Between the early tenth and the fifteenth centuries, the Japanese emperors ordered the compilation of twenty-one anthologies of poetry. These translations are of Buddhist-themed poems from the Shūishū (1011), Goshūishū (1086), Kin’yōshū (1125) and Senzaishū (1188), respectively the third, fourth, fifth, and seventh anthologies.

This particular selection of eleven poems circles around the theme of “passages.” Of the life passages that are common to both our own culture and medieval Japanese culture, the Buddhist poems of the imperial anthologies primarily address two: ordination (taking the tonsure to become a Buddhist nun or priest) and death.

The first passage, from secular to religious life, was perhaps less analogous to becoming a priest or minister in our own time than to becoming a cloistered monk or nun. With few exceptions, taking this step meant separation from secular life, which made it difficult to contemplate for men and women of the Japanese imperial court. On the one hand, it was viewed as an important step toward committing to serious study of the Buddhist teachings. On the other hand, this step was viewed as a drastic rejection of the long-established pleasures, rituals and values of the court, especially for young men and women of important families for whom advancement to high rank or service at court was expected. (It also meant, in all likelihood, leaving the thriving capital, Heian-kyō, which was so admired that a move to the provinces was felt comparable to dropping off the Earth.) It’s not surprising, then, that poems which address taking the tonsure express ambivalence about the huge change it represented.

Death was perhaps the most frequent subject of the Buddhist poems in the imperial anthologies, so much so that anthologizers initially gathered such poems with the aishōka (“lament”) poems. Even today in Japan, people turn to Buddhism primarily for rituals having to do with death, whereas they turn to the native kami-religion (Shinto) for birth, and to Shinto (or more recently to nominally-Christian) rituals for marriage. In these poems, death is primarily seen as an urgent incentive to Buddhist study.

Two of these poems, Shūishū 1333 and 1334, comprise a zōtōka, a poem exchange between two people, of which many are represented in the imperial anthologies. In this instance, the writers explicitly compare the state of mourning after a death to the state of dissatisfaction with worldly life that led some to take the tonsure. One poem here, Senzaishū 1199/1202, does address the subject of birth—or rather, rebirth into the world of samsara, seen as an inevitable consequence of birth and death, unless enlightenment intervenes to release a person from the cycle.

Three of these poems address the theme of passages more literally. The topic of Shūishū 1329 is how impermanence (mujō) manifests in the passage of time: the approaching end of day as a metaphor for the brevity of life. Goshūishū 1192 and 1193 both allude to the Seventh Chapter of the Lotus Sutra, in which the Buddha teaches a parable about a guide who conjures an illusory city as a resting place for discouraged travelers. Like the poems that address taking the tonsure, the Conjured City poems express an almost humorous attitude toward the difficulty of the spiritual path: the speakers don’t suggest they’ll abandon the journey, but they do appreciate the resting place.

The originals of these poems are waka, the thirty-one-syllable form that was primary in Japanese poetics for over a millennium. Most of the poets were contemporaneous to the compilation of the anthology in which they appeared, though in some cases the compilers of the anthologies reached back to poets from earlier eras. The authors, even the poet-priests, were connected in some way either to the aristocracy or the imperial court.

Buddhism came to Japan in the sixth century, but it was several hundred years before poems began to be written on Buddhist themes, in part because of the difficulty of addressing complex teachings in a thirty-one-syllable poem, and also because some Buddhist scriptures seemed to discourage the practice of what we would now call “creative writing.” In response, Japanese poets learned that they could make a lyric-meditative response to the teachings in waka. They also gradually developed a theoretical basis in which the writing of poems—especially those with Buddhist themes—was seen to support the goals of the teachings rather than to create conflict with them. Eventually some poets (such as Princess Senshi) came to assert that waka composition was a path to enlightenment contained within Buddhist practice itself and supportive of it. This reconciliation was achieved under the banner of kyōgen kigo (“wild words and fanciful phrases”), relying on the authority of a passage from the writings of the Chinese poet Po Chü-i:

May my worldly works conceived in error in this life—

All the wild words and fanciful phrases—

Be transformed in the next into hymns of praise

That will glorify Buddhism through age after age

And turn the Wheel of the Law forever and ever.

 

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Note:

Waka were not given titles by their authors, but the compilers of the anthologies gave many poems a short prose preface. These prefaces, which addressed the poems’ thematic content or the occasions of their composition, are now considered aesthetically inseparable from the poems. In our translations, to join preface to poem in a way analogous to English poetry, we’ve presented prefaces as the poems’ titles, though in many cases we have tried to retain the prosy character of the prefaces. —Patrick Donnelly and Stephen D. Miller

[Inquiring Mind‘s original presentation of these waka featured English and Japanese versions side by side. Here, to be multiple-device friendly, we offer the original Japanese beneath its English translation.]

with each call

  of the mountain temple bell

as darkness falls

  I hear today too

is gone:

sad, knowing that—

Shūishū 1329

yamadera no

iriai no kane no

kyō mo kurenu to

kiku zo kanashiki

koegoto ni

—Anonymous

* * *

SENT TO A CERTAIN WOMAN THE POET KNEW WHEN HE WAS IN MOURNING AND HEARD SHE HAD BECOME A NUN

the “I” who grieves

thought I was the only one

to put on black—

but did you too

give your back

to a world of hurt?

Shūishū 1333

sumizome no

iro wa ware nomi to

 omoishi o

 ukiyo o somuku

hito mo aru to ka

    —Ōnakatomi no Yoshinobu

* * *

A REPLY TO THE PREVIOUS POEM

my reason

“to put on black”

may seem different—

but believe me:

we wear that color   

together

Shūishū 1334

sumizome no

koromo to mireba

yosonagara

morotomo ni kiru

iro ni zo arikeru

—Anonymous

* * *

SENT TO LESSER COUNSELOR FUJIWARA MUNEMASA WHEN THE POET HEARD HE HAD TAKEN THE TONSURE, AS THEY HAD BOTH LONG VOWED TO DO

if a breeze

  ripples off the shingle

across the lake at Shiga

how much freshness

  must rest

in your heart?

Shūishū 1336

sazanami ya

shiga no urakaze

ika bakari

kokoro no uchi no

suzushi karuran

—Kintō

* * *

A CEREMONY AT YAMASHINADERA COMMEMORATING THE BUDDHA’S DEATH

today’s tears

are the tears      

of “if we had met”

in that long-gone garden

of goodbye

Goshūishū 1179

inishie no

wakare no niwa ni

aeritomo

kyō no namida zo

 namida naramashi

—Priest Kōgen

* * *

PARABLE OF THE CONJURED CITY

without a little coddling—

a momentary roof    

under which to rest—

how could anyone         

 find the true path?

Goshūishū 1192

koshiraete

 kari no yadori ni 

yasumezuba 

makoto no michi o

ikade shiramashi

  —Akazome Emon

* * *

PARABLE OF THE CONJURED CITY

go back? halfway there?

because the road is long?

(though if I imagine

there’s a place I might

rest for a moment

it does cheer me)

Goshūishū 1193

michi toomi

nakazora nite ya

kaeramashi

omoeba kari no

yado zo ureshiki

—Mother of Yasusuke no Ō

* * *

When people were composing poems on the Eight Eta Metaphors, the author wrote this:

ON THE PASSAGE “THIS BODY IS LIKE AN ILLUSION”

ignoring the thought

when will it end?

do I while away                                                  

my life in this world  

that is

a shimmering

mirage

of a mirage?

Kin’yōshū 641/684

itsu o itsu to

omoitayumite

 kagerō no

kagerō hodo no

yo o sugusuran

—Kaijin Hōshi

* * *

AS THE AUTHOR BREATHED HIS LAST

  I entrusted my

    heart unceasingly to

you Amida Buddha:

   your causeless vow—

don’t break it     

 Kin’yōshū 646/690

tayumi naku

 kokoro o kakuru

mida hotoke

hitoyari naranu

chikai tagau na

— Taguchi Shigeyu

* * *

ON THE ESSENCE OF THE METAPHOR “OUR BODIES ARE LIKE BUBBLES ON WATER” from the Ten Metaphors of the Yuima-Kyō

this body

keeps returning

to the sad world       

like foam           

on the water that

disappears here

to be reborn

over there

 Senzaishū 1199/1202

koko ni kie

kashiko ni musubu

mizu no awa no

ukiyo ni meguru

 mi ni koso arikere

—Former Major Counselor Kintō

* * *

ON THE ESSENCE OF THE METAPHOR “LIKE FLOATING CLOUDS”

this brief body—

often likened           

  to floating clouds—

in the end

must become—that—

 Senzaishū 1200/1203

sadame naki

mi wa ukigumo ni

yosoetsutsu

hate wa sore ni zo

narihatenu beki

                                                  — Kintō

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Donnelly and Miller’s translations have appeared in Bateau, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Circumference, thedrunkenboat.com, eXchanges, Kyoto Journal, Metamorphoses, New Plains Review, Noon: The Journal of the Short Poem, Poetry International and Translations and Transformations: the Heike Monogatari in Nō.