Manyoshu
Encyclopedia
Japanese poetry
Japanese poets first encountered Chinese poetry during the Tang Dynasty. It took them several hundred years to digest the foreign impact, make it a part of their culture and merge it with their literary tradition in their mother tongue, and begin to develop the diversity of their native poetry. For...
, compiled some time after 759 AD during the Nara period
Nara period
The of the history of Japan covers the years from AD 710 to 794. Empress Gemmei established the capital of Heijō-kyō . Except for 5 years , when the capital was briefly moved again, it remained the capital of Japanese civilization until Emperor Kammu established a new capital, Nagaoka-kyō, in 784...
. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in a series of compilers, is believed to be Ōtomo no Yakamochi
Otomo no Yakamochi
was a Japanese statesman and waka poet in the Nara period. He is a member of the . He was born into the prestigious Ōtomo clan; his grandfather was Ōtomo no Amaro and his father was Ōtomo no Tabito. Ōtomo no Kakimochi was his younger brother, and Ōtomo no Sakanoe no Iratsume his aunt...
. The collection contains poems ranging from AD 347 (poems #85-89) through 759 (#4516), the bulk of them representing the period after 600. The precise significance of the title is not known with certainty.
The collection is divided into twenty parts or books; this number was followed in most later collections. The collection contains 265 chōka (long poems), 4,207 tanka (short poems), one tanrenga
Renga
' is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry. A renga consists of at least two or stanzas, usually many more. The opening stanza of the renga, called the , became the basis for the modern haiku form of poetry....
(short connecting poem), one bussokusekika
Bussokusekika
, also known as Bussokuseki no Uta, are poems inscribed beside the stone Buddha Foot monument at Yakushi Temple in Nara.Numbering twenty one poems in total, they are divided into two sections:*Seventeen poems praising the virtue of Buddha....
(poems on the Buddha's footprints at Yakushi-ji
Yakushi-ji
is one of the most famous imperial and ancient Buddhist temples in Japan, located in Nara. The temple is the headquarters of the Hossō school of Japanese Buddhism...
in Nara
Nara, Nara
is the capital city of Nara Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan. The city occupies the northern part of Nara Prefecture, directly bordering Kyoto Prefecture...
), four kanshi (Chinese poems), and 22 Chinese prose passages. Unlike later collections, such as the Kokin Wakashū, there is no preface.
It is standard to regard the Man'yōshū as a particularly Japanese work. This does not mean that the poems and passages of the collection differed starkly from the scholarly standard (in Yakamochi's time) of Chinese literature and poetics. Certainly many entries of the Man'yōshū have a continental tone, earlier poems having Confucian
Confucianism
Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...
or Taoist
Taoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
themes and later poems reflecting on Buddhist
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
teachings. Yet, the Man'yōshū is singular, even in comparison with later works, in choosing primarily Ancient Japanese themes, extolling Shintō
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...
virtues of and virility (masuraoburi). In addition, the language of many entries of the Man'yōshū exerts a powerful sentimental appeal to readers:
[T]his early collection has something of the freshness of dawn.[...] There are irregularities not tolerated later, such as hypometric lines; there are evocative place names and makurakotobaMakurakotoba, literally "pillow word", are figures of speech used in Japanese waka poetry, where epithets are used in association with certain words. Their usage is akin to “grey-eyed Athena” of in the Ancient Greek epics of Homer...
; and there are evocative exclamations such as kamo, whose appeal is genuine even if incommunicable. In other words, the collection contains the appeal of an art at its pristine source with a romantic sense of venerable age and therefore of an ideal order since lost.
The collection is customarily divided into four periods. The earliest dates to prehistoric or legendary pasts, from the time of Yūryaku
Emperor Yuryaku
was the 21st emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.Yūryaku is remembered as a patron of sericulture.No firm dates can be assigned to this emperor's life or reign, but he is conventionally considered to have reigned from 456–479....
(r.?456–?479) to those of the little documented Yōmei (r.585–587), Saimei (r.594–661), and finally Tenji (r.668–671) during the Taika Reforms and the time of Fujiwara no Kamatari
Fujiwara no Kamatari
Fujiwara no Kamatari was a Japanese statesman, courtier and politician during the Asuka period.Kamatari was the founder of the Fujiwara clan in Japan. His birth clan was the Nakatomi. He was the son of Nakatomi no Mikeko, and his birth name was Nakatomi no Kamatari...
(614–669). The second period covers the end of the seventh century, coinciding with the popularity of Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
Kakinomoto no Hitomaro was a Japanese poet and aristocrat of the late Asuka period. He was the most prominent of the poets included in the Man'yōshū, and was particularly represented in volumes 1 and 2. In Japan, he is considered one of the Thirty-six Poetry Immortals...
, one of Japan's greatest poets. The third period spans 700–c.730 and covers the works of such poets as Yamabe no Akahito
Yamabe no Akahito
Yamabe no Akahito was a poet of the Nara period in Japan. The Man'yōshū, an ancient anthology, contains 13 choka and 37 tanka of his. Many of his poems were composed during journeys with Emperor Shōmu between 724 and 736...
, Ōtomo no Tabito
Otomo no Tabito
was a Japanese poet, best known as the father of Ōtomo no Yakamochi, who contributed to compiling the Man'yōshū alongside his father. Tabito was a contemporary of Hitomaro, but lacked his success in the Imperial Court...
and Yamanoue no Okura
Yamanoue no Okura
Yamanoue no Okura was a Japanese poet, the best known for his poems of children and commoners. He was a member of Japanese missions to Tang China. He was also a contributor to the Man'yōshū and his writing had a strong Chinese influence. Unlike other Japanese poetry of the time, his work...
. The fourth period spans 730–760 and includes the work of the last great poet of this collection, the compiler Ōtomo no Yakamochi himself, who not only wrote many original poems but also edited, updated and refashioned an unknown number of ancient poems.
In addition to its artistic merits, the Man'yōshū is important for using one of the earliest Japanese writing systems, the cumbersome man'yōgana. Though it was not the first use of this writing system, which was also used in the earlier Kojiki
Kojiki
is the oldest extant chronicle in Japan, dating from the early 8th century and composed by Ō no Yasumaro at the request of Empress Gemmei. The Kojiki is a collection of myths concerning the origin of the four home islands of Japan, and the Kami...
(712), it was influential enough to give the writing system its name: "the kana
Kana
Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...
of the Man'yōshū". This system uses Chinese characters in a variety of functions: their usual ideographic
Ideogram
An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention; others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.Examples of...
or logographic
Logogram
A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories.Logograms are often commonly known also as "ideograms"...
senses; to represent Japanese syllables phonetically; and sometimes in a combination of these functions. The use of Chinese characters to represent Japanese syllables was in fact the genesis of the modern syllabic kana writing systems, being simplified forms (hiragana
Hiragana
is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...
) or fragments (katakana
Katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...
) of the man'yōgana.
Julius Klaproth
Julius Klaproth
Julius Heinrich Klaproth , German linguist, historian, ethnographer, author, Orientalist and explorer. As a scholar, he is credited along with Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, with being instrumental in turning East Asian Studies into scientific disciplines with critical methods.-Chronology:Klaproth was...
was the first to publish any translation of Taika
Taika (era)
was a during the reign of Kōtoku. The Taika era immediately preceded the Hakuchi era. This period spanned the years from August 645 through February 650.-Change of era:...
era Japanese poetry in the West. Donald Keene
Donald Keene
Donald Lawrence Keene is a Japanologist, scholar, teacher, writer, translator and interpreter of Japanese literature and culture. Keene was University Professor Emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japanese Literature at Columbia University, where he taught for over fifty years...
explained in a preface to the Nihon Gakujutsu Shinkō Kai
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
The is an independent administrative institution in Japan, established for the purpose of contributing to the advancement of science in all fields of the natural and social sciences and the humanities.-History:...
edition of the Man'yōshū:
- "One 'envoy' (hanka) to a long poem was translated as early as 1834 by the celebrated German orientalist Heinrich Julius Klaproth (1783-1835). Klaproth, having journeyed to Siberia in pursuit of strange languages, encountered some Japanese castaways, fisherman, hardly ideal mentors for the study of 8th century poetry. Not surprisingly, his translation was anything but accurate."
The Man'yōshū has been accepted in the Japanese Translation Series of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Mokkan
A total of three wooden fragments known as containing text from the Man'yōshū have been excavated:- From the archaeological siteArchaeological siteAn archaeological site is a place in which evidence of past activity is preserved , and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and represents a part of the archaeological record.Beyond this, the definition and geographical extent of a 'site' can vary widely,...
in Kizugawa, KyotoKizugawa, Kyotois a city in southern Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. The city was founded on March 12, 2007 by the merger of the towns of Kamo, Kizu and Yamashiro, all from Sōraku District. It is the southernmost city in the prefecture...
. A 23.4 cm long, 2.4 cm wide, 1.2 cm deep fragment. Dated between 750 and 780, it contains the first eleven characters of poem #2205 (volume 10) written in Man'yōgana. Inspection with an infrared camera indicates other characters suggesting that it was used for writing practice - From the Miyamachi archaeological site in Kōka, ShigaKoka, Shigais a city located in the southern part of Shiga Prefecture, Japan....
. A 2 cm wide, 1 mm deep fragment was discovered in 1997 and is dated to mid 8th century. It contains poem #3807 (volume 16). - From the Ishigami archaeological site in Asuka, NaraAsuka, Narais a village located in Takaichi District, Nara, Japan.As of September 1, 2007, the village has an estimated population of 6,146 and a density of 255.23 persons per km². The total area is 24.08 km².Asuka is the land where ancient palaces were located...
. A 9.1 cm long, 5.5 cm wide, 6 mm deep fragment was found. Dated to the late 7th century, it is the oldest of the known Man'yōshū fragments. It contains the first 14 characters of poem #1391 (volume 7) written in Man'yōgana.
Poetry excerpt
In 673, Emperor TemmuEmperor Temmu
was the 40th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.Temmu's reign lasted from 672 until his death in 686.-Traditional narrative:...
moved the capital back to Yamato Province
Yamato Province
was a province of Japan, located in Kinai, corresponding to present-day Nara Prefecture in Honshū. It was also called . At first, the name was written with one different character , and for about ten years after 737, this was revised to use more desirable characters . The final revision was made in...
on the Kiyomihara plain, naming his new capital Asuka
Asuka, Yamato
was one of the Imperial capitals of Japan during the Asuka period , which takes its name from this place. It is located in the present-day village of Asuka, Nara Prefecture....
. The Man'yōshū includes a poem written after the Jinshin
Jinshin War
The was a succession dispute in Japan which broke out in 672 following the death of Emperor Tenji. The name refers to the jinshin or ninth year of the sixty-year Jikkan Jūnishi calendrical cycle, corresponding to the Western year 673....
conflict of 672 had ended:
-
-
- Our Sovereign, a god,
- Has made his Imperial City
- Out of the stretch of swamps,
- Where chestnut horses sank
- To their bellies.
-
-
- -- Ōtomo Miyuki
-
-
-
Temmu was enthroned at Asuka; and he reigned from this capital until his death in 686.
Others
More than 150 speciesSpecies
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
of grasses and trees are included in 1500 entries of Man'yōshū. More than 30 of the species are found at the in Japan, collectively placing them with the name and associated tanka
Waka (poetry)
Waka or Yamato uta is a genre of classical Japanese verse and one of the major genres of Japanese literature...
for visitors to read and observe, reminding them of the ancient time in which the references were made. The first Manyo shokubutsu-en opened in Kasuga Shrine
Kasuga Shrine
is a Shinto shrine in the city of Nara, in Nara Prefecture, Japan. Established in 768 AD and rebuilt several times over the centuries, it is the shrine of the Fujiwara family...
in 1932.
External links
- Man'yōshū - from the University of VirginiaUniversity of VirginiaThe University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
Japanese Text Initiative website - Manuscript scans at Waseda University LibraryWaseda University LibraryThe library of Waseda University is one of the largest libraries in Japan. It was established in 1882, and currently holds some 4.5 million volumes and 46,000 serials.-History:...
: 1709, 1858, unknown