Biography
Intro & Early Life
Rengetsu lives. Some 221 years after her birth in Kyoto, the storied artist continues to inspire a wide audience with the keen observations anddelicate moods of her poetry, the naïve subtelty of her brush and powerful presence of her simply crafted objects.The quiet gavity of her work did not come from mere talent or training, but grew from deep sorrow, and her determination to accept it with grace, using it as inspiration to a spiritual life, one in which the joys of modest observation and communion with nature took center stage.
Born with the given name Nobu the spring of 1791, likely the secret daughter of a geisha and Todou Yoshikiyo, chief retainer of the Iga-Ueno fief, she was adopted as an infant into the Otagaki family by its patriarch Banzaemon, a 37-year-old worker at Chio’in Temple in Kyoto, who later that year was given a hereditary post as a lay priest.
Through the agency of Banzaemon, and perhaps her birth father, she was given, at the age of eight or nine in 1798 or 1799 (children wereconsidered a year old at birth) a position as a serving girl at Tanba-Kameyama castle where she stayed until 1804 when she was 14. There she learned the polite arts, including calligraphy and the game of go.
She was a storied beauty, courted by many suitors, a legend thatcontinues to this day. Each year, the Jidai Matsuri (Festival of the Ages) features a procession of historical figures, among which, a fetching young Rengetsu walks.
In 1803, at the age of 13, young Nobu lost her adoptive brother and mother, beginning a 20 year period in which she lost many family members, most of whom who died young, including at least four children, two husbands, two adoptive siblings, and finally her adoptive father.
Nearly 10 years of service at a feudal castle imparted to young Nobu the proper bearing and manners expected in the children of samurai.Tomioka Tessai made a portrait of Rengetsu as an older nun in the spring of 1877, about two years after Rengetsu passed, with this inscription: “From childhood she was wise, good at Japanese poems, and learned the military arts.” These included the use of sword, spear and sickle and chain, and she was so good with one weapon, the “nanigata” that shereceived certification from her teacher. She is also said to have been gifted at dance and sewing. There ate the castle, she is likely to have first learned of the classic Kokin-style style of waka, the 5-line, 17 syllable verse she used throughout her life as a poet.
Marriage & Children
Nobu is thought to have married her first husband Mochihisa in 1807, at the age of 17, since her first son Tetsutaro was born in the autumn of 1808. Tetsutaro lived less than a year, passing of measles in the autumn of 1809, given the posthumous Buddhist name Shuusen Douji. Her first daughter (known by her posthumous name Tanshin Doujo) was born in the ninth month of 1810, passing of dysentary in the twelth month of 1812. The birth date of her second daughter (known by her posthumous Buddhist name Chisen Doujo) is not recorded, but she passed of small pox in the sixth month of 1815. Around this time, the marriage with Mochihisa was dissolved, purportedly due to his drinking and visits to thepleasure quarter. About two months later that same year, when Nobu was 25, both Mochisa and her adoptive brother Tenzou (known by his post-humous Buddhist name Kukumugaikoji) passed as well.In 1819, at the age of 28 Nobu remarried Shigejirou, a man from Hikone on the shores of Lake Biwa. It seems they had a happy marriage, enjoying hiking together through the mountains. Rengetsu wrote several poems about those journeys. Later that year, Shigejirou changed his name to Hisatoshi and began accompanying Banzaemon to work Chio’in Temple. At the end of the year, Rengetsu gave birth to another girl, whose name is unknown. Though she lived longer than Rengetsu's other children had, she too seems to have passed away in early childhood. Rengetsu wrote this poem to express her melancholy:
My children... I used to stroke their sleepy morning hair laying loose upon my sleeve– white dew on blossoms of pinks.
She also wrote many verses expressing her desire to return to the past, such as this one:
When you are old it’s best to sleep since only dreams can return you to the past.
In the sixth month of 1823, when Rengetsu was 33, her second husband developed a disease in his chest and passed away. With this tragedy, Rengetsu cut her hair, as an expression of grief and a signal of herintention to renounce the world and follow the Buddha’s way. Shortly thereafter, she had a ceremony of initiation at Chio’in Temple to become a Buddhist nun of the Pure Land sect, cutting her hair again, this time up to the neck in the style known as nagisage. Later, she took the complete tonsure, the ritual shaving of the head.