Kusuha Sainin

• Born: 1395
• Died: 1486
• Childhood name: Musuru

Kusuha Sainin was one of two sons of a man who came from Tenjiku (India?) and settled in the Osaka area in the late 14th century. Sainin served the temple Kôfuku-ji in Nara in some capacity, and journeyed to Ming China in 1432 and 1453 on trade voyages. Some have suggested that he (or his father) was Muslim, from Malacca.

References

• Toby, Ronald. "'Indianness' of Iberia and Japanese iconographies." in Schwartz, Stuart (ed.) Implicit Understandings: observing, reporting, and reflecting on the encounters between Europeans and other peoples in the early modern era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. p329n8.
• Toby, Ronald. "Three Realms/Myriad Countries: An 'Ethnography' of Other and the Rebounding of Japan, 1550-1750." in Chow, Kai-wing, et al. (eds.) Constructing Nationhood in Modern East Asia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. p38 n13.