SOURCE: Pandey, Rajyashree. “Kamo no Chōmei: Court Poet and Buddhist Priest.” In Writing and Renunciation in Medieval Japan: The Works of the Poet-Priest Kamo no Chōmei, pp. 56-81. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1998.

[In the following essay, Pandey provides an overview of Chōmei's life and development as a poet.]

While little is known about the lives of many well-known writers of the Heian and Kamakura periods, Chōmei is something of an exception. Genealogies provide valuable information about the Kamo family, and the diaries and literary works of his contemporaries on occasion speak directly of Chōmei's personality or of his activities.

A certain amount of information about Chōmei's life can also be gleaned from his own literary works. His collection of poetry, Kamo no Chōmei shū, is the only surviving work written by Chōmei during the period when he was a courtier. The rest of his writings were composed after the year 1208, when he moved to Hino to live as a recluse. Mumyōshō, his treatise on poetry, is the only work that draws directly upon his life at court as an aspiring poet. Hosshinshū, his collection of religious tales, does not refer to his own life. In Hōjōki, however, there is much information on his life and times; for instance, he describes at length the many disasters that afflicted the capital during his youth. The work also provides an insight into Chōmei's reclusive life, which for him was a lived experience rather than a purely literary construct.

It is important to note, however, that in his writings Chōmei presents us with his literary persona and not himself. Thus, apart from the instances when the veracity of his statements can be corroborated by other contemporary accounts, his works must be treated first and foremost as literary constructs that preclude any easy conflation of the writer and his literary mask.

A study of Chōmei's literary works would be incomplete without some discussion of the milieu within which he wrote and lived and the particular circumstances that shaped his life. The purpose of this chapter, then, is twofold. First, the chapter attempts to reconstruct Chōmei's life as a poet, beginning with his earlier, more private poems and continuing to the period from 1181 to 1204, when he became a court poet who was seriously involved in the poetry contests of the times and who played an active role in the compilation of the imperial anthology of poetry, Shinkokinshū (New Collection of Ancient and Modern Times, 1206). Mumyōshō provides ample material from this period that points to Chōmei's ambition to become a poet of note and to the measure of success he achieved in this sphere. Second, the chapter focuses on the circumstances that brought Chōmei to a major turning point, leading him to leave the capital and take the tonsure in 1204. The life of a low-ranking courtier who had found a somewhat tenuous point of entry into the world of the high aristocracy through his poetry, which, from all accounts, he took with the utmost seriousness, underwent a dramatic change. He became a religious recluse, devoted to the way of the Buddha.

THE MINAMOTO NO IENAGA DIARY

It may be well to begin this inquiry with the available explanations of that critical transformation in Chōmei's life. Minamoto no Ienaga's diary (Minamoto no Ienaga nikki) contains the fullest statement we have regarding the major concerns in Chōmei's life and the reasons for his leaving the court and taking the tonsure (see appendix one). This diary was an account of the public events that marked Ienaga's life at court, and it begins with a description of his first days at court in 1196. Ienaga was actively involved in the compilation of Shinkokinshū, and his diary provides invaluable information on how the poems came to be composed, edited, and revised. Kamo no Chōmei worked with Ienaga in the wakadokoro, or Bureau of Poetry, and was thus a person with whom Ienaga was well acquainted. Ienaga writes:

People who devote themselves to any one thing, no matter how inconsequential, are bestowed with extraordinary favors by the emperor. And yet Chōmei failed to realize his aspirations! This, I have been told, is entirely because of his karma from previous lives. Anyhow, this person Kamo no Chōmei, after becoming an orphan, ceased to take part in affairs relating to the shrine and lived in seclusion. But because of his reputation in the field of poetry, he was summoned by the emperor, and he soon became an official at the Bureau of Poetry. From that time onward he would take part in all functions relating to poetry and would compose poems at all the regular poetry contests. He never left the bureau and worked there day and night with the greatest diligence. Just around the time when the emperor was contemplating rewarding Chōmei should some appropriate occasion arise, the post of head official [negi] fell vacant at the Lower Kamo shrine. Everyone was convinced that this time the emperor would ensure that Chōmei got the post. Even before Chōmei had expressed his interest in this appointment, it looked very much as though it would be his. When this rumor reached Chōmei's ears, he appeared unable to control his tears of joy.

However, we are told that Sukekane, who was head intendant of the shrine at that time, protested in no uncertain terms, pushing the case for the appointment of his own son, on the grounds that he held a higher rank and that he had devoted himself to the affairs of the shrine much more than Chōmei had done. Ienaga goes on to explain how the emperor was forced to give up his earlier plan:

Hearing all this, the emperor felt that everything was in Sukekane's favor. He then decided to upgrade a smaller shrine that was affiliated to the main Kamo shrine, to accord it the same status as the latter, and to create the post of head official for this shrine, to which Chōmei could then be appointed.

However, Chōmei turned down the emperor's offer. Ienaga suggests that this “stubbornness” arose out of Chōmei's feeling that he had failed to get what he had wanted in the first place, and even wonders if Chōmei was not “out of his right mind” in refusing such an attractive proposition. He continues:

After that I heard that he had gone into total seclusion—no ordinary matter. He did not say where he was, but after some time had elapsed, he sent fifteen poems that he had composed to the emperor. … The rumor was that he had taken the tonsure and was quietly carrying on with his religious practices at Ōhara. I felt that he was a person who carried things too far, but Chōmei probably thought of this world as a deluded dream, in which, due to certain karmic links from previous lives, he had been strongly fated to enter the true path.¹

Ienaga also describes how the emperor at one stage ordered him to send a messenger up to Ōhara to find out if Chōmei still had the biwa called Tenarai. Chōmei sent back the biwa with two poems written on the plectrum: these poems expressed his sense of loss at parting with the biwa, an instrument that had obviously come to be a symbol of his love for music and his life at the court. Ienaga concludes:

After that, when I met him again quite by chance, he had grown so thin and shrunken that I could hardly recognize him. He said, “If I had not deeply resented the society I lived in, the darkness of this fleeting world would not have become illuminated for me.” Weeping copiously, he wrung the sleeves of his priestly robes, drenched in tears. He went on, “Although I have cast aside thoughts of worldly life, there is still something that holds me back a little,” and, pulling out from his sutra bag the plectrum of the biwa on which I had written the replies to his poems, he added, “Somehow this will accompany me beneath the moss and will decay with my body.” I felt extremely sorry for him when I realized that he found it so hard to forget and reject what he had set his heart upon, and that he was convinced that his attachment would even be a hindrance to the religious path he had taken.²

JIKKINSHō AND BUNKIDAN

Jikkinshō also has a short section on Kamo no Chōmei, which sets out to illustrate that even the deluded state of mind of one who harbors resentments in this world can, on occasion, become the means by which the person enters the true path. The author of Jikkinshō tells us that Chōmei belonged to a family of officials of the Kamo shrine and that he was well-known as one who was deeply devoted to the ways of music and poetry. He wished to become head of the Kamo shrine, but as things did not go according to his wishes, he bore the world a grudge and took the tonsure. The author points out that even after Chōmei began to live in seclusion in his hut, he had his koto and biwa by his side, and he would amuse himself by playing music between his recitals of the nenbutsu. He concludes with the following statement: “The fact that he was unable to give up indulging in the pleasures of music is a reflection of the extent of his most admirable devotion [suki] to the way of music.”³

A rather different account of Chōmei's decision to take the tonsure appears in a treatise on music called Bunkidan (Tales Recounted by the Priest Bunki), which was probably written between the years 1278 and 1288, more than sixty years after Chōmei's death. According to this work, Chōmei, who was Nakahara Ariyasu's music pupil, had received instruction in the performance of one of the secret melodies, the yoshinsō. Because of Chōmei's passionate involvement in the art, he invited several acclaimed musicians to the Kamo shrine, where the incident that came to be known as the hikyoku zukushi (the playing of the secret melodies) took place. Bunkidan tells us that Chōmei performed the takuboku melody on his biwa. This was a secret melody that had not been transmitted to him by his teacher, and hence he was not authorized to play it. This fact leaked out and came to the ears of Fujiwara no Tadamichi (1165-1237), who was at that time in charge of the Imperial Court Music Hall. Tadamichi pointed out to the cloistered emperor Go-Toba that among the secret teachings of the way of music, this particular melody had been accorded special importance and had its own traditions of transmission; hence, for someone like Chōmei, who belonged to a low rank, to play this melody in front of a large audience and without formal instruction was a serious crime.

According to Bunkidan, Chōmei admitted to having played the takuboku but claimed that it was the extremity of his commitment to the way (michi ni fukeru kokorozashi no setsu naru koto) that had led him to do so. Go-Toba did not consider what Chōmei had done a grave crime, but Tadamichi protested strongly, saying that any violation of the way would set an unfortunate precedent for deviation from authorized practice. Bunkidan concludes that it was for this reason that Chōmei had to leave the capital and thus decided to follow the way of religion. The account goes on to say that Chōmei built himself a ten-foot-square hut at the Bay of Futami and spent the rest of his life there.⁴

Several interesting features emerge from these different accounts. The first and quite undisputed one is Chōmei's deep involvement with music and poetry. This passion was so great that, as Ienaga's account has it, Chōmei found it hard to part with the plectrum of his biwa even after becoming a priest, though in the end he felt constrained to do so. His correspondence with the emperor and his meeting with Ienaga reflected his continued involvement with the world of poetry, which he had ostensibly left behind. However, his passion was also accompanied by the fear that such artistic activities were pointless and even deleterious to the Buddhist cause that he had espoused.

A second feature of Chōmei's life emerges from the statement about his disappointed hopes at court. Chōmei had hoped to follow in his father's footsteps, gain some social standing in that way, and continue his pursuit of music and poetry. Both Ienaga's diary and Jikkinshō suggest that Chōmei's failure to achieve these worldly ambitions changed the course of his life. He chose renunciation over the life of a low-ranking and frustrated courtier.

It will be observed, of course, that Bunkidan gives a rather different account of the reasons for Chōmei's departure from the court and his taking of the tonsure. There are, however, questions regarding the authenticity of this account. There is no mention of the incident that Bunkidan speaks of in Ienaga's diary, which ends in the eleventh month of the year 1207. Ienaga himself was an accomplished musician, and this event, had it occurred, would surely have created enough of a furor at court for Ienaga to write about it. Another factor that has led scholars to question the authenticity of this version is that among the musicians listed as having participated in the gathering at which Chōmei played the secret melody are people like Fujiwara no Sanetoshi, who in the year 1204 (the approximate date of Chōmei's departure from court) was only eleven years old, and Fujiwara no Morikane, who at the time was fourteen.⁵

Both Jikkinshō and Ienaga's diary name Ōhara as the place where Chōmei went after taking the tonsure. Bunkidan stands at variance with these, for it describes Chōmei as going to the Bay of Futami and spending his life there. It is interesting that the name Futami, traditionally associated with Saigyō because it was where he had his hut, is linked in Bunkidan with Chōmei. The conflation of Chōmei with Saigyō is perhaps another reflection of the way in which, at least in literary memory, the two had become inextricably linked as the idealized figures of the poetic and reclusive traditions.

However, the story about Chōmei in the Bunkidan is fascinating for what it tells us about the way of music and its traditions and above all about Chōmei's reputation as a sukimono whose extreme involvement in music prevented him from confining himself to the rules and norms of that tradition. Even if the account in Bunkidan is an apocryphal one, it does indicate that a legend had developed around Chōmei's obsessive passion for the arts and his disregard for the social conventions that governed these arts.

After his departure from the court and his acceptance of the Buddhist path, Chōmei's life took a dramatically new course. But if Ienaga's account is to be believed, he was unable to shake off altogether his attachment to poetry and music, which had played such a central part in his life as a courtier.

THE EARLY YEARS

Kamo no Chōmei, or Kamo no Nagaakira as he was known at the time, was born in 1155, the eldest son of Kamo no Nagatsugu, the superintendent of the Lower Kamo shrine.⁶ This shrine was situated at the confluence of the Kamo River, flowing from Kitayama, and the Takano River, flowing from the direction of Ōhara. The deities worshipped at this shrine are the Kamo Taketsunomi no Mikoto and the Tama Yorihime. Together with the Upper Kamo shrine, the Lower Kamo shrine was held in great veneration by the court aristocracy. The Kamo festival held in the middle of the fourth month was referred to simply as “the festival” by the courtiers, an indication that it had come to be the single most important Shinto festival. The shrine's power was not purely spiritual: owning a large amount of land around its precincts, it wielded considerable material power, as did many of the Buddhist temple complexes of the time.

According to the various genealogies of the Kamo family, Chōmei had a brother called Nagamori, who at some stage had been accorded the fifth rank.⁷ Although his name is mentioned in Chōmei's Mumyōshō, nothing is known about him (MY [Mumyōshō,] 69). The same is true for Chōmei's mother. About his father, however, we know somewhat more. In the year 1160, Chōmei's father was promoted to the junior fourth rank, lower grade. The promotion is recorded in Fujiwara no Tadachika's Sankaiki (Mountain Pagoda Tree Chronicle).⁸ On the twenty-seventh day of that year, the emperor Nijō (r. 1158-65) visited the Kamo shrine. Tadachika was in charge of the ceremonial dances on that day. Earlier, when the emperor Konoe (r. 1141-55) had visited the shrine, he had not bestowed any favors on Nagatsugu, and it was to make up for this that the emperor Nijō raised his rank. Chōmei also benefited from his father's good connections with the emperor, for the following year he was appointed to the fifth rank, junior grade, at the age of seven. This was done through the favor of the emperor's second consort (chūgū). Shūshi Naishinnō, also known as Takamatsu-in, who was the daughter of Toba-in and Bifukumon-in (1117-60).

Thus Chōmei's life would seem to have begun in auspicious circumstances. However, a setback came with the premature retirement and subsequent death of his father. The last mention of Nagatsugu as head intendant of the Kamo shrine appears in an entry for the twenty-ninth day of the eighth month of the year 1169, in Hyōhanki, the diary of Taira no Nobunori.⁹ His retirement seems to have been brought about by continued ill health, but undoubtedly there were also political factors at work. Scholars surmise that his death occurred sometime between the winter of 1172 and the spring of the next year. Chōmei was eighteen or nineteen years old at that time. Nagatsugu's place as superintendent was taken by Sukesue, who was the son of Arisue, Nagatsugu's elder brother. At the same time, Sukesue's brother, Nagahira, was appointed provisional intendant of the Tadasu shrine, which was a branch of the Lower Kamo shrine.

In any case, after the death of his father, Chōmei and his brother Nagamori found themselves without a position at the Lower Kamo shrine. One of the first poems that Chōmei wrote, one he included in Kamo no Chōmei shū, was composed, as he says, “while looking at cherry blossoms the year after my father died”:

Haru shi areba
Kotoshi mo hana wa
Sakinikeri
Chiru o oshimishi
Hito wa izura wa
Since spring has come,
This year too
The cherry blossoms are in bloom.
Where has he gone,
The one who lamented their scattering?(10)

Another poem of the same period was later included in Fuboku wakashō (The Japanese Collection of Poetry), a collection of poems compiled by Fujiwara no Nagakiyo around the year 1310. Chōmei's poem read:

Sakura yue
Kataokayama ni
Fuseru mi mo
Omoitogeneba
Aware oya nashi
Lying here on Mount Kataoka
In order to view the cherry blossoms,
He too is unable to realize
What he had hoped for
This poor orphan.(11)

It is perhaps his failure to inherit his father's position that he refers to when he speaks of the poor orphan who is unable to realize the hopes that his father had for him.

In Kamo no Chōmei shū there is an exchange of poems in which Chōmei again expresses his despair at the death of his father. He writes:

Sumi wabinu
Izasa koemu
Shide no yama
Sate dani oya no
Ato o fumubeki
Weary of living
Nothing remains but to cross
The mountain of death.
At least in this way I can follow
My father's footsteps.

Seeing this poem, Kamo no Sukemitsu, an official at the Lower Kamo shrine, replied with the following verse:

Sumi wabite
Isogi na koe so
Shide no yama
Kono yo ni oya no
Ato o koso fume
Weary of living
Do not hasten to cross
The mountain of death.
It is in this world that you should follow
Your father's footsteps.

To this Chōmei responded with the following poem:

Nasake araba
Ware madowasu na
Kimi nomi zo
Oya no ato fumu
Michi wa shiruran
If you have feelings for me
Do not misguide me.
For you alone know
The way to follow
My father's footsteps.(12)

There are several poems in Kamo no Chōmei shū under the heading jukkai (personal grievances), and they appear to have been written soon after the death of Chōmei's father. One can read into these poems not only Chōmei's grief and his resentment at not taking his father's place but also an awareness of the problem of worldly attachments, an awareness that is clearly Buddhist:

Yo wa sutetsu
Mi wa naki mono ni
Nashi hatetsu
Nani o uramuru
Ta ga nageki zo mo
I cast aside this world.
I look upon myself
As one who belongs to it no more.
What should I bear ill-will against?
Who should I lament over?

Or again,

Ukimi o ba
Ika ni sen to te
Oshimu zo to
Hito ni kawarite
Kokoro o zo tou
Standing outside myself,
I ask my own heart,
Is it because you wonder what can be done
About this grief-stricken body
That you love it so?(13)

When Chōmei was in his twenties, several disasters hit the capital, and he writes about them at length in Hōjōki.¹⁴ However, as we shall see, the natural disasters of that period, together with the unsuccessful attempt at shifting the capital to Fukuhara in 1180, find a place in his work only to illustrate the ephemeral nature of human life and human dwellings. They serve as a contrast to the life that Chōmei chooses for himself by living in a ten-foot-square hut in Hino. Chōmei makes no mention of the political upheavals that took place over the same period.¹⁵

THE EMERGENCE OF CHōMEI AS A POET

After the shock of his father's death, Chōmei became increasingly involved with composing poetry. His poetic mentor, the priest Shōmyō (1112-87), was a poet of some standing. Shōmyō had been close to Chōmei's father, so Chōmei was able to seek his advice. Indeed, there is some evidence that Shōmyō was the father-in-law of a head intendant at Kamo shrine.¹⁶ If this is so, then it is not impossible that Shōmyō was in fact the father-in-law of Nagatsugu, which would make him Chōmei's grandfather. Whatever the nature of the relationship, it is clear that Shōmyō took Chōmei under his wing and served as his guide.

In the year 1175, Chōmei took part in the Kikuawase (Chrysanthemum Contest) held by Takamatsu-in who, as we noted earlier, was responsible for appointing Chōmei to the fifth rank. This was a contest in which the participants were divided into two groups, with each group being called upon to put forth a chrysanthemum with a poem attached to it. The poems were then judged, with one side or the other being declared the winner. Looking back at this event years later in his Mumyōshō, Chōmei recounts an incident that occurred at that time. On this occasion, Chōmei composed the following love poem:

Sekikanuru
Namida no kawa no
Se o hayami
Kuzurenikeri na
Hitome zutsumi wa
Because it flows so fast—
This river of tears
Which I am unable to check—
The dike that protected me
From the eyes of the world has collapsed.(17)

Luckily for Chōmei, he had the poem checked by Shōmyō, who pointed out that it had one major defect. The word used for the death of an emperor or empress is hōzu. Thus Chōmei's use of the word kuzuru, the alternate reading of which is hōzu, would have been considered inauspicious in the presence of the empress. Chōmei writes that he was deeply grateful to be saved from a major faux pas, and that he produced another more appropriate poem for the occasion.

In Mumyōshō, Chōmei describes being counseled by Shōmyō on another matter of poetic etiquette. Shōmyō explains to Chōmei the strategies that can be used by a courtier if he is approached by indiscreet court ladies with poems to be answered or completed; he points to ways whereby the gentleman can maintain his poetic credibility without bringing ridicule upon himself (MY, 59-60).

However, Shōmyō's patronage did not place Chōmei among the poetic elite of the court. Shōmyō was affiliated with the Rokujō school of poetry, which had taken second place to the influential Mikohidari school of Fujiwara no Shunzei, which received imperial patronage. Shōmyō had compiled an anthology of poetry, Nansenzai (Imperfect Collection of a Thousand Years), challenging Shunzei's imperial anthology, Senzaishū (Collection of a Thousand Years), compiled in 1188. It is a measure of the lack of political support for the Rokujō faction that Nansenzai fell into oblivion, while Senzaishū gained considerable prestige and became part of the waka canon. The priest Shōmyō's presence is barely discernible in the two later imperial anthologies, Shinkokinshū and Shinchoku-senshū (New Imperial Collection, 1234).

There is considerable uncertainty about whether or not Chōmei was married or seriously involved with any woman. In Hōjōki, Chōmei claims that at the age of fifty, when he became a priest, he had no difficulties in giving up worldly life because he had never been burdened with marriage or children (HK [Hōjōki,] 29). However, some unanswered questions remain. First, there is the fact that Chōmei is referred to by another title, Kikudaifu. Some biographers have suggested that Kiku was the name of Chōmei's wife's family and that he had taken that name as an adopted son-in-law. They argue that Chōmei spent his twenties in his grandmother's home because he was married either to his paternal grandmother's daughter (his aunt, a not uncommon practice among the aristocracy of that period) or to her granddaughter (his cousin). The reason Chōmei had to leave his wife's home, they suggest, was his inability to carry on his father's profession and thus provide his family with security and prestige.¹⁸

Among the love poems that appear in Chōmei's collection of poetry, there are verses whose headnotes suggest that he was involved with women from the time he was a youth. Chōmei's increasingly active participation in court life would have brought him into frequent contact with ladies, all the more so since he was deeply involved in the composition of poetry and its recitation at poetry contests. However, there is no real evidence of a wife and family in Chōmei's life.

CHōMEI'S TRAINING IN THE WAY OF POETRY

Chōmei's first literary work, Kamo no Chōmei shū, is believed to have been completed in the year 1181, when he was twenty-six years old. It contains one hundred and five poems, most of which are divided into the prescribed dai, or topics, such as spring, summer, autumn, winter, love, miscellaneous, and so on. There are also poems that are more personal in nature, some of which have been quoted already.

Several poems in this collection, written by Chōmei in his youth, are of interest given our knowledge of the course that Chōmei's life would take thirty years later. For instance, the following poem, which he composed on “going to a temporary dwelling in a place in the mountains,” is striking for Chōmei's inability at the time to conceive of a life spent in solitude and austerity, something that he later idealizes and celebrates in Hōjōki:

Kari ni kite
Miru dani taenu
Yama sato ni
Tare tsurezure to
Ake kurasuramu
I who came momentarily upon this make-shift abode,
Painful even to behold,
Wonder who passes
Lonely days and nights
In these desolate mountains.(19)

Yet the poem he wrote while “facing the moon and forgetting the west” is a foretaste of that tension between the religious and the mundane that marks Chōmei's writings in his later life:

Asa yū ni
Nishi o somukaji
To omoedomo
Tsuki matsu hodo wa
E koso mukawane
I had believed that
At no time of day or night
Would I turn my back on the west,
But while waiting for the moon to rise
I failed to do what I had resolved.(20)

It is not clear what inspired Chōmei to publish his own collection of poetry at this time. It has been suggested that he was encouraged to do so by Kamo no Shigeyasu, who was the head Shinto priest of the Upper Kamo shrine and a poet of some repute. Chōmei appears to have been a frequent participant in poetry contests that Shigeyasu organized at the shrine and in his home. Shigeyasu also included four of Chōmei's poems in a collection called Tsukimōdeshū, which he put together in the year 1182. It is possible that Chōmei was encouraged by this support to bring out his own collection of poems, and he included in Kamo no Chōmei shū the four poems that appeared in Tsukimōdeshū.²¹

Apart from the help that Chōmei received from the priest Shōmyō and Kamo no Shigeyasu, his most important relationship in the world of poetry was with the poet-priest Shun'e. It is from Chōmei's account in Mumyōshō that we learn of the special bond that existed between him and Shun'e:

The first words that Shun'e uttered to me after we had tied the bonds of a teacher-pupil relationship in poetry were, “Poetry is based primarily on traditional practice. If you rely on me as your true teacher, never forget this. I talk to you in this way because I believe that you will certainly be one of the poetic geniuses of our times. Never, never, even if you reach a stage when people recognize you, should you ever believe that you have reached perfect enlightenment in the art and thus put on airs.”

(MY, 68-69)

Shun'e was born in 1113 and was forty-two years Chōmei's senior. He became a priest at Tōdaiji at an early age but returned to the capital, where he spent at least forty years as an important member of the poetic world. One of his most significant contributions was the establishment of a poetry circle, which he called the Karin'en (Grove of Poetry). He organized monthly gatherings of literary figures to discuss and recite poetry in his own home and tried to bring together poets of different styles and rank. These included middle- and low-ranking courtiers, men of the warrior class, Shinto officials, Buddhist priests, and women who served at court. The Karin'en appears to have been active for at least twenty years, and Chōmei's Mumyōshō is in large part a recording of various stories and episodes that were the subject of conversation in these gatherings at Shun'e's home.

POETRY AND THE PURSUIT OF SUCCESS

When Chōmei was in his thirties, he was forced to move out of his ancestral home into a place far less luxurious. Chōmei writes about this in his Hōjōki. He explains that he lived for a long time in the house of his paternal grandmother but that he lost “his position” and fell on hard times. When he was in his thirties he built, after his own plans, a little cottage barely one-tenth the size of his ancestral home (HK, 28-29).

Yanase Kazuo has suggested that Chōmei perhaps lived in his paternal grandmother's house because his father, not being the eldest son of the family, had inherited the mother's rather than the father's home. Yanase believes that it was the death of his father that forced Chōmei to move out of his grandmother's home.²² As mentioned earlier, there are also suggestions that Chōmei might have been married to a young woman from his paternal grandmother's family. Whatever the reasons, it is clear that the move from his grandmother's home was, for Chōmei, the first step toward a life of greater frugality and restraint.

Yet despite Chōmei's failure to inherit his father's post in the Kamo shrine and to continue to live in comfort in his grandmother's home, he seems to have been actively involved in court life and to have had many opportunities to prove himself as a poet of distinction. One important event Chōmei recounts with pride in Mumyōshō is the inclusion of one of his poems in the prestigious Senzaishū. Chōmei writes:

When one of my poems was included in Senzaishū, I expressed my pleasure thus: “I did not come from a family that had practiced the art of poetry over generations. Nor was I a great composer of poetry. Furthermore, I was not recognized as an outstanding man of accomplishment of my time. Under these circumstances, it was a great honor for me to have one of my poems included in Senzaishū.”

(MY, 45)

The poet and musician Nakahara Ariyasu, Chōmei tells us, was deeply impressed by Chōmei's humility and his lack of resentment against people much less worthy than himself who had poems included in this anthology.

Another interesting episode Chōmei writes about in Mumyōshō took place a year after this. The incident tells us much about Chōmei's enthusiastic involvement in the poetry circles of his time and about his first taste of success. Chōmei writes that he composed the following poem under the heading “moon” at the Mitsuyuki poetry contest at the Kamo shrine.

Ishikawa ya
Semi no ogawa no
Kiyokereba
Tsuki mo nagare o
Tazunete zo sumu
In Ishikawa
The little brook of Semi
Is so pure that
Even the moon seeks it out
Therein to live and shine.

The poem failed because the judge, the priest Moromitsu, declared that it was unlikely that any river with the name Semi existed. However, dissatisfied with the judgment, Chōmei had the poem looked at again by the priest Kenshō (ca. 1130-ca. 1210), who also could find no precedent for the phrase semi no ogawa. But he did not dismiss the poem altogether because he felt that it flowed felicitously; instead, he urged Chōmei to make inquiries with people who lived in that region to find out whether such a river actually existed. On meeting Kenshō again, Chōmei explained that semi no ogawa was in fact another name for the Kamo River and that it was mentioned in the annals of the Kamo shrine. Chōmei notes with pride that he was the first to introduce and legitimize the phrase semi no ogawa in poetry and that it was not long before poets like Takanobu and Kenshō used the phrase in their own poems. The final sanction for his poem came when it was included in Shinkokinshū several years later.²³

Thus Chōmei was receiving instruction not only in how to compose good poetry but also how to play the game to his advantage. The incidents cited above indicate the degree to which success in poetry was linked with politics and the cultivation of good connections.

Around 1186 or 1190 Chōmei appears to have gone to Ise. There is considerable debate as to when the journey actually took place and why Chōmei undertook it.²⁴ He wrote an account of his trip, a kind of travelog called Iseki, which unfortunately has been lost. What remains are some of the poems with headnotes, which found their way into works such as Fuboku wakashō. Among these poems, there are some that already indicate his increasing involvement with Buddhist teachings. An example is the following poem, composed while visiting the shrine of Tsukiyomi (another name for the god of the moon) in Ise:

Yami fukaki
Ukiyo o terasu
Chikai ni wa
Ware madowasu na
Tsukiyomi no kami
In your pledge
To illuminate this fleeting world
Plunged in darkness,
Do not delude me
Oh god of the moon!(25)

Here Chōmei seems to allude to the notion of honji suijaku, which had gained popularity in Japan at the time. The Buddha who had pledged to illuminate the deluded world appears in this poem in the form of the Japanese god Tsukiyomi no Kami.

To another poem composed during the Ise trip, Chōmei appended the following headnote:

When I was in Futami, I heard that people were getting together in the vicinity to perform the ten kinds of ceremonies of the Lotus Sutra. I felt that I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to be present for the ceremony. I sent word to that effect, but someone, possibly the patron who was sponsoring the ceremony, declined and told me to stay away.

Chōmei then composed the following poem:

Kokoro sen
Hitotsu minori no
Sue made mo
Futami no sato wa
Hito hedatekeri
Let us take note:
The degeneration of the Buddha's Teachings
Has led the village of Futami
To discriminate among people,
Going against the One Dharma.(26)

Apart from Japanese poetry there was another art to which Chōmei devoted his energies—the way of music (kangen no michi). In Mumyōshō Chōmei speaks of the advice given to him by Nakahara Ariyasu. He points out that Ariyasu imparted to him extremely valuable esoteric teachings in the way of music and that he had been instructed with such openness because Ariyasu wished Chōmei to follow in his footsteps.²⁷ Speaking of Chōmei, Jikkinshō says, “In recent times there was a person who belonged to a family of officials who served at the Kamo shrine called Kikudaifu Chōmei. He was renowned among people for his music.”²⁸Bunkidan regards Chōmei primarily as a musician and points out that he was highly regarded in the field of poetry as well. It also mentions the fact that Chōmei was instructed in the art of music by Ariyasu and had the reputation of being a person completely devoted to the art (sukimono).²⁹ There is no evidence to suggest that Ariyasu was successful in initiating Chōmei as his successor. The death of Ariyasu must have been a serious blow to Chōmei's musical ambitions. By 1191 his friend Shoshin, with whom he is said to have traveled to Ise, died. The priest Shōmyō and Chōmei's teacher Shun'e had died a little earlier. Most of the people who had guided him and been his patrons when he was aspiring to be a poet of consequence had passed away. We know very little of Chōmei's activities during this period.

We do know that he took part in the Iwashimizu Hachiman poetry contest at the Wakanomiya shrine on the third day of the third month of 1191. The main organizer of this contest appears to have been Minamoto no Mitsuyuki (1163-1244), and the judge was the priest Kenshō. Both poets had been present when Chōmei had recited his poem, “Semi no ogawa,” at another contest organized by Mitsuyuki. The participants at this meeting were followers of the Rokujō style of poetry and belonged mainly to the middle and lower rungs of the aristocracy or the priesthood. Though not among the most highly acclaimed poets of the day, thirteen of the thirty-two present had their poems included in Senzaishū.³⁰ This period of Chōmei's life may be characterized as one in which he achieved a moderate degree of success as a poet, taking part in contests and occasionally having his poems accepted for inclusion in anthologies. However, his connections seem to have been, for the most part, with poets who themselves were at the peripheries. The center stage was dominated by poets such as Shunzei and Teika, who could take imperial patronage for granted.

THE COMPILATION OF SHINKOKINSHū

From the year 1200, when Chōmei was in his mid-forties, his fortunes changed. His most important patron at this time was the cloistered emperor Go-Toba. From 1198, after entering the cloisters, Go-Toba devoted his energies not only to politics and military affairs but also to the wholehearted promotion of the arts, particularly poetry. In 1200 he commissioned a series of hundred-poem sequences (hyakushu), a poetic form in which he had a special interest. The first was known as Go-Toba-in shōji shodo hyakushu (Cloistered Emperor Go-Toba's First Hundred-Poem Sequence of the Shōji Era).³¹ Twenty-three poets participated in this event. The second hundred-poem sequence was commissioned in the twelfth month of that year and was on a less grand scale, with only eleven participants. Among these, apart from Go-Toba himself, were Jien, Chōmei, Lady Kunaikyō, and Minamoto no Ienaga. The result was known as Go-Toba-in shōji saido hyakushu (Cloistered Emperor Go-Toba's Second Hundred-Poem Sequence of the Shōji Era). The success of the first had probably spurred him to hold the second, and this time he included poets like Chōmei, who were talented but of inferior status.

In that year Chōmei appears to have taken part in several other poetry contests. On the thirtieth day of the ninth month, he participated in the twenty-fourth poetry contest sponsored by Go-Toba, in which Shunzei was the judge. Three poems composed by Chōmei on this occasion have survived. On the first day of the tenth month, he took part in another poetry contest in eighteen rounds, again organized by the cloistered emperor. Chōmei presented three verses, of which one was declared a draw while the other two were losers. On the eighth day of the twelfth month, the Minamoto no Michichika poetry contest took place. Only one poem composed by Chōmei on this occasion survives. On the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth month the Iwashimizu Yashiro Utaawase was organized by Michichika, who also served as judge. Chōmei presented five poems: four were winners and one was a draw.

Shunzei's son, Fujiwara no Teika, was present at some of these contests. Although he and Chōmei were almost the same age, they differed greatly in rank and in their standing as poets. Teika appears to have been keenly aware of Chōmei's inferior status. In his diary, Meigetsuki (Record of the Full Moon), there is an entry for the sixteenth day of the third month of the year 1201 in which he writes that although Chōmei belonged to the fifth rank, he was a person of such humble origins that he should be taken as belonging to the sixth rank.³² Or again, speaking of the first of the contests held in the year 1200, in which both he and Chōmei participated, he notes that Chōmei took his place alone (being the only one present who belonged to such a low rank) away from the upper echelons of the nobility and the warriors.³³ Clearly, Chōmei occupied a somewhat ambiguous and contradictory position at court. He was specially favored by the cloistered emperor because of his talent for poetry and his devotion to it; at the same time, he was looked down on by some of his colleagues at the Bureau of Poetry and by other higher-ranking courtiers.

In 1201 Go-Toba envisaged the production of an imperial anthology that could match Kokinshū. He reestablished the Bureau of Poetry in the seventh month of that year with the express purpose of organizing the compilation of Shinkokinshū. He thus revived an institution that had been inactive for two and a half centuries. Among those appointed as officials (yoriudo) were men of high rank such as the regent Fujiwara no Yoshitsune; the minister of the center, Minamoto no Michichika; and the Tendai head abbot, Jien. Below them in rank were Fujiwara no Ariie (1155-1216), Fujiwara no Ietaka (1158-1237), Fujiwara no Teika, Fujiwara no Masatsune, Minamoto no Michitomo (1171-1227), Minamoto no Tomochika, Jakuren (d. 1202), and Shunzei. Minamoto no Ienaga was placed in charge. Within eight months more poets, of lower rank, were added to the Bureau of Poetry. These were Fujiwara no Takanobu (1142-1205), Fujiwara no Hideyoshi, and Chōmei. Chōmei's inclusion as an official in the Bureau of Poetry (although he was still required, along with Takanobu and Hideyoshi, to occupy a special seat at a lower level than the high-ranking officials) was an index of the honor bestowed on him by the cloistered emperor. Chōmei's enthusiasm and dedication to his appointment are attested by Ienaga in his diary, where he writes that Chōmei worked day and night and would never leave the Bureau of Poetry.³⁴

There was nothing in Chōmei's life at this stage that would suggest that he would leave courtly life altogether and become a Buddhist recluse. A poem Chōmei composed on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the year 1201, when he took part in a poetry contest held at the Bureau of Poetry, on the topic “The Moon at Dusk Deep in the Mountains,” deserves special mention in this regard:

Yomosugara
Hitori miyama no
Maki no ha ni
Kumoru mo sumeru
Aki no yo no tsuki
All through the night
Alone in the mountain depths,
I gazed at the autumn moon
That was clouded by the pine needles.
Now at dawn it shines through clearly.

When Chōmei composed this poem, the physical setting he evoked was little more than a literary topos for him, and Chōmei could not have imagined that this poetic conceit would later become a reality for him. After he became a recluse, Chōmei himself gave voice to this irony by alluding to this earlier poem.³⁵

Among the poetry contests that Chōmei attended in the year 1202 was the Eigu Utaawase. The eigu was a meeting held in memory of a famous poet in which the participants paid homage by composing poetry and drinking sake together. In Mumyōshō Chōmei describes one such monthly gathering at the home of Michichika, where Chōmei composed the following poem to the title “The Moon and the Old Temple”:

Furinikeru
Toyora no tera no
Enohai ni
Nao shirotama o
Nokosu tsuki ka na
In the Enohai well
Of the Toyora temple
Grown ancient over the years,
The moon leaves behind
Its glittering pearls unchanged.

Chōmei tells us that when Shunzei heard this poem he could not help but be impressed and remarked, “This poem has truly been constructed with great elegance. I too had thought of using the phrase toyora no tera no enohai at an appropriate occasion, but alas, I have been beaten to it by you.” Chōmei explains that the phrase was taken from a saibara, a kind of popular folk song, and that it was known to everybody, but that he was the first person to have thought of using it within a poem. He notes with pleasure that later on Teika emulated him, using the phrase in one of his own poems (MY, 61).

Another interesting event that Chōmei writes about in Mumyōshō occurred on the twenty-second day of the third month in the year 1202, at a time when, as Chōmei says, “I used to spend all my time at the palace” (MY, 77-78). The cloistered emperor Go-Toba organized a poetry contest in which he ordered everyone to compose six poems using three different styles of poetry (santai). According to Chōmei, the prescribed form was that poems composed on spring and summer had to be weighty and large; on autumn and winter, slender and light; on love and travel, elegant and graceful. Many poets were daunted by the cloistered emperor's request, and even poets of some consequence like Fujiwara no Ariie and Masatsune, both compilers of Shinkokinshū, stayed away, feigning sickness. Even Teika, in his Meigetsuki, expressed the view that this was a rather unreasonable request on the part of Go-Toba. In the end only six poets participated in this gathering. They were Yoshitsune, Jien, Ietaka, Jakuren, Teika, and Chōmei. Chōmei appears to have been a success at this unusual gathering; five of his poems were later included in Shinkokinshū.

Another memorable event in Chōmei's life as a member of the Bureau of Poetry was his excursion on the twenty-fourth day of the second month in the year 1203 to see the cherry blossoms at the palace, together with other members of the bureau. In his Meigetsuki, Teika notes that he went on an excursion to view the blossoms at the invitation of his fellow poets Ietaka and Masatsune. He mentions that Chōmei was present as well. The expedition was a pleasant one, in which members of the party composed waka and renga and broke off sprays of cherry blossoms to attach to their poems. On the way back, everyone felt in the mood for a concert, and so Masatsune played the pipe (hichiriki) while Ienaga and Chōmei played the flute (fue). Teika goes on to recount that when the cloistered emperor heard about the excursion the next day, he organized another cherry blossom party. Chōmei was part of this august gathering as well, and he had occasion to compose poems with the other courtiers while sitting under the blossoms.³⁶

This period was perhaps the high point of Chōmei's poetic life. He took part in all the major poetry contests of the time and worked without respite in the Bureau of Poetry on the compilation of Shinkokinshū. Chōmei had the unusual opportunity of working in close association with not only the highest-ranking aristocrats but also the cloistered emperor himself. In view of Teika's remarks about Chōmei's inferior rank, this must have been a singular honor.

The cloistered emperor personally supervised every detail of the production of Shinkokinshū. For instance, when the compilers had the whole manuscript ready on the twenty-fourth of the fourth month in the year 1205, he went through the collection meticulously, suggesting corrections and rearrangements. The last record of Chōmei's participation in the activities of the court is on the thirteenth day of the eleventh month, when he attended the ceremony at the Bureau of Poetry to celebrate Shunzei's ninetieth birthday. Chōmei was among those who composed poems in homage to the grand old man of the world of waka. However, this life of refinement and elegance in which Chōmei had steeped himself came to an abrupt end the following year, when he left the Bureau of Poetry, became a priest, and moved away from the capital.

THE MOVE TO A LIFE OF SECLUSION

According to Hōjōki, Chōmei became a priest in the spring of his fiftieth year, that is, in 1204: “Not having any family, I had no ties that would make abandoning the world difficult. I had no rank or stipend—what was there for me to cling to?”³⁷ Chōmei does not mention the specific circumstances that led to his taking the tonsure. He refers in a general way to a life full of misfortunes and bad luck and points out that it was his recognition of the essential frailty of worldly life that made him turn his back on it. From Ienaga's diary and from Jikkinshō we know that Chōmei's failure to succeed to his father's position at the Kamo shrine may have been the immediate cause of this departure.

Apart from Hōjōki, there is no account that records the exact year Chōmei took the tonsure. We can, however, accept the spring of 1204 as a fairly accurate date because from that time onward Chōmei's name no longer appears among the participants at poetry contests. His name is conspicuously absent from among those who celebrated the completion of the Shinkokinshū project on the sixth of the third month in 1204.

In Hōjōki, Chōmei says that after taking the tonsure, he spent five fruitless years in the mountains of Ōhara. Ienaga's diary also mentions Ōhara as the place that Chōmei disappeared to after his departure from the court. Ōhara had come to be a haven for many Buddhist priests and recluses who wished to escape from the highly institutionalized environment at Mount Hiei. Many priests came down to Ōhara, at the foot of Mount Hiei, to lead a rather different kind of religious life—one in which music and poetry played an important part. In Senzaishū, for instance, there is a poem by Chikanori, who says that he composed the following poem, together with other priests, while living in seclusion at Ōhara. The dai, or topic, of the poem was capturing the spirit of the end of the old year in an atmosphere of seclusion:

Miyako ni te
Okuri mukau to
Isogishi o
Shirade ya toshi no
Ima wa kurenan
In the capital we bustled about
Bidding farewell to the old
And ushering in the new year,
But now the year ends
And passes by unnoticed.(38)

We do not know whether Chōmei made any friends during his period in Ōhara, or whether he had the opportunity to take part in such poetry gatherings.

There was one person, an old friend of Chōmei's, who may have been instrumental in Chōmei's choice of Ōhara. This was the priest Zenjaku, formerly Fujiwara no Nagachika. He had held a high position at court but took the tonsure in 1188, when he was only in his mid-twenties. He later became a disciple of Hōnen (Nyōren Shōnin, 1133-1212). More popularly, he was known as the holy man of Ōhara. It was perhaps in emulation of Nyōren that Chōmei chose the religious name Ren'in, thus incorporating one character from his friend's name into his own.

After the five “forlorn” years spent in Ōhara, Chōmei, according to his account in Hōjōki, moved to Hino, a mountain village about seven kilometers southeast of the capital. It was here that Zenjaku is said to have established the temple known as Toyama-in. It seems quite likely that Zenjaku invited Chōmei to build his hut on Toyama. At the bottom of the mountain stood the temple complex of Hokaiji. Thus the place where Chōmei built his hut, while in a secluded spot in the mountains, was not as isolated as Hōjōki would have us believe.

There is evidence to suggest that in the autumn of 1211 Chōmei made at least one journey to Kamakura with the poet Masatsune, who had been his colleague in the Bureau of Poetry. It is not clear why Chōmei undertook this journey, but we do know that he met the shogun, Minamoto no Sanetomo, there. Sanetomo was already, at the age of nineteen, deeply interested in poetry, and was receiving instruction in the art from Teika. Sanetomo had not as yet had the opportunity to meet his teacher, and his first contact with poets who had been involved with the compilation of the prestigious Shinkokinshū was with Masatsune and Chōmei. Chōmei makes no reference to this trip in Hōjōki and describes this period in his life as being entirely free of contact with the capital and with the friends who once shared his social world.

Toward the end of his life, Chōmei commissioned his friend Zenjaku to compose a kōshiki³⁹ on his behalf. Chōmei, however, asked for a kōshiki on the moon, a request that lacked all precedent. It appears that Zenjaku did not carry out Chōmei's request quickly enough, and Chōmei passed away before the work was undertaken. Full of repentance, Zenjaku composed Gakkōshiki (The Order of Service in Praise of the Moon) and offered it on the thirty-fifth day after Chōmei's death, with the prayer that the merit acquired from composing this work should be transferred to Chōmei's store of merit and thus help him attain Buddhahood. It is from Gakkōshiki that we can ascertain the exact date of Chōmei's death. Zenjaku dates his work the thirteenth of the seventh month in the year 1216. This places Chōmei's death on the tenth day of the intercalary sixth month of that year.⁴⁰ The place and circumstances of his death, however, remain unknown.

Notes

1. See Ishida Yoshisada and Satsukawa Shūji, eds., Minamoto Ienega nikki zenchūkai (Tokyo: Yūseidō, 1968), 104-5, 110.

2. Ibid., 110-11.

3. Izumi, Jikkinshō, 2:91-92.

4. Wada Hidematsu, ed., Bunkidan, Matsuura hakushaku bunkō (Tokyo: Gakusaidō Tosho, 1918), 5-8.

5. Iso Mizue, “Hikkyoku zukushi jiken o megutte, sono ni,” Kamo no Chōmei no kenkyū 2, Nishō Gakuen Daigaku, Kishi Zemihen (June 1976):

6. Yanase Kazuo, Kamo no Chōmei no shinkenkyū (Tokyo: Kasama Shobō, 1962), 2.

7. Ibid.

8. Cited in Miki Sumito, Kankyo no hito: Kamo no Chōmei, Nihon no sakka, no. 17 (Tokyo: Shitensha, 1984), 2. This book is the main source used for the following account of Chōmei's life.

9. Ibid., 31.

10. Yanase Kazuo, ed., Kamo no Chōmei zenshū (Tokyo: Kasama Shobō, 1971), 3.

11. Ibid., 44. This poem employs the technique of allusive variation (honkadori) and harks back to the following poem, attributed to Prince Shōtoku Taishi, which was composed under rather different circumstances:

    Shinateru ya
    Kataokayama ni
    Ii ni uete
    Fuseru tabibito
    Aware oyanashi

    Is he dead, I wonder?
    Lying on Mount Kataoka
    Starving from lack of food,
    This poor traveler,
    Without a father.

    The Kataoka mountain that Chōmei refers to is not the one that Shōtoku Taishi is said to have visited in Yamato Province. Mount Kataoka was another name for the Mount Kamo. While expressing his disappointment and sense of helplessness at the death of his father, Chōmei skillfully uses his knowledge of the poetic traditions of his times. Chōmei says that he is not lying on Mount Kataoka starving. He has come there to view the cherry blossoms, which, judging by the poem quoted earlier, were deeply admired by his father.

12. Ibid., 15-16. Kamo no Sukemitsu was an official at the Lower Kamo shrine. According to Hyōhanki, he was promoted due to a recommendation by Chōmei's father. Perhaps this fact made it possible for Chōmei to seek support and consolation from him when he appears to have needed it most. See Miki, Kankyo no hito, 39.

13. Yanase, Kamo no Chōmei zenshū, 15.

14. Ibid., 17-27.

15. These were the Hōgen and Heiji Insurrections of 1158 and 1159, respectively.

16. See Asami Kazuhiko, “Hosshinshū no gentai to zōhō,” Chūsei bungaku 22 (November 1977).

17. MY, 40. This poem expresses the feelings of a woman in love. She weeps, perhaps having been abandoned by her lover, and her tears reveal her lovelorn condition to the world. See also Hilda Kato, “The Mumyōshō of Kamo no Chōmei and Its Significance in Japanese Literature,” Monumenta Nipponica 23.3/4 (summer/autumn 1968): 357. While all translations from Mumyōshō are my own, I am indebted to this work, which I have consulted extensively. See also Hare, “Reading Kamo no Chōmei,” 181.

18. Miki, Kankyo no hito, 54-55, 124-25.

19. Yanase, Kamo no Chōmei zenshū, 14.

20. Ibid., 16. The west in this poem stands for the pure land of Amida Buddha. Chōmei's literary persona laments that he has turned his back on the Buddhist faith and has been drawn to the beauty of the moon.

21. Yanase, Kamo no Chōmei zenshū, 54.

22. Yanase, Kamo no Chōmei no shinkenkyū, 7.

23. MY, 43-45. See also Hare, “Reading Kamo no Chōmei,” 182.

24. Yanase Kazuo links the journey with Chōmei's disgrace from playing the secret melody takuboku as recorded in the Bunkidan and dates it to 1186. See Kamo no Chōmei no shinkenkyū, 15-16. Tsuji Katsumi, however, believes the journey to have taken place in 1190. See “Kamo no Chōmei Ise gekō nenjikō,” Koten ronsō (December 1982).

25. Yanase, Kamo no Chōmei zenshū, 36.

26. Ibid., 40-41. The phrase minori no sue suggests the degeneration of the dharma and the onset of mappō, a period in which people practice exclusiveness and discrimination even in matters to do with the Buddha's dharma.

27. MY, 45-46. Ariyasu came from a family of musicians and was a master of the biwa, the yokobue, the taiko, and the koto. He had mastered a wide range of musical instruments and techniques, and it was in recognition of this that he was put in charge of the Imperial Court Music Hall in 1194. However, he did not live to enjoy this position for long; he died sometime in 1195.

28. Izumi, Jikkinshō, 2:91.

29. Wada, Bunkidan, 6.

30. Miki, Kankyo no hito, 169.

31. See Robert H. Brower, Fujiwara Teika's “Hundred-Poem Sequence of the Shōji Era,” 1200: A Complete Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Monumenta Nipponica Monograph 55 (Tokyo: Sophia University Press, 1978).

32. Imagawa Fumio, ed., Kundoku Meigetsuki (Tokyo: Kade Shobō, 1977), 1:257.

33. Ibid., 1:225.

34. Ishida and Satsukawa, Minamoto Ienaga nikki zenchūkai, 104-5.

35. Miki, Kankyo no hito, 182. Ienaga quotes this poem, as well as Chōmei's allusion to it in a subsequent composition, in his diary. See Ishida and Satsukawa, Minamoto Ienaga nikki zenchūkai, 109.

36. Imagawa, Kundoku Meigetsuki, 2:26.

37. HK, 29. See Donald Keene, trans., “An Account of My Hut,” in An Anthology of Japanese Literature, edited by Donald Keene, Penguin Classics (Bungay, Suffolk: Chaucer Press Ltd., reprint 1968), 197.

38. Matsushita Daizaburō and Watanabe Fumio, Kokkataikan, 2 vols., (Tokyo: Kyōbunsha, 1958), no. 475.

39. A kōshiki was a Buddhist work written in a literary style and dedicated to the Buddha. It was believed to bring merit, after death, to the person who commissioned it.

40. A handwritten text of Gakkōshiki, put together from extant manuscripts, was very kindly provided to me by Professors Iso Mizue and Mizuhara Hajime.