also known as was a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Buddhist monk of the early

Muromachi period The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by ...

of Japanese history, noted as the blind itinerant lute player (''

biwa hōshi , also known as "lute priests", were travelling performers in the era of Japanese history preceding the Meiji period. They earned their income by reciting vocal literature to the accompaniment of music. were mostly blind, and adopted the shaved ...

'') who gave the epic ''

Heike Monogatari is an epic account compiled prior to 1330 of the struggle between the Taira clan and Minamoto clan for control of Japan at the end of the 12th century in the Genpei War (1180–1185). Heike () refers to the Taira (), ''hei'' being the ''on'y ...

'' its present form.

Life

Little is known about his early life, but Kakuichi may have originally been a monk of Enkyō-ji near

Himeji 260px, Himeji City Hall is a city located in Hyōgo Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 525,682 in 227,099 households and a population density of 980 persons per km². The total area of the city i ...

Harima Province or Banshū (播州) was a province of Japan in the part of Honshū that is the southwestern part of present-day Hyōgo Prefecture. Harima bordered on Tajima, Tanba, Settsu, Bizen, and Mimasaka Provinces. Its capital was Himeji. During ...

and may have been a nephew of

Ashikaga Takauji was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Ashikaga shogunate."Ashikaga Takauji" in '' The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 625. His rule began in 1338, beginning the Muromac ...

. After losing his sight in his 30s, he is said to have come to

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ...

and joined the

Tōdōza The was a Japanese guild for blind men, established in the 14th century by the biwa hōshi . Members performed a variety of roles, as itinerant musicians, masseurs, and acupuncturists. It received the patronage of the Muromachi and Edo shogun ...

, a ''biwa hōshi'' guild, performing versions of the ''Heike Monogatari'' as entertainment for members of the aristocracy. Kakuichi was a student of Jōichi (城一), the most famous Heike reciter in Kyoto, but soon surpassed his master and 1363 had the attained the highest rank (検校, ''Kengyō'') within the guild. On his death, he was posthumous awarded the rank of Grand Master (総検校, ''Sōkengyō'').

Work

Kakuichi's version of the ''Heike Monogatari'', known as the Kakuichi-bon, was developed over several decades beginning in the 1330s or 1340s, and was written down only a few months before his death as he recited it to his pupil Teiichi. The Tōdōza split over whether or not to accept Kakuichi's new version, with the ''Yasaka-ryu'' rejecting it, and the ''Ichikata-ryu'' accepting it. The Yasaka-ryu declined after the

Onin War Onin may refer to: * Ōnin, a Japanese era ** Ōnin War * Onin peninsula, on the Bomberai Peninsula Bomberai Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Bomberai), otherwise known as the Bird's Beak Peninsula ( id, Semenanjung Paruh Burung), is located in the We ...

, leaving the tradition in the hands of the ''Ichikata-ryu''. The ''Kakuichi-bon'' is currently the most popular version, and is the version used for most scholarly studies. pp 42

References

* pp 500–543 * McCullough, Helen Craig. (1988). ''The Tale of the Heike''. Stanford:

Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It was among the presses officiall ...

.
OCLC 16472263

Notes

1299 births 1371 deaths 14th-century Japanese people 14th-century storytellers Blind musicians Japanese Buddhist clergy Japanese lutenists People of Muromachi-period Japan Blind people from Japan {{Buddhist-clergy-stub