Komusō
The 18th and 19th century saw a popularization of shakuhachi-playing among lay-people, accompanied by the interpretation and legitimation of this laicization in spiritual and esthetical terms derived from the Zen-tradition, to which the komusō nominally belonged.
Interest in their music style stayed alive in secular audiences, and a number of the pieces they composed and performed, called honkyoku, are preserved, played, and interpreted in the popular imagination as a token of Zen-spirituality, continuing the narrative which developed in the 18th and 19th century.
The understanding of the history of the komusō and the Fuke-shu had long been dominated by the Keichô Okite Gaki (c.1680) and the Kyotaku denki Kokuti Kai (1795), a forged Governmental Decree and a fictional origin-narrative, respectively.
[7] Historical research by Nakazuka Chikozan in the 1930s showed the spurious nature of these texts, and a revised history has emerged since then, as set out by Sanford (1977) and Kamisango (1988).
[8] These boro merged in the late 15th century into the komosō ("straw-mat monks", named after the straw sleeping-mats which they carried along), which played the shakuhachi,[8] and are depicted in paintings and texts from around 1500 onwards.
[2] While first a subtemple of Reiho-ji, in the 18th century a relation with Kōkoku-ji, founded by Kakushin, was forged,[10] and officially acknowledged in 1767;[11][2] a move which was apologized in the Kuotaku Denki.
[2] The short versions show that the government designated the institutionalisation for the lodging of ronin, limiting and policing the komusō, and instructing them to act as spies.
[2] Travel around Japan was heavily restricted in the Edo period, but the longer versions[2] gave the komusō a rare exemption from the Tokugawa shogunate, most likely for political reasons.
The name is derived from the Kyotaku denki,[18] a text in classical Chinese that was published in 1795 together with a Japanese translation and commentary, the Kokuji Kai,[2] "to create a legitimate affiliation between the komusō and the Rinzai-shu.
[2] The Kyotaku denki pictured a lineage back to the eccentric Zen master Puhua (J. Fuke) of Tang China,[19][8] a clowneske figure from the Record of Linji.
[2] By the late 18th-century, the komuso had lost their usefulness as spies, due to the peaceful life-circumstances created by the Tokugawa shogunate, which no longer tolerated their privileges.
[24] According to Deeg, "The only extant writing which really has Zen-inspired content was composed by Hisamatsu Masagoro Fuyo (1790–1845)", namely Hitori-gotoba (獨言, "Monologue", before 1830), Hitori-mondo(獨問答, "Monologous dialogues", 1823) and Kaisei-hogo (海靜法語, "Dharma-words of the silent sea", 1838).
"[25] According to Deeg, Hisamatsu's "spiritualisation and aesthetization" has to be understood in the context of the laicization of shakuhachi-practice, with all the teachers of the Kinko-ryu, who were not fully ordained komuso but shuen josui, "assistant flutists related to the (Fuke-)shu", mainly training lay-people.
[27] Deeg concludes that the spiritalization is not a development from within the kosumo, but "a strategy of legitimation for a more and more bourgeois musical tradition of the late Tokugawa-period", harking back to an (imagined) glorious Zen-past.
[29] No attempts were made by the Buddhist mainstream to re-establish the sect, possibly due to its marginal position and the loose connection to the Rinzai-shu, and the laicization of shakuhachi-practice.
[30] The Kinko Ryu Grandmasters Araki Kodo II (Chikuo I) and Yoshida Ittcho successfully petitioned the new government to allow secular shakuhachi music to continue.
[31] Several smaller schools persisted, often stemming from local Fuke temples preserving fragments of the original repertoire, and small associations and organizations work to continue this musical tradition in the modern era.
[22] The contemporary Kyochiku Zenji Hosan Kai (KZHK) group in Kyoto organizes annual meetings for hundreds of shakuhachi players, Rinzai clerics, and Fuke Zen enthusiasts.
[35] According to Deeg, this spiritualisation "can be comprehended with the aid of two concepts, those of "attaining buddhahood through one sound" (ichion-jōbutsu 一音 成佛) and "the Zen of blowing (the flute)" (suizen 吹禪).
[36] For example: The komusō (虚無僧/こむそう) were characterized by a straw basket (a sedge or reed hood known as a tengai) worn on the head, manifesting the absence of specific ego but also useful for traveling incognito.
[40] Komusō wore a tengai (天蓋), a type of woven straw hat or kasa, which completely covered their head like an overturned basket.
They wore tekou, hand-and-forearm covers, a fusa tassel,[clarification needed] and carried a gebako, a box used for collecting alms and holding documents.
Honkyoku (本曲, "original pieces") comprises a repertoire of solo compositions for the shakuhachi, rooted in the heritage of the Fuke Sect of Zen Buddhism.
