Early Buddhist Kanshi - Court, Country, and Kūkai

Early Buddhist Kanshi: Court, Country, and Kūkai
Author(s): Paul Rouzer

Source: Monumenta Nipponica , Winter, 2004, Vol. 59, No. 4 (Winter, 2004), pp. 431-461
Published by: Sophia University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/25066327
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Early Buddhist Kanshi
Court, Country, and K?kai
Paul Rouzer
As Chinese poetry migrated from country to country and encountered new

contexts and uses, it underwent changes despite the continuity in lin
guistic form. The Nara and early Heian periods traditionally have been
seen as periods of imitation and apprenticeship in the adoption of Chinese poetic
modes. The surviving body of work, nevertheless, suggests certain shifts in em
phasis. The emergence of Buddhism as a more explicit subject for composition
is one example. How did early kanshi poets in Japan articulate Buddhist con
cerns? Did they create a distinctively "Buddhist" poetry? And what might that
tell us about the social and political factors underlying kanshi composition in
Japan?
The Chinese Context
The impact of Buddhism on literature has long been a given among scholars of
traditional Japanese culture.1 This has not been true in China, where elite prej
udice against Buddhism can run deep, in the modern era as well as imperial times.
While late imperial literati sometimes (but not always) suppressed evidence of
Buddhist and Taoist elements by privileging a Confucian purity in literary tra
ditions, many modern intellectuals have viewed such elements as "superstitions"
to be deplored and overcome.2 By contrast, over the past several decades a
The author is associate professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Literatures at the
University of Minnesota. He would like to extend special thanks to MN's anonymous reviewers
and to the participants in the workshop "New Approaches to Chinese Textuality: Boundaries,
Genres, and Contexts of Sino-Japanese Literature (Kanshibun)," Harvard University, 7-8 May
2004, for their extensive comments and suggestions.
1 The most cited work in English on a Japanese Buddhist aesthetics is still probably LaFleur
1983. Yet hardly a single work on the medieval period fails to take seriously the influence of
Buddhism. This does not mean that there is no difficulty in assessing and evaluating the signifi
cance of such influence, even in the most seemingly obvious contexts. Parker 1997, pp. 235-36,
for one, has commented on the widely divergent opinions concerning the religiosity of Gozan 5_l
[il landscape paintings and poetry. Nonetheless, no one questions the validity of discussing the
issue of Buddhist religiosity in medieval Japanese literary works.
2 Quite typical is the apologetic introduction in Sun 1985, pp. 1-2. Though the author, Sun
Changwu i^HA, is the most distinguished living Chinese scholar on Buddhism and literature, he
nonetheless feels obliged to defend his subject. Acknowledging the classic Marxist-Leninist dis
missal of religion, he points out that Buddhist influences on traditional literature still must be stud
ied, so as to recognize the detrimental effects they have exerted. Luckily, the increasingly tolerant

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432 Monumento Nipponica 59:4
number of Western scholars have attempted to discover a "Buddhist aesthetic"

in Tang and pre-Tang elite poetry.3 In so doing they have confronted a number
of problematic issues in interpretation. Not the least of these lies in defining the
scope of discussion. Is it valid, for example, to try to uncover a Buddhist shift,
conscious or unconscious, in the metaphysics or psychology of a Chinese poem?
When Wang Wei ?#t (699-761) uses the common word for "empty" (kong S)
in a poem, is he alluding to some fundamental "emptiness" in sensual phenom
ena, a true Buddhist s?nyatat Or when Xie Lingyun SHEA (385-443) climbs a
mountain, is he looking for a transcendental Buddhist truth? Literary devices are
often overdetermined, in the sense that one can find a multitude of reasons why
they arise at a particular time among a particular group of writers. Certain read
ers, for instance, may perceive Wang Wei's penchant for ending poems with rel
atively "objective" nature images of uncertain significance (such as clouds in the
distance) as a device for emphasizing the unknowable Buddhist "reality" under
neath the illusory world. But this could just as easily be a "Taoist" image, a ges
ture towards "the way that cannot be spoken of." And perhaps there is no reason
to drag in metaphysical interpretations at all. As Stephen Owen has pointed out,
the tendency to end a poem with an ambiguous nature image was characteristic
not just of Wang Wei, but of his entire generation, and it may reflect a rejection
of the explicit emotional reaction found in the last lines of many social poems
in the seventh century.4
A much simpler way of defining "Buddhist poetry" would be to look for spe
cific Buddhist content. A careful and catholic examination of Chinese written
materials from the fourth century on reveals an increasingly explicit preoccu
pation with Buddhist themes. This includes poetry as well. Shen Yue ?fc$j
(441-513), one of the foremost poetic innovators of the early tradition, was a
devout practitioner and occasionally introduced terminology from the sutras into
his verse. In turn he came to have a strong personal relationship with Emperor
Wu of the Liang dynasty ^?^, who was to become the greatest imperial patron
of the religion; this ruler's personal tastes and commitments came to dominate
the Liang court, making the early sixth century a golden age in Chinese Buddhist
letters. With the establishment of the Tang dynasty in the seventh century, China
underwent its longest period of acculturation to Buddhism. Our evidence for this
today is aided not a little by the survival of the Dunhuang materials, which give
us deeper insight into aspects of Tang religious practice than we have for any
period before. The Dunhuang materials allow us to think more subtly about what
a "Buddhist poetry" might be. They also alert us to the role played by ideology,
social class, and audience in the preservation of texts in a manuscript culture.5
environment of scholarship in China has allowed him to relax these strictures in his more recent
work.
3 For a brief, but handy, overview of the issue in Western scholarship on Chinese poetry, see
Smits 1995, pp. 15-16.
4 Chapter 5 of Yu 1987 gives a strong argument for detecting a Buddhist impact on general
Tang aesthetics. See also Owen 1981, pp. 56-58. Shan Chou has discussed the strictly "literary"
function of Wang Wei's endings. See Chou 1982, pp. 133-37.
5 "Dunhuang materials" here refers to the miscellaneous religious and secular documents dat
ing from the sixth through tenth centuries discovered early in the twentieth century in the cave
complex of Dunhuang in Gansu province.

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Rouzer: Early Buddhist Kanshi 433
In considering some of these issues, I would like to make a broad and simple
division of "Buddhist poetry" into two categories, while emphasizing that the boun
dary between them is permeable and often indistinct: the "high social/aesthetic"
and the "doctrinal/didactic." The first category comprises poetry produced by an
educated elite, writing mostly in a somewhat formal "regulated verse," that, in
one way or another, incorporates some Buddhist content.6 This is a poetry of
social exchange, often friendly or polite in tone; its practitioners comprised both
monks and members of the laity. In general, elite society came to view such verse
as worth preserving in authorial collections (ji ?, Jp. sh?); it received the main
weight of Chinese curatorial endeavor.7 The second category, the doctrinal/
didactic, covers a range of religious content. One may include among it versi
fied statements of religious truth, often modeled on similar passages from trans
lated sutras. Many such poems might be called g?th?s (ji ?H, Jp. ge). Usually
found in specifically religious collections, hagiographie accounts, or transmit
ted sayings, they owe their preservation to specifically religious motivation. It
is not out of the question to come across examples in the authorial collections of
lay believers and monk poets, but they are rare. Another type of didactic Buddhist
poetry is often anonymous or pseudonymous. Written in highly colloquial lan
guage, poems of this sort tend to emphasize moral precepts and practical advice
over specifically doctrinal content. The purest examples are the Dunhuang
poems attributed to the legendary Wang Fanzhi _EJES. A more self-consciously
literary example is found in the Hanshan MiU (Jp. Kanzan) corpus, which
employs a wide variety of styles to convey its message.
Let me emphasize here that I am not describing hard and fast categories, nor
do I see these types as strictly divided along class or occupational lines as regards
either the poet or the audience. It does seem, however, that the rationale for
preservation may dictate where and how much poetry survives. It explains, for
example, why almost all of the extant poems by Tang poet monks do not mention
explicit Buddhist themes and vocabulary (because they are preserved in autho
rial collections of a "secular" bent); and it may also explain why even pious lay
poets did not include devotional poetry in their collections. Didactic poetry like
the Wang Fanzhi and Hanshan corpuses, on the other hand, survived either by
accident or as specifically devotional texts transmitted by believers. Ultimately,
6 "Regulated verse" is the standard translation for l?shi ft?Nf (Jp. risshi), poetry that observed
specific proprieties in tonality and stressed formal parallel structures. Though by the eighth cen
tury the modes of regulated verse had largely stabilized in the octet and quatrain forms, poems of
various lengths that observed tonal proprieties to a greater or lesser extent continued to be com
mon in China throughout the Tang era (and were common in Japan as well).
7 I will occasionally refer to this "mainstream" of Chinese poetry and its cultural background
as "secular" or "elite" and to its practitioners as "literati," but I am not totally satisfied with any
of these terms. I am thinking here of a literature produced by a group of people, mostly men, well
versed in a body of foundation texts of various sorts, most prominently the so-called "Confucian
classics." It is true that this literary tradition specifically came to be identified by the Chinese late
imperial elite as "their" literature (siwen WSC, Jp. shibun) and as in fact the only literature wor
thy of the name (a circumstance that resulted in the denigration of certain kinds of Buddhist texts).
Nevertheless I eschew the term "Confucian" to describe the literature itself, because to do so often
connotes an ideological and philosophical stance deliberately opposed to other systems of thought
and religious practice. It is important, I believe, to emphasize that a poet writing out of this back
ground is not necessarily "Confucian" in this limited sense.

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we cannot know how much poetry of the different categories was written by what
sort of poet. At most, we can say that the "elite" Chinese tradition tended to value
only the high social forms of Buddhist verse, precisely because they could be
valued for reasons outside of belief per se.
Some specific examples might prove useful here. As far as the "high social/
aesthetic" tradition is concerned, we can turn to chapters 219-224 of the
Wenyuan yinghua ~S?fcMm, presented to Emperor Taizong of the Song Â^ in
987. Like the early-sixth-century Wenxuan ~XM (Jp. Monzen), for which it was
intended to be a sequel, the Wenyuan yinghua anthologized under various cate
gories poems and prose considered exemplary. Chapters 219-224 contain 372
poems characterized as "Buddhist" (shimen f?P^). The contents of these chap
ters give us a sense of what a tenth-century Chinese compiler thought appropri
ate to the category. The chapters include some poems by Buddhist monks, but
most are by laymen; and the great majority of them would fall as well into the
older subgenres of "presentation" (zeng fli) and "bidding farewell" (song M), as
well as the more recent subgenre of temple-visiting; almost all are written in
"regulated verse" forms. Every poem collected falls under the rubric of "high
social" poetry, and in many cases the Buddhist content is tenuous. A poem may
be labeled "Buddhist" simply because it involves a social exchange with a mem
ber of the clergy (as author or recipient) or describes a Buddhist edifice or insti
tution. It was standard in addressing poems to the clergy, for example, to
introduce a "throwaway" couplet alluding to the recipient's vocation. This was
usually a polite comment about the monk's meditation practices, a casual refer
ence to Buddhist sutras or folklore, or a plea that the monk pray for the author's
salvation. One may assume that such couplets, rather conventional in nature,
were part of the accepted give-and-take of social poetry. This is not to imply that
they were "insincere" or indicate that the poet was not a true believer or did not
mean what he said. I merely suggest that such couplets are not essential to the
"main point" of the poem, vague though that may be.
Comparison of the handling of these elements in several poems allows us to
map a spectrum of Buddhist content in the "high social" mode. The following
poem by Zhang Hu 3BS? (fl. early ninth century) shows a light and trivial ap
proach to Buddhist ideas:
Sent to His Eminence Lingche ?rlliSii?
This aged monk, off in some temple î?Mffl#
Circles the riverbank in his autumn dreams. ^kWMlQ^
A lone tree: crane in the moonlight; W$?? ?SS
A solitary isle: a man beyond the clouds. WMM9VA
You always taught us the illusions of glory, ^^?ftiO
But now, long ill, fail to look after yourself. S^^FS#
I suppose you laugh at us, the imperfect ones, J&^Mf&^?
As you drop a fishing line by the green sandbar.8 ?^mUSI
Zhang Hu here writes to Lingche (746-816), who was an eminent monk poet
in his own right. It was typical for epistolary poems (often recognized by the
8 Wenyuan yinghua, vol. 1335, p. 90.

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verb ji ?r, "to send") to choose a retired gentleman, a recluse, or a Buddhist monk
as a recipient; the standard emotion is one of envy, as the poet speculates on what
his friend is doing "now," in the country, in the monastery, or wherever. One
common mark of this jealous vision is the use of the auxiliary verb ying JS,
"should," indicating what the poet thinks is most likely happening (here it
appears in line 7). This is not the only conventional quality to the poem: others
are the concern over the possible illness of the recipient; a classic parallel cou
plet of landscape description, here part of the envisioned setting; and (since the
recipient is a Buddhist monk) a brief touch on "doctrine" to personalize the poem
("glory is illusion"). There is another possible mark that the poem is hardly a
serious comment upon Lingche' s vocation: though recluses often go fishing (and
so the final image is entirely conventional), it seems peculiar for a monk to do
so, thus violating the precept on taking life.91 think we could say here that while
a knowledge of Buddhism and its cultural history may deepen our reading of this
poem, it is peripheral to the main thrust of the lines.
Our second example, by L? Wen Bi? (fl. early ninth century), moves to the
opposite end of the spectrum and incorporates quite serious Buddhist imagery
into the text:
Seeing off His Eminence Wenchang as He Travels East i^X?Si-?îl

Following karma, you plan to wave your staff ?tSW?l?
And stride loftily from the eastern wall. ?^tH^?
The moon rises, has no constant dwelling; ? ?MM?_
Clouds drift by: unknown their path. Uff ^St?S
When we arrive, we reach the other side; S'JPt?l?S^
Where we have passed: those our former lives. i!#[_IPfii?
Today on the eve of parting, 4* 0 WMWi
I alone and for naught have feeling.10 ?# ? Wtf
L?, like Zhang, works off of "occasion" conventions, in this case those asso
ciated with parting. He alludes to the journey that his friend faces (here, too,
some fictional projection is typical) and expresses his sorrow over saying good
bye. He, however, transfers the images of travel into a Buddhist allegory, a brief
but powerful pilgrim's progress. His manipulation of the two kinds of journeys
provides some elegant surprises: the second couplet seems at first an ordinary
description of the uncertainties of travel in which images of transience that orig
inally may have had some Buddhist meaning have become dead metaphors. But
when the third couplet uses quite explicit Buddhist sutra vocabulary to represent
the journey of consciousness through samsara (qiansheng ffj4, "former lives")
to final enlightenment (bVan ilS^, "the other side"), the dead metaphors come
9 I have communicated with scholars about this poem who have taken the ending in different
ways: one colleague assumes that the role of Lingche as Buddhist monk is too explicit to allow
representing him as taking life, even within the boundaries of conventional recluse poetry; he
interprets the last line to mean "as we drop a fishing line by the green sandbar" (reading in the not
uncommon way that describes ambitious men as fishermen angling for office, or as fish eager to
be caught). However, I have finally been persuaded by others who read it in keeping with the "her
mit" trope, in spite of the anti-Buddhist consequences.

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alive and point more powerfully to a religious significance. The beginning and
ending, though both gesturing to a standard "seeing off" poem, also emphasize
a Buddhist point: while the monk departs "loftily," guided by karma, the poet
expresses the sorrow of a bereft friend. Yet, he stresses, it is only he who feels
the sorrow, because he cannot transcend the illusory pains of the present world.
The adverb tu f? does double duty here, since it can mean both "alone" and "in
vain." L?'s own useless ignorance separates him from Wenchang and leaves him
solitary in more ways than one. This should tell us (a point I will return to below)
that not all Buddhist poems aim for a sense of serenity, or even intend to impart
some sense of wisdom; anyone who turns to such poetry in the hope of an inspi
rational message may be disappointed.
Finally, a poem by Bai Juyi S?f? (772-846), a devout believer himself, gives
a new twist to a conventional situation and sentiments by incorporating a refer
ence to Buddhist doctrine:
At the Foot of the Mountain, Parting with the Monk Foguang LhTSB'HA^ftlf?
I trouble the Master to see me off
as I descend the hill. ^BI?ATliJ?f
What man can know this mood
aroused by such a parting? JttSUMAIS?Jttlf
I'm already seventy,
my master has reached ninety: AE-tr^B?A+
We surely know that our next meeting
will be in our next life.11 SMfeErftft?
There is nothing particularly Buddhist as such in thinking about permanent

separation (in this life at least) from one's friends. But the fact that the friend in
this instance is an abbot inspires Bai to put a somewhat rueful spin on things.
Earlier poetry had talked about the differences between "separation in life"
(shengbie ??giJ) and "separation in death" (sibie JESU), speculating on which was
more bitter. Bai does not see the likelihood of a meeting in the next life as a con
solation; rather, the Buddhist premise that one should seek to escape from the
cycle of death and rebirth provides the basis for an ironic perspective on the
poetic tradition of "parting" as well as his and his friend's immanent demise.
Bai's allusion to one of the most basic of Buddhist beliefs enables him to create
a poignantly simple poem. But he uses Buddhist elements here largely as a means
to an end; although they are inextricably linked with the poetic material, they are
not really part of the poem's emotional center.
Generally speaking, not that many poems in the Wenyuan yinghua take Bud
dhism seriously; there are far more poems like Zhang Hu's than L? Wen's (I
would put about thirty or forty poems at most in the latter category). When one
considers the immense size of this collection (which provides a fairly accurate
microcosm of Tang elite literary production), this is a rather small group. Ad
mittedly, there may be Buddhist poems scattered through the other chapters; but
still, when all is said and done, the "high social" poetry of the Tang usually stayed
away from Buddhism, in spite of the prevalence of belief.

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In comparison, let me give two examples of "doctrinal/didactic" poetry. The

first, by the prolific late Tang monk poet Guanxiu M?k (832-912), leans more
toward the "doctrinal" in content:
A Gatha Telling of Sentience ?fiWB

The plants and trees also have their natures;
And they are no different from us.
And if we are like plants and trees
Then there is no season for perfecting the Way.
The people of the world do not understand the Way;
Though the Way is present, they curse the Way.
I sigh in anguish over this sort of person?
Who cannot find a treasure in a mountain of treasures.12 _?iUî#___
Although roughly modeled on the structure of the eight-line regulated octet,

this verse eschews most of the stylistics of the form, ignoring balanced paral
lelism in the middle couplets. Instead it indulges in a plain argumentative style,
with pithy repetitions and homely metaphors. Guanxiu?at least as far as his sur
viving secular collection indicates?was a highly prolific poet. Yet out of roughly
seven hundred surviving poems, I could find only a dozen that directly addressed
doctrinal issues in this manner. Once again, this does not mean he did not write
many such poems; but at the least we may say that those editing his collection
chose not to include work of this sort.13
Finally, at the most "didactic" and popular level, we have a Dunhuang poem
attributed to Wang Fanzhi:
Look upon the people of the world far away;
Their villages and wards, peaceful towns? finite
If in one family someone should die,
The whole village goes there to weep.
They open their mouths, sobbing over another's corpse, Senates
Not knowing their own departure will be swift.
At root they are ghosts long asleep,
Who have come to occupy the land for a short while.
Compare them to an infant in diapers? mmrnt
Dried off, before long they're wet again! m&RWtm
After the first dead is buried deep away, mnmmn
The next one follows him inside.14
Even more than Guanxiu, this poem rejects the classical conventions of diction
and vocabulary to write something highly colloquial and didactic in tone.
Japanese Attitudes and Conventions

In contrast to the Chinese situation, we would not expect an educated Japanese
12 Quan Tang shi, p. 9334.

13 Of course, one might argue that the inclusion of this poem against the overall content of the
collection suggests that Guanxiu generally did not write such verses (and I think it highly likely).
But I prefer to remain cautious on this point.
14 Xiangl991,p. 11.

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writer of the Nara or early Heian period versed in kanbun to emphasize the dif
ference between Buddhist and Confucian cultural traditions. Buddhism and its
texts arrived not too long after the classics of Confucianism and continental cul
ture, and all these works were written in literary Chinese. While obviously the
educated Japanese courtier or monk knew of the differences between Confucian
and Buddhist texts (and could exploit these differences rhetorically in his own
writings), all, as far as he was concerned, embodied to some extent the "civiliz
ing process" Japanese society underwent throughout the seventh and eighth cen
turies. And while certain courtiers of the ninth century (middle-ranking, mostly)
attempted to reform the Heian court into a bureaucracy that privileged Chinese
government institutions, this effort did not go far enough for clerics and literati
to feel that their contrasting forms of cultural capital were confrontational in
nature (as happened sporadically throughout the Tang).15 Buddhist lay assem
blies, imperial temple visits, and public Buddhist festivals became the subject
for poetry exchanges to an extent not found in surviving Chinese literary col
lections. Poets likewise attempted to develop new ways of conveying Buddhist
truths in the conventional rhetoric of literati poetry, exploiting its techniques of
parallelism, metonymy, and allusion?fitting the poem to the belief, and not the
belief to the poem. On the other hand, the courtly readers of works in Chinese
do not seem for the most part to have been interested in using kanshi as a medium
for popular proselytization, in the manner associated with Wang Fanzhi; for
didactic purposes, it was presumably seen as more effective to utilize recogniz
ably Japanese forms, like the bussokuseki fAJ??? poems.16
In the period that I shall discuss?from the beginning of the Nara court (710)
to the end of the first high point of kanshi composition in the early Heian (marked
by the death of Emperor Saga Uffi in 842)?Japanese courtiers and priests took
a variety of approaches to poetic composition in general and, more specifically,
toward representing Buddhism. For the sake of clarity, I divide these approaches
into three general types, based roughly on the sources in which they figure: 1)
Nara-era poetry, as found primarily in the earliest kanshi anthology, Kaif?s? tg?
MM (preface dated 751), but also including a number of Nara-era poems col
lected in Heian anthologies; 2) early Heian poetry deriving from Emperor Saga's
(r. 809-23) anthologies (termed by historians "the three imperially commis
sioned collections," chokusen sansh? ?Ji?H?): Ry?unsh? I?zMM (c. 814), Bunka
sh?reish? StmÛM (c. 818), and Keikokush? SHU (827),17 texts that largely
represent the increasing maturity of courtier poets during the first decades of the
Heian era; 3) poetry derived from individual literary collections, which for this
period means almost exclusively the literary collection of the monk K?kai 5?#S
(774-835), Seireish? ttMSI. One needs to exercise caution in differentiating
changes in attitudes toward poetry from the consequences of adopting a partic
ular medium (the dynamics involved in putting together an imperially sponsored
anthology are not the same as those underlying a disciple's compilation of the
15 This greater openness may result in part from the fact that monks as well as secular figures
joined ambassadorial missions sent to China and played a major role in bringing back to Japan
not only religious works but also literary texts.
16 The bussokuseki are poems of uncertain age carved on a stone in Nara; they likely date from
theMan'y? era. For a discussion, see Miller 1975; and for translations, Cranston 1993, pp. 765-75.
17 While the first two anthologies collected the poets of Saga's court, Keikokush? (much larger

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works of his Buddhist master). I will contend here, nevertheless, that the two
issues are inextricable; different types of textual sources reflect different atti
tudes toward composition.
Celebrating the Cakravartin

The Nara era was, of course, a great age for the expansion of Buddhism, as well
as for public patronage of the faith by the imperial establishment. In many ways,
this was a local manifestation of general East Asian tendencies of the time. As
historians of Chinese Buddhism know well, the seventh and eighth centuries saw
an increase of attempts to construct a public and politically significant role for
Buddhism at the Tang court. Already present in Indian Buddhism (inspired
mostly by the example of Asoka) was the concept of the cakravartin, or "wheel
turning king," who spread the faith positively and devoutly through good deeds
and by patronage of the clergy. In China, a number of sutras, some Indian, some
Chinese and apocryphal, emphasized the devotional practices a ruler should
promote to increase the prosperity of his realm. Public readings of such sutras
became common, and in the case of Empress Wu ?/p (r. 684-705), one sutra
was deliberately misinterpreted so as to make her appear as the reincarnation of
the Bodhisattva Maitreya. The golden age of esoteric practices under Xuanzong
SS (r. 712-756), introduced by monks such as Subhakarasimha, Vajrabodhi,
and Yixing ?fr, made the court familiar with a wide range of rituals that were
intended to allow the ruler to exert magical power over his realm, much as the
supreme Buddha, Vairocana, sat in the center of a m?ndala.18 Generally speak
ing, however, in China, such elements did not surface in the work of the "high
social" court poets that attended Empress Wu's ceremonies and celebrated her
reign. They were largely content to compose in a standard tone of imperial pan
egyric that owed more to general elite traditions than to Buddhist ones.19
Esoteric practices were also a part of Nara court ceremony, long before they
became the foundation for Shingon Ulf, the theological school founded by
K?kai following his return from China in 806. The ideological conception of the
emperor as cakravartin was promoted alongside the Chinese bureaucratic ritsu
ry? institutions that defined the imperial court and government from the reforms
of the mid-600s through the early Heian period. Symbolically, Prince Sh?toku
ffi??fcfc? (574-622), whose governmental reforms are sometimes seen as a pre
cursor of the ritsury? institutions, came to be equally honored as a founder of
monasteries and author of sutra commentaries. A legend that circulated widely
from the Nara period on held him to be a reincarnation of one of the founders of
Tiantai Ji n4 Buddhism, Huisi Jf J? (515-577), who had sworn to carry Buddhism
eastward in his next incarnation. But while, in China, Buddhist elements of this
sort were kept out of court celebratory compositions, in Japan, kanshi poets seem
in size) ambitiously included poetry and prose genres from the beginning of the Nara period. It
was compiled under the reign of Saga's successor, Junna ?$?P (r. 823-33), though Saga had some
say in its content. Only six of its twenty books remain?but, fortunately for my argument here?
the section on Buddhist poems survived intact.
18 For an overview of state-church relations in Tang China, see Weinstein 1987. For esoterism
and the Tang state, see Orzech 1998.
19 See, for example, Stephen Owen's discussion of court poetry conventions during the seventh
century in Owen 1977, pp. 234-73.

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to have been comfortable combining Buddhist paeans with the ceremonial lan
guage of court poetry. When Omi no Mifune MMELW?, a prominent late-Nara
courtier, wrote about Empress Sh?toku's $5?!? visit in 767 to the temple complex
dedicated to Prince Sh?toku (better known as H?ry?ji ?ePsE^f ), he explicitly por
trayed her not just as the imperial heir to the prince's reforms, but as the suc
cessor to the enterprise of the cakravartin:
On the southern peak he left his form in meditation,

And manifested his incarnation in these eastern lands.20
His life is done, but his fame does not fade;
As generations pass, the Way is ever renewed. ffitft?3*?T
He sought wisdom?and released his enlightened wisdom
Sought benevolence?and obtained perfect benevolence.
His literary legacy transmitted right dharma, mxfciEf?
And his martial ardor swept away wicked subjects.
The results of his work will last for centuries,
And his flowering reputation will reach every corner.
Our ruler aspires to this Buddha's fruits;
She turns her carriage to inquire after his fragrant karma. mm?*wm
On this jeweled land fragrant flowers amass,
To the courts of Heaven chants of faith spread.
At last I know that both these saints
Are forever neighbors in their mystic virtue.21
While postdating the compilation of Kaif?s?, this poem retains the clunky for
mal quality of that collection as it applies the techniques of early Tang ceremo
nial verse to an exposition of Buddhist motifs. In the following poem about a
sutra assembly at the palace chapel, Mifune depicts assemblies for studying
sutras as if they were the stately gestures of a ceremonial dance. Not great poetry
by modern tastes (or even later kanshi tastes), it is nevertheless an interesting
attempt to bring doctrine into the aesthetic structure of regulated verse and con
veys a cultural atmosphere in which people sought to conjoin the rituals of pub
lic religion and the pomp of courtly power:
Where phoenix towers have retained immortal forms,
They proclaim the dharma sounds on dragon stairs.22
"It is empty"?our spirits are kept still.
"It is appearance"?this principle is even more profound. w?mmm
20 This alludes to the legend that Prince Sh?toku was a reincarnation of Huisi; "southern peak"
refers to the Tiantai range.
21 "Accompanying the Empress on a Visit to the Temple of Prince Sh?toku" MW??Wt?#,
Keikokush?, pp. 2797-2806.
22 "Phoenix towers" and "dragon stairs" are common ornamental terms for palace architecture.
Kojima Noriyuki /hftH;? (Keikokush?, p. 2794) points out that the expression "immortal
form/shadow" (sen 'ei ililf^) by precedent meant specifically "phoenix," and so he interprets the
first line simply as a reference to the pictures of phoenixes engraved or painted on the gates of
imperial palaces. It seems to me, however, that the expression may refer to the presence of the
emperor himself?the line simply meaning "where the emperor is present."
23 This couplet alludes to the most famous line in the Heart Sutra: fi?P !_______ IP Ike, "Form is
indeed empty, and emptiness is indeed form."

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The evening chant is heard on cloudy cliffs,

The dawn bells penetrate the misty woods. mmmm#
By good fortune we reach a stage beyond the passion-stream,
Forever severed from the deliberate mind.25
The poet employs the juxtaposition between sight and sound (common to so
many parallel couplets) quite cleverly in the opening line, where imperial sym
bol and splendor look down upon the sutra-chanting. Even the profound formu
las of the Heart Sutra ("It is empty," "It is appearance") are divided up here in
a ritual pairing; it would be hard to find in the extant Chinese corpus an exam
ple of such perfect fusion of poetic parallelism and Buddhist doctrine.
The Court and the Country

Scholars in our century have often seen Japanese history as propelled by a
continual Hegelian dialectical tension between polarities: Buddhism vs. earlier
native ("Shinto") beliefs; the Chinese ritsury? system vs. the Fujiwara regency;
"court" (bureaucratic) Buddhism vs. charismatic folk Buddhism in the country
(led by itinerant preachers and mountain hermits); minor bureaucrats vs. high
ranking courtier families, etc. All of these polarities are to a greater or lesser
extent simplifications and, as such, are subject to revision. Many researchers, for
example, now question the once common assumption that Emperor Kanmu fi
? (r. 781-806) founded Heianky? to escape the power that had been acquired
by the clergy, as exemplified by the reign of Empress Sh?toku (celebrated above
as a cakravartin) and the regime of her powerful favorite, the monk D?ky? M
m.26
But while this assumption may have been too one-sided, there are various signs
that clergy and court alike were beginning to imagine different symbolic realms
for the emperor's powers and those of the church. Clergy were now often "out
siders" whose power bases stood apart from the court and who were called in to
perform ceremonies on the court's behalf. The religious establishments of Saich?
Sjg (767-823), the founder of Tiantai (Jp. Tendai), on Mt. Hiei ifcfe, and that of
K?kai at Mt. K?ya fi?S? figured significantly in this development. Reflecting the
emergent differentiation between court and clergy, Saich?'s one surviving kan
shi poem, an homage to Prince Sh?toku, no longer sees the prince as fusing impe
rial and religious functions but rather as a guide to the monk's own mission of
religious propagation:
I sought his resultant power throughout the land;
And pledged myself to Prince Sh?toku.
24 MM is Sanskrit an?srava, "no leak," in other words, the state in which one escapes from
being reborn in lower forms.
25 "Observing an Assembly on the Kok?z?bosatsu Sutra in the Palace Chapel" Mf?MMM??zE
He#?Sac, Keikokush?, pp. 2792-97'. Assemblies of laymen and priests in which priests chanted
and discussed individual sutras were common in the Nara period. Kojima (Keikokush?, p. 2793)
speculates that the sutra referred to here is one of those numbered in the Taish? canon as 406-409.
26 See, for example, Ronald Toby's contention (Toby 1985) that the move was rooted more in
Kanmu's attempt to escape pressure from contending collateral branches of the imperial clan.

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Now I spread the Marvelous Law
To make the Master's teachings eternal.
A similar phenomenon can be seen in early Heian kanshi. The Heian antholo
gies that emerged from the composition circles of Emperors Saga and Junna po
tray monks and their world in a way more typical of Tang literature, where literati
address their comments to the monk who is "out there," at the periphery, pote
tially marginalized and away from public power. On the other hand, K?kai, th
only poet who has a significant number of poems surviving outside of the Heia
anthologies, seems to be making claims for a stance of independence, and to
make his argument he turns to deliberately "uncourtly" poetic forms. For him
as perhaps with Saich? above, finding a base outside the emperor's immediate
presence allowed the assertion of a new type of authority.
First, let us look at the Heian anthologies and the evolving perspective of
courtiers?not just their portrayal of Buddhism specifically, but also how the
structuring of poetic exchange and anthologization may have demonstrated att
tudes toward Buddhism. The Nara-era Kaif?s? had simply presented its poets
(64 of them, with 120 poems total) in rough chronological order and had included
biographies for only a limited number of poets (nine). Poems were not divid
by genre or in terms of the social status of the poets. Four monks were include
a small number, but all have biographies. In his famous preface, the editor em
phasized in general terms the importance of literary effort in the extension of the
civilizing process and voiced a particular concern over the dangers of literar
loss and destruction.
When we turn to the Heian anthologies, however, the emphasis shifts some
what; now literature is defined more specifically as the production of court ci
cles directly associated with the emperor, and there is an expression of greate
interest in compositional art and aesthetic accomplishment. The latter point i
sometimes underestimated by modern scholars: everyone who writes about the
works seems to feel obliged to emphasize their debt to ideas expressed in the
famous line from Dianlun lunwen ^MWaX by Cao Pi #35 (187-226): "Literary
composition is the great enterprise that regulates the state, and a flourishing busi
ness that does not decay."28 The compiler of Ry?unsh?, Ono no Minemori /MF
^ \F, quotes this line at the beginning of his preface, and it provided the title for
the third collection. We should not put too much weight on this connection, how
ever, and interpret an orthodox canonizing gesture as evidence that the poetr
itself was merely the product of a rigid, imperially centered ritsury? Confu
cianism. There is, it is true, a fair amount of dull, ceremonial poetry in the co
lections (particularly in Ry?unsh?). But to focus solely on such elements is t
deny aesthetic play also present and to ignore the versatility of the poets' trea
ment of subjects. This perspective also overlooks development and changes of
style. Goto Akio i?iPSSI has suggested that the movement from Ry?unsh? wit
its relatively rigid state poetry to the much more aesthetically oriented Bunk
sh?reish? may reflect the changing tastes and developing artistic ideals of Sag
27 "Vow Transmitting My Single-Minded Aspiration" fc??-^?MS?t; lines 1 -4 out of 8 are tran

lated here, Dengy? daishi zensh?, vol. 5, p. 473.
28 MycMI&mZAM^Ff?Z^. Wenxuan, p. 720.

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himself. And while poems oiRy?unsh? are organized strictly in order of court
rank from high to low (the only such instance among kanshi anthologies), Bunka
sh?reish? and Keikokush? both adopt the genre/theme organization of Wenxuan.
Overall, there is a greater naturalization of literature, a sense of ease with it.
There is also a shift in the treatment of poems with a Buddhist connection.
The second two anthologies both include the category "Buddhist poetry" (bon
mon JEP1!). Kojima Noriyuki /hAISi: points out that the Wenxuan had lacked
such a category and holds that its emergence here bespeaks the influence of Tang
"Buddhist poetry" on the Heian court. Although it is unclear what exactly he
means by that (we have already seen how complicated this issue is in the Tang
context), he also notes that surviving seventh-century Chinese encyclopedias
(leishu Hit, Jp. ruisho) allocate sections to Buddhist topics and suggests that
this demonstrates increased literati acknowledgment of the religion.30 It seems
possible, however, that the Japanese anthologies, which precede the early Song
Wenyuan yinghua by almost two centuries, actually anticipate this category in
literary collections. What is most notable is that at the Heian court Buddhism
became an identifiable category of composition. This occurred even as Buddhism
as a literary topic underwent distancing from the imperial court comparable to
that seen in the cases of major monks and Buddhist schools. While Nara kanshi
might speak of Buddhism in a ceremonial court context or celebrate the cen
trality of Buddhist ritual, early Heian anthologists chose to treat poems on
Buddhist themes as forming an independent generic category. The decision of
the anthologists to include primarily poems by courtiers and largely exclude
poetry by the clergy (the principal exception being K?kai) underlines this situ
ation. It reflects, I believe, a self-conscious attempt to construct the anthologies
as repositories of the poetic voice of a certain social circle at court that by defi
nition did not include the clergy. To be sure, there are signs of an ongoing poetic
dialogue between courtiers and monks; a substantial number of poems in the
anthologies are addressed to monks, while others are written as responses to a
monk's poem. In the latter case, however, the monk's poem itself is not included,
a circumstance that emphasizes the distinction between courtier and clergy and
transforms matters pertaining to the clergy into an object of poetic interpreta
tion.
When we turn to poems on Buddhist topics, we see two developments, both
of which mark a shift away from the straightforward celebration of Buddhism
as state ritual. One was an increasing tendency to evoke that vision of the Other
(often a rusticated, eremitic Other) that came to characterize Tang Buddhist
poetry as well. Where a Nara poem might juxtapose Buddhist doctrine and court
ceremonies in formal parallel couplets so as to emphasize the seamless jointure
of court and clergy, Heian poets alluded delicately to the profound Buddhist
truths to be found in a mountain temple, or played wittily or ironically with the
contrast between court life and religious life, usually in regulated verse forms,
or in forms coming close to regulated verse. A series of verses sent to Saich?
nicely exemplifies this aesthetic, "high social" approach to dealing with Buddhist
29 Got? 1981, pp. 16-20.

30 Kojima 1964, pp. 22-23.

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themes. Earlier he evidently had sent Emperor Saga a poem or poems, apolo
gizing for his absence due to an illness. Three responses to his poem, one by th
emperor and two by courtiers from Saga's poetic circle, encapsulate differen
ways of incorporating recognition of the ways in which Saich?'s status as a mon
set him apart from his poetic interlocutors.
Emperor Saga takes the serious road:
We hear that you, sir, on a cloudy peak, (S?ftiM
Lie ill, from the desire to commit to the Real. 6Ufi8fc?SK
Facing the realm of perception, you know all is illusion; MiSftlla iO
Looking into emptiness, you tire of this body. f?SMlit A'
Oaks shady?the meditation court is desolate; ffiBfHHfi
Flowers bright?spring at your lodge of the faith. 7t_B? J?^#
Don't complain that His incarnation is long in coming?31 WffiiifcikfK
For He comes to save all, lost in their dream.32 Wt?WÂ
Saich?'s poem, unfortunately, is not extant, so we do not know if Saga's re

sponse incorporates some especially meaningful or playful exchange. But there
are some subtle touches: Saga suggests that the monk's illness might be cause
by his weariness for the world, or by overzealousness in the quest for salvation
Line 2 incorporates a mildly critical paradox in that Saich?'s problem seems t
spring from his "desire" (yoku $%) for enlightenment; there is perhaps an iron
movement in the descriptive third couplet, which revels in the very beauty tha
the monk faces and knows is illusion, and counterposed to it is a closing reas
surance that the bodhisattva will indeed come, even if he is a little slow.
Minamoto no Tsune's ?g?? quatrain on the subject (in this case, seemingl
matching a different poem) is respectful, but a little wittier:
Our Zhidun lies ailing,
as he passes the months and years;33 ;?ÊUSiIt?tf
His ancient temple has grown lichen and moss,
and few have come to visit. "?#???i?tf??A
If mountain travelers seek you out
and ask after your health, Ojg:#^gf? ^
You'll tell them this corporeal world
is as empty as floating clouds.34 S1?iht
Tsune has transformed Saich?'s illness into an expedient means;
sattva layman Vimalakirti, the monk is pretending to be sick in
visitors to his remote mountain home; there he will use his con
text to preach on the ephemerality of physical well-being.
Kose no Shikihito ?Îl? chooses a yet more humorous path:
31 Incarnation here (?ge JSfc literally, "responsive transformation") is San

buddha's or bodhisattva's appearance in the world in order to save living being
32 Bunka sh?reish?, pp. 261-62.
33 Zhidun 3:M was one of the most prominent monks of literati society in fourt
Tsune refers to Saich? simply as "Lord Zhi," translated as "Our Zhidun."
34 Keikokush?, pp. 2629-32.

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Our teacher, in his mountain temple, ?65 Lif?#
Pleads illness, lying mid clouds and mist. ??'MBKMM
Monkeys and birds impinge on this dwelling of the faith, ?SAWa^
But demons and spirits guard his dharma mat. ?ff? ??I?
Flowers in the ravine bloom as they face this Buddha, fflf?îLtfk
The moon on the peak hangs over the monk. ? J=l [rM?SR
We already know that "nonreality" does exist, E?fcl?XW
So examine your "self"?you'll be cured on your own!35 IS#gi#^
Here, the monk "pleads illness" (fi^ yamai ni yosete), a phrase used to
describe a dubious excuse, not unlike modern employees calling in sick. In the
rest of the poem, Shikihito gives a series of reasons why Saich? should not take
the illness to heart: though beasts may attempt to break his concentration, the
spirits of the locality will protect him. He should recognize that he is in fact inte
grated with nature, which heeds his meditation and preaching, encircling him as
petitioners and lesser deities would surround the Buddha. Finally, he should real
ize that his illness, like all things, is merely illusory and can be meditated out of
existence. While not as "secular" as many late Tang poems, Shikihito's verses
find great pleasure turning Buddhist concepts into courtly conceits.
Paralleling the wittiness of high social approaches to Buddhist themes was a
rather different development. Courtier verse on Buddhism dating from the early
Heian period also shows an increased emphasis on loneliness, isolation, and the
pessimistic side of Buddhist eschatology. Such a tendency can be found earlier
as well. In a Chinese parallel prose preface and quatrain found in the Man yy?sh?,
Yamanoue no Okura dj?t6J?, for instance, begins by telling us that Buddhism
and Confucianism have provided us with the rules for living and for salvation;
and yet he soon lapses into a fatalistic darkness that (ideally at least) should not
be part of either tradition:
However, in the world there is no permanent substance, and for this reason hills
and valleys interchange; for man there is no set span, and from this fact comes
the difference between long life and early death. The hundred years of life pass
in an eyeblink, a thousand generations vanish into nothing while one stretches
out his arm. In the morning one lords it as host on the dais, but by evening one
is a guest below the Yellow Springs.36 No matter how fast the white horse runs,
how can it catch up with the Yellow Springs? ... Thus we learn that where there
is birth there must be death. If one does not want to die, the best thing is not to
be born. However?need one add??even if one has awakened to the unvarying
destiny of beginning and end, how is he to ponder the Great Rule of existence
and annihilation?37
aii*o K&MRo ...iftftlo &&GJEo ??g^8k ^?FF?o
35 Bunka sh?reish?, p. 263; my thanks to Timothy Wixted for a suggestion on the last couplet.
36 The Chinese underworld, which Japanese readers conflated with the native notion of Yomi.
37 Man'y?sh?, vol. 2, p. 114; translation from Cranston 1993, p. 368.

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Although Buddhist believers are often quick to claim that theirs is not a
pessimistic religion, the doctrine's emphasis on the suffering of existence could
readily fit with a general melancholy sense that oneself and the world were in a
fast decline. Early Heian kanshi already show evidence of the growing poetic
appeal of the idea that one was living in degenerate times, far removed from the
ministration and aid of any incarnate Buddha in past or future (the last couplet
of Saga's poem to Saich? touches on this).38 On another occasion Saga used
Wang Wei's mysterious clouds to convey a sense of loss rather than of mystery.
In such a world, they bespeak abandonment even by the bodhisattvas:
The meditation hall's door is hemmed in by clouds,
the spring mountains are cold.
In the woods, moss has sealed away
this immemorial altar.
World affairs after this bodhisattva's
incarnation and extinction39
Have left behind uselessly for years and months
the lingering white clouds.40
The same sense of regret and anguish can be detected in poems that deal with
the taking of vows. Of course, in Heian Japan one often took vows for political
or social reasons as well as religious ones, and it was not always a voluntary
process. While occasionally poets write positively about the change,41 more typ
ical is the following poem of Saga's, in which religious sentiment combines with
pathos and eroticism:
In flight from the world, our enlightened ruler
left the imperial lands,
Moved his dwelling to his former city
to pass his remaining years.
And after he ascended from this place
into the clouds above,
There remained alone, in this empty abode,
his beloved, cherished consort.
Seeking the Way, she begins to shun
the charms of gauze and satin. mmmmmm
38 Chinese writers often referred to the same concept, but (I believe) not to the same degree; and
in China it seemed to arise most commonly in specific doctrinal contexts (especially in Pure Land
sermons). For a discussion of its presence in medieval Japanese literature, see LaFleur 1983, pp.
3-4.
39 I am a little unsure how best to take this line. The grammar, as Kojima argues (Keikokush?,
pp. 2622-23) might suggest "This bodhisattva's incarnation is a matter that occurred after extinc
tion." Kojima thinks that the extinction in question is the historical Buddha's, and that the line
tells us that the bodhisattva was incarnated after the Buddha passed away (but still a long time
ago). This strikes me as far too convoluted.
40 "On a Spring Day, Passing a Mountain Temple, I See an Old Altar to a Bodhisattva" # B M
?J#i_#HM, Keikokush?, pp. 2620-23.
41 See, e.g., Keikokush?, pp. 2634-43, Emperor Junna: "Upon Hearing that the Colonel of the
Right Sadatada Has Taken Vows, I Send This by Letter to the Commander-in-Chief Yoshimine
no Yasuyo" ffl#*#A?A?Hffi*??S&&.

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Shaving her head, she has

now become a nun.
Her tender heart wishes to know
how to escape from worldly bonds;
Her fragile frame can barely stand
to don her robes of hemp.
In mountain halls the noise of wind?
her autumn chants are chill.
By a creekside window the moonlight
her dawn meditations sad.
She'll burn incense, recite her sutras
in the silence of the cold forest, mmmmtm
She'll sit and face the sky above,
resenting their separation.42
The poignancy here is partly circumstantial: the emperor of the opening four
lines is Heizei ^P? (r. 806-809), who was forced to become a monk upon the
failure of his attempt to resume the throne and return the capital to Nara. The
court lady he has left behind seems to have no choice upon the death of her lord
but to take religious vows. But she fails to find any authentic transcendence of
her grief. Many of the images here echo the "erotics of pity" characteristic of
Chinese love poetry, where weak, abandoned women are often described voy
euristically for the delectation of a male audience (cf. especially "Her fragile
frame can barely stand to don her robes of hemp"). The last phrase, describing
her emotions ("resenting their separation"), is also more typically found in poetry
describing jilted women. This is the sort of courtier perspective on Buddhism
that Genji monogatari sometimes conveys.
Passionate Preacher, Doctrinal Hermit

While our knowledge of early ninth century kanshi derives almost entirely from
the court anthologies, there is one significant exception: a small body of poems
by K?kai that survive in his ten-volume literary collection, Seireish?, compiled
by his disciple Shinzei K$?. Seireish? (along with the famous Sang? shiiki HS
?h'M, a fictional dialogue on the values of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism)
shows K?kai to have been a sophisticated and sensitive scholar of things Chinese
and a composer of beautiful and imaginative, if eccentric, poetry and parallel
prose?decidedly the best writer of the ninth century save for Sugawara no
Michizane.43
42 "Harmonizing with Fujiwara no Yoshio's Poem 'A Court Lady Takes Vows'" ?P IIII SHEIK
H?A3?fÎ, Keikokush?, pp. 2588-97.
43 Those scholars who focus on K?kai's religious and philosophical significance tend to over
look his skill in, and indebtedness to, literary Chinese, the only medium in which he composed.
Ry?ichi Ab?, perhaps the most sophisticated interpreter of K?kai's thought, implies that K?kai
saw a superiority in Japanese and Sanskrit over Chinese: "K?kai . . . suggested that in order to
illustrate this inseparability between emptiness and language, a phonetic writing system, as in
Sanskrit or Japanese, is more effective than a hieroglyphic system, as in Chinese, the language
that dominated the intellectual production of his day" (Ab? 1999, pp. 7-8). However we may inter
pret this comment, we should not forget the subtlety and sophistication of K?kai's own Chinese
prose.

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As is the case with Chinese monk poets, it is difficult to determine the precise
relationship between the works of K?kai that were preserved through his disci
ples and those that were preserved through his interactions with courtier culture.
This is particularly true of his verse. Keikokush? included four of his poems?
three quatrains written in a fairly light, social vein and his more ambitious "The
Pleasures of Living in the Mountains" (discussed below). Seireish?, on the other
hand, does not include any of the quatrains; instead, it preserves thirty-one poems
(in the first and last volumes), almost all of them of a strongly religious, doctri
nal, and didactic nature. In this respect his collection seems to differ from the
conventions of poetry-collecting among elite monk poets in the Tang as well as
the "high social" style that already had begun to dominate Heian courtier kan
shi. At the same time these poems do not adopt the popular "doctrinal/didactic"
style we observed in the g?th? by Guanxiu and the Wang Fanzhi minisermon
quoted above. Rather, K?kai struck out in a completely different direction, turn
ing to the Chinese yuefu 3&Jfr (Jp. gafu), or "ballad" style, and the long narrative
"old style" (gushi "SlNf, Jp. koshi), which had not previously been employed in
Buddhist-oriented poetry.
Choice of these forms carried with it an implied poetic stance: they were pop
ular, but not too popular; while they opened up the syntax of the poetic line,
employed effective repetition (and occasionally folk poetry rhythms), eschewed
elaborate formal parallelism, and took on subject matter appropriate for expan
sive treatment, they were still associated in China with a long literati tradition
of self-expression and moral seriousness. For K?kai, this circumstance had two
advantages: first, from the late eighth century on, poets in China had used the
gushi and yuefu genres to signify a rejection of the social, regulated verse forms
and consequently to create a poetry independent of prescribed courtly exchange.
Building upon such connotations, poets and thinkers like Han Yu ??fe (768-824)
had found in these genres a means of articulating an antisocial stance that
crankily upheld classic values of Confucianism against popular religious move
ments, both Taoist and Buddhist. In K?kai's hands, however, the same antiso
cial gesture became a way to reinforce the significance of Buddhist belief against
the trivialization of it that court poetry threatened. A second advantage to the
gushi and yuefu forms was that, as they tended to be much longer than the
regulated verse forms, thorough familiarity with Chinese poetic diction and
rhythms was necessary to practice them successfully; they could be a mark of
an authentic Chinese education as against the more narrow erudition acquired
from Japanese court training. Working in these forms thus signified a court out
sider, but an educated outsider who knew elite traditions, something that imita
tion of g?th? forms or Wang Fanzhi-style popular preaching would not have
conveyed.44
All of this is hardly surprising, since K?kai often attempted to locate himself
in an intermediate position between the court and the religious establishments
standing outside it. He figured himself occasionally in the role of wild hermit,
and, if his early biographies are any indication, he made it a point to emphasize
44 I suspect that this desire to demonstrate superior cultural capital may also have been a motive
in the compilation of Bunky? hifuron XltSKjf?fmi, K?kai's massive compendium of Tang poetic
theory.

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the importance of his early years as a mountain recluse (before his trip to China)
and the access to mystical experiences that ascetic discipline gave him. Many
scholars have consequently believed him to be a real outsider, who was hostile
or reformist in his attitude to the Nara religious hierarchy. This is true, perhaps,
but we might also see much of this stance as a deliberate ideological construc
tion on K?kai's part; we should not forget that he had close kinship ties to the
?tomo ^# family (still important, even if in disgrace at the time), and that he
spent considerable time in his youth under the tutelage of his uncle, At? ?tari
HZJ^C/?, an eminent Confucian scholar, and at the imperial university. His even
tual joining of the Japanese mission to China in 804 is thus nothing extraordinary,
some scholars' astonishment notwithstanding.45 K?kai's writing projects the
image of a highly educated monk who wished to see himself as a symbolic her
mit in contrast with court existence, and whose significance could be acknowl
edged only through the court's recognition of his otherness. He was a highly
metropolitan recluse;46 and, as Kinpara Tadashi #j|p! notes, a personal friend
of Emperor Saga, which may have been a factor in the inclusion of a number of
his poems in the court kanshi anthologies.47
The power of this stance?and poetry's capacity to articulate it?was drama
tized by a poetic exchange that emphasized the autonomy of K?kai' s yuefu/gushi
style from courtly poetic values. Around 816, the courtier Yoshimine no Yasuyo
S^gclft seems to have initiated a courtier-hermit dialogue with the monk.48
Yasuyo's composition does not survive, but a group of four poems by K?kai
begins with the preface: "Lord Yoshimine tossed me a peach and a plum, and I
repaid with a five-character poem and three irregular-line songs."49 Here he
employs the imagery of the sixty-fourth poem in the Shijing W$k, "Quince"
(mugua ~fc??k). Ostensibly describing a repayment of gems given in response to
a gift of fruit (and now usually interpreted as a love-gift), the poem was often
used to represent the mutual obligations incurred through gift-giving.50 K?kai
invokes the allusion to emphasize the social conventions of poem exchange
(though he may be making a wry, if arrogant, comment by placing himself in
the position of gem-giver). His replies, he suggests, attest to the communicative
45 Hakeda 1972, p. 28: "What is more puzzling is why this nameless wandering ascetic was
finally sent to China as a government-sponsored student."
46 This may be brought home by a largely ignored poem of K?kai's, which he composed in see
ing off Ono no Minemori /M?^^, who was departing (815) to take up the governorship of Mutsu
in the far northeast. K?kai laments the barbaric savages Minemori will have to deal with, and he
uses many pejorative Chinese clich?s in the process?no love of the wilderness here! Seireish?,
pp.164-67.
47 Kinparal981,pp. 11-13.
48 Ab? 1999, pp. 308-10, cites this exchange as one of the principle pieces of evidence that
courtiers were disturbed and confused by K?kai's "alienation" from the court and the ritsury?
establishment. But while K?kai may have employed the occasion to make a point about his out
sider status, the exchange itself (as with similar ones in Chinese poetry) would seem to have been
highly conventionalized and even playful.
49 ?ffl&SSM**, MK?Sff?, ^mmm. Seireish?, pp. 170-71.
50 An interpretative translation of the opening stanza (the other two are identical, but use dif
ferent fruit and gems): "She tossed to me a quince;/In repayment I gave her a^w-gem./But it wasn't
really a repayment?/Just shows I will love her forever" (?xSJK*A, %lZ-W?M, Ilf?til, *?*&
$f til). But the gender and the context are uncertain.

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nature of literature, yet his sophisticated employment of a Chinese allusion is

also a challenge to the education of his interlocutor. Similarly, while in these
pieces he joins in a sort of conventional cultural debate, his long, elaborate
response goes far beyond the polite regulated verse of the "high social" mode.
The two longer poems ostensibly answer the question, "Why are you living
in the hills?" This was already a venerable theme. The ancient anthology Chu ci
SES? had included a poem entitled "Summoning the Recluse" (Zhao yinshi ?SS
?), in which the speaker tried to lure a hermit away from the dangers of living
in the wilds and into public office. By the late third century, this theme had
reversed itself; zhao yin came to name poems describing the attractions of the
hermit life. The depiction of a hermit as responding to a skeptical inquiry goes
back at least to a poem by the Taoist reformer Tao Hongjing HU^H (452-536):
What is there in the mountains? ?j^MFJrW
Over the peak, so many white clouds. M?^??
But I can only enjoy it by myself? H pj g t?lft
I can't take it and bring it to you.51 ^??f^FS
Li Bai $? composed the most famous adaptation of this theme, "Replying to

a Question from Someone in the Vulgar World" 3?f?AP3:
You ask me what I have in mind,
that I roost in jade-green hills. m&f?MMmih
I laugh and don't reply?
but my heart is naturally at ease.
Peach blossoms and flowing waters
go off into the distance,
And this is some other universe,
not the realm of men.52
This poem was anthologized in the earliest surviving Tang collection, Heyue
yinglingji M?^M? of 753, so it must have been one of Li's more popular poems
at the time. K?kai may very well have known it. Note that in the title the ques
tioner is called a suren i@?, which in a different context could mean "layperson."
The first of K?kai's contributions to this tradition, "The Pleasures of Living
in the Mountains," was famous enough to include in Keikokush?. K?kai begins
with a classic Chinese ballad invocation of the brevity of life, but towards the
end he manipulates the theme in more Buddhist?and esoteric Buddhist?
directions:
The Pleasures of Living in the Mountains53 AlLi?

You ask your teacher what he has in mind?
that he enters these deep cold hills. PpWC??SM
51 "When the Emperor Asked What There Is in the Mountains, I Replied with a Poem" ?SfSl?J
*faffi#??SEt?F. Lu 1993, p. 1814.
52 Zhan 1996, p. 2623. There are variants of the title; I have chosen the earliest attested one,
from Heyue yinglingji MS^St ?.
53 Seireish?, pp. 172-74; see also K?kai zensh?, vol. 6, pp. 174-76; and Keikokush?, pp.
2758-78. For a paraphrase, see Hakeda 1972, pp. 51-52; also Ab? 1999, p. 309.

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"Deep peaks so rocky and rugged,

uncomfortable indeed.
Hardship above, difficulties below,
Mountain spirits and tree demons
make of this their home."
5 But don't you see? Don't you see? s^f? * * *
In the capital's imperial gardens
the red of peach and pear blossoms:
So bright they glow, and so fragrant,
all the same in hue.
But once the rain opens them,
once the wind scatters them, -ms -mm
They fly up, they fly down,
falling in the garden.
10 Then girls of spring come in their droves,
to do a little picking,
And spring orioles soar in flocks
peck at them, then fly off into the void.
Don't you see? Don't you see? S^FB * * x

Within the walls of the royal city,
the waters of Shinsen'en.54
The spray flies up and the current flows on,
similar in their swiftness.
15 Spray above, current behind?
channels in their thousands!
On it flows, and on it flows,
until it enters the deep whirlpool.
It enters the deep whirlpool,
it spins round and round and departs.
On what day, at what time
will this ever cease?
Don't you see? Don't you see? ?^FH * * %

20 In China's nine lands, on Japan's eight islands,
people without number?
From ancient times until now
their bodies have had no permanence.
Yao and Shun, Yu and Tang,
along with Jie and Zhou,55
The Eight Leaders, the Ten Governors,
and also the Five Statesmen,56 Ajn+SLWHE
54 Shinsen'en was a pleasure garden constructed in the new Heianky? by Emperor Ka

55 The first four are legendary sage emperors of China; the last two, infamous wicked
56 The Eight Leaders are either eight virtuous administrators in the time of the legend
emperor Shun, or eight competent ministers of the Spring and Autumn period. The Ten G
are ten ministers of Emperor Wu j? of the Zhou dynasty. The Five Statesmen served S

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The bodies of Xi Shi and Mao Qiang,
as well as Zhili and Momu?57
25 Who could ever be able to keep
an eternal youth?
The noble born, the lowly born,
each will pass away; ftA?Af??E*
They'll pass away, they'll pass away,
turn to dust and ash.
The halls of song and dance salons
become hamlets for wild foxes. W?SmmwM
Like a dream it is, like a bubble,
like a traveler, a flash of lightning.
30 Don't you know? Don't you know? sag ***

Human beings are like this?
and how long will you last?
Morning and evening, think upon it?
enough to break your heart.
Your days are like the western hills,
you're a man who's half alive. ??BBlI]#5E?
Your years are half-gone now,
you are a walking corpse.
35 Try to stop it, try to stop it?
it will do no good.
If you go on, if you go on,
you won't be able to halt.
Go onward, go onward,
Master of Emptiness!58 ***Â^M
Don't stop, don't stop,
Disciple of Vairocana!59
The pines and stones of South Mountain
we'll never grow weary of;60
40 Southern peaks and sparkling currents
we'll cherish without cease.
Do not grow proud of ephemeral glory,
the poisons of fame and profit;
Don't burn away in the Three Realms,
within the burning house.61
57 Xi Shi was the great beauty who brought down the state of Wu; Mao Qia
consort of the king of Yue. Zhili was a deformed man mentioned in ZhuangzU
but wise consort of the legendary Yellow Emperor.
58 Commentators point out that this is K?kai's term for the meditator who
ishable nature of emptiness as embodied in the single character M.
59 Vairocana or Dainichi Nyorai AB#PS: is the supreme buddha of the eso
term K?kai uses here is literally "child of the milk sea." This is a devotee wh
the seed of Vairocana that derives from water and symbolizes compassionate
60 Commentators interpret South Mountain specifically as Mt. K?ya.
61 The Three Realms are those of samsara; their inhabitants are subject to rebi

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Give up all worldly troubles,
merge with the Dharmak?ya.62 ÎWAi?^J?
In the second ballad ("What Pleasure Is There Dwelling in the Hills?"
{rJ?), K?kai answers the same question again, but this time emphasizing his
priestly vocation. After answering an imaginary interlocutor who criticizes hi
lifestyle,63 as in the first poem, he replies, "But this is my job":
10 By name I am one who would cut off evil,

cultivate the good;64
I make the whole dharma realm my home,
a wanderer repaying compassion.
The emperor had me shave my head,
presented me to the Buddha;
I have severed the love of my parents,
offered to the Able and Loving One.65 nmtmm?iz
I have no house, I have no country,
I am cut off from my home people;
15 1 am not a son, am not a subject,
I am alone, at peace with poverty.
A cupful of water from a creek
at dawn sustains my life;
One swallow from the evening mists
at dusk nourishes my spirit.
Hanging vines and slender grass
are enough to cover my form;
Thorny leaves and evergreen bark
provide my pillow.
realm of desire (yokkai W\W), our world; the realm of form (shikikai fi#); and the realm of form
lessness (mushikikai M?I?-). The burning house is of course a reference to the famous parable i
the Lotus Sutra and symbolizes the suffering of samsara.
62 Yog?c?ra Mah?y?na developed a theory of three different manifestations of the Buddha, the
"three bodies": the nirm?nak?ya (?jin JS#), or transformation/incarnation body (the historica
Buddha, S?kyamuni); the sambhogak?ya (h?jin ##), or enjoyment body (a cosmic manifesta
tion used to appear to and teach bodhisattvas); and the dharmak?ya (hosshin ????0, dharma-body,
which is the Buddha as "noumenal existence" (if such a "reality" can be said to "exist"). Most
sects view the dharmak?ya as somehow unknowable; but K?kai's Shingon equated dharmak?ya
with the ultimate buddha of esotericism, Vairocana, and hence knowable through esoteric pra
tice.
63 Ab? 1999, p. 308, thinks that the initial seven lines of this poem are in fact a direct quotation
of the poem that Yasuyo sent to K?kai, and he reads the tone of them as quite earnest. But for a
hermit poet to create a "straw man" who derogates his lifestyle at the beginning of a defensive
poem is fairly common device. Even if Yasuyo had written the lines or something similar, it would
more likely be written in a tone of satire or teasing, and not in one of genuine anger and confu
sion: as we have seen, the "court vs. reclusi?n" debate was already part and parcel of traditional
Chinese rhetoric and literary exchange by this time.
64 This is not as egotistical as it sounds. The phrase alludes to asr?manera (shami tpffi), i.e., a
vow-taking novice. Soothill and Hodous 1937, p. 242, point out that the term is said to be explained
as "BM?tH one who ceases from evil and does works of mercy, or lives altruistically."
65 N?nin f ??fc is a literal translation of S?kyamuni.

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20 Thoughtfully, the lord of the sky
lets hang his azure drapes; ^S^&?f*_i
The dragon king, in sincerest faith,
suspends his shining curtain.66
Mountain birds come from time to time,
sing for me a song;
Mountain monkeys lightly leap,
their art surpassing all. iummm?M??E
Spring flowers and autumn chrysanthemums
bloom across from me;
25 The dawn moonlight and morning breeze
wash my nature clean of dust.67 msmmmm
In lines 10-15, the poet gives a series of almost technical definitions of his
social position, emphasizing that the emperor himself has overseen his entry into
the priesthood. As such, he is functioning in a sort of state capacity (even if he
is not a "subject"), and is under obligation to his ruler as well as to the Buddha.
Later (line 31), he pairs obeisance to the court with gratitude to the Buddha: "I
lower my head and pay respects, thanking the cinnabar halls" (SBffl?4L$?fl*J?:).
K?kai also, however, creates a new court around him, from which he draws his
sustenance, and which does obeisance to him. Ab? argues, "For K?kai, it is
nature's taming of the mind, rather than culture's control over nature, that pro
vides inspiration for his poetic compositions. His poetic enterprise was grounded
more securely in the wilds than in the imperial palace."68 But this is a false con
trast in a world where one realm can substitute rhetorically for another: nature
is a kind of culture here.
In making this kind of substitution K?kai could draw from Chinese precedent,
as in Zuo Si's ?JS (250?-305?) verses:
The stony streams scour over the gems, ??$&9t??
And slender fish sink and float. J8??J>$?tfc
No need for strings or pipes #>i^7^#t?
When the hills and waters have clear notes. ULizKîf H
Why should I depend on whistling or singing Pi9W^?Wi
When the leafy trees chant sadly themselves?69 M^J?&^r
As in his other ballads, though, K?kai elaborates on the scene in much greater
detail. Kawaguchi Hisao )\\ UtKff?. may be right in seeing the centrifugal motions
here?nature encircling the poet and providing for his needs?as a sort of m?n
dala; through his own tutelary deity, Vairocana, K?kai controls illusory reality
and fashions it into his own court.70 At the same time, the use of yuefu ballad to
mark difference or opposition enables him to distinguish himself from Saga and
his poets. K?kai is not merely creating a space apart from court; he is demar
cating a space potentially superior to it.
66 I.e., the rain.
67 Seireish?, pp. 174-76; K?kai zensh?, vol. 6, pp. 176-79.
68 Ab? 1999, p. 309.
69 "Summons to Reclusi?n, one of two verses" iSH^?^^. Wenxuan, pp. 309-10.
70 Kawaguchil981,p. 21.

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The most distinctive use that K?kai made of the yuefu style, however, is the
following "sermon in verse." While the ballad form was well suited to long
narrative situations, one cannot help but wonder whether he also did not employ
the form for its rhetorical force. Once again, refusing the genres of the courtiers,
K?kai claims a special power?technically still subordinate to the court, but
indispensable to it. He brings the cakravartin theme back, but in a manner that
usurps many of the king's prerogatives.
In spite of the flamboyance of the rhetoric and its emotional extravagance, this
poem is a model of order. It might be divided as follows: 1) a general evocation
of the sinfulness of humanity gradually develops into a description of a drought
(lines 1-20); 2) the emperor heeds the people's suffering (lines 21-26); 3) monks
come to his aid, and rain falls (lines 27-42); 4) drawing the moral, K?kai exhorts
the people to listen: if they obey the Buddha's law and undergo esoteric initia
tion, they will be blessed with a spiritual rain (lines 43-58).
A Song, Delighting in the Rain SB*
How sad! In this decadent age
all the teeming masses;
Blind and deaf, they give little heed
to the words of the Sage.
Long drunk are they on the wine of ignorance,
Don't know the source of original enlightenment.
5 Sleep the long dream of the Three Realms,71
Forever cherish the dwelling of the Four Snakes.72
Their bodies, and their mouths and hearts
commit the ten evil practices.
They are disloyal, unfilial?
the fruits of their crimes are legion.
Casting aside the karmic rules,
paying no heed to punishment or fortune,
10 They drift about, lost in darkness,
toiling for mouth and belly.
They live and then they die;
they laugh and they cry.
They thrash their way east, thrash their way north,
all for these very reasons.
Karmic obstructions so heavy,
merits of their virtue light; mrnrn w M
On the edge of the river they see the water,
but it then fills up with flame.73 f?Mja/KAsa
71 For the Three Realms, see note 61 above.

72 In Indian philosophy, the Four Elements are fire, wind, water, and eart
Light of the FourDeva Kings (Jin guangming zuisheng wangjing ___;)?; CE?l)
elements as four poisonous snakes kept in a chest, ready to spring out and a
corporeal existence.
73 The image comes from the Nirvana Sutra: hungry ghosts are so lost in t
they will see water as fire.

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15 In the Buddha's form itself
they will see a hell; ?UMM JLi??R
In hoards of seven jewels,
they will not see a gem. -fcu?i ^F^f?Efi
Sweet blessing of rain struggles to fall,
but fire everywhere rises up. WRf?*? APi?S
It burns them, it rots them,
the rice and the grain. jfe?ffii?.?i#S
Hills and rivers scorched and parched,
birds and fish all die; WMJIO?&&5E
20 In court and country under blazing sun
they shed tears without end. ffliF?USfflic
Our august ruler sends forth his vow,
sallies forth for the sake of others. ScMlili? A W
Wise he is, and benevolent as well?
he surveys the Eight Islands. fi??fifc??AM
The Three Teachings, and all learned wisdom
are contained within his mind;74 Ei%L%Wi?'i?M
The Four Boundless Thoughts and the Six Perfections
he cultivates for all time.75 Wjk/\?.7j$}t?
25 For the people's sake he takes the fault to himself,
Avoids his halls and mansions. AA3I#S?S?
For all things he abstains from food,
worries both day and night. ?fljMift B ^3i
Every temple sends its monks
to promote the Marvelous Law; f^l^H^S
To every hill hurry messengers,
everywhere offering prayers. LilL?Ifi'ffi^?/rM
Old priests chant their scriptures?
faint clouds start to rise; ^??f%fl$?lt?B
30 Meditators hold to their deep states?
raindrops fall in plenty. ffii^?#?S?A
The sweet dew of nourishing water,
the very essence of ghee, "B*8?L7?c?iS?8?E
In a surging torrent everywhere
flows from hill and valley. ?* it * [h^M
From cassia peaks, the waterfalls
almost drown the rabbits! tiiiS^SISiS
The ditches in the fields of grain
are enough to sink an ox! ÊB?^?lMSix^1
74 The Three Teachings are, of course, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. "All learned
dom" translates A Sit, "Nine Currents," the earliest bibliographic division of libraries in an
China.
75 The Four Boundless Thoughts (?gftHLLs here, drastically abbreviated to ?311 for metrical
reasons) are cultivated by the devout Mah?y?nist; they are measureless thoughts to bring joy to
others; measureless thoughts to remove suffering; measureless thoughts to delight in the joy of
others; and measureless desire to treat all beings as equal. The Six Perfections are also Mah?y?na
virtues: almsgiving, obeying the precepts, endurance, zeal, meditation, and wisdom.

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35 So green now are grass and trees,
Adorned with jeweled leaves;
Pools and ponds now overflow,
a lapis lazuli flood.
You farmers! Don't despair! ?t*ti_HI$
Just go see if your young rice and old
is sprouting now at last!
Your southern acres now grow lush,
your rice sprouts turn green;
40 Your eastern fields are filled with cries
As the pigeons beat their tunes.
I predict that all your thousand transport carts
and all your myriad bins
Will look like islands, will look like mounds,
will even look like hills.
How marvelous, the Dharma's power!
for it cannot be figured. ?^?a^?_
How fortunate, the emperor's strength!
for it cannot be measured.
45 With a mouthful of water he can put out
fires of a hundred worlds.
All in one morning he can destroy
the worries of ten thousand.
I send word to ignorant beings
throughout the six planes of life:
With the words of the Buddha I can
open the way to your good hearts.
Men and women?if you are able
to keep to just one word,
50 Then every day, just one time
look into the halls of your mind.
In your own mind, there is nothing more
than the ground of the three Buddha bodies;76
Adorned with the Five Wisdoms,
they were abundant there from the start.77
If you wish to enter first into
the dharma of consecration,78
On entering, you will hold to the faith
just the same as Vajrasattva.79 mxmmmm
55 Heavenly food, heavenly clothes
will rain on you on their own;
76 For Buddha bodies, see note 62 above.

77 Five forms of wisdom practiced by esoteric bodhisattvas.
78 Kanj? 81 M: Sanskrit abhiseka, the essential initiatory rite in Shingon
with scented water and chooses his guardian bodhisattva, often by throw
dala.
79 A legendary founder of esoteric Buddhism, said to be a disciple of Vairocana.

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With nothing to do, no matters to attend,
you'll forget the emperor's merit.80 M<k3c9?e^#l
In Chinese culture, the theme of praying for rain is an old one: the emperor
acts as the mediator between Heaven and Earth, and his rituals and sacrifices can
reestablish cosmic balance. But K?kai adds a number of new elements. The open
ing is an extended meditation on how our ignorance creates our own reality: the
people are likened to those suffering in Hell, who turn water into fire through
the darkness of their own passions. The emperor, for his part, considers his
Bodhisattva vows seriously and offers to take the suffering onto himself. He can
not restore things on his own, however: he requires the assistance of spiritually
powerful monks, who bring the rain through their practices. Here, an anticipa
tion of the poem's conclusion occurs, when K?kai describes the rain as "the very
essence of ghee"?though not adopted in China, sutra readers knew ghee as the
substance used in ritual consecration?and thus hints at the sanctified water used
in abhi?eka ceremonies. The drought ceases when the world is converted and
the water of consecration falls upon it. As K?kai proceeds into the exhortatory
section, he turns the drought into a spiritual state and promises that the rewards
of esoteric practice surpass good crops; even the emperor's grace will seem
unimportant in comparison, as one's own personal world is opened up to Truth.
Conclusion
My goals here have been limited: to explore how Nara and early Heian kanshi
poets talked about Buddhism in their verses. If one is attempting to explore the
cultural and literary roles of Buddhism in larger terms, even within kanbun
composition, much more remains to be done. In particular, viewing genres
autonomously (as I have done here) results in ignoring how writers expressed
themselves in prose as well as in poetry, in letters as well as in court documents,
and how those texts influenced each other. One of the most popular genres in
Heian prose, for example, was the Buddhist religious vow, or ganmon ??t,
which deserves considerably greater attention than it has received heretofore.
Much remains to be done as well in evaluating the use of conventions in Heian
kanbun; although recent scholarship has accomplished much, there is still a ten
dency to read texts at face value, even when they are written in the most orna
mental and deferential parallel prose.
In spite of these limitations, I would argue that, while their interpretations may
be open to debate, the Buddhist kanshi considered here, beyond any aesthetic
satisfactions they may offer, provide an interesting secondary perspective on the
social history of Buddhism. Certainly the movement these poems show from
acclamation of ritual ceremony to wittier, courtly interchanges may be seen to
illustrate changes Buddhism underwent in the early Heian court. They also fore
shadow the increasing aestheticization of Buddhist imagery that characterized
later Heian kanshi and even the Shinkokinsh? style of medieval waka.811 might
80 Seireish?, pp. 168-70; K?kai zensh?, vol. 6, pp. 169-72.

81 Ivo Smits has written eloquently on the need to examine kanshi motifs and themes for an
understanding of eleventh-century waka. See Smits 1995.

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point out, however, that attention mainly to issues of larger development would
probably ignore wild cards like K?kai's ballads, in which religious sentiment
was expressed in long yuefu-stylc poetry set up oppositionally to the mainstream
of court kanshi production. Later poets, such as those of the medieval Gozan
school, evidently found more congenial the simple imagery of quatrains like the
following:
Toward Dawn I Hear a Monk Bird f?SKHAi???Jft
In the idle wood I sit alone,
dawn breaks in my thatched hut
The sound of the Three Jewels
I hear in one bird's call.
A single bird has its song,
a man has his heart.
Song and heart, cloud and water
all absolutely clear.82
Eccentrically unique, the ballads suggest a road never taken in Japanese poet
but they are no less notable for that.
82 Seireishu, pp. 452-53; Kukaizenshu, vol. 6, p. 677. The bird (bupposo, lit. "Buddha-law m
bird") is the broad-billed roller, Eurystomus orientalis.

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Early Buddhist Kanshi - Court, Country, and Kūkai

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Early Buddhist Kanshi: Court, Country, and Kūkai

Author(s): Paul Rouzer

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/25066327

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As Chinese poetry migrated from country to country and encountered new

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number of Western scholars have attempted to discover a "Buddhist aesthetic"

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8 Wenyuan yinghua, vol. 1335, p. 90.

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Seeing off His Eminence Wenchang as He Travels East i^X?Si-?^il

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There is nothing particularly Buddhist as such in thinking about permanent

11 Wenyuan yinghua, vol. 1335, p. 78.

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In comparison, let me give two examples of "doctrinal/didactic" poetry. The

A Gatha Telling of Sentience ?fiWB

Although roughly modeled on the structure of the eight-line regulated octet,

Japanese Attitudes and Conventions

12 Quan Tang shi, p. 9334.

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Celebrating the Cakravartin

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On the southern peak he left his form in meditation,

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The evening chant is heard on cloudy cliffs,

The Court and the Country

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27 "Vow Transmitting My Single-Minded Aspiration" fc??-^?MS?t; lines 1 -4 out of 8 are tran

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29 Got? 1981, pp. 16-20.

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Saich?'s poem, unfortunately, is not extant, so we do not know if Saga's re

31 Incarnation here (?ge JSfc literally, "responsive transformation") is San

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aii*o K&MRo ...iftftlo &&GJEo ??g^8k ^?FF?o

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Shaving her head, she has

Passionate Preacher, Doctrinal Hermit

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nature of literature, yet his sophisticated employment of a Chinese allusion is

Li Bai $? composed the most famous adaptation of this theme, "Replying to

The Pleasures of Living in the Mountains53 AlLi?

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"Deep peaks so rocky and rugged,

Don't you see? Don't you see? S^FB * * x

Don't you see? Don't you see? ?^FH * * %

54 Shinsen'en was a pleasure garden constructed in the new Heianky? by Emperor Ka

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30 Don't you know? Don't you know? sag ***

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10 By name I am one who would cut off evil,

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