Unshō (運敝, 20 November 1604 – 9 October 1693) was a Japanese

Shingon is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asian Buddhism. It is a form of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism and is sometimes called "Tōmitsu" (東密 lit. "Esoteric uddhismof Tō- ...

monk A monk (; from , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...

active in the early

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

. He was born into the

Fujiwara clan The was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since ancient times and dominated the imperial court until th ...

, and he may have been originally from

Osaka is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...

. His

art name An art name (pseudonym or pen name), also known by its native names ''hào'' (in Mandarin Chinese), ''gō'' (in Japanese), ' (in Korean), and ''tên hiệu'' (in Vietnamese), is a professional name used by artists, poets and writers in the Sinosp ...

was Hakunyo (泊如), and his

courtesy name A courtesy name ( zh, s=字, p=zì, l=character), also known as a style name, is an additional name bestowed upon individuals at adulthood, complementing their given name. This tradition is prevalent in the East Asian cultural sphere, particula ...

was Genshun (元春).

Life

He was born on 20 November 1614 (the nineteenth day of the tenth month of Keichō 19 according to the

Japanese calendar Japanese calendar types have included a range of official and unofficial systems. At present, Japan uses the Gregorian calendar together with year designations stating the Japanese era name, year of the reign of the current Emperor. The written f ...

). He is said to have been from

. He was born into the

. When was thirteen (according to Japanese reckoning) he joined a Buddhist temple, and became a monk at sixteen. He was a diligent student, and was said to have learning well beyond his years. When he was 35, he was invited to the . He lectured the lord of

Owari Domain The Owari-Han, also known as the Owari Domain, was a significant feudal domain in Tokugawa shogunate, Japan during the Edo period. Situated in the western region of what is now Aichi Prefecture, it covered portions of Owari Province, Owari, Mino ...

on the

Buddhist sutra ''Sutra'' ()Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an aphorism or a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or, more broadly, a co ...

s and earned his respect and admiration. At 39, he returned to the

Chishaku-in Chishaku-in (智積院) is a Buddhist temple in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, Japan. It is affiliated with Shingon-shū Chizan-ha Buddhism. It was established in 1601. The temple has a historic garden that was said to be a favourite of Sen no Rikyū. ...

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

. At 41, he was dispatched to Enpuku-ji, the Chishaku-in's ' in

Edo Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the '' de facto'' capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogu ...

. In 1661, he became the seventh abbot of Chishaku-in, a position he held for twenty years. In 1682 ( Tenna 2), he retired to Rakuhoku Zuiō-san Yōmei-bō (洛北瑞応山養命坊). He died on 9 October 1693 (the tenth day of the ninth month of Genroku 6).

Names

His secular family name was Fujiwara. His

was ''Hakunyo'', and his

was ''Genshun''.

Writings

In 1639 ( Kan'ei 16), when he was in his mid-twenties, he published a afterword to Bunsei's (文性) ''Hannya Shingyō Hiken Bunrin'' (般若心経秘鍵文林, a commentary on the

Heart Sutra The ''Heart Sūtra'', ) is a popular sutra in Mahayana, Mahāyāna Buddhism. In Sanskrit, the title ' translates as "The Heart of the Prajnaparamita, Perfection of Wisdom". The Sutra famously states, "Form is emptiness (''śūnyatā''), em ...

). From then on, he self-published an immense volume of his own writings. During his time at Enpuku-ji, he devoted much of his scholarly energy to commentary on

Kūkai , born posthumously called , was a Japanese Buddhist monk, calligrapher, and poet who founded the Vajrayana, esoteric Shingon Buddhism, Shingon school of Buddhism. He travelled to China, where he studied Tangmi (Chinese Vajrayana Buddhism) und ...

's ''

Sangō Shiiki is a dialectic allegory written by Kūkai in 797. It is Japan's oldest comparative ideological critique. At the time of writing, Kūkai was 24 years old. It is his debut work. Contents The text is three volumes in length. It is written in a d ...

''. The majority of his writings are commentaries on Buddhist texts, but of particular note are his commentaries on Kūkai's writings, especially the seventeen-volume commentary on the ' (published Keian 2, or 1649) and the seven-volume commentary on the ''Sangō Shiiki'' (published Kanbun 3, or 1663).

References

Works cited

* * * {{authority control Japanese monks Writers of the Edo period 1604 births 1693 deaths