Ikkyu Sojun’s early years unfolded under the shadow of illegitimacy and political tension. Born as the illegitimate son of Emperor Go-Komatsu and a court lady of lower rank, he stood at the margins of imperial privilege, close to power yet fundamentally excluded from it. Rival court factions and hostility from the empress created an atmosphere of danger around his very existence. This precarious status meant that, despite his imperial bloodline, he could not fully belong to the world into which he had been born. His childhood thus began already marked by instability and a sense of displacement.

The turmoil at court forced his mother to flee with him when he was still very young, seeking refuge in a small temple outside Kyoto. There, mother and child lived in relative poverty and obscurity, far removed from the luxury and security usually associated with imperial lineage. This period of hiding and hardship set the stage for a life in which worldly rank and spiritual vocation would be in constant tension. The contrast between his noble birth and his modest circumstances would later echo in his critical stance toward social and religious pretensions.

Around the age of five or six, Ikkyu was sent to Ankoku-ji temple to begin formal Buddhist training. This separation from his mother, coming after an already unsettled early childhood, was deeply traumatic and left an enduring mark on his inner life. From that point, his world was shaped by strict monastic discipline, meditation, and study, all undertaken at an age when most children are still rooted in family life. The temple became both a refuge from political danger and a site of emotional loss, a place where spiritual formation and personal sorrow were tightly interwoven.

These formative experiences—illegitimate birth, political threat, flight into obscurity, and early monastic seclusion—combined to shape Ikkyu’s later character and religious vision. Growing up estranged from court privilege yet aware of his lineage, he developed a keen sensitivity to the gap between appearance and reality in both politics and religion. The pain of separation and the rigors of institutional practice helped foster his later anti-establishment attitudes and his unconventional approach to Zen. His childhood can thus be seen as the crucible in which his fierce independence, critical insight, and uncompromising spiritual intensity were forged.