Mokujiki Shōnin
Mokujiki Shōnin, also recorded as Mokujiki Gogyō Myōman, was a Japanese Buddhist monk, itinerant sculptor, painter, and poet of the late Edo period. He is known for carving more than one thousand small wooden Buddhist statues—often with smiling faces —which he left in temples, shrines and villages across Japan.
His work was largely forgotten after his death until it was rediscovered in the 1920s by art critic Yanagi Sōetsu, whose research helped inspire the modern mingei movement.
Biography
Mokujiki was born in 1718 in Marubatake, Koseki, Kai Province. He is recorded as the second son of the village head of the Itō family. At age 14 he left home for Edo; according to later accounts, he was ordained in 1739 at Ōyama Fudō.He adopted the mokujiki-kai precepts in 1762 at Rakan-ji, under the monk Mokujiki Kankai, which required abstaining from grains and subsisting on wild foods; he then used the religious name "Mokujiki." Over his lifetime he also used variants such as Mokujiki Gogyō and Mokujiki Myōman in inscriptions.
Mokujiki began his nationwide pilgrimage in 1773, often traveling with his disciple Mokujiki Hakudō. He is documented across Japan from southern Hokkaidō to Kyūshū, leaving single-block wooden images at the places he visited. He stayed on Sado Island for several years, producing numerous statues and scrolls, and later resided at Hyūga Kokubun-ji in Kyūshū. In 1800 he worked in Fujieda and Yaizu, where local records note thirteen statues.
He completed the building and installation of the Shikokudō group in his native Marubatake between 1801 and 1802, carving a set of roughly ninety images modeled on the 88-temple Shikoku pilgrimage, together with a self-image and related figures. He died on July 6, 1810, aged 93.