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 ...

writer in the early

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

. A Shin Buddhist priest who was at one time head of a

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 ci ...

temple, he is held to be one of the finest writers of

Kanazōshi describes a type of printed Japanese language, Japanese book that was produced primarily in Kyoto between 1600 and 1680. The term literally means “books written in ''kana''” (''kana'' being the phonetic Japanese syllabary that is simpler to ...

. Kanazōshi was a form of popular literature that was written with little or no

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

, thus accessible to many. Though it spanned many genres, a common theme in Kanazōshi works was the celebration of contemporary urban life. Asai Ryōi's work in particular turned traditional Buddhist teaching on its head in an expression of urban ideals.

''Ukiyo Monogatari''

is widely considered the first work to revel in the difference between

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

ukiyo is the Japanese term used to describe the urban lifestyle and culture, especially the pleasure-seeking aspects, of Edo period Japan (1600–1867). culture developed in Yoshiwara, the licensed red-light district of Edo (modern-day Tokyo), ...

'' and Edo period ''ukiyo''. ''Ukiyo'' was the concept that life is transitory and nothing worldly lasts forever. While the earlier Buddhist teaching concluded that one must therefore put one's energy into lasting spiritual matters that would continue to benefit one in the next life, urban Edo period ideals were more epicurean, and encouraged one to enjoy the pleasures of life as if each day were your last. The hero of the piece, Ukiyobō, is a Buddhist priest who learns enough from a life of debauchery, gambling and general pleasure-seeking to gain enlightenment under the later guidance of his elders. The seriousness of the

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

is satirized and the liveliness of the

townsman A municipal council is the legislature, legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, ...

lauded.

''Otogi Bōko''

is an adaptation of the more spectacular tales from a Chinese Book of moralistic short stories, ''

Jiandeng Xinhua ''Jiandeng Xinhua'' (, lit. ''New Stories Told While Trimming the Wick'' or ''New Stories After Snuffing the Lamp''; 1378) is an early Ming dynasty collection of Chinese stories by Qu You (). The book consist of 21 stories in 4 volumes. It was s ...

'' (''New Tales Under the Lamplight''). The stories are changed to reflect contemporary urban life. For example, in " The Peony Lantern", the original tale's protagonist dies horribly as a result of giving in to sexual pleasure with the spirit of a dead girl - the moral message is the need to accept impermanence and not be consumed by worldly desires. In Ryōi's version the protagonist almost saves himself from such a fate, but in the end chooses to die in his ghostly lover's arms rather than die pining for herThe Peony Lantern
/ref> - a celebration of real human emotions. The stories in ''Otogi Bōko'' fulfilled a thirst for supernatural tales and expressed the dichotomy between social obligations, or '' giri'', and the reality of the human experience.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Asai, Ryoi Buddhist writers Japanese Buddhist clergy 17th-century Japanese writers 1691 deaths 1610s births Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist priests Edo period Buddhist clergy

''Ukiyo Monogatari''

''Otogi Bōko''

See also

References