Hon'inbō Sansa (本因坊算砂, 1559 – June 13, 1623) was the assumed name of Kanō Yosaburō (加納與三郎), one of the strongest Japanese

Go players This article gives an overview of well-known professional and amateur players of the board game Go throughout the ages. The page has been divided into sections based on the era in which the Go players played and the country in which they pla ...

of the

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 character ...

(1603–1867), and founder of the house of Hon'inbō, first among the four great schools of Go in Japan. He was a

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 ...

priest of the

Nichiren sect Nichiren Buddhism ( ja, 日蓮仏教), also known as Hokkeshū ( ja, 法華宗, meaning ''Lotus Sect'') is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese Buddhist priest Nichiren (1222–1282) and is one of ...

, and his original

dharma name A Dharma name or Dhamma name is a new name acquired during both lay and monastic Buddhist initiation rituals in Mahayana Buddhism and monastic ordination in Theravada Buddhism (where it is more proper to call it Dhamma or Sangha name). The nam ...

was Nikkai (日海).

Life and career

Nikkai was born in Kyōto and became a

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedic ...

at age nine. The name "Hon'inbō", (originally pronounced "Honninbō"), comes from a sub-temple of the Jakkōji temple complex in Kyōto where Nikkai, the first "Hon'inbō", resided. Among his students were the ''

daimyō were powerful Japanese magnates, feudal lords who, from the 10th century to the early Meiji period in the middle 19th century, ruled most of Japan from their vast, hereditary land holdings. They were subordinate to the shogun and nominall ...

s''

Oda Nobunaga was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period. He is regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. Nobunaga was head of the very powerful Oda clan, and launched a war against other ''daimyō'' to unify ...

Toyotomi Hideyoshi , otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...

, and

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the founder and first ''shōgun'' of the Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan, which ruled Japan from 1603 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. He was one of the three "Great Unifiers" of Japan, along with his former lord Oda Nobunaga and fello ...

, the three great "unifiers" of

feudal Japan The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inven ...

. Nikkai considered the three generals to be "fifth-degree" players (五子, comparable to amateur 4 or 5

dan Dan or DAN may refer to: People * Dan (name), including a list of people with the name ** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark * Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa **Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivoir ...

), but "diplomacy" was likely a factor in Nikkai's even-handed assessment of these imposing figures. It was Nobunaga who, in 1578, recognized twenty-year-old Nikkai as the first ''

Meijin is one of the eight titles in Japanese professional shogi, and is the most prestigious title, along with Ryūō. The word ''meijin'' (名 ''mei'' "excellent, artful", 人 ''jin'' "person") refers to a highly skilled master of a certain field (t ...

'' of Go. In 1582, Nikkai, at the behest of Nobunaga, was involved in a notorious game at the Honnōji Temple against his rival, another Nichiren priest, Kashio Rigen (鹿塩利玄 b. 1565). (Apparently, there is a theory that "Kashio" and "Rigen" were two different people. See the Japanese version of this article.) The game is traditionally held to have taken place on the eve of the treacherous

Incident at Honnōji Incident may refer to: * A property of a graph in graph theory * ''Incident'' (film), a 1948 film noir * Incident (festival), a cultural festival of The National Institute of Technology in Surathkal, Karnataka, India * Incident (Scientology), a ...

, (in which Nobunaga was forced to commit

seppuku , sometimes referred to as hara-kiri (, , a native Japanese kun reading), is a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It was originally reserved for samurai in their code of honour but was also practised by other Japanese people ...

), and is said to have ended in a "

triple ko A ''ko'' (Japanese: コウ, 劫, ''kō'', from the translation of the Sanskrit term kalpa) fight is a tactical and strategic phase that can arise in the game of go. ''Ko'' threats and ''ko'' fights The existence of ''ko'' fights is implied by t ...

". Hence the notion of triple ko as bad omen. There is a

Go_game_record A Go game record is an archival record for a game of Go. ''Kifu'' (棋譜) is the Japanese term for abstract strategy game record. In China, people named this kind of record "qipu" (. In Korea, people named this kind of record "Gibo" (). Go reco ...

, but typical for the period, it is incomplete. The triple ko may have occurred, somewhat implausibly, in unrecorded remaining plays, or in another game that day, but in the end, there is no evidence that this is more than a good story. In 1587, Nobunaga's successor, the regent ('' kampaku'') Hideyoshi gave Nikkai an official position, (forerunner to the office of '' Go-dokoro''), granting his temple an annual four ''

koku The is a Chinese-based Japanese unit of volume. 1 koku is equivalent to 10 or approximately , or about . It converts, in turn, to 100 shō and 1000 gō. One ''gō'' is the volume of the "rice cup", the plastic measuring cup that is supplied ...

'' of

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...

and setting up a tournament that he attended in person. In 1592, Nikkai was given the rank of '' Gon-no-Daisoku'' by the Go-Yōzei Emperor. In 1603, the Go-Yōzei Emperor recognized sixty-year-old Tokugawa Ieyasu as ''shōgun'', inaugurating the 250-year rule of the

Tokugawa bakufu The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encycloped ...

. At the direction of Ieyasu, Nikkai turned priestly duties at Jakkoji over to his younger brother Nichiei and became the first ''go-dokoro'', in which office Nikkai was provided fifty ''koku'' of rice and five servants. Also around this time (), Nikkai took the name ''Hon'inbō Sansa'' (''Sansa'' written 算砂: the characters for "calculating" and "sand"). Sansa was also a strong ''

shogi , also known as Japanese chess, is a strategy board game for two players. It is one of the most popular board games in Japan and is in the same family of games as Western chess, '' chaturanga, Xiangqi'', Indian chess, and ''janggi''. ''Shōgi ...

'' player, but in the Tokugawa period, go was organised into four "houses" (or "academies"), and

into three, which would compete in ''

oshirogo ''Oshirogo'' (御城碁 "castle Go") or castle games were official matches of high-level Go played in Japan during the Edo period, usually in the castles of the ''shōgun''. Players were mostly from the four go houses. Matches were played in th ...

'' "Castle Go" (and "Castle shogi") tournaments for the title ''

''. (See more at '' History of shogi § Modern shogi''.) The official nature of these arrangements meant that go and shogi masters held different offices. In 1612, eight go and shogi players were given individual state support. This system persisted over two and a half centuries, until the collapse of the Tokugawa government itself in the

Meiji Restoration The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...

. The beginning of the ''

'' matches in

Edo Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...

, seat of the Tokugawa government, meant that at the end of each year, Sansa had to travel east for a month. He is said to have turned down an official residence in Edo's early

Nihonbashi is a business district of Chūō, Tokyo, Japan which grew up around the bridge of the same name which has linked two sides of the Nihonbashi River at this site since the 17th century. The first wooden bridge was completed in 1603. The curre ...

district, but was given other accommodations. (It was the unrivaled fourth Hon'inbō, Hon'inbō Dōsaku (1645–1702) who finally moved the school to Edo.) Sansa died in Edo at the age of 65.

Legacy

Honinbō Sansa was succeeded by a youth named Sugimura, who due to his age, had to wait several years after Sansa's death to re-establish the Hon'inbō house as Hon'inbō San'etsu when he turned twenty. However, the title of ''Meijin'' was regained by the third head of Hon'inbō, and altogether, seven of the ten generations of historic ''Meijin'' were Hon'inbō. In addition, all three traditional '' Kisei'' ("Go Sages") were Hon'inbō masters. (Both ''Meijin'' and ''Kisei'' are now titles administered by the

Nihon Ki-in The Nihon Ki-in (), also known as the Japan Go Association, is the main organizational body for Go in Japan, overseeing Japan's professional system and issuing diplomas for amateur dan rankings. It is based in Tokyo. The other major Go associa ...

.) The school established by Hon'inbō Sansa, along with the Inoue and Yasui schools, lasted into the 20th century, but struggled without government backing. In 1936, the last Hon'inbō master, the controversial Hon'inbō Shūsai, turned selection of the Hon'inbō title over to the Nihon Ki-in. (See Honinbō Tournament.)

In popular culture

He has been featured in the Japanese

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...

Hikaru no Go.

References

* ''Life of the first "Hon-in-bo"'', Takeshi Ishikawa, Monthly Go Review 1961/7
Homepage of the Jakkoin Temple

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Honinbo, Sansa 1559 births 1623 deaths Japanese Go players Japanese shogi players Japanese Buddhist clergy Nichiren Buddhist monks People from Kyoto Deceased professional shogi players Professional shogi players from Kyoto Prefecture Edo period Buddhist clergy 16th-century Go players 17th-century Go players