Kyorai Mukai part 5

August 2012

Kyorai Mukai, Part 5

Special Commemorative Key-Note Public Lecture

At World Haiku Festival 2010 In Nagasaki

By

Susumu Takiguchi

Chairman, The World Haiku Club

Kyorai Mukai (1651－1704):

PART FIVE

Having given up on military training, Kyorai went back to live in Kyoto. Exactly when this took place is not known. According to Professor Takejiro Sakurai, it is held that Kyorai was still living in Fukuoka in Kambun 10 (1670). Sakurai estimates that Kyorai must have gone back to Kyoto between Kambun 11 (1671) and early Empo (Empo1 =1673). Suppose it was in 1673 when Kyorai was 23 years old, then he would have been living in Fukuoka for seven years since he went to live there when he was sixteen. Other scholars (e.g. Dr Hatsuo Ouchi) maintain that Kyorai moved from Fukuoka to Kyoto in Empo 3 (1675), in which case he would have been in Fukuoka for nine long years.

The question of exactly when Kyorai moved to Kyoto apart, move he did. As he was conversant with such branches of learning as astronomy and on-myo-do (The Way of Ying and Yang Cosmic Duality), he was invited to be in service for the Dojo Family. He also served for Imperial princes and aristocracy. He was interested in Shintoism and after studying Juka-Shinto (Confucius-Shinto) he became an expert on Shinto. It is also known that he was helping his elder brother Gentan (haiku-name: Shinken) who was a medical doctor. In Rakushi Sensei Gyojo which was mentioned before, there is an entry which goes, “...The Master (Kyorai) gave up on serving as samurai, and instead helped his elder brother, which was highly commendable...” Though he had talent and capability with which to be successful in ordinary pursuit of position and security he chose not to do so, which in itself speaks volumes of his pure heart and upright character.

This was also true with Kyorai’s haikai style. Especially important is the fact that he not only followed Basho’s teachings faithfully himself but also endeavoured to pass them accurately over to posterity. For this purpose Kyorai sometimes went so far as to admonish Basho’s fellow disciples such as Kikaku and Kyoriku when they transgressed these teachings. Some have asserted that this was a case of Kyorai splitting the unity of the disciples or having an outright row with them but my view is that theirs was a gentleman’s (i.e. adult’s) relationship and that these disagreements were part of their honest exchanges. As if to prove this point, other disciples such as Kyoriku are known to have been openly praising Kyorai.

All these would become almost trivial when we turn to the most important of all things which happened to Kyorai during the thirty years from the time he left Nagasaki and the time he made the first revisit to that place. It was of course Kyorai making acquaintance with Basho. It is not known exactly when, where and how these two individuals met for the first time. However, it is held that they were first introduced to each other roughly when Basho was forty-two years old and Kyorai, seven years younger, was thirty-five. The one who introduced them was Kikaku Enomoto (1661-1707) who, around that time, was only twenty-five years old. Also, it is known that Kyorai had just begun to take up the Way of Haikai when he met Basho for the first time.

It is important to know that the year in which Kyorai’s work ever appeared for the first time in a senshu (anthology) was 2 Jokyo (1685). Kyorai was already thirty-four then. Kikaku, on the other hand, became Basho’s disciple when he was only thirteen or fourteen, as he himself mentioned, “...the beginning of Enpo...”, which would be around 1673. Kikaku was a child prodigy. For example, at the age of twenty-one Kikaku wrote a draft of Azuma Nikki, which was compiled by Gonsui. Two years later at 23 he compiled the first anthology of haikai, the famous Minashi-Guri (shrivelled chestnuts 1683), with Basho’s postscript. At thirty-one he was so distinguished as to write the preface to the all-important Sarumino (Monkey’s Straw Coat). Kikaku was some kind of an exception but even then one can say that Kyorai was quite old when he took up haikai. The aforementioned anthology in which Kyorai’s work first appeared as far as we know is called Ichiro-Fu (poems at a building). It was compiled during the summer of 1685 by Fubaku who originally came from Ise but was living in Edo at that time. The following two verses are the work by Kyorai in this anthology:

五日経ぬあすは戸無瀬の鮎汲まん

Itsuka henu asu wa Tonase no ayu kuman

Five days have passed...

I shall drink tomorrow

with Tonase’s sweetfish

雪の山かはつた脚もなかりけり

Yuki no yama kawatta ashi mo nakari keri

Snow mountain...

no pair legs were

dissimilar

(to be continued)