Background
His father was Miyaō Saburō, who was a resident of Sakai and was a master at playing the Japanese hand drum (tsutsumi).
千少庵
His father was Miyaō Saburō, who was a resident of Sakai and was a master at playing the Japanese hand drum (tsutsumi).
Circumstantial evidence indicates that Miyaō Saburō probably died around the year 1553. Shōan"s mother, the wife of Miyaō Saburō, was known as Sōon. She became the second wife of Senator no Rikyū.
The oldest boy born between Shōan and Okame was Senator Sōtan, the third generation in the Senator family tradition of Japanese tea ceremony.
Shōan was the same age as Rikyū"s oldest son, Senator Dōan, but his skill at Japanese tea ceremony was much more highly reputed than was Dōan"son Rikyū left the Senator estate in Sakai for Dōan, and had Shōan and family set up a new Senator household in Kyoto.
The exact year of the move is unknown, but it represented the origin of the so-called Kyoto Senator Family (Kyō-Senke), which evolved into the present san-Senke (lit, three Senator houses/families) (see Schools of Japanese tea ceremony). Following Rikyū"s seppuku (ritual suicide) by order of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Kyoto property where Shōan and family resided was confiscated.
Shōan went to Aizu Wakamatsu (present-day Fukushima Prefecture) where he lived under the protection of the warrior Gamō Ujisato.
Some years later, Hideyoshi pardoned the Senator family and arranged for the restoration of the Kyoto household. Senator Dōan in Sakai, similarly, was pardoned and allowed to reestablish the Senator household in Sakai, but that household eventually died out, as Dōan had no successor. lieutenant is believed that Shōan therefore retired early and moved to a small cottage called Shōnantei at Saihōji temple (see Kokedera), in western Kyoto.