Description:
This article examines the authorship and dating of a Fugen kōshiki that is found in a mid-Kamakura-era manuscript transcribed by the Tōdaiji prelate Sōshō. It locates this kōshiki in its historical context through a comparison with related works and particularly Chōken's Waka mandokoro hyōbyaku. The article concludes that Chōken was likely the author of the kōshiki as well. The kōshiki, which has not been published nor received scholarly attention in either Japan or the West, contains a clear defense of the act of composing poetry in opposition to Buddhist critiques of the practice. It makes an unprecedented argument linking repentance before Fugen to an affirmation of poetry that goes beyond the kyōgen kigō ideology, which sought the transformation of profane verse into praise for and propagation of Buddhism, and claims that practicing the “way of poetry” will itself become the “Buddhist Path".