Sen Soshitsu
Encyclopedia
is the name of the head, or iemoto
, of the Urasenke
school of Japanese tea ceremony
. Sen is the family name and Sōshitsu is the hereditary name assumed by the successor upon becoming iemoto. The first person in this line of the Sen family to use the name Sōshitsu was the youngest son of Sen Sōtan
; in other words, a great-grandson of Sen Rikyū. He is generally known as Sensō Sōshitsu (仙叟 宗室）, without mention of the family name, and is counted as the fourth generation in the Urasenke family line. The current head of Urasenke is the sixteenth generation, Sen Sōshitsu XVI, who is distinguished by his religious name, Zabōsai.
The kanji
character for 'sō', 宗, in the hereditary name may be interpreted to mean 'family core'. Like the head of Urasenke, the heads of other schools of Japanese tea ceremony also have hereditary names beginning with this kanji character. For example, the head of the Omotesenke
school traditionally carries the name Sōsa, written 宗左, and the head of the Mushakōjisenke school is Sōshu, 宗守.
Iemoto
Iemoto is a Japanese term used to refer to the founder or current head master of a certain school of traditional Japanese art...
, of the Urasenke
Urasenke
is the name of one of the main schools of Japanese tea ceremony. It is one of the san-Senke ; the other two are Omotesenke and Mushakōjisenke....
school of Japanese tea ceremony
Schools of Japanese tea ceremony
"Schools of Japanese tea ceremony" refers to the various lines or "streams" of the Japanese Way of Tea. The word "schools" here is an English rendering of the Japanese term ryūha .-san-Senke:...
. Sen is the family name and Sōshitsu is the hereditary name assumed by the successor upon becoming iemoto. The first person in this line of the Sen family to use the name Sōshitsu was the youngest son of Sen Sōtan
Sen Sotan
, also known as Genpaku Sōtan 元伯宗旦, was the grandson of the famed figure in Japanese cultural history, Sen Rikyū. He is remembered as Rikyū's third-generation successor in Kyoto through whose efforts and by whose very being, as the blood-descendant of Rikyū, the ideals and style of Japanese tea...
; in other words, a great-grandson of Sen Rikyū. He is generally known as Sensō Sōshitsu (仙叟 宗室）, without mention of the family name, and is counted as the fourth generation in the Urasenke family line. The current head of Urasenke is the sixteenth generation, Sen Sōshitsu XVI, who is distinguished by his religious name, Zabōsai.
The kanji
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
character for 'sō', 宗, in the hereditary name may be interpreted to mean 'family core'. Like the head of Urasenke, the heads of other schools of Japanese tea ceremony also have hereditary names beginning with this kanji character. For example, the head of the Omotesenke
Omotesenke
is the name of one of the three houses or families that count their family founder as Sen Rikyū and are dedicated to carrying forward the Way of Tea that he developed. The other two are Urasenke and Mushakōjisenke. The three are together referred to as the san-Senke...
school traditionally carries the name Sōsa, written 宗左, and the head of the Mushakōjisenke school is Sōshu, 宗守.