Matsuo Basho and The Narrow Road to the Deep North
The seventeenth-century haiku master Matsuo Basho (1644–1694), one of Japan’s most famous poets, visited Hiraizumi and mentioned it in his masterpiece, The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
Hiraizumi flourished in the twelfth century under the rule of the Oshu Fujiwara clan, who built several temples transforming Hiraizumi into a center of Buddhist culture. In 1689, five centuries after the golden age of Hiraizumi, Matsuo Basho visited Chusonji Temple while traveling on foot in Tohoku.
During the eighteenth century, a local haiku group donated this monument to Chusonji Temple to commemorate Basho’s visit. The stone bears Basho’s original haiku poem about the Konjikido, which reads:
Untouched by
The rains of May
Shining Hall