Chikamatsu Shigenori

Chikamatsu Shigenori (近松 茂矩?), military writer and tea ceremony enthusiast, was born in Owari Province (now Aichi prefecture) in 1695. His father, Chikamatsu Shigekiyo, was a retainer of the Tokugawa clan.

Chikamatsu was best known as a writer and his output included one hundred books on military matters. He is perhaps best remembered, however, for his writing on chanoyu or the Japanese tea ceremony. He completed a text entitled Chanoyu Kojidan (Legends of the Tea Ceremony) by 1739. The book was not yet published at the time of his death in 1778. A number of the stories from this text were selected and posthumously published in 1804 as Chaso Kanwa (Stories from a Tearoom Window).

Chikamatsu was known by several other names (this was historically a common Japanese practice) including Hikonoshin, Nankai, and Nogenshi, and Chikamatsu Hikonoshin Fujiwara Shigenori.