Hanawa Hokiichi — The Man Who Could Never Read Enough

Just Three Years

"If nothing comes of it in three years, I will send him straight back home."

That is what his master said about a young blind man.

He had studied the shamisen, a three-stringed instrument, for three years. What he learned today, he forgot by night. By the next day, he no longer knew it. In three years he could not learn a single song properly. It is said he could not even tune the strings.

So his master had him learn acupuncture, treating the sick with thin needles. When someone read a medical book to him twice, he could say it back the next time without one word wrong. But when it came to the actual treatment, he was far worse than other people.

In those days, blind people had mainly two ways to make a living: music and acupuncture. He had failed at both.

His master, Amedomi Kengyo, finally scolded him. People leave home and go to a strange place to achieve something, he said. You left your parents' house meaning to do that too. And yet you have learned nothing that could support your life. Morning and night, nothing you do pleases me.

But what he said next was a little unusual.

"I am not telling you to do what you dislike. Anything except stealing and gambling is fine. Do what your heart wants."

And then he set that three-year limit.

Hanawa Hokiichi. That is the name the young man would take later. This is the story of his teens.

He was born in 1746 in Hokino village, in Musashi Province. It is now part of Saitama Prefecture, near Tokyo. His family were farmers.

When he was small, an illness hurt his eyes, and before long he could see nothing.

His parents seem to have tried what they could. Someone told them that the stars of his birth year did not suit him, so they took two years off his age and changed his name from Toranosuke to Tatsunosuke. They even gave him one more name, borrowed from the son of a yamabushi, a mountain priest, in a nearby village.

His eyes did not come back.

He kept almost no memory of colors. Only the color of the yuzu, a citrus fruit, and the color of the paper lanterns of the ground cherry, he knew. As an adult, it is said, he told people so.

He loved flowers. While he could still see, he searched a field for violets, many kinds, and planted them in his garden. After he went blind, he still planted flowering plants, and when people said they were beautiful, he enjoyed that very much. So says the biography written while he was still alive by his pupil Nakayama Nobuna.

He lost his mother when he was just past ten. His grief was not ordinary, Nobuna writes.

Around then, he heard a story. A man who could recite the whole of the Taiheiki, a long war tale, from memory was going in and out of the mansions of Edo, now Tokyo, and making a name for himself.

According to Nobuna, the boy thought:

"The Taiheiki is only forty volumes in all. If I learn it and make a name, how could I fail to feed a wife and children?"

That is the arithmetic of a blind child in his early teens. His wish to go to Edo grew stronger then, it is said.

He asked his father, and went to Edo in his early teens. It is said he carried all his luggage in one old box for somen, thin wheat noodles, and that the box stayed in the Hanawa house for years afterwards.

His traveling companion was a silk merchant. On the road, the two are said to have promised each other to try to beat one another in making a name. The merchant, the story goes, later rose in Edo until he became a town magistrate, Negishi Hizen-no-kami.

A blind boy and a silk merchant. Both meant to make a name.

In Edo he became a pupil of Amedomi Kengyo, who lived in Yotsuya. His name was Sugaichi. Kengyo is a high rank in the groups that blind people formed.

By the customs of the group, a pupil either learned the shamisen or the biwa, a kind of lute, and made music his work, or lived by acupuncture and massage.

But the boy's heart was never there. His master warned him, so he pretended to practice. But whenever he found a chance, all he thought about was reading books, it is said.

Nobuna also thought that his skill with needles did not improve probably because his heart was drawn to books.

A biography from the Meiji era, long after his death, says that in his misery he once even tried to throw himself into the moat called Ushigafuchi at Kudan.

And then came that warning.

Anything except stealing and gambling. Do what your heart wants.

He took those words to heart.

What he chose was books, books he could not read a single character of with his own eyes.

Outside the Mosquito Net

Whatever he heard once, he never forgot in his whole life.

That is what Ota Nanpo, a man of letters who lived in the same age, noted about Hokiichi.

He was a man who forgot shamisen songs overnight. When it came to the words of books, it was a completely different story.

But he could not read those books with his own eyes. Someone had to read them aloud to him.

Next to Amedomi Kengyo's house stood the mansion of a samurai named Matsudaira Noritada. Noritada also loved books, and he liked this boy a great deal, because the boy's gift for learning was unlike other people's.

Noritada was a busy man with duties for the shogun's government. Even so, the two made a promise: in the morning, before dawn, for about two hours, Noritada would read books to him and teach him.

Nobuna writes that Noritada once said this to a colleague:

"When I look at that blind man's character, his largeness of mind is far beyond ordinary. If he could see, he would break the law instead, and ruin himself. Maybe it is his luck that he cannot see. He is a man who will surely get his work done someday."

Is that praise, or not? What kind of boy would break the law if he could see?

Noritada was not the only one who read to him. A later biography tells this story:

He was always being called to treat a patient at the home of the mistress of a shogun's retainer named Takai. In place of payment for the treatment, the story goes, she read books aloud to him.

At night, the woman read inside a mosquito net, to keep the mosquitoes away. He sat properly outside the net, and, it is said, tied his hands so that he would not lose his focus.

With his hands tied, he could not even have brushed away the mosquitoes.

In books, he could go as far ahead as he liked. But in daily life, he was terribly clumsy.

According to a story that comes down as told by his daughter Toseko, her father was slow to sense his way around, for a blind man. He often had trouble turning a corner or crossing a bridge. When he ate, they say, he gripped his chopsticks and scooped food into his mouth from the far side of the bowl.

Someone who could not bear to watch was the lady of the Sasayama family.

She said without holding back that his way of eating was ugly because he was so poor at sensing things. Then, it is said, she always wrapped up beans for him, telling him to eat little in other people's houses and to eat on the way home.

What a thing to say to someone. But she always wrapped the beans.

Perhaps he had many reasons to be angry. When he was young, he made a vow. A person trying to achieve something cannot do it with anger in his heart. So he prayed that he would not get angry, for a set number of years.

One day, passing through Kojimachi, a district of Edo, he found children jeering at him by the roadside, and some even blocked his way. He kept smiling and ignored them. The children, with nothing else to do, backed away, it is said.

He was also a frail pupil. In 1766, Amedomi Kengyo handed him five ryo, gold coins, and said: Go to the Ise Shrine in my place. On rainy days, do not walk, because you will take in bad air.

He traveled with his father. In the third month of the lunar calendar, on Mount Yoshino, famous for its cherry blossoms, they ran into strangers who had come to see the flowers, and the two sides traded poems on the spot.

Sakarinaba / izure o sore to / shirakumo no / kakaru mo niou / Miyoshino no hana

When the blossoms are at their peak, who can tell which is flower and which is white cloud? Even where the clouds hang, the flowers of Yoshino glow.

A poem about flowers he could not see made the people who could see them happy. When he came back from a trip of more than sixty days, his illness was completely gone, it is said.

In 1769, the year he turned 22, Hagiwara Soko, his poetry teacher, called him and another pupil, and told him this: Give up poetry and just read books. And study under a great teacher. Right now, that is Kamo no Mabuchi.

But never say that you learned from me. Our schools are different, so he may keep his heart closed to you.

Mabuchi was a scholar of kokugaku, the study of Japan's own old books, and his name was known across the land. On the first day Hokiichi visited, Mabuchi first asked: What books have you read so far?

He answered like this, the biography says:

"Not even knowing how to read books, I was reading what people like Sogi and Kigin had written. I wasted precious time."

He said himself that it was wasted. Mabuchi was very pleased by that.

"That was a good thing to have done. Most scholars today only repeat what others have said, and few can judge for themselves whether a book is good or bad."

The poem he showed Mabuchi that day is also in the biography.

Sugaru nasu / koshiboso otome / emashikaba / asa yoi sakezu / nazusawamashi o

If only I had a girl with a waist as thin as a wasp's. Morning and evening, I would never leave her side, always staying close beside her.

It was the first poem he had ever shown to a great master of kokugaku. Mabuchi was deeply impressed, it is said.

But he could learn from Mabuchi for only about half a year. Mabuchi died that same year.

As for learning, he would no longer lose to anyone. But what was needed to rise in rank among the blind was not learning.

It was money.

One Hundred Ryo

It was some time after Mabuchi died.

In the guild there was a blind man named Toyoichi. He had saved up money, but he died suddenly, and he had no child to take over his place.

Someone suggested to Amedomi Kengyo: why not let Hokiichi take over that house?

When he heard this, the biography says, he refused.

"While Toyoichi was alive, he and I did not get along. Just because he died is no reason for me to take over his house. Besides, even without his house, if luck is with me, saving that much money is not hard."

Amedomi said he had thought the same, and that was the end of the matter.

It was the bold talk of a young man in his mid-twenties who had almost no money.

The money did not come.

In 1774, Amedomi called him in and told him, it is said:

"Looking at the guild today, those who rise in rank all put money first and do not care about skill. If this goes on, no one in the guild will even learn an art. Your learning already goes beyond other people's. But because you have no money, you cannot rise in rank."

"Thinking of that, I have put aside one hundred ryo for you. Use it for the cost of moving up."

This was the master who had once said he would look after him for just three years.

He himself was not just waiting. He visited the shrine of Tenjin, the god of learning, every day, and made a vow: every morning, give up cooked food and recite the Heart Sutra, a short Buddhist prayer, a hundred times, and keep this up for a thousand days.

On the nine hundredth day, the wish came true. In 1775 he rose to the rank of kōtō. It was a step on the way up to kengyo.

At this time he changed his name to Hokiichi. It comes from a line in the Monzen, an old Chinese collection of poems and essays: "Keep yourself, and be at peace for a hundred years." His family name, Hanawa, was Amedomi's original family name.

In the same year he left Amedomi's house and moved into a home of his own. The master who had said he would look after him for just three years had kept him for more than fifteen years.

After he became a kōtō, Hokiichi thought long and hard, it is said.

He had risen to kōtō without owning any money at all. It was probably the power of reciting the sutra. If he made another vow for two thousand days, he could surely rise even to kengyo.

But that was a plan for himself alone. If he was going to do something, he wanted to do it for the world, and for later ages.

In China there were many "collectanea," sets that gathered old books into one. Japan had none yet. If he gathered books scattered here and there, one volume, two volumes, and carved them into printing blocks of wood, it would help the people studying in this country.

On the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, in 1779, Hokiichi made a vow to Tenjin. He would recite the Heart Sutra one million times. Before he reached the halfway point, he would collect a thousand books, and by the time he finished, he would carve them into blocks and send them into the world.

From that day he gave up salt every morning, and every day he rose at the hour of the tiger, before dawn, and never failed to recite it a hundred times.

The hour of the tiger. The hour when Matsudaira Noritada used to read to him, in the house next door.

He gave the collection of books a name: Gunsho Ruijū, "Books Sorted by Kind."

In 1783 Hokiichi rose to kengyo. The biography writes: "unexpectedly."

To rise in this guild, you needed money. Many blind people lent money at interest and used that to rise. But in Hokiichi's case, writes Ota Nanpo, a man of his own time, the people of high-ranking families he visited, and his friends, were moved by the strength of his purpose and gave him the money.

The next year, 1784, Amedomi fell seriously ill. Facing death, the master called Hokiichi and said, the biography says:

"There is some money I lent to people. Among those, I burned the notes of everyone who seems unable to repay even while I am alive. The notes of those who can pay, I have left here. I have no child to pass them to, so when I die, you collect on them and use the money."

Amedomi, too, had been lending money.

Hokiichi did not accept.

"When I left my hometown, I had not a speck of savings. And thanks to you, I became a kengyo. There is no greater debt of kindness. What more could I accept? Please give those notes to your pupils who still have no work."

No one who heard this was unmoved, the biography says.

Amedomi died that same year, it is said.

After his wish had come true, Hokiichi always used to say, it is said:

"It is not that I never liked reading. But everyone who does a great work and makes a name owes it to a teacher. My one regret is that I could not let him hear, while he was alive, of this much happiness."

Counting the Hairs

"I see. This is Emperor Hanazono's written oath."

That was said by Hokiichi, who had only been sitting beside them, listening.

When he visited the house of his pupil Yashiro Hirokata, Tachihara Suiken, a scholar of the Mito han, a domain ruled by a lord, was there.

The two were arguing about an old written prayer. At the end it said only "Retired Emperor," with no name. Two emperors had stepped down around that time. They could not decide which one had written it.

Hokiichi asked them to read it aloud to him once. As they read on, when they came to a certain phrase, he came out with that one line.

From the words used, you can tell who wrote it. When he explained this, everyone, Suiken included, was impressed, it is said.

Still, Suiken was not a man to nod easily at what Hokiichi said. He had opposed a book that Hokiichi wrote about the throne of an emperor of long ago, and only after many rounds of questions and answers did he finally accept his argument.

Suiken wanted to put this man in charge of proofreading the Mito history book, the Dai Nihon Shi, "History of Great Japan." In 1785 Hokiichi met the lord of Mito, and he began by proofreading a different book first.

Meanwhile, the Gunsho Ruijū was slowly being printed. In 1786 he put out an advertisement asking for subscribers. Orders were to be sent to his own house. Only two hundred copies would be printed, and after that, no more. Ota Nanpo copied the advertisement down and kept it.

But the Mito scholars all opposed it with one voice.

"The history of our country was begun by our former lord. Letting a blind man take part in it, is that not our shame?"

Suiken would not give way.

"That man's blindness is an illness. It has nothing to do with high or low rank. It is true that the blind, as people usually know them, make their living by amusing others. So it is hard for them to avoid contempt. Hanawa makes learning his work, and many come to him as their teacher. There is much to take from his views. What reason is there to set people apart by whether they can see? If he joins the proofreading and adds nothing of use, I will take the blame myself."

So Hokiichi joined the proofreading of the Dai Nihon Shi.

But once he joined, it was Hokiichi who gave the people around him a hard time.

Every time he heard something read aloud, he pointed out, one by one, mistakes of fact and conflicts in the dates. And then he began to say:

"The sources given under each entry should all be checked against the original books, to confirm the differences."

The scholars were reluctant at first.

Fujita Yukoku, a Mito scholar, wrote later:

"Hanawa's demand is like counting every hair one by one before using the comb, and counting every grain of rice before cooking it."

But Yukoku also writes this: even so, over several years they finally finished it. Hanawa's merit must not be erased.

If you don't count them, you can't know how many there are.

A blind man insists that sighted scholars check the original books. To the people around him, he was a real nuisance.

In 1790 a boy was born, and he named him Toranosuke. It was the name he himself had been born with. The child died at six or seven.

In 1792, in a great fire said to have burned half of Edo, Hokiichi's house burned too. For a while he lived in other people's houses.

Around then, a yamabushi named Joshoin, who often visited, gave him this advice: In today's world there are places to read Confucian books, and houses for Shinto and for poetry. But it is a pity that there is no place to read about history and old laws. Why not petition the government for land and set up a place for lectures?

Hokiichi thought so too. When he petitioned the next year, 1793, permission came at once. The Wagaku Kodansho, "Institute of Japanese Studies." A place to read, lecture on, and correct Japan's old books.

The name was given by Matsudaira Sadanobu, who had served as a senior minister of the shogun. Sadanobu wrote in his own essays:

"He kept asking me to name the school. So I sent word to him that it should be called Onkodo."

Whoever it was, he kept asking. This man did not give up here either.

Onko. His pupils' biography spells it with a different second character. It means to ask about old things and learn from them.

To ask about old things. It was the name of a school founded by a man who insisted that every source be checked against the original book.

The Gunsho Ruijū would be finished twenty-six years after that.

Forty Volumes, He Thought

There is one story about Hokiichi that is the best known.

Evening was falling, and a wind blew out the lamp. He was lecturing on The Tale of Genji. The listeners asked him to stop the lecture for a while. Hokiichi laughed, and he is said to have said:

"Well, well, how inconvenient it is, being able to see!"

But this story appears in books only from the middle of the Meiji era, about seventy years after he died. And the words differ a little from book to book.

In the biography his pupil wrote while he was alive, a different scene remains. At a lecture on The Tale of Genji, when the reader misread, Hokiichi read on from there. Not a single character was wrong.

Those who can see read. The one who cannot see corrects.

In 1801 Hokiichi petitioned the shogunate for another great work: to gather and compile historical materials spanning about seven hundred years, from the end of the ninth century to the start of the seventeenth. The answer was slow to come.

When he petitioned again two years later, it is said he added that if it was delayed, he would grow old and weak, and had little life left. Permission to try it first came in 1806. Five years had passed since his first request.

He also had a long-held wish. For someone who rose to a high post in the guild, being received by the shogun was only a formality. But if he could be received before taking the post, his wish would be fulfilled. He had always told his pupils so, they say.

In 1815, at 68, in recognition of his long service and his labor in proofreading books, he was allowed an audience with the shogun. His wish had come true.

In 1819, the printing blocks of the Gunsho Ruijū were all carved. According to the biography by his pupil, there were six hundred seventy volumes.

Forty years from the New Year's Day when he made his vow to Tenjin. He had already begun collecting the books for the sequel.

That year, his pupil Nakayama Nobuna finished writing his teacher's biography. At the end it says: This year the master is seventy-four, counting in the traditional way. He is as lively as an ordinary man a little past fifty.

He also recited the Heart Sutra every morning without fail. A small notebook recording the count was kept at the house where he was born, wrote the author of a biography published in 1912, who saw it himself. For every ten recitations, one paper twist went into a small box. His wife, when she found a moment every few days, wrote the number into the notebook. But the handwriting, it seems, belongs to at least three people.

The total up to the first month of the lunar calendar in the year he died: 1,989,600 times. The vow of one million had grown to almost double.

He had meant forty volumes, and it went past six hundred. He had meant one million recitations, and it came to nearly two million.

The story goes that in his last years, he was invited to a poetry gathering and heard fifty poems, and when he got home, he noticed that he had forgotten three of them. If I forget things like this, I may die this year, he told the people of his house.

Three of fifty poems, for a man who never forgot anything he heard once.

In 1821 Hokiichi rose to sokengyo, the very top of the guild of the blind. In September of the same year, he suddenly fell ill, and he died on October 7. He was 75.

But on the date reported to the shogunate, his death was in the next year. For someone without an important post, it was the custom of the time to report a death one year late, so that the family could keep receiving the next year's stipend.

Make a name, and feed a wife and children. The wish of the boy who counted forty volumes lasted one more year after his death.

His learning always needed someone's voice and someone's hands.

Noritada next door, who read to him from before dawn between his busy duties. The woman who read inside the mosquito net. Amedomi, who set a limit of three years and was saving a hundred ryo. Suiken, who said he would take the blame for a blind man. The people of his house, who wrote down the count when they had a moment.

Two poems are passed down as Hokiichi's.

Nanigoto mo / waga saki no yo no / mukui zo to / omoeba iwan / koto no ha mo nashi

If I think it is all payback from a past life, I have no words to say.

Mi ni amaru / megumi aru yo wa / yomu fumi no / sukunaki nomi zo / nageki narikeru

In an age of blessings more than I deserve, the only thing I grieve is that there are so few books to read.