Shiki and Ishite-ji
Shiki was born in Matsuyama on September 17, 1867. Being the following year the first year of the Meiji period, Shiki's age would always coincide with that of an era of modernization and great social change in Japan. His real name was Tsunenori, but as a child he was called Noboru. His father Tsunenao was a low-ranking samurai, and his mother Yae, the eldest daughter Ohara Kanzan, was a teacher at the feudal clan school. Noboru (Shiki) lost his father when he was five and was educated in the Chinese classics by the strict, conservative Kanzan. Noboru (Shiki) was also greatly influenced during his childhood by his uncle, Kato Takusen, who later served as a diplomat and became the mayor of the city of Matsuyama itself.
Inspired by the Freedom and People's Right Movement, Shiki went to Tokyo in 1883 with the aim of becoming a politician (under the influence and example his Uncle had set). While studying at the Imperial University of Tokyo, his interest in politics and philosophy gave way to a growing fascination with literature, thus increasing with the lapsing time at the university. He began his literary dimension by writing fiction at first, but he gradually concentrated on the study and composition of haiku after having read and penetrated into the masters of haiku.
Then, when he was twenty-two, he unexpectedly began coughing up blood due to a 
serious affliction with tuberculosis and consequently adopted the pen name, "Shiki." (Written by Shiki himself, the note introducing himself as "Shiki.") SHIKI is the name of a bird that, according to legend, coughs blood while it sings. It was then that he determined to devote himself to the world of Japanese literature. As a result of his new inspiration, Shiki withdrew from the Imperial University and began working as a journalist for the local newspaper named Nippon.
In his literary endeavors and purposes, Shiki vouched for the reform of haiku and tanka (the traditional seventeen and thirty-one syllabic classical Japanese poetry). Haiku, in particular, became the focus of attention. These traditional forms had lost much their originality, significance and value with the passing of time -- since 
few men would be able to do the same quality work after the masters who created them. Thus, Shiki proposed the adoption of literary composition based on "Shasei," (sketches from natural life). He himself set out to create this new form by fusing this principle of describing life just as it is in a spontaneous moment or experience of human perception and appreciation into his own prose writing, as well as his haiku and tanka. Until two days before his death, Shiki continued writing articles, including a series under the title "Byo-sho Rokusyaku" [A Six-foot Sick-Bed], in spite of intense suffering from the spinal tuberculosis which had afflicted him since 1895. He died on September 19, 1902, but during his brief life, Shiki had attracted a number of followers, who were influenced by his theories and literary views. These younger men and writers later carried on his "sketch-from-natural life" principle in their own literary works. Thus Shiki was able to change and add to the evolution of Modern Japanese Literature.
by Kametaro (Japan)
(July 1977)
Masaoka Shiki left a large body of work although he died young and suffered a debilitating illness. Kodansha recently published his complete works in twenty-two volumes with three supplementary volumes, each of about 700 pages; among those compiling this edition were three professors from Matsuyama (University) led by Wada Shigeki, the foremost scholar in the field. The new edition was necessary because many materials had come to light since the first "complete works" was published by Kaizo publishing Company in 1930.
Shiki wrote about eighteen thousand haiku. The years 1894, 1895, and 1896 were a period of vigorous activity: in 1894 he wrote 2366 haiku, in 1895, 2843 haiku, and in 1896, 3001 haiku. The 360 haiku translated by Harold J. Issacson in his book Peony Kana are only a small part of Shiki's output.
Eighteen ninety-five was an eventful year for Shiki. At the beginning of the year the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 was still in progress, and Nippon, the Tokyo newspaper that Shiki worked for as haiku editor, finally yielded to his persistent requests and, despite misgivings about his poor health, sent him to China as a war correspondent. By the time he reached Cina, the war was over. He spent a month sightseeing with friends, but the living quarters assigned by the army were so bad that the tuberculosis that afflicted him for years rapidly worsened. An overcrowded ship carried him to Kobe, where the doctors, expecting his imminent death, summoned his family. Somehow he survived and by August he was well enough to go to Matsuyama to convalesce.
He soon found himself deep in haiku activity as teacher to the Shofu-kai group that included Kyokudo and Shiki's friend from Tokyo, Natsume Soseki, then teaching school in Matsuyama, his career as one of Japan's greatest modern novelists still ahead of him.
When he left well enough, Shiki took walks around the town. Sansaku-shu is his record of those walks and the haiku that came from them. He sometimes went to Ishite-ji, a handsome old Buddhist temple, then on the outskirts of the city -- a pleasant half-hour's walk along a country lane through rice fields (today the city has engulfed the temple and the rice fields are no more).
Ishite-ji is the fifty-first temple of pilgrimage to the Eighty-eight Sacred Places of Shikoku. Legend gives the temple close associations with the great saint Kobo Daishi (774-835). It is faith in Kobo Daishi that impels tens of thousands of people to undertake the pilgrimage every year.
Shiki was not, it seems, an ardent Buddhist, but over the years he visited Ishite-ji many times and composed a number of haiku referring to it. The temple has been a favorite of haikuists. Within its compound are eight haiku and senryu stones -- some very old, including one dedicated to Basho. Two of the stones bear haiku by Shiki, both from Sansaku-shu.
The visitor to Ishite-ji finds the first one besides the stone-paved entrance walkway;
Namu Daishi
Ishite no tera ya
ine no hana.
Namu is Japanized Sanskrit meaning "devotion to" or "homage to." Daishi, meaning "great teacher," is a title that was bestowed on a few preeminent Buddhist leaders and here refers to Kobo Daishi. tera (just like the suffix -ji) means "temple" and no is "of." Thus, Ishite no tera is "the temple of Ishite" -- the interjection ya has a magic force that gives all three lines harmony and emphasis. Finally, ine is "rice plant," and hana, "flower."
Devotion to the Great Saint,
the temple of Ishite ...
rice plants abloom.
The other stone for Shiki is close to the temple's Otsuya-do, a building where pilgrims may rest or stay overnight. The stone itself is dark green and bigger than the other. The haiku on it reads:
Mi-no-ue ya
mi-kuji o hikeba
aki no kaze.
Mi-no-ue means "one's fortune," "one's fate," or 'one's lot in life'; mi-kuji is "oracle," and hikeba, "to draw." So mi-kuji o kikeba means "to draw one's fortune." Finally, aki is "autumn," and kaze, "wind."
One needs to know the circumstances that made Shiki write this haiku. At most Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines in Japan, a small sum of money will get one a fortune-telling paper. An attendant shakes an oblong box containing a number of bamboo sticks until one stick emerges from a small hole in the top of the box. The stick bears a number that dictates which paper is handed to the patron. On the paper are printed a picture of the deity to whom the temple or shrine is dedicated and a prediction of one's fortune, which is accepted as an oracle from the deity. It forecasts love and marriage, travel, finances, change of residence, health, and length of life.
On
September 20, 1895, Shiki and Yanagihara Kyokudou made an excursion to Ishite-ji. The
two young men were sitting on the veranda of the Otsuya-do when a fortune-telling
paper drawn by someone else was carried by the breeze to Shiki's side. He picked it
up and read it. It was the worst forecast possible, with lines like "Misfortune
overshadows your future ... illness, long-lasting but not incurable." Since Shiki was
already ill (at the time), he took the omen seriously and, as Kyokudo later
confirmed, worried about it, half believing, half not believing it.
(Alas my) fortune;
drawing divine lots,
the autumn wind.
An Encyclopedic Profile.
(Informative, and Here as a Conclusion.)
(Masaoka) Shiki, the haiku poet, was born in Matsuyama in 1867. Shiki is well known in Japan for introducing a new style of haiku -- a short poetic form -- and for enhancing the Japanese arts. In his last years, he spent much time in bed, as he was ill with spinal tuberculosis from the age of 30. Still he continued to produce such creative works such as poems and paintings of nature, until he died in 1902, at the age of 36. He produced some of the masterpieces of his era.
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