Ōtagaki Rengetsu was a Buddhist nun who is widely regarded to have been one of the greatest Japanese poets of the 19th century.
Background
She was the daughter of a courtesan and a nobleman. After she was born Nobu, as she was called, was adopted by the Otagaki family so that she would receive an upbringing as an aristocrat and not live in the courtesan district with her mother.
Career
She was also a skilled potter and painter and expert calligrapher. Her adoptive father joined her. After that she lived in tiny huts and moved around quite a lot.
She was a master of martial arts having been trained since childhood by her adoptive family.
The Otagaki family were well known as teachers of ninja. Born into a samurai family with the surname Tōdō, she was adopted at a young age by the Ōtagaki family.
She remained at Chion-in for nearly ten years, and lived in a number of other temples for the following three decades, until 1865, when she settled at the Jinkō-in where she lived out the rest of her life. A number of Tessai"s works, though painted by him, feature calligraphy by Rengetsu.
A pure un-muddied name by Otagaki Rengetsu 1830.