Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 11/15/1797 – 03/05/1861)
Karukaya Dōshin (苅萱道心) on the right, Ishidōmaru (石道丸) in the center and Tamaya Yoji (玉屋与次) on the left from the play Zōho Tsukushi no Iezuto (ぞうほつくしのいえづと)
07/29/1848
29.25 in x 14.25 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga
一勇斎国芳画
Artist's seal: kiri
Publisher: Kyōji
(Marks U174 - like 25-140)
Seals read 京次 center & right panels;
京治 on left
Censor's seal: Hama with Kinugasa on left
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Library of Congress - left panel only
British Museum
Ritsumeikan University - left-hand panel only "The story of Ishidōmaru probably finds its origin in tales recited by itinerant musicians in the sixteenth century. Elements of the story were later incorporated into plays written for the stage. The most popular version was Karukaya Dōshin Tsukushi no jetzo (Priest Karukaya and a Souvenir of Tsukushi) written by Namiki Sōsuke and Namiki Jōsuke for the puppet theatre in 1735. One year later a Kabuki version was staged at the Kado Theatre in Osaka."
"Katō Saemon Shigeuji, a feudal lord of Tsukushi (Kyūshū), is the chief commander fo the Imperial Palace in Kyoto. The mother of the emperor is very pleased with his attendance and to show her appreciation she presents to him her lady-in-waiting Chidori as a concubine. Shigeuji brings Chidori to his mansion in Kyūshū and to his relief she lives in friendly harmony with his wife Maki no Kata. One day the two women are playing a game of sugoroku and after a while they grow tired and doze off. While they sleep the hair of both women changes into writhing snakes, hissing and biting at each other. When Shigeuji happens to peep into the room he realizes that the true feelings of the women are not friendly at all. Saddened by the jealousy of human beings he decides to retreat from worldly life. The next morning he steals away to. a temple on Mount Kōya and there enters the priesthood, taking the name Karukaya Dōshin. Maki no Kata and her 2-year-old son Ishidōmaru wander in despair around the country looking for him, but to no avail. Several years later they learn that he might have entered the monastery of Kongōbuji temple on Mount Kōya where women are strictly forbidden to enter. Maki no Kata asks Ishidōmaru to make inquiries and tells him how to identify his father. The boy climbs the mountain and when he meets a pries he asks him about his father Katō Saemon Shigeuji. The priest denies any knowledge of him but Ishidōmaru notices a mole over the priest's left eye. He exclaims that his father has a mole in the same place. The priest, overcome with love for his son, is tempted to reveal his true identity. However, remembering his vow never to see his relatives again, he conceals his feelings. He turns away heartbroken, leaving the boy in tears, which is the scene depicted here by Kuniyoshi." [Note that this passage is made in reference to a different, single-sheet print by Kuniyoshi, but seems completely applicable here, too.]
Quoted from: The Hundred Poets Compared: A Print Series by Kuniyoshi, Hiroshige, and Kunisada by Henk J. Herwig and Joshua S. Mostow, Hotei Publishing, 2007, page 104.
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Karukaya is the father of Ishidōmaru, but at one point neither of them knew this. However, this is explained to some extent by Izumi Kaminishi in Explaining Pictures: Buddhist Propaganda And Etoki Storytelling in Japan on page 131:
"...Ishidōmaru returns to Mount Kōya to study under Karukaya. A few years later Karukaya, after seeing the Amida Buddha at Zenkōji in a dream, moves to Zenkōji, Nagano. When Ishidōmaru later learns, also in a dream from the Zenkōji Buddha, that his teacher was none other than his father, he moves to Zenkōji. Posthumously Karukaya and Ishidōmaru became exalted as the father and son Jizō Bodhisattvas.
The pietistic layman Karukaya represents the Kōya-hijiri (Holy Man of Kōya) who advocated the holy order of the Mount Kōya Shingon school. Mount Kōya, a famous Buddhist center, was a veritable asylum for male renuncients protected by the system of feminine exclusion known in Japanese as nyonin kinsei.
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Henri Joly, who is not always the most accurate source, but still a great one, gave a different version in his 1908 volume Legend in Japanese Art: A Description of Historical Episodes, Legendary Characters, Folk-lore, Myths, Religious Symbolism, Illustrated in the Arts of Old Japan on pages 162-163:
"428. KARUKAYA DOSHIN 苅萱道臣. It was popularly believed in olden times that jealous women appeared with hair like snakes, and Ippen Shōnin, as seen above, sometimes suffered from such delusions. Another well-known. personage, also who was He Kato Sayemon Shigeuji, Daimio in Kyushu (Tsukushi), a much-married man, fled from his house one day because and mistresses the hair of his wife and mistresses took the shape of writhing serpents. He took refuge in the mountains, where he lived an hermit's life under the new name Karukaya Doshin.
There is a story relating how he met wandering in Koyasan a young man named Ishidomaru ; struck with the adolescent's face, he asked him various questions, and found that Ishido was looking for his father. Karukaya then became aware of the fact that the boy was his own son, but worldly matters were for ever forgotten by the hermit, and telling the boy to return home he passed on his way."
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The British Museum curatorial files give a bit more and somewhat different information about this triptych than does the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The British Museum says:
"The child Ishido-maru (centre) making inquiries about finding his father of the monk Karukaya Doshin (right) at Kongobu-ji (the monastery of the Vajra Summit) on Mt. Koya, the warrior Oya stands on the left..."
Not only does the British Museum give the exact location, but they also give a different name to the figure on the left. However, Jim Breen's web site on Japanese language gives the characters 与次 as Yoji, as does the museum in Boston. We will try to resolve this difference at some time.
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There is another copy of the middle print in the Museo Nazionale d'Arte Orientale.
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)
Kyōji (杏冶) (publisher)