Zekkai Chūshin 絶海中津 (Kemmu 3 → 1336; Ōei 12 / 1405-04-05), Late-Nanbokuchō / early-Muromachi Japanese Rinzai-Zen master and the most celebrated Gozan-bungaku poet of his generation. Style-name (字) Zekkai 絶海; dharma-name Chūshin 中津; alternate dharma-names include Shōzetsu 性絶. Posthumous title Bucchi Kōshō Jōin Kanrin Zenji 佛智廣照淨印翰林禪師, with later additional titles. Native of Tosa 土佐 province (modern Kōchi). Tonsured under Musō Soseki’s circle and received transmission from 妙葩 Shun’oku Myōha. Travelled to Ming China in Ōan 1 (Hongwu 1 = 1368) and remained for ten years (returning Eiwa 4 / 1378), studying under Jìtán Zōnglè 宗泐 (1318–1391), Qīngyuǎn 清遠, Shùzhōng Wúwén 恕中無慍 (1309–1386), and Mùān Wéncōng 穆菴文聰 — a remarkable cluster of leading Yuan-Ming Chan abbots. Famous in literary history for an audience with the Hongwu emperor 洪武帝 (Zhū Yuánzhāng) at which he composed an extempore Tiānmǎshānshī 天馬山詩, earning a matching imperial harmonisation. Successively abbot of Erin-ji 惠林寺 (Kai 甲斐), Tōji-in 等持院, Shōkoku-ji 相國寺, and finally Tenryū-ji 天龍寺. Together with 周信 Gidō Shūshin he is one of the “Two Mountains” (ryōzan 両山) of late-fourteenth-century Gozan-bungaku, his collected verse forming the Shōkenkō 蕉堅藁.