Suwa Ehaku — the abbot who held the key and begged for a boy's life

Suwa Ehaku was the fourteenth abbot of Tōzenji on Mount Suwa, a Sōtō Zen temple at the village of Gonda in Gunma district, Kōzuke province. His first name in religion was Akuhaku. Kurabuchi Mura-shi (the Kurabuchi village history) also records him as “Suwa Ryōhaku (earlier also called Akuhaku)”. His family name was Kobayashi. He is said to have been born in 1820 at Hachimanyama-chō in Kodama district, Musashi province.

On the first day of the third month of 1868 the party of Oguri Kōzukenosuke Tadamasa, having given up his house in Edo, reached the village of Gonda and took this temple as temporary lodging. The man who received them was this abbot, then forty-nine. There were two boy disciples at the temple besides.

After Oguri was cut down, Ehaku was tortured almost to death. He also saved one boy from being beheaded.

Who was at Tōzenji in those days can be seen from the household register of 1872. Koitabashi Ryōhei quotes the entry.

Akuhaku, fourteenth of Tōzenji, fifty-three, from Hachimanyama-chō in Kodama district, Musashi province; his disciple Mango, born in 1857 and sixteen, from the village of Sannokura in this district; disciple Mangyō, born in 1857 and sixteen, from the village of Shiraishi in Saitama district, Musashi province

Of the two disciples, Mangyō is the later Oguri Mankyō, the fifteenth abbot of Tōzenji. No village of that name existed at the birthplace given, “the village of Shiraishi in Saitama district, Musashi province”. The only ones that existed were Shiraishi in Midorino district, Kōzuke, and Shiraishi in Chichibu district, Musashi.

As for the temple where Ehaku was ordained, Koitabashi writes “Chōnenji”, with the characters 長念寺. It may be a miswriting of Chōnenji at Shimomuroda, written 長年寺. If so, the place where Kikunosuke (Mankyō) hid after Oguri was cut down was the very temple where his master had been ordained.

Source: Koitabashi Ryōhei, Katsu Kaishū no Raibaru: Oguri Kōzukenosuke Ichizoku no Higeki (Katsu Kaishū's rival: the tragedy of the Oguri family), Asao-sha

Oguri is said to have brought some three thousand ryō with him to the village of Gonda. Of that he spent 1,060 ryō on the village's water channel and building works, and divided the rest among his retainers. When the government troops burst in, less money came out than they had expected. It did not match what was commonly said, and they grew suspicious.

The man they fixed on was this abbot, because he was keeping the key to the strongbox Oguri had brought back from America. Kurabuchi Mura-shi (the Kurabuchi village history) records this.

When the government troops burst in, finding, against what was commonly said, that there was no money there, they thought it strange; and seeing that the abbot of Tōzenji, Suwa Ryōhaku (earlier also called Akuhaku), was keeping Kōzukenosuke's key, they suspected him of knowing where it was hidden, tortured him severely and brought him almost to death; but since there was no truth in it he was let go

It was understood at last that he had only been keeping the key, and so he escaped death.

At the village of Gonda, twenty-one hamlets and more than two hundred and twenty houses were searched one by one. They are said to have run spears into the ceilings and stirred the insides of the miso barrels about with spear butts and poles. The search was made on the strength of a rumour that gold pieces had been laid in the bottoms of miso barrels and pickle tubs with miso and pickles put in on top of them. No treasure came out of anywhere.

Sources: Kurabuchi Mura-shi (the Kurabuchi village history); Koitabashi Ryōhei, Katsu Kaishū no Raibaru: Oguri Kōzukenosuke Ichizoku no Higeki (Katsu Kaishū's rival: the tragedy of the Oguri family), Asao-sha　→ The legend of treasure buried on Mount Akagi

Mukasa Ginsuke, Oguri's page, was taken and bound at the same time — a youth said to have been sixteen, or fourteen.

Koitabashi writes thus of why he was spared.

The abbot of Tōzenji at the time, the priest Suwa Ehaku, seems to have been a man of great compassion: seeing Ginnosuke once he had been bound, and thinking it too cruel that even a boy of only sixteen should be cut down, he begged for his life over and over, desperately and beside himself, and this moved the men who had taken him, so that by something like a miracle he was not beheaded

The petition was made to the Annaka domain. Another account holds that the boy was so handsome that the deputy inspecting officer Hara Yasutarō thought it a pity to cut him down.

Ginsuke was given three ryō, left the village of Gonda and reached his mother's family home in Saitama. He later became head of Mimuro village, and died in 1921 at sixty-seven. Of Gonda he never spoke, and his debt to the priest Ehaku he is said never to have forgotten. In his cups he would shed tears without minding his family, and lament that he had failed his lord and failed his friends.

→ Mukasa Ginsuke — the young man said to have guarded his lord's head

In 1874 master and disciple settled on surnames at the same time. Akuhaku took his from Mount Suwa, where the temple stands, and became Suwa Ehaku; his disciple Mangyō became Oguri Mankyō. The step followed the proclamation of that year on the registration of priests.

Koitabashi writes of Ehaku's later years in a single line: “he afterwards gave what was left of his life to the memorial services for Oguri and his retainers”.

He died about 1878 or 1879. Oguri Mankyō Den (a life of Oguri Mankyō) gives 1878, and records that Mankyō became the fifteenth abbot of Tōzenji in that year. His name in death was Ehaku Manchi Daiwajō.

The one who succeeded him was the disciple entered in the register of 1872 at sixteen.

Sources: Kurabuchi Mura-shi (the Kurabuchi village history); Koitabashi Ryōhei, Katsu Kaishū no Raibaru: Oguri Kōzukenosuke Ichizoku no Higeki (Katsu Kaishū's rival: the tragedy of the Oguri family), Asao-sha; Koyama Tadashi, Oguri Mankyō Den (a life of Oguri Mankyō), facsimile edition