The Buddhist Affirmation of Poetry and Locating a Thirteenth-century Fugen kōshiki in Liturgical Literature

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)There are two important ways that koshiki intersect with Japanese literature. The first nexus is the current recognition that koshiki themselves constitute a distinct genre within the broader category of Buddhist liturgical works.1 The interest of scholars of literature has been stimulated by the dawning realization that the language of these sacred works was shared with other genres of Japanese literature. The second conjunction involves the fact that several important early koshiki concern topics, particularly Japanese poetry (waka ...). The three-part Fugen koshiki in the collection of Todaiji Toshokan is a prime example of a koshiki concerned with waka. This work makes an unprecedented claim that explicitly links a Buddhist justification of poetry with the ritual technology of repentance (sange ...) before the bodhisattva Fugen ... (Sk. Samantabhadra).2 This spiritual technique had been developed in the Tendai tradition as the Lotus Repentance Rite (Hokke senbo ...), sometimes called the Samantabhadra Repentance Rite (Fugen senbo ...).3 This linkage between repentance before Fugen and a justification of poetry is not found in any other of several extant Fugen koshiki, nor is it seen in other koshiki. Indeed, it is not found anywhere in the voluminous corpus of Japanese literature concerned with Japanese poetry. In a leap beyond the bounds of logic, this koshiki strives to fuse faith in the power of Fugen to forgive transgressions with a recognition that the apparently sinful act of artifice can itself be sacred. In so doing, it clarifies a long-standing puzzle in a landmark work that is concerned with the Buddhist justification of poetry: why Fugen appears as the honzon ... , the central object of worship, at the gathering described in the famous Waka mandokoro ippongyo kuyo hyobyaku (hereafter Waka mandokoro hyobaku) of the Tendai preacher Choken ... (1126-1203).4Despite the Chinese tradition, also adopted in Japan, that privileged poetry as a sincere expression of the human heart and a spontaneous response to natural phenonena and human emotions, poetic creation might also be deemed one or another of the ten evil actions-false speech (Jp. mogo ...; Sk. m?sa-vada) or fancy talk (Jp. kigo ...; Sk. sa?bhinna-pralapa), and sometimes both at once, as seen in the plaintive words of Yoshishige Yasutane ... (933-1002) collected in Honcho monzui (snkbt 27, 351). Yasutane's views have been characterized as a truly agonized rejection of the literary (Yamada 2012, 68), and he is also said to have been the first writer in Japan to incorporate Bai Juyi's ... (772-846) dismissal of his mundane writing (Ch. shisu wenji; Jp. sezoku moji ...) as wild words and fancy phrases into Japanese liteature (Ch. kuangyan qiyu; Jp. kyogen kigo ...) (Osone 1998, 321). Evolving Japanese interpretations of Juyi's plea that those sinful words be transformed (tenjite ?) into praise for and propagation of Buddhism (sanbutsujo no tane ... and tenporin no en ...) fundamentally altered the understanding of the role of literature in medieval Japan.As artifice amounted to at best delusion and at worst prevarication and sophistry in the minds of many, it presented a dilemma to pious wouldbe authors of late Heian-period (794-1185) Japan. How were writers to pursue their way (michi ?), which was becoming a practice that provided a livelihood for poetic houses during the twelfth century, without transgressing the tenets of their faith? That century largely corresponds to the historical period known as the Inseiki ... (the period of the rule of retired emperors), 1068-1185. The discourse on the sinfulness of poetry is seen even in the most prolific poets of the era. In responding to a poetic topic taken from a passage in the Peaceful Practices chapter of the Lotus Sutra that warns against associating closely (shinkin sezare ... ) with those who compose worldly letters (sezoku no bunpitsu o tsukuru . …