Keisei (1189–1268) was a

Japanese Buddhist Buddhism has been practiced in Japan since about the 6th century CE. Japanese Buddhism () created many new Buddhist schools, and some schools are original to Japan and some are derived from Chinese Buddhist schools. Japanese Buddhism has had ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...

of the

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Lotus School (天台法華宗 ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just "''hokke shū''") is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition (with significant esoteric elements) officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese m ...

sect. He was a son of the regent

Kujō Yoshitsune , also known as Fujiwara no Yoshitsune, son of regent Kujō Kanezane and a daughter of Fujiwara no Sueyuki, was a '' kugyō'' or Japanese court noble from the late Heian period to the early Kamakura period. He held a regent position Sesshō from ...

of the

Fujiwara clan was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since the ancient times and dominated the imperial court until th ...

. His spine was permanently injured in infancy when he was dropped by his

wet nurse A wet nurse is a woman who breastfeeds and cares for another's child. Wet nurses are employed if the mother dies, or if she is unable or chooses not to nurse the child herself. Wet-nursed children may be known as "milk-siblings", and in some cu ...

, which probably influenced his decision to become a priest. He studied under the monk

Myōe (February 21, 1173 – February 11, 1232) was a Japanese Buddhist monk active during the Kamakura period who also went by the name ''Kōben'' ( ja, 高弁). He was a contemporary of Jōkei and Hōnen. Biography Myōe was born in what is n ...

and then established a hermitage west of

Kyōto 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 c ...

. In 1217, he travelled to

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, where he stayed about a year before returning to Japan. In China, he commissioned a ''

nanban Nanban may refer to: Japan * Nanban art, Japanese art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries influenced by contact with the Nanban * Nanban trade or the , was a period in the history of Japan from the arrival of Europeans in 1543 to t ...

'' ("southern barbarian", i.e., a

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

) to write an inscription in Persian for Myōe.

Donald Keene Donald Lawrence Keene (June 18, 1922 – February 24, 2019) was an American-born Japanese scholar, historian, teacher, writer and translator of Japanese literature. Keene was University Professor emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japan ...

, ''Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century'' (Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 768–770. In 1222, Keisei composed a collection of ''

setsuwa Setsuwa (, ja, 説話, setsu wa) is an East Asian literary genre. It consists of myths, legends, folktales, and anecdotes. ''Setsuwa'' means "spoken story". As one of the vaguest forms of literature, setsuwa is believed to have been passed down ...

'' entitled ''Kankyo no Tomo'' (Companion of a Quiet Life, or Companion in Solitude).Rajyashree Pandey, "Women, Sexuality, and Enlightenment: ''Kankyo no Tomo''", ''Monumenta Nipponica'' 50.3 (1995), pp. 325–356. It was formerly attributed to Jien. To Keisei has also been attributed the '' Hyōtō Ryūkyū no kuni no ki'', an account of a voyage to the

Ryūkyū Kingdom The Ryukyu Kingdom, Middle Chinese: , , Classical Chinese: (), Historical English names: ''Lew Chew'', ''Lewchew'', ''Luchu'', and ''Loochoo'', Historical French name: ''Liou-tchou'', Historical Dutch name: ''Lioe-kioe'' was a kingdom in t ...

in 1244.Herbert Plutschow, "Medieval Travel Diaries", in Steven D. Carter (ed.)
''Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 203: Medieval Japanese Writers''
(Gale Group, 1999), p. 177.

References

{{reflist 1189 births 1268 deaths 13th-century Japanese writers 13th-century Buddhist monks Kamakura period Buddhist clergy Japanese Buddhist clergy Tendai Buddhist monks Japanese travel writers Japanese male short story writers