Honinbo Sansa - Life and Career

Life and Career

Nikkai was born in Kyōto and became a monk at age nine. The name "Honinbō", (originally pronounced "Honninbō"), comes from a sub-temple of the Jakkōji temple complex in Kyōto where Nikkai, the first "Honinbō", resided.

Among his students were the daimyo Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu, the three great "unifiers" of Feudal Japan. Nikkai considered the three generals to be "fifth-degree" players (五子, comparable to amateur 4 or 5 dan), but "diplomacy" was likely a factor in Nikkai's even-handed assessment of these imposing figures.

It was the Shogun Nobunaga who, in 1578, recognized twenty-year-old Nikkai as the first Meijin of Go. In 1582, Nikkai, at the behest of Nobunaga, was involved in a notorious game at the Honnōji Temple against his rival, another Nichiren priest, Kashio Rigen (鹿塩 利玄 b. 1565). (Apparently, there is a theory that "Kashio" and "Rigen" were two different people. See the Japanese version of this article.) The game is traditionally held to have taken place on the eve of the treacherous Incident at Honnōji, (in which Nobunaga was forced to commit seppuku), and is said to have ended in a "triple ko". Hence the notion of triple ko as bad omen. There is a game record, but typical for the period, it is incomplete. The triple ko may have occurred, somewhat implausibly, in unrecorded remaining plays, or in another game that day, but in the end, there is no evidence that this is more than a good story.

In 1587, Nobunaga's successor, the regent (kampaku) Hideyoshi gave Nikkai an official position, (forerunner to the office of Go-dokoro), granting his temple an annual four koku of rice and setting up a tournament that he attended in person. In 1592, Nikkai was given the rank of Gon-no-Daisoku by the Go-Yozei Emperor.

In 1603, the Go-Yozei Emperor recognized sixty-year-old Tokugawa Ieyasu as Shogun, inaugurating the 250-year rule of the Tokugawa bakufu. At the direction of Ieyasu, Nikkai turned priestly duties at Jakkoji over to his younger brother Nichiei and became the first go-dokoro, in which office Nikkai was provided fifty koku of rice and five servants. Also around this time (1605?), Nikkai took the name Honinbō Sansa (Sansa written 算砂: the characters for "calculating" and "sand").

Sansa was also a strong shogi player, but in the Tokugawa era, go was organised into four "houses" (or "academies"), and shogi into three, which would compete in oshirogo "Castle Go" (and "Castle shogi") tournaments for the title Meijin. (See more at shogi.) The official nature of these arrangements meant that go and shogi masters held different offices. In 1612, eight go and shogi players were given individual state support. This system persisted over two and a half centuries, until the collapse of the Tokugawa government itself in the Meiji Restoration.

The beginning of the oshirogo matches in Edo, seat of the Tokugawa government, meant that at the end of each year, Sansa had to travel east for a month. He is said to have turned down an official residence in Edo's early Nihonbashi district, but was given other accommodations. (It was the unrivaled fourth Honinbō, Honinbō Dōsaku (1645–1702) who finally moved the school to Edo.) Sansa died in Edo at the age of 65.