often had visitors from all parts of the country. Occasionally poetry meetings were held there. However, in 1938 Gochū-an literally collapsed and Santōka moved to a small hut in Yuda Hot Springs about eight miles away. He remained there a few months, set out on another trip, returned briefly, and then was off again. In December 1939 he settled down in Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture, in a little cottage that he named Issō-an, One Blade of Grass Hut.
In 1940 an expanded version of Sōmokutō was published containing selections from his previous works, including a sixth collection entitled Kōkan (Isolation) and published in 1939. His seventh and final collection, Karasu (Crows), was brought out in 1940 a few months after Sōmokutō.
Early in October 1940, a poetry meeting was held at Issō-an. The members of the group gathered at Issō-an, but found Santōka quite intoxicated, so they moved to a nearby member's house. They looked in on Santōka before they left and found him sleeping soundly. Uneasy, the wife of one of his friends went to see Santōka the next morning and discovered that he had departed on his final journey during the early morning hours of October 11, 1940.
Santōka had long been interested in Zen. He had attended several lectures of the famous Zen master Kōdō Sawaki Rōshi in Kumamoto and had spent most of his spare time at the library in Tokyo reading books on Buddhism. Under Gian's direction, Santōka sat in Zen meditation, chanted sutras, and worked around the temple. In 1925, at the age of forty-two, Santōka was ordained a Zen priest under the name Kōho after a Chinese Zen priest also named Taneda (Chung-t'ien in Chinese pronunciation) who was famous for cultivating a small rice field to raise enough food to support himself. Gian explained that Kōho Taneda is one who plows and cultivates the field of his heart.
Santōka's ex-wife Sakino joined the Methodist Church and became an active member soon after Santōka entered the temple. She never remarried, and Santōka continued to visit her and help with the store from time to time for the rest of his life.
Views
In 1911 Santōka came under the influence of Seisensui Ogiwara (1884-1976), the founder of thejiyūritsu, or freestyle, school of haiku. Following the death of Shiki (1867-1903), who had revitalized and revolutionized the world of haiku, there were two main streams in the haiku world: one working in a more or less traditional form using modern themes, and the other, the shinkeikō, or new-development, movement, which abandoned the standard 5-7-5 syllable pattern and the obligatory use of a word to indicate the season, or kigo. In April 1911 Seisensui established the magazine Sōun to expound the theory that it is necessary for a poet to express what is in his heart in his own language without regard to any fixed form. Seisensui felt that haiku should be an impression of one's inner experiences; individual symbolism is most important. Seisensui stressed jiyū (freedom), jiko (self), and shizen (nature), together with the elements of chikara (strength) and hikari (brightness), for his new haiku. Seisensui was influenced by European literature, especially Goethe and Schiller, and his poetry was essentially a combination of Japanese sensitivity and Western expressionism. However, it was neither agnostic nor scientific like much of the other new haiku. Haiku is a "way" rather than mere literature or art. Such a highly individualistic and subjective theory was criticized by many traditionalists, but it greatly appealed to Santōka. Beginning in 1913, Santōka became one of the main contributors to Sōun and the free-style school.
Santōka's life embodies the Zen spirit in three ways. First, since his life and poetry were one, he represents the ideal of "no duplicity." In any art or discipline it is essential to unify thought, speech, and action. Second, he did not mimic anyone else. This is rare in any society. In Japan, the life of a wandering poet is considered the most impermanent, irregular, and individualistic of all occupations. It is a life of freedom from everything: material possessions, mental concepts, social norms. Third is Santōka's simplicity of expression. In his verses there is nothing extra, no pretense, no artificiality. They can be understood at once without analysis. Sharp and direct, Santōka's haiku epitomize Zen writing: pure experience, free of intellectual coloring.
Personality
Taneda Santōka was heavy drinker through most of his life.
Connections
Taneda Santōka married Sakino Satō in 1909 and divorced in 1920. They had a son Ken.
Father:
Takejirō
Mother:
Fusa
Wife:
Sakino Satō
Son:
Ken
Acquaintance:
Seisensui Ogiwara
References
Contemporary Authors, Vol. 166
This volume of Contemporary Authors contains biographical information on approximately 300 modern writers.