National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

Feng Zizhen (1257–1327?) was a government official and a prominent literary figure of the Chinese Yuan dynasty. In addition to being a talented calligrapher, he was also a poet acclaimed for his profound works and superb command of language. Feng also acquainted himself with some of the most important Chan Buddhist monks of the time, including Zhongfeng Mingben (1263–1323), under whom he studied Chan Buddhism, and Gulin Qingmao (1262–1329), a close friend.

This calligraphic work of Feng’s was gifted to Hōgyū Kōrin (1289–1373), a Japanese Rinzai monk who lived during the Kamakura to Nanboku-chō period. Kōrin had traveled to China in 1318, where he spent six years visiting and studying with renowned Chan monks, before returning to Japan in 1324. After returning to Japan, he served as a monk in various temples including the Kenchōji, Kenninji, Tenryūji, and Nanzenji, contributing to the spread of Zen Buddhism in Japan.

In this work, Feng penned a poem comparing Kōrin, then a young Japanese monk, to a ripe plum fruit and a blossoming Champaka tree (famous for its fragrant flowers), thereby expressing his admiration for Kōrin’s affinity for Zen Buddhism, and great expectations for the monk’s future success. Feng’s powerful and generous brushstrokes infused each character he wrote with life. As a historical artifact, this work attests to the interactions between the Chan community of Yuan China, as represented by Feng, and the Japanese Zen monks who had visited for training. Interestingly enough, this work has been classified as a bokuseki in Japan, a genre of calligraphy written by Zen monks, despite having been created by a literatus rather than a monk.