Kennedy, Alan. Manteau de Nuages: Kesa Japonais.Paris: Re-
union des Musée Nationaux, 1992.
Kyuma, Echu. Kesa no hanashi.Kyoto: Hozokan, 1994.
Till, Barry, and Swart, Paula. Kesa: The Elegance of Japanese
Monks’ Robes.Victoria, BC: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria,
1996.
WILLAJANETANABERYOKAN
Ryokan (Taigu, 1758–1831) was the eldest son of a
prosperous family in a port town of northwest Japan.
He was ordained at the age of seventeen as a SotoZen
monk. After ten years of monastic training and five
years of wandering Ryokan returned to his home dis-
trict, where he lived alone in a mountain hermitage.
He maintained no ties to the Buddhist institutions,
preferring a life of simplicity and poverty, writing po-
etry and practicing solitary meditation. He supported
himself by the traditional practice of begging for alms,
often stopping to play with children or to drink with
the farmers. Gradually his fame spread and he became
widely known as a poet and calligrapher. Scholars and
writers traveled from far away to see him. The last
three years of his life he became close friends with
Teishin, a beautiful young nun who was an accom-
plished poet.
Ryokan’s poetry describes the fleeting details of his
rural life with both joy and sadness, adding occasional
references to Buddhism and classical allusions. He
wrote in both Japanese and literary Chinese, often
bending or ignoring rules of composition in favor of
common speech. Beneath this surface of transparent
simplicity is Ryokan’s great erudition in the most an-
cient classics of both Japanese and Chinese poetry. His
unparalleled popularity in contemporary Japan comes
both from his poetry and from the ideal of his life.
Ryokan is seen as one who achieved religious awaken-
ing in the midst of ordinary events, living a life that
embodied the ideal of the unity of the mundane and
transcendent.See also:Japanese, Buddhist Influences on Vernacular
Literature in; Poetry and BuddhismBibliography
Abé, Ryuichi, and Haskel, Peter. Great Fool, Zen Master Ryokan:
Poems, Letters, and Other Writings.Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 1996.
Yuasa, Noboyuki. The Zen Poems of Ryokan.Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1981.
DAVIDE. RIGGSRYOKAN