Tachibana Kachiko (786-850)
The Saga empress, she sent a Japanese monk to China to bring back a Chan/ Zen teacher, as she had heard about Chan from the
great Japanese Shingon founder Kukai (Kobo Daishi), who had visited China. The monk she sent found the national teacher
Yanguan Qian, who sent to Japan his disciple Yikung (n.d.; Jap.: Giku). Yikung first taught at a subtemple of Toji, the great
Shingon temple in southern Kyoto. Later, the Saga empress founded Danrinji in the Arashiyama area in western Kyoto, where
Yikung was the first abbot. Danrinji (destroyed by fire in 928) could be said to have been the first Zen temple in Japan,
although Yikung later returned to China without having established an enduring Zen lineage there. But the first Japanese Zen
practitioner was a woman, Tachibana Kachiko, who became a nun.
http://www.greattreetemple.org/wp-co...-Ancestors.pdf