Kokan Shiren's Calligraphy (Book of the Introduction to

A Tang Essay in a Zen Monk's Hand

The work is a fragment. Four hanging scrolls survive at Tofuku-ji in Kyoto, and together they preserve part of a text the calligrapher did not write himself: Jinxuejie, an essay on learning composed five centuries earlier in Tang China. The brush belongs to Kokan Shiren (1278–1346), a Rinzai Zen abbot who happened also to be one of the finest Chinese-language writers Japan produced in the medieval period. The piece is registered today under the formal title Kokan Shiren Bokuseki, Shingakukai Zanpon, and "zanpon," meaning a surviving remnant, is the honest word for it. Whatever the complete set once looked like, what remains is these four scrolls.

The Japanese term bokuseki deserves a moment. It refers specifically to calligraphy written by Zen monks, a category prized in Japan far beyond ordinary handwriting. Tea masters hung such scrolls in their rooms; disciples kept them as proof of a teacher's transmission. Most bokuseki are dharma instructions, certificates of enlightenment, or short verses. A monk copying out a piece of secular Chinese prose is the less usual case, and that is partly what makes this object interesting.

Who Kokan Shiren Was

Kokan was born in Kyoto in 1278 and entered religious life young, taking up Zen practice at the age of eight under Tozan Tansho of the Shoichi lineage. He received the precepts on Mount Hiei in 1287 and, after his first teacher died, trained under a succession of masters at Nanzen-ji, Engaku-ji, and Kencho-ji. He did not confine himself to Zen. He studied the Chinese literary anthology Wen Xuan with the court scholar Sugawara no Arisuke, took up the Book of Changes with Rokujo Arifusa, and learned esoteric Buddhist ritual at Ninna-ji and Daigo-ji. The breadth was deliberate.

One episode shaped his career. Visiting the Chinese monk Yishan Yining at Kencho-ji around 1308, Kokan was asked about the great priests of Japanese Buddhist history and found he could not answer well. The embarrassment set him to work. In 1322 he completed the Genko Shakusho, a thirty-volume history of Buddhism in Japan and the first comprehensive treatment of its kind. He went on to serve as abbot of both Tofuku-ji and Nanzen-ji, founded the Kaizo-in sub-temple within Tofuku-ji, and in 1342 received the title of National Teacher from Emperor Go-Murakami. His posthumous name is Honkaku Kokushi. Scholars place him at the head of Gozan bungaku, the Chinese-style literature produced in the Five Mountains Zen temples, a movement he did much to launch.

His attachment to Tofuku-ji was real rather than ceremonial. He served as the temple's fifteenth abbot and retired to its Kaizo-in, where he died in 1346 at the age of sixty-nine. That a manuscript in his hand should rest at Tofuku-ji follows naturally from a life spent largely within its precincts.

The Text He Chose to Copy

Jinxuejie, read in Japanese as Shingakukai and translatable as "An Explanation of Progress in Learning," was written around 813 by Han Yu (768–824). Han Yu was the central figure of the Tang "ancient prose" movement and is ranked first among the Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song dynasties, which is to say he stands near the summit of the Chinese literary canon. He wrote the essay while serving as an Erudite at the imperial academy, frustrated at being repeatedly passed over for advancement.

The piece is a small drama in three turns. A teacher lectures his students on diligence, opening with a line that became proverbial: mastery in study comes from diligence and is ruined by idleness; good conduct is formed by reflection and undone by carelessness. A student then turns the argument back on him, pointing out that the teacher's own immense learning and rectitude have brought him nothing but demotion and poverty. The teacher answers with rueful self-mockery. Beneath the wit runs a sharp complaint about a world that fails to recognize talent.

Why a Zen abbot would transcribe such a text is worth considering. Kokan was, in his secular learning, exactly the kind of broadly read literatus the essay describes, and the question of merit going unrewarded would have carried weight for a monk-scholar moving between the worlds of religion, court, and letters. The choice reflects the intellectual climate of the Five Mountains temples, where Chinese classics were read, copied, and debated as part of monastic culture.

What the Designation Recognizes

The scrolls were registered as an Important Cultural Property on 26 June 1942, carrying designation number 800. For visitors unfamiliar with the Japanese system, Important Cultural Property is the national tier of protection that sits just below National Treasure; both are designations made by the central government, and the category covers objects of high historical or artistic value. Calligraphy and old manuscripts form their own division within it.

The value here rests on several points at once. The work is a securely attributed piece by a major medieval figure, surviving from the Kamakura period. It is a rare example of his calligraphy applied to a secular Chinese literary work rather than to religious writing. And it documents, in physical form, how deeply the Gozan monks absorbed continental literary culture. The official record from the Agency for Cultural Affairs is spare, listing the four scrolls, the period, and the temple, but noting no measurements, transcription date, or technical description. Where later popular sources supply such details, they should be treated with caution, since the national record does not confirm them.

Around Tofuku-ji

The manuscript belongs to one of Kyoto's great Zen institutions. Tofuku-ji was founded in 1236 by the regent Kujo Michiie, who wanted a temple to rival Nara's two largest; the name itself borrows one character each from Todai-ji and Kofuku-ji. Construction took nineteen years, finishing in 1255. The founding priest was Enni, known posthumously as Shoichi Kokushi, who had returned from study in Song China in 1243. The temple ranks among the Kyoto Gozan, the city's five chief Rinzai monasteries.

The four scrolls are not on regular public view; like most temple-held manuscripts they are kept in storage and shown only on rare occasions. Travelers should come for the temple itself. Its Sanmon gate is the oldest surviving Zen main gate in Japan and a National Treasure. In autumn the Tsutenkyo bridge looks out over the Sengyokukan ravine and its roughly two thousand maples, the reason the precinct fills with visitors in late November. The abbot's quarters are ringed by the bold modern gardens that Shigemori Mirei laid out in 1939, and the medieval bath, latrine, and meditation hall survive as Important Cultural Properties in their own right. To see calligraphy of this period in person, the Kyoto National Museum, a short distance north, regularly displays medieval Zen manuscripts and is the more reliable destination.

Reaching the temple is easy. It is about a ten-minute walk from Tofukuji Station, served by the JR Nara Line and the Keihan Main Line, and only one stop from Kyoto Station. The grounds open from around nine in the morning, with hours and admission shifting in the autumn foliage season, when the Tsutenkyo route carries a separate fee.