Ink Drawing of a Shujō (Staff of Office) and a Hossu (Ceremonial Fly Whisk of the Zen Master)

Fuyō Rōran (1724-1805) was a Sōtō Zen monk during the late Edo period and a grand disciple of Tenkei Denson (1648-1735), called Mugen Rōran. He was born in Uzen Province. He lived at Yūshōin Temple in Uzen, and in Tenmei 7 (1787), he moved to Dōsenji Temple in Suō Province. Dōsenji Temple was the Bodaiji (a family temple) of the Kikkawa clan, domain lord of the Iwakuni domain, and the lord of the time, Kikkawa Tsunetomo, was a devotee of Rōran. From the following year to Kansei 10 (1798), he served as the resident priest of Kōshōji Temple in Uji. In Kyōwa 3 (1803), he retired to Hakyōan Temple in Tsuruoka, near his hometown.
He devoted himself to the study of “Shōbōgenzō” and wrote the “Shōbōgenzō benchū,” a deepening of Tenkei’s “Shōbōgenzō naichihō,” which became a benchmark for later scholars.

The Shujō is a walking stick used by monks, and the Hossu is a bundle of animal hair attached to a handle, both of which are used during the preaching of the Buddha. In this painting, the Shujō and Hossu are drawn with simple ink lines, an expression often seen in Zen paintings, to express the artist’s zenki. The signature indicates that it was made after Kōshōji Temple.