What is the Colour of Purple?

In 1630 Edo, a nervous Shogunate scribe is tasked with documenting the deposition of the defiant Zen abbot Takuan Sōhō, only to find himself hiding the abbot's illegal imperial purple robe in his own document case.

“To the Shogunate, purple is an illegal rank. To the Emperor, it is a sacred honor. To a terrified scribe, it is nineteen thousand words of high-stakes comedic desperation.”

A dry, philosophical comedy of bureaucratic sovereignty and Zen defiance in early Edo Japan.

Hanada Seizō lives by the rules. As a junior scribe for the Tokugawa Shogunate, his duty is simple: keep the records clean, stay out of trouble, and ignore the quiet terror of a changing regime.

But when he is sent to Kyoto to document the trial of Takuan Sōhō, the abbot of Daitoku-ji, Hanada’s orderly world begins to disintegrate. Takuan has committed the ultimate offense: he has accepted a purple robe from the Emperor, directly defying the Shogun’s decree.

What follows is a battle of wills between the absolute power of the Shogunate and a monk who offers no resistance at all. As they travel the winter highways from Kyoto to the trial chambers of Edo and the snow-heavy mountains of the north, Hanada finds himself complicit in the abbot’s quiet subversion—carrying an illegal imperial artifact in his own satchel.

Written in a dry, incisive first-person voice, What is the Colour of Purple? is a historical novella that explores the boundaries of authority, the weight of the written word, and the color no government could ever successfully regulate.

Author’s Note

This novella is a dry, dialogue-driven historical comedy set in the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Perfect for readers of Nghi Vo’s The Empress of Salt and Fortune and fans of classical Zen literature, it offers a grounded, atmospheric look at the Purple Robe Incident with “inward stakes” and a focus on intellectual tension over physical conflict.

Takuan was a nerd. The cover is redrawn from his painting of the Buddhist Monk Daruma. Daruma was an Indian Monk, possibly of Persian ethnic background, who lived during the 5th or 6th Century. He is credited with bringing Zen Buddhism (Chan) to China, where it spread to Japan, Korea and Vietnam.

Publication Status

Genre: Historical Literary Fiction / Comedy
Tone: Dry situational comedy
Interest: 1630s Japan, Takuan Sōhō, Purple Robe Incident
Word count: 19,000
TLDR: Hanada Seizō, a junior scribe for the Shogunate, expects a routine assignment when sent to Kyoto to record the deposition of the abbot Takuan Sōhō. Instead, he finds himself caught between the Shogun’s absolute laws and the abbot’s quiet Zen defiance—ultimately smuggling an illegal purple robe in his own document case. A dry, philosophical comedy set in 1630 Japan.

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