Araki Shunan (荒木舜庵)

Shunan ARAKI was a figure of the late Edo period. He was from Nagahama, Omi Province, and his father was Sanzaemon Gosuke YOSHIKAWA.

He was a descendant of Sanzaemon YOSHIKAWA who was one of Nagahama San-doshiyori (three influential families in Nagahama) and had played important roles in building Nagahama castle town by the order of Hideyoshi TOYOTOMI.

He was adopted into Juzan ARAKI and became a kanpoi (Chinese medicine doctor) in Shibashinmei Town, Edo (present Hamamatsu-cho). He moved from Kyoto to Edo, together with a Chinese medicine doctor Tomohisa HASEGAWA, a Chinese medicine doctor Tomoharu KIMURA who was later adopted into Tomohisa by the marriage with his daughter and became a doctor of the Ogino Yamanaka Domain in 1853, and Eijiro TAKAHASHI who was later adopted into the Yamagishi family which had been running Kagaya (the master was known as Kagakyu), a wholesaler of glass and eyeglasses in Toriabura-cho, Nihonbashi. After Tomohisa HASEGAWA had divorced his wife Sei, Shunan married Sei and had three children. His daughter Yo married Kokusai OZAKI, a netsuke-shi (artisan making netsuke, miniature carving attached to the end of a cord hanging from a pouch), and her first son was a famous novelist Koyo OZAKI.

[Original Japanese]