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 , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

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

Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...

temple, he is held to be one of the finest writers of Kanazōshi. Kanazōshi was a form of popular literature that was written with little or no

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, 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 and are ...

, 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 Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

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

'' 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 The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

is satirized and the liveliness of the townsman lauded.

''Otogi Bōko''

is an adaptation of the more spectacular tales from a Chinese Book of moralistic short stories, '' Jiandeng Xinhua'' (''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 1691 deaths 1610s births 17th-century Japanese writers Buddhist clergy of the Edo period Buddhist writers Japanese Buddhist clergy Jōdo Shinshū Buddhist priests

''Ukiyo Monogatari''

''Otogi Bōko''

See also

References