Background
Shonin Mokujiki was born in 1537 in the province of Oini and served the Sasaki family, but when the latter’s fortunes declined, he went to Mt. Koya and became a monk.
Shonin Mokujiki was born in 1537 in the province of Oini and served the Sasaki family, but when the latter’s fortunes declined, he went to Mt. Koya and became a monk.
In 1585, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi was preparing to attack Mt. Koya, he visited Hideyoshi and succeeded in persuading him to call off the attack and agree to a peaceful settlement, thus saving the temples from destruction. At the same time, he gained the trust of Hideyoshi, and on the occasion of Hideyoshi’s death he was appointed to take charge of the funeral. In 1600, when the armies of the various daimyo were gathering for the battle of Sekigaliara, he did his best to negotiate peace, but learning that the armies of the western camp had been defeated and that Tokugawa Ieyasu had emerged the victor, he retired to the Handd-ji in Omi.
Ogo was a distinguished writer of renga, or linked verse, and after studying under Satomura Joha, he published the Mugonsho in three chapters in 1603, a kind of handbook on how to compose renga and one of the most important works in the history of renga.
Ogo was popularly called Mokujiki Shonin, or Tree-eating Saint, because when he was practicing religious austerities he would retire to the mountains and, refusing to eat any cultivated grain or vegetables, would live entirely on the nuts and fruits of trees. He is not to be confused with another monk named Myoman (1718-1810), who was also nicknamed Mokujiki Shonin and who is famous as a sculptor of Buddhist deities.