CHAPTER III
CHŌMEI AND THE "HŌJŌKI"
Kamo Chōmei, the author of the Hōjōki, was a guardian of the Shinto shrine of Kamo in Kiōto. Having acquired some reputation as a musician and poet, he was appointed by the retired Mikado Go Toba to a post in the Department of Japanese Poetry. He subsequently petitioned to be allowed to succeed his father as superior guardian of Kamo, but his prayer was not granted. This he resented deeply, and shaving his head, retired to a hermitage on Ōharayama, a few miles from Kiōto.
The Hōjōki, written in 1212, is a record of the author's personal experiences. It is valued highly for its excellent style, which is not too close an imitation of the older classical manner, nor yet, on the other hand, overloaded with Chinese expressions. After giving an account of the great fire of Kiōto in 1177, the famine of 1181, and the earthquake of 1185, the writer of these memoirs proceeds to tell us of the mountain hermitage to which he fled in order to escape from a world so rife with direful calamities. His hut and mode of life are minutely described, with many touches which not only give indications of his own tastes and character, but reveal something of the inner spirit of the Buddhist religion. It is a tiny book on which to rest so high a reputation, containing some thirty pages only, and it is therefore possible to transcribe all the more interest-
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