Keichū

He subsequently attained the post of Ajari (or Azari) at Mount Kōya, and then became chief priest at Mandara-in in Ikutama, Osaka.

Deeply influenced by the thinking of Kūkai, he also read widely in the Japanese classics under the patronage of Fuseya Shigeta (伏屋重賢), a patron of the arts in Izumi Province.

When the daimyō of Mito, Tokugawa Mitsukuni, decided to sponsor an edition of the Man'yōshū, he commissioned Shimonokōbe Chōryū, heir to the learning of the great poet and Man'yō expert Kinoshita Chōshōshi (木下長嘯子, 1569–1649), to undertake the project.

However his dilatory approach, combined with illness, and finally death, impeded his work and the task fell to Keichū, a close friend.

In addition to these Keichū wrote the Kōganshō (厚顔抄 1691 A Brazen-faced Treatise, the Kokin Yozaishō, the Seigodan, the Genchū Shūi, and the Hyakunin Isshu Kaikanshō.