{{Short description|Japanese poet}} {{Multiple issues| {{No footnotes|date=April 2026}} {{One source|date=April 2026}} }} {{nihongo|'''Chūgan Engetsu'''|中巌円月||January 28, 1300 – February 9, 1375}}, [[Japanese poet]], occupies a prominent place in [[Japanese Literature of the Five Mountains]], literature in [[Chinese language|Chinese]] written in Japan. Chugan's achievement was his mastery of this difficult medium, a signal of the ripening of Five Mountains poetry and prose in Japan. He was born in [[Kamakura, Kanagawa|Kamakura]] of a family that claimed descent from [[Emperor Kanmu]] (r. 781–806). At age eight he entered the prestigious monetary of the [[Zen]] [[Rinzai school|Rinzai sect]] in Kamakura as an acolyte. At twelve he was a disciple of Dokei. At this time Chugan began in earnest his Chinese studies, devoting himself to the ''Classic of Filial Piety'' and ''[[Analects]]''. He left for Kyushu hoping to travel to China, but did not succeed. After this disappointment he traveled to [[Kyoto]] and met the reclusive patriarch [[Kokan Shiren]] (1278–1346). In 1320 he realized his hopes for a journey to China that resulted in a seven-year study-tour of Zen masters and institutions. In 1332 Chugan returned in disgust to a Japan wracked by civil war and unrest. He chose for his residence the [[Nanzen-ji|Nanzenji]] monastery in Kyoto. In 1339 he was asked to establish the [[Kisshō-ji|Kisshoji]] monastery. From this point until his death in 1375 he was residing as head of many of the Zen establishments in Japan. His writings reflect both a [[Confucian]] concern with social values and a Zen love of the ironic and iconoclastic.
== References == * Carpenter, Bruce E., "Clarity and Irony: Chugan Engetsu" in ''Tezukayama University Review'' (Tezukayama daigaku ronshū), no. 19, 1978, Tezukayama University, Nara, Japan, pp. 1–14. ISSN 0385-7743
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chugan, Engetsu}} [[Category:1300 births]] [[Category:1375 deaths]] [[Category:Rinzai Buddhists]] [[Category:14th-century Japanese poets]] [[Category:Buddhist clergy of the Kamakura period]] [[Category:People from Kamakura]]