Kokan Shiren

Place: Kyoto

Born: 1278

Death: 1346

Biography:

Kokan Shiren (Japanese: こかんしれん, Kanji: 虎関師錬; 9 May 1278 – 11 August 1347), Japanese Rinzai Zen patriarch and celebrated poet. He preached Buddhism at the Imperial court, and was noted for his poetry in the Literature of the Five Mountains (Gozan bungaku) tradition. He was the compiler of a thirty-chapter Buddhist history, the Genko Shakusho, the oldest extant account of Buddhism in Japan.