Letter to the Chief Priest of Zuiryuji Temple

Fūgai Honkō (1779-1847) was a Zen monk of the Sōtō sect in the late Edo period. He succeeded to the Dharma of Genrō Ōryū. In Bunsei 1 (1818), he took up residence at Entsūin Temple in Settsu Province, and in Tenpō 5 (1834) at the 25th Kōjakuji Temple on the Mikawa Province, in Tenpō 12 (1841), he lived in seclusion at Ujakurō in Naniwa. In the style of Genrō’s legacy, he maintained a rigorous and earnest style, and his students included Morotake Ekidō, Hara Tanzan, and many other Zen masters of the Meiji era.

Along with Zuikō Chingyū and Jakushitsu Kenkō, he is known as a representative Sōtō Zen painter monk and painted caricatures as well as full-scale landscape paintings influenced by the painting styles of Gessen and Ikeno Taiga. Fūgai Ekun (1568-1654?), also known as “Ana Fūgai,” was a painter of the Sōtō sect. Fūgai Ekun is called “Tako Fūgai” because the shape of his signature resembles an octopus.

A letter from Fūgai to the resident priest of Zuiryūji Temple at Kōjakuji Temple on September 8, Tenpō 7(1836). The letter begins with a waka poem, he writes a waka poem expressing his admiration for his friend, and tells to his friend that he has recently received a message from a messenger from the head temple, and that he was as happy as if he had seen him.