Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Tanikita Muchiku Roan 谷北 無竹 1878/09/28 - 1957/03/24


37th Abbot of Meian-ji from 1949. Ten years after Kobayashi Shizan’s death, the Myoan-kyokai, in association with the soke (the head person of a Ryu) of different shakuhachi ryu, elected Tanikita Muchiku as his successor. Born in Kyoto in the eleventh year of Meiji (1878), he was first initiated into the Myoan Taizan style of shakuhachi by Takaya Yuchiku, a student of Higuchi Taizan; later, in the forty-first year of Meiji(1908) , Tanikita began to study with Higuchi Taizan. It is well known that the bereaved family of Higuchi Taizan claimed Tanikita Muchiku to be the true bearer of Taizan’s style.