Ryōkan Taigu’s poetry moved from quiet, local circulation to wide admiration, and this arc of reception mirrors the very simplicity his verses praise. During his lifetime he was known mainly in his home region as an eccentric monk and calligrapher, with poems passed by hand among villagers, disciples, and acquaintances. Literary prestige was modest; people valued his work chiefly as a transparent expression of his character—gentle, playful, and unworldly—rather than as a major contribution to the poetic canon. His unadorned style, so different from the elaborate conventions of his age, did not attract mainstream attention at first, and his reputation remained largely regional and personal.

After his death, disciples and local devotees preserved his poems and letters, and over time these collections drew the notice of scholars and religious practitioners. As interest grew in figures who embodied a pure, uncommercialized Zen, Ryōkan began to be seen as a model of authentic spiritual life expressed through verse. In literary and Buddhist circles, readers started to recognize that the apparent naïveté of his diction concealed a deliberate aesthetic and spiritual stance. His work came to be appreciated as a rare union of Zen insight with everyday scenes—children’s games, seasonal changes, poverty, and solitude—rendered with emotional immediacy, humor, and gentle pathos.

With the broader re-evaluation of Japanese poetry and spirituality, Ryōkan’s reputation expanded from the margins into the center of cultural memory. His themes of simplicity, poverty, and harmony with nature resonated deeply with those disillusioned by materialism and formalism, and his verses began to appear in school readers, essays, and popular spiritual writings. Over time he came to be cherished not only as a saintly hermit but also as a significant late-Edo poet, skilled in various forms and admired for clarity, warmth, and understated depth. Sites associated with his life became destinations for pilgrims and visitors, and monuments and commemorations further anchored his presence in the landscape of Japanese culture.

Translations into European languages opened his work to readers beyond Japan, especially those drawn to Zen, contemplative poetry, and minimalism. Abroad, he has often been placed alongside other Zen-associated poets, his short, uncluttered poems on solitude, natural beauty, and human vulnerability finding a ready audience. Today he stands as both literary figure and cultural icon: a poet whose verses are widely anthologized and studied, and whose image as a compassionate, childlike monk continues to shape how those verses are read. The reception of his poetry thus reflects an ever-deepening recognition that what once seemed merely simple is, in fact, a carefully wrought expression of spiritual insight lived in the most ordinary of circumstances.