RAKUSHISHA

Rakushisha is the cottage of the Genroku poet Mukai Kyorai. Kyorai was one of the ten disciples of the famous haiku poet Matsuo Basho. Basho once referred to Kyorai in this way: «In Kyoto there is Kyorai, who is in charge of haikai in Western Japan». Kyorai was the most important poet to continue Basho’s authentic style after the master died.

Rakushisha is shown in Shui Miyako Meisho Zue (Map of Famous Places in Kyoto), «at the foot of Ogurayama and behund Hinoyashiro in Yamamoto-cho». The Hinoyahiro is now the tomb of Uchiko Naishin’no, the sixth daughter of Emperor Saga.

In the garden we have a poem sotne which was made Inoue Juko, a relative of Kyorai and a disciple of a haiku poet named Chomu, in the autumn of 1772 with this poem:

Kakinushi ya / master of persimmons
kozue wa chikaki / treetrops are close to
Arashiyama / Stormy Mountain

As the story goes, Kyorai had about forty persimmon trees in the garden of his hut in Saga. One autumn when they were heavy with fruit, he had arranged to sell the persimmons. But the night before they were to be picked a great storm arose. The next morning not a single persimmon was left on the trees. Kyorai was enlightened by this experience, and from then on called the hut «Rakushisha» (the cottage of the fallen persimmons).

Kyorai’s master Basho visited Rakushisha three times; in 1689. 1691, and 1694. When he visited here the second time, he stayed from April 18 to May 5. The diary he kept then is called «Saga Nikki» and was published in the third year of Horeki (1573). His last visit to Rakushisha was about four months before he died.

In the western corner of the garden there is a poem stone with the poem:

samidare ya / summer rains
shikishi hegitaru / trace of a poem card
kabe no ato / torn off the wall

This is Basho’s haiku with wich he ended his «Saga Nikki.»

On the poem stone next to it is the haiku by Takahama Kyoshi:

oyoso tenka ni / I’ve visited
Kyorai hodo no / the world’s smallest
chiisaki haka ni / Kyorai’s
mairi keri / gravestone

He made this poem when he visited the gravestone in the 41st year of Meiji (1908). The calligraphy was done by the poet himself, and the stone was made in Showa 34 (1959).

To the north of those two stones there is a small stone monument to Shaku Hyosai, who was a famous journalist for the Asahi (newspaper) and demonstrated his talent in haiga (haiku paintings), He made a great contribution to the conservation of Rakushisha. We have a poem stone of his haiku at the entrance to the Kyorai’s graveyard;

akikaze ni / left behind
fuki nokosarete / the autumn wind
haka hitotsu / single gravestone

There is a gorinto (five stone monument) called «haijin to» (monument for haiku poets) at the back of the garden. It was erected by Kudo Shiranshi, the eleventh master of Rakushisha, and is dedicated to all the haiku poets in the past, present and future.

Note: Gorinto is a monument composed of five pieces piled up one upon another representing, from the bottom upward, earth, water, fire, wind, and heaven respectively.

A poem stone to the «haijin to» has the haiku in the original calligraphy of a former president of Kyoto University, Hirasawa Ko,

haru no ame / the spring rain
ame tsuchi koko ni / heaven and earth here
haijin to / the monument haiku poets

Kyorai’s gravestone is in the Kogenji Graveyard a hundred meters north of Rakushisha. Only his name «Kyorai» is carved in the natural stone which is only forty centimeters tall.

Rakushisha is now conserved by the Rakushisa Conservation Association.