Background
Sōhō Takuan was born on 24 December 1573. He was the son of a samurai of the domain of Izushi in the province of Tajima, present-day Hyogo Prefecture, and entered the priesthood at an early age.
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Sōhō Takuan
Edit Profile沢庵 宗彭
Career
In 1592 he went to Kyoto and entered the Sangen-in, a subtemple of the Daitoku-ji, one of the head temples of the Rinzai branch of the Zen sect. In 1609 he became the chief priest, of Daitoku-ji. In 1620 he returned to his home in Izushi and lived for the following seven years in retirement in a small hut on a hill behind the Sokyo-ji.
In 1634 he became special spiritual advisor to Emperor Gomizuno-o and the third Tokugawa shogun, Iemitsu, and in 1636 he was invited by Iemitsu to come to Edo and was treated with great favor and trust. In 1639 he became the first abbot of the Tokai-ji, a temple in Shinagawa founded by Iemitsu. Emperor Gomizuno-o requested that Takuan give him instruction in Buddhist doctrine and presented him with a writing from his own hand. Takuan died in 1645 at the Tokai-ji.
He left a number of works pertaining to Buddhism, the tea ceremony, calligraphy, and swordsmanship, as well as poems in the waka and haiku forms, the texts of which have been collected in the Takuan osho zenshu.
Achievements
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In 1627 he went to Kyoto once more, this time to protest the action of the Edo shogunate in the so-called purple robe affair. Emperor Gomizuno-o had ordered that purple robes, a mark of special honor, be presented to Shoon Sochi, the chief priest of Daitoku-ji, and other eminent members of the Buddhist clergy, but the shogunate countermanded the order. As a result of his protests against the action of the government, in 1629 Takuan was exiled to Kami-no-yama in Uzen in present-day Yamagata Prefecture, but he was pardoned three years later and allowed to return to Kyoto.
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Born
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Died
January 27, 1645 (aged 71) -
Nationality
Japan -
Ethnicity
Career
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1609
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1634
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1639