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 pfofessors from Matsuyama 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.
Eigheen 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 finds the first one besides the stone-paved entrance walkway;
Ishite no tera ya
ine no hana.
Namu Daishi
Namu in 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 (like the suffix -ji) means "temple" and no is "of" so Ishite no tera is " the temple of Ishite"; the interjection ya has a magic force that gives all three lines harmony and emphasis; ine is "rice plant" and hana "flower."
the temple of Ishite ...
rice plants abloom.
Devotion to the Great Saint,
The other stone for Shiki is close to the temple's Otsuya-do, a building where pilgrims may rest or stay overnight. The stone is dark green and bigger than the other. The haiku on it reads:
mi-kuji o hikeba
aki no kaze.
Mi-no-ue ya
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"; 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 dicates which paper in handed to the patron. On the paper are printed a picture of the deity to whom the temple or shrine is dedicated and a predction 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 on breeze to Shiki's side. He picked it up and read it. It was the worst possible, with lines like "Misfortune overshadows your future ... illness, long-lasting but not incurable." Since Shiki was ill, he took the omen seriously and, as Kyokudo later comfirmed, worried about it, half believing, half not believing it.
drawing divine lots,
the autum wind.
(July 1977)
(Alas my) fortune;