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1871: Edo Period 'Komusō' Bath House Temples ... and Bamboo Tea Whisk Making ...
Did the Meiji Government's November 30th Ban on the so called "Fuke Sect"
also Put a Sudden Stop to a Thriving 'Komusō' Bath House Temple Business?
虚無僧寺
は
風呂屋
だった！？
KOMUSŌ-JI wa FURO-YA datta!?
"The Komusō Temples were Public Bath Houses!?"
That is the "kind of rhetorical" question, be it "actual statement", and also the title of the very first chapter in widely respected shakuhachi history writer Kanda Kayū's 2019 publication named
虚無僧
と
尺八筆記, 'Komusō to shakuhachi hikki', "Notes about Komusō and Shakuhachi".
So, we'd better look a little more into that really fascinating, very realistic "scenario":
虚無僧収入
SHŪNYŪ - Revenues; Income
虚無僧経済
KEIZAI - Economics; Business; Finances
How did the masterless samurai komusō shakuhachi playing beggars actually survive?
How were their alleged numerous so called "Fuke temples" in reality financed and sustained
during their less than two centuries or so of existence until the prohibition of the komusō in 1871?
How did the poor, begging shakuhachi players ever acquire land for their refuge places
and fund the construction of their living quarters?
We know for certain that the komusō were not members of the general Buddhist establishsment
as such:
They were not fully ordained "Buddhist monks"; they did not - like the "old" Buddhist sects
- have any 'danka', 壇家/檀家, "patronage households", to be administratively
and routinely inspected once every year in search of hidden Christians, and they were
in no way trained nor authorized to arrange and perform funerary rites for the deceased.
Therefore: There were no such sources of any steady, predictable income and a constant. continuous money flow.
So, again: How actually did the komusō "accumulate revenue"?
Begging for and collecting alms alone could not have been sufficient, we ought to admit!
Begging komusō. Woodblock print by Takehara Shinkei, 1791
It would seem natural that the komusō would in fact have secured themselves through offering some variety of specific everyday life services that enjoyed public demand and respect in Japanese society, and among those was for instance that of establishing and managing public bath houses within the grounds of their ascetic refuge estates.
Now, except for one person, hardly any other modern times shakuhachi historian ever really cared to look
the least more deeply into such fundamental aspects of komusō life and finances
... did not bother to discover and tell us the true nature of their more commercial circumstances.
However, as early as in the late 1930s, shakuhachi player and researcher Nakatsuka Chikuzen
contributed to the discussion, with these two short chapters that have now been preserved
in one very important book that came out in 1979: The 'Kinko-ryū shakuhachi shikan',
"Looking into the History of Kinko-ryū Shakuhachi":
風呂地 - FURO-CHI - "Bath Land"/"Bath Grounds"
風呂寺 - FURO-JI - "Bath Temple"
風呂番 - FURO-BAN - "Bath Keeper"
四居士及
び
風呂寺
SHIKOJI oyobi FURO-JI
"The Legendary Four Buddhist Laymen and the Bath House Temples"
Nakatsuka Chikuzen's chapter about the legendary Four Buddhist Laymen
and the bath house temples. Nakatsuka 1979, pp. 428-430.
四居士及其門弟
SHIKOJI oyobi sono MONTEI
"The Legendary Four Buddhist Laymen and their Legendary Disciples"
Nakatsuka Chikuzen's chapter about the legendary Four Buddhist Laymen
and their disciples. Nakatsuka 1979, pp. 91-93.
虚無僧寺
は
風呂屋
だった！？
KOMUSŌ-JI wa FURO-YA datta!?
"Were the Komusō Temples Public Bath Houses!?"
In Kanda Kayū's 2019 publication titled "Komusō and Shakuhachi Notes", the very first chapter, pages 2 through 5, focuses on the matter of Edo Period komusō actually having managed public bath houses in order to accumulate income:
Kanda Kayū on komusō bath house temples
風呂寺
と
神宮寺
江戸初期
の
虚無僧寺
FURO-JI to JINGŪ-JI
EDO SHOKI no KOMUSŌ-JI
"Bath House Temples and Buddhist Temples within Shintō Shrines
Early Edo Period Komusō Temples"
In this chapter, Kanda Kayū discusses the matter of possible komusō bath house "temples"
operating within the precincts of Shintō shrines during early Edo Period times?
Mixing 'usu-cha', thin green tea, with a chasen tea whisk.
Courtesy of Urasenke tea master Søren M. Chr. Bisgaard
虚無僧茶筅作
り
/茶筌作
り
KOMUSŌ CHASEN-ZUKURI
Komusō and Bamboo Tea Whisk Manufacture
In a really interesting and significant 2016 weblog article by Makihara Shin-ichiro,
牧原一路,
titled "Didn't the Komusō Become Lowly People,"
the author states that "komusō, while making shakuhachi flutes, also produced and sold bamboo tea whisks ['chasen' for the tea ceremony] and therefore were questioned by the authorities. That was "because tea whisk making was the business of low class people," Makihara explains.
Here is the present quotation in Japanese:
虚無僧が、尺八を作るついでに、茶筅を作って売っていたので、
幕府から詰問されたことがあった。
「茶筌」づくりは賤民の所業だったのだ。
Link to the full article:
Makihara Shin-ichiro's weblog dated November 16, 2016
茶筌賣
CHASEN-URI
"Bamboo Tea Whisk Selling"
Nakatsuka Chikuzen on Chasen making
Nakatsuka Chikuzen on komusō 'chasen' bamboo tea whisk making
This web page is still being further expanded and elaborated ...
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