Quarterly Journal of Japanese Short Form Poetry ~ Feature (2024)

Introduction

Poetic composition was extremely serious business in Kamakura-period Japan(1185-1333). The era boasts the Shinkokinwakashû 新古今和歌集, possibly the greatestof all Japanese poetic anthologies, as well as many sophisticated and highlytheoretical works of poetry criticism, most of which have yet to be translatedor adequately researched in or outside of Japan. The following article, writtenfor an academic conference at Purdue University in October 2002 and previouslypublished in the 2003 conference proceedings,¹concerns one such late thirteenth-century poetic treatise: Nomori no kagami 野守鏡, an angry polemicdirected at the new poetic style of Kyôgoku Tamekane 京極為兼 (1254-1332), a great-grandson of the eminent Fujiwara no Teika 藤原定家 (1162-1241) and a poet who would achieve fame in his own and later generations for the stylisticinnovations of his verse. As one of many contentious Kamakura-periodcommentaries, Nomori no kagami offersus insights today into the rich, unsettled, and sometimes menacing world ofearly-medieval poetics.

Nomori no kagami and the Perils of Poetic Heresy

In the ninth month of the third yearof Einin 永仁 (1295), an anonymous critic composed a Buddhist poetic commentary by the name of Nomori no kagami, “Mirror of the Watchman of the Fields.”² The work is both a vitriolic attack upon the new poetic style of KyôgokuTamekane, who had recently been chosen to edit the imperial anthology Gyokuyô wakashû 玉葉和歌集, and an angry denunciation of thefledgling Pure Land and Zen sects of Kamakura Buddhism. In the twentiethcentury, scholars have been largely concerned with establishing the identity ofthe author and the circ*mstances of the work’s composition. f*ckuda Hideichi hasargued that it was written by a Tendai priest affiliated with both theEnryakuji Eastern Tower at Sakuramoto (Mount Hiei), and the Gyôzan 魚山 school of shômyô 声明 sutra chanting.³Ogawa Toyo’o has more recently suggested that the author was a priest by thename of Kujin 公尋, adisciple of Kôkaku 光覚 in the Gyôzan shômyôlineage.⁴Other than such biographical or essentially religious inquiries, Nomori no kagami has received littleattention in the modern period. Nevertheless, from the perspectives of Buddhistliterary studies and early-medieval poetics, it is an important work because ofits unique and radical extensions of prevailing theories of Buddhism and waka 和歌 (Japanese poetry).

By the late thirteenth century, waka had come to be widely associated inJapan with various aspects of Buddhist thought and practice. In his poeticcommentary Korai fûteishô 古来風躰抄 (1197), for example, Fujiwara noToshinari (Shunzei) asserts the concord of wakaand the Three Truths of Tendai Buddhism.⁵The Ise monogatari commentary Waka chikenshû 和歌知顕集, which Kikuchi Hitoshi dates to themid-Kamakura period (13^th century), reports that Japanese poetry “is the source of magical powers, drawing us to enlightenment,” and explains that the thirty-one syllables of a waka correspond to the thirty-one visible characteristics of a Buddha.⁶In Shasekishû 沙石集 (ca. 1280), the priest Mujû Ichien identifies waka as the dharani (magical Buddhist spells) of Japan, while an exemplum in Jikkinshô十訓抄 (1252) suggests that the chanting of waka may be substituted for that of the nenbutsu, the ritual invocation of Amida Buddha’s name.⁷According to the poetic commentary Sangoki三五記 (13^th/early 14^th century), the poet-priest Saigyô (1118-1190) maintained that the practice of poetry is a form of Buddhist meditation, and in Kokon chom*onjû 古今著聞集 (1254), Tachibana no Narisue describes the painting in 1124 of a wakamandala—an esoteric tableau mingling the written names of the so-called “ThirtySix Poetic Geniuses” among representations of the Seven Buddhas of the Past—andNarisue’s own veneration of it in the ninth month of 1249.⁸

Such waka-Buddhism associations were commonin the thirteenth century, and insofar as they were advanced as a means of bothdefending waka against its criticsand enhancing its prestige, they tended to be affirming of all waka, without regard to specificcompositional styles. In 1295, however, the outspoken Nomori no kagami author altered the formerly generalist, positivistparadigm by acridly equating Kyôgoku Tamekane’s innovative poetic style withthe recent “heresies” of the new sects of popular Buddhism. Invoking theubiquitous rhetoric of the miraculous powers of poetry to condemn rather thanaffirm—bringing to bear the reverse edge of a double-edged sword, one mightsay—he argued that as bad waka,Tamekane’s verse constituted a dangerous affront to both the deities of Japanand the Buddhist Law. Fourteen years after the second Mongol invasion of Japan,he predicted that the country would be left vulnerable to foreign attack shouldTamekane’s style become widespread. Combining native and imported philosophicalthought with a Nichiren-type apocalyptic vision, and inspired by the continuingMongol threat,⁹ he broke newground in early-medieval critical discourse by extending the principles ofcontemporary waka theory to theirlogical (and now seemingly obvious) ends.

Kyôgoku Tamekane and the New Kamakura Buddhism

In its narrativestructure, Nomori no kagami is farfrom unique. According to its introductory conceit (reminiscent of such worksas Ôkagami 大鏡, Imakagami 今鏡, Mumyôzôshi 無名草子 and Masukagami 増鏡), an unidentified narrator—a Buddhist novice, over sixty yearsold—travels to Enkyôji Temple on Mount Shosha to pray for guidance in the Wayof Poetry. On the temple grounds, he encounters a priest—a poet of overfifty—and the two fall into a discussion of waka.The narrator asks the priest’s opinion of Tamekane’s new poetic style, and thepriest replies that although Tamekane is born of an illustrious family, his waka violates six poetic principles. Thenarrator immediately equates these with the six arms of Kannon (suggestingTamekane’s desecration of the bodhisattva), and urges the priest to furtherexplain. What follows is the priest’s detailed account, the conservativecritique that is Nomori no kagamiproper. It is divided into two parts, the first of which details Tamekane’s sixoffenses, and the second of which is a discursive polemic on the topics ofBuddhism, shômyô, and the deplorablestate of poetry in Japan.

As the priest would have us believe, Tamekane’s overarching offense is his failure to adhere to the poetic mores of his forebears. Traditional poems, he explains, when compared to those by Tamekane, are “like a man to a monkey.”¹⁰Tamekane’s crime, for which he draws the priest’s reactionary ire, is his violation of poetic orthodoxy. Paraphrased, his six poetic transgressions are (1) his failure to take the appropriate heart (kokoro 心) as seed; (2) his tendency to compose on exactly what he feels, to the exclusion of aesthetic considerations; (3) his use of vulgar, non-poetic language; (4) his disinclination to seek new conception (fuzei 風情) within established, traditional boundaries; (5) his failure to internalize appropriate poetic form (sugata 姿); and (6) his preference for the eighth-century Man’yôshû 万葉集 style rather than that of the early tenth-century Kokinshû 古今集.¹¹As Inoue Muneo has observed, although the Nomori no kagami author himself does not appear to have been of a poetic house, his complaints, attributed to the priest at Enkyôji Temple, resonate with those of the Nijô poetic faction.¹²

Regarding the first of Tamekane’s offenses—“taking the heart as seed and not taking the heart as seed”—the priest explains:

There are two aspects of the heart—good and bad—which is why in Buddhism it is said that though one takes the heart as guide, one should not take the heart as guide.¹³In the same way, a poem should take the good heart as its seed, and not the bad. The good heart is elegant and refined—far from vulgar—and everyone who hears it should be moved. As the Kokinshû preface explains, “emotion springs from the heart, and poetry is expressed in words.”¹⁴The bad heart is understood by the individual alone, and though that person might think it graceful, it will not appeal to anyone else. The Kokinshû preface warns that “[most poets] take anything to be a poem, apparently because they fail to understand the true nature of poetry.”¹⁵As for Lord Tamekane, when it comes to taking the heart as seed, he says that one should always just compose directly on the things one feels. His language is unadorned, like ordinary speech. Hearing his new-style verse, the Tamatsushima Deity must have to wash out her ears in the waves of Waka-no-ura. (NKT 4:86)

The priest’s reference to the anguish of the Tamatsushima Deity, a god of poetry identified with the legendary Sotôrihime, is typical of the acerbic wit displayed throughout the work. Wit aside, however, the priest’s criticism is not wholly unfair. In the commentary Tamekane-kyô wakashô 為兼卿和歌 #25220; (completed ca. 1287), Tamekane repeatedly stresses the importance of following the heart, even at the expense of proper diction. Words are less important than feeling, he maintains, “for when one evokes the heart in words, those words take on the scent of the heart.”¹⁶

In the course of his condemnation of Tamekane’s style, the priest is reminded of Ippen Shônin 一遍上人, the thirteenth-century founder of the Ji sect of Pure Land Buddhism. f*ckuda Hideichi, Kobayashi Chishô and others have identified the Nomori no kagami priest’s doctrinal orientation as Tendai-mikkyô.¹⁷ From the priest’s perspective, Ippen, like Tamekane, is guilty of heterodox views:

Speaking of Tamekane’s mistakes, the priestIppen misunderstands the principle of the nenbutsu.Because he thinks the phrase “skip and dance with great rejoicing” (yuyaku kangi 踊躍歓喜) means one ought to dance, he prances about as a kind of nenbutsu practice, waving his head andlifting his feet.¹⁸ Moreover, he thinks the expression, “the True Heart is the Pure Land” (jikishin soku jôdo 直心即浄土), means that one shouldavoid lying or holding anything back. Thus, he does not cover himself when heis naked, and just like a crazy person, he speaks his mind against those hedislikes without the least restraint. People esteem this as the epitome ofrighteousness, and rich and poor alike, they flock to him. Their number isgreater than that of a thriving market. (NKT 4:68)

Ippen’s most grievous offense (like Tamekane’s)would seem to be his popularity. In espousing his own misguided practice, he isguilty of leading others astray, thereby contributing to the degradation ofBuddhism in Japan.

The priest continues byenumerating Ippen’s three principal heresies. The first is the “dancing nenbutsu,” which, according to Ippen hijiri e 一遍聖絵 (an illustratedbiography composed in 1299), Ippen took up as a lifelong practice in ShinanoProvince in 1279.¹⁹ The priestasserts that despite the sutras’ and commentaries’ inclusion of the locution,“skip and dance with great rejoicing,” there is no precedent for nenbutsu dancing among the founders ofthe various schools. Ippen’s second heresy is his habit of speaking freelyabout others and failing to conceal his nakedness. His third is hisrenunciation of proper priestly robes for the sake of a filthy horse blanket.

Later, the priestequates Ippen’s transgressions with Tamekane’s literary offenses. In bothcases, their problems stem from instances of textual misinterpretation:

There is not the slightest difference between[Tamekane’s violation of] these poetic principles and [Ippen’s] presentheresies. First, to take the words “taking the heart as seed” and then composemadly on an incorrect heart, is the same as following one’s reading of “yuyaku” and deciding to dance. Next, torecall the forthrightness of the “straight poetic style” (tadakotouta 正言歌)²⁰and then compose in a plain, unadorned style, is the same as misunderstandingthe meaning of righteousness and then speaking ill of others and not concealingone’s private parts. Finally, to not emulate the elegant hearts and words (kokoro and kotoba) of poems in the old style, but to compose in a nearlyvulgar form, is the same as giving up one’s priestly robes for a horse blanket.(NKT 4:69)

Whereas Tamekane fails to understand themeanings and significances of the Kokinshûand its prefaces—holy writ of the Way of Poetry, the Nomori no kagami priest would have us believe—Ippen misconstruesthe sutras. Furthermore, like Tamekane, who has a tendency to express in verseall that is in his heart, Ippen speaks his mind freely and lays himselfphysically bare.

Tengu zôshi 天狗草紙, a satiric picture scroll dating from 1296 (one year after Nomori no kagami), contains criticismsof Ippen and his followers that are remarkably similar in wording and contentto those in Nomori no kagami.²¹The two works are connected in some way, but exactly how is unclear.²²In addition to its prose passages, Tenguzôshi contains paintedrepresentations of Ippen and his devotees in a variety of compromisingsituations, and one can imagine from these how the author of Nomori no kagami must have looked uponIppen and his sect (and by extension, upon Tamekane’s new poetic style). First,there is a gluttonous, disorderly feast at which a priest is shown eating fromhis hand while a nun—apparently sick from having consumed too much—is led awayfrom a rice tub by a companion.²³Next, a group of Ippen’s followers are depicted performing the dancing nenbutsu as a tengu—a kind of large demon-bird-man—showers them with flowerpetals. The Tengu zôshi narratorexplains:

When they practice the nenbutsu, they wave their heads, shake their shoulders and dance,just like wild horses. The way they carry on, they’re no different frommountain monkeys. Neither the men nor the women hide their genitals. Eatingwith their bare hands, reveling in their impropriety, they act like beasts fromthe animal realm.²⁴

Finally, there is an image of Ippen urinatinginto a bamboo tube. A kneeling nun holds the container under his robes,collecting his water for use as medicine. “What a lot of pee!” one onlookerexclaims in an inscribed caption. “It’s a cure for all that ails you,” anotherremarks. A blind nun declares her intention to wash her eyes out in it, and alay woman says she wants to drink some to cure a stomach ailment, of allthings.²⁵Perhaps it was this sort of vulgarity that the Nomori no kagami author associated with Tamekane’s abandonment ofthe Kokinshû style.

Ina later section of the commentary, the Nomorino kagami priest compares Tamekane’s lax poetic approach to the loosepractices of some contemporary Zen and Pure Land adherents. Their commonproblem (besides their popularity) is an aversion to the rigors of tradition:

As forthose half-baked Zen priests these days, upon hearing the slightest sutraverse, they think they have immediately plumbed the depths of the Dharma. Andthose deluded nenbutsupractitioners—they just point to the passage about chanting the name, and thenthink they can easily attain rebirth in the Pure Land. Shakyamuni and Amidaboth abandoned their countries and left their homes to take up painful asceticpractices, but the devotees of the Zen and nenbutsuschools say they can easily attain enlightenment with little effort, andeveryone rushes to join them, since they choose not to strain themselves withlearning. Those who study the exoteric and esoteric doctrines have grown few asa result. It reminds me of the poetry these days, composed with ease by justfollowing the heart, and without the poet considering the poems of old,avoiding poetic ills, adorning language, or guarding against taboos. If thesenew-style poems were to be chosen for an anthology, doubtless everyone wouldcome to emulate them in the end. (NKT 4:87)

In the way that the Zen and Pure Land sects haverobbed the older institutions of their adherents, perverting the practice ofBuddhism, Tamekane’s innovations threaten to derange the rules of waka composition, leading all poetsastray. In fact, the identification of Tamekane’s new poetic style with therise of the Zen sect in Japan is particularly ominous insofar as both Nomori no kagami and Tengu zôshi attribute the Mongolconquest of Song China in 1127 to the advent of Zen.²⁶

The priest’s finalwarning about a poetic anthology is most telling. As f*ckuda Hideichi has shown,it was common knowledge in 1295 (the year of Nomori no kagami’s composition) that Emperor Fushimi 伏見天皇had appointed Tamekane principal compiler of anew imperial anthology, later to be titled Gyokuyôwakashû (completed in 1313). Although Tamekane was only one of fourcompilers, Fushimi is saidto have rigged the selection committee so as to give him an incontestablevoice. Tamekane’s rival, Nijô Tameyo 二条為世 (1250-1338), who was anotherdesignated compiler, resigned from the committee in protest.²⁷ Although the priest in Nomorino kagami speaks abstractly about a possible selection of poems, hiscomplaint—as that of a likely Nijô sympathizer—is concrete and clear. IfTamekane’s influence should go unchecked, he forebodes, everyone will take upthe new style, and the consequences will be severe.

The Perils of Poetic Heresy

In light of theconventional wisdom of early-medieval Japan, the Nomori no kagami author indeed had reason to fear. Identifying theWay of Poetry with political governance, Tamekane’s grandfather, Fujiwara noTameie 藤原為家 (1196-1275), warns inhis commentary Kokin joshô 古今序抄 (1264) against thereckless composition of waka.²⁸Similarly, Gyokuden jinpi 玉伝深秘, a medieval compendiumof secret waka lore from the poeticlineage of Fujiwara no Tameaki 藤原為顕 (fl. ca. 1263-1278; anillegitimate son of Tameie), explains that “the affairs of state (sedô no matsurigoto) depend upon thequality of waka produced.”²⁹The late Kamakura-period treatise Jinpikushô 深秘九章 (also associated withTameaki) proposes that the nation suffered the calamity of the Mongol invasionsbecause the imperial anthologies were carelessly compiled.³⁰

Like many poets andscholars of the medieval period, the Nomorino kagami priest professes a faith in the supernatural powers of poetry. Heclaims that in the not-so-distant past, even Tamekane’s great-great-grandfatherShunzei 俊成 (1114-1204) was capable of moving deities with verse. He explains that it was by means of waka—twopoems recited for the Kasuga Deity—that Shunzei secured the prosperity of hisfamily line, including the thankless Tamekane. The Nomori no kagami priest laments:

Even if Hitomaro or Akahito should appear beforeTamekane and instruct him to compose poems as he does, he should remember hisFujiwara heritage and resist, being who he is. That he chooses to compose insuch a deviant style is both disloyal to his lineage and disrespectful of theWay. (NKT 4:71)

Tamekane’s disloyalty invites condemnation, buthis disrespect for the Way of Poetry is positively dangerous.

Tale literature of thetwelfth and thirteenth centuries abounds in stories of the ritual use of poetryas magic. Poets are reported to have employed waka toward a variety of ends, whether to summon rain, cureillness, find love, right wrongs, or achieve social success. Mujû Ichien,author of the Buddhist tale anthology Shasekishû (ca. 1280), asserts that Japanese poems “provokeresponses in Buddhas and bodhisattvas and move gods and humans alike” because,as dharani, they “encompass thenatural truths of lay and monastic life in thirty-one syllables.”³¹The powers of a poem, Mujû contends, derive from a combination of content(truth) and form. Although the Nomori nokagami priest acknowledges the importance of truth, he is particularlyconcerned with the issue of language and its appropriate selection:

Dharani are words selected fromthe heart of the teachings of the various Buddhas; they are the ultimatedistillation of the true principle of immediate salvation of sentient beings.This is why although their lines are few, their effects are great. The words ofpoetry are also many, but the poet chooses from among them in order to composea verse in thirty-one characters. The same as a dharani, the verse expresses the truth of the poet’s intent. (NKT 4:87)

Just as the words of a dharani are selected from the sutras, the priest maintains, thewords of a waka are drawn from thelarger poetic lexicon. Tamekane, however, fails to discriminate among words.The third of his six poetic transgressions is his use of vulgar, non-poeticlanguage. The Nomori no kagami priestexplains:

Lord Tamekane chooses neither his words nor hisheart. He proposes that we should simply compose in whatever way we feel. Notonly will this be the end of the Way of Poetry, it will destroy Buddhist Truthas well. (NKT 4:87)

Logically speaking, if the Ways of Poetry andBuddhism are the same (as numerous early-medieval commentaries maintain), thenthe destruction of one would indeed signify the destruction of the other.

The dangers ofTamekane’s new poetic style in fact extend beyond the death of waka and the dissolution of Buddhist Truth.In what Ogawa Toyo’o has described as a “radical ideology of the powers ofpoetry,”³²the Nomori no kagami priest invokesChinese philosophical thought to argue that the security of the very statedepends upon the proper maintenance of wakatradition:

It is because waka establishes rectitude in music and etiquette that our countryis stable and not wracked by outside enemies. That Buddhism is widespread here,excelling countries greater than our own, is also due entirely to the virtuesof waka. The Song Dynasty is without waka, and thus lacking guidance in musicand etiquette, their Eight Schools of Buddhism have all disappeared and theircountry is plundered by foreign traitors. Now considering that the deities ofJapan—deities who revere the Holy Law, protect our nation and lovepoetry—detest the contemporary style, we are sure to suffer their wrath as aresult. If Lord Tamekane receives unhindered control of an imperial anthologyand chooses muddled poems in the new style, it will mean the end of waka. (NKT 4:83)

The priest’s warning is dire. Though fine poemsmay move the gods, bad ones may alienate them as well. For this reason, it isthe religio-political duty of all poets to compose appropriate waka as a means of ensuring thestability of Buddhism and the state. After all, it was the deities, with their“divine wind” (kamikaze 神風), who swept away theinvading Mongol ships in 1274 and 1281. Without their aid, the country mighthave been overrun, suffering the unhappy fate of the Song in China.

Forthe Nomori no kagami priest, achampion of waka as ritualliterature, Tamekane’s violation of poetic convention lends his verse adangerously chaotic quality that would have been especially disturbing in theera of the Mongol threat. Herbert Plutschow has explained that “[r]itualliterature can be seen as a reaction toward chaos, used at specific occasions,regular or irregular, whenever chaotic forces had to be countered.”³³Because Tamekane “chooses neither his words nor his heart,” composing poemsfrom language outside the limits of established poetic diction, his waka fails in its ritual purpose: thatof safeguarding Japan against the Mongol hordes. Galvanized by the recentattacks—frightening events of a geo-political scale—the Nomori no kagami author boldly extends the boundaries ofthirteenth-century critical discourse in order to castigate Tamekane and hisintended compilation of Gyokuyô wakashû.By equating Tamekane’s poetic innovations with the heresies of the new schoolsof Kamakura Buddhism, extending the formerly positivist waka-Buddhism association to its more-or-less logical extremity,the Nomori no kagami authorarticulates a dark new conception of poetry, politics, and the hazardous powersof language.

Works Cited

Bibliographic abbreviations:

All other works:

Notes

¹ R. KellerKimbrough, “Nomori no kagami and thePerils of Poetic Heresy,” Proceedings ofthe Association for Japanese Literary Studies 4 (2003): 99-114. There isalso a companion article to this piece (“Reading the Miraculous Powers ofJapanese Poetry: Spells, Truth Acts, and a Medieval Buddhist Poetics of theSupernatural,” Japanese Journal ofReligious Studies 32, no. 1 [2005]), which is available for download as aPDF file from the website of the JapaneseJournal of Religious Studies athttp://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/welcome.htm (select publications;periodicals; English periodicals; JapaneseJournal of Religious Studies; Back Issues On-line; 2005, 32/1).

² Nomorino kagami is typeset in NKT 4:64-96 and GR 27:474-514 (see list ofabbreviations at the end of this article). A section corresponding to the firstfive-and-a-half pages of the NKT Nomorino kagami text has been annotated in a series of short articles: Heian-chô bungaku kenkyûkai 1995, Masubuchi 1998a, andMasubuchi 1998b. Nakagawa Hiro’o 中川博夫 (at Tsurumi University 鶴見大学) is currently compiling an annotated edition for publication in Miyai Shoten’s 三弥井書店 Karon kagaku shûsei 歌論歌学集成 series.

³ f*ckuda 1972,pp. 622-40. All extant Nomori no kagamimanuscripts contain a colophon attributing the work to RokujôArifusa 六条有房(1251-1319). f*ckuda rejects the attribution, but he arguesthat the internal date of 1295 is in fact correct.

⁴ Ogawa 1999,pp. 264-70. Although Ogawa makes a convincing case, his argument rests upon thesupposition that the old priest at Enkyôji Temple (to whom the narratorattributes the commentary) is a transparent projection of the author.

⁵ NKBZ 50:274-75; LaFleur 1983, pp. 90-97; Stone 1999,pp. 43-44.

⁶ The abstract essence of a poem (its kokoro) corresponds to the thirty-second distinguishingcharacteristic of a Buddha (the Unseen Sign, or mukenchô-sô 無見頂相). Katagiri 1969, p. 199. Sangoki (NKT 4:341) and Genpeijôsuiki (vol. 7; Matsuo 1993, p. 38) contain similar explanations. On thedate of Waka chikenshû, see Kikuchi1983, p. 221.

⁷ Shasekishû, in NKBT 85:222-23; Jikkinshô, in SNKBZ 51:443-44. Jikkinshô 10:53 records that Fujiwara no Ietaka (1158-1237) attainedrebirth in the Pure Land after reciting three waka at the time of his death, and that a monk by the name ofHônichi Shônin achieved Pure Land rebirth after making it his lifelong practiceto recite three waka, three times aday.

⁸ Sangoki, in NKT 4:341; Kokon chom*onjû, in NKBT 84:252-53. The mandala was painted at a celebration marking the renovation of Ungoji 雲居寺temple in 1124. The Thirty-six Poetic Geniuses (sanjûrokkasen 三十六歌仙) were identified by Fujiwara no Kintô (966-1041) in hisanthology Sanjûrokunin sen 三十六人撰. The Seven Buddhas of the Past (kako shichibutsu 過去七仏) are Shakyamuni and the six Buddhas who appeared in theworld before him.

⁹ For adiscussion of the conflict, see Verschuer 2002, pp. 414-16 and 427-36.

¹⁰ NKT 4:70

¹¹ In identifying Tamekane’s six poetic faults (ayamari), the priest first lists them ascryptic, dialectic abbreviations: (1) 心を種として心を種とせざる事 (Taking the heart as seed and not takingthe heart as seed); (2) 心をすなほにして心をすなほにせざる事 (Being frankhearted and not beingfrankhearted); (3) 詞をはなれて詞をはなれざる事 (Avoiding language and not avoiding language); (4) 風情をもとめて風情をもとめざる事 (Seeking conception and not seekingconception); (5) 姿をならひて姿をならはざる事 (Emulating form and not emulating form); (6) 古風をうつして古風をうつさざる事 (Patterning the old style and notpatterning the old style). NKT 4:67. Also see Huey 1989, pp. 34-35.

¹² Inoue 1965,pp. 38-40.

¹³ Ôjô yôshû 往生要集 (writtenin 985; TSD 84 [2682]: 65a). Kamo no Chômeialludes to this same passage in Hosshinshû発心集(ca. 1212-1216; Miki 1976, p. 43), but as Masubuchi suggests, his meaning issomewhat different from that of the Nomorino kagami author. Masubuchi 1998a, p. 42a.

¹⁴ From theMana (Chinese) Preface to Kokin wakashû 古今和歌集 (dated905; SNKBT 5:339).

¹⁵ From theKana (Japanese) Preface to Kokin wakashû(SNKBT 5:15). The translation of the secondpart of this sentence is borrowed from McCullough 1985, p. 7.

¹⁶ NKBT 65:161. Whether or not the Nomori no kagami author was familiar with Tamekane-kyô wakashô is unclear. See f*ckuda 1972, pp. 649-56.

¹⁷ f*ckuda1972, pp. 628-630; Kobayashi 1975, p. 208.

¹⁸ The phrase “joyful dancing” (yuyaku kangi) appears in the Muryôjukyô 大無量寿経 sutra (TSD 12 [360]: 273a).

¹⁹ Kadokawa Shoten Henshûbu 1960, pp. 68 and 40-41;Hirota 1997, p. xxxix.

²⁰ The “straight poetic style” is the fifth of six poetic styles outlined in the Kokinshû Kana Preface.

²¹ Komatsu1984, pp. 56b and 168b. The title Tenguzôshi is in fact anachronistic; as Takahashi Shûei has demonstrated, thereis strong evidence that the work was previously known as Shichi tengu e 七天狗絵.Takahashi 1998, pp. 291-97.

²² Umezu Jirôhas suggested that their authors may have been the same, but f*ckuda Hideichiand others have argued against this possibility. Umezu 1978, p. 10; Wakabayashi2002, pp. 53-55; Takahashi 1998, p. 293; f*ckuda 1972, pp. 625-26.

²³ The Tengu zôshi paintings are reproduced inKomatsu 1984, pp. 58-59. Kuroda Hideo argues that the depiction of the nuns isactually a representation of female hom*osexuality within the Jishû 時衆. His argument is strong, but his conclusion is impossibleto substantiate. Kuroda 1986, pp. 18-24.

²⁴ Komatsu1984, pp. 56b and 168b.

²⁵ Komatsu1984, pp. 59b and 168c-d.

²⁶ NKT 4:83and 88; Komatsu 1984, p. 168b. Tenguzôshi is somewhat more direct than Nomorino kagami in attributing the downfall of the Song Dynasty to the advent ofZen. The Nomori no kagami priestfirst explains that the Song fell prey to barbarians because of the dissolutionof the eight sects of Buddhism (p. 83), and he later explains that those eightsects disappeared because of the rise of Zen (p. 88).

²⁷ f*ckuda1972, pp. 657-58.

²⁸ Ogawa 1999,pp. 244-45.

²⁹ Ogawa 1999,p. 261.

³⁰ NKT 4:396.I follow Ogawa 1999 (p. 261) in interpreting the “national calamity” to be thatof the Mongol invasions.

³¹ NKBT85:222-23. Also see Kimbrough 2005.

³² NKBT85:222-23. Also see Kimbrough 2005.

³³ Plutschow1990, p. 258.

Keller Kimbrough is an assistant professor of Japanese Literature at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has also taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, and Colby College since completing his PhD at Yale University in 1999. Keller is the author of the forthcoming Preachers, Poets, Women & the Way: Izumi Shikibu and the Buddhist Literature of Medieval Japan (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies, in press), and numerous articles in the journals Monumenta Nipponica, Women and Performance, Asian Folklore Studies, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, and Japanese Language and Literature.