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Buddhist poetry is a genre of literature that forms a part of Buddhist discourse. The first examples of Buddhist poetry can be found in traditional scriptures such as the ''Dhammapada'', according to which, Siddhārtha Gautama (the founder of Buddhism), upon his reaching enlightenment, proclaimed: Through the round of many births I roamed without reward, without rest, seeking the house-builder. Painful is birth again & again. House-builder, you're seen! You will not build a house again. All your rafters broken, the ridge pole destroyed, gone to the Unformed, the mind has come to the end of craving.〔"House" = selfhood; house-builder = craving. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Commentary to the ''Dhammapada'', Verses 153-154. http://halfsmile.org/buddhadust/www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/khuddaka/dhp/11.html〕 Traditionally, most Buddhist sutras have a prose component supplemented by verses (known as ''gatha'') that reiterate and poetically summarize the themes of preceding prose passages. Gatha functions as a mnemonic device helping the Buddhist practitioner commit to memory a certain doctrinal maxim. And in fact, the earliest extant forms of Buddhist discourse appear in verse, which is hardly surprising, considering that the texts were not originally written, but memorized. Linguistic analysis shows that the prose component of the sutras is likely to have been modified by later editing, while the poems often contain earlier forms of language. This view is confirmed by Japanese Buddhist scholar Hajime Nakamura, who states that the verse components of the Pali Canon actually predate the prose components, the former being a way of facilitating memorization, as the Pali Canon was transmitted orally for the first 300 or so years. Current Buddhology generally maintains that even the liturgical scriptures are products of literary composition. Hence, the study of Buddhist text in general and Buddhist poetry in particular cannot be disengaged from the literary field. But for the sake of classification it is useful to distinguish between # Buddhist poetry that is attributed to the Buddha himself, which forms a part of "Buddha Speech" (Sk. Buddhavacana), and # Buddhist poetry written by Buddhists, which is not included in the sutras. This article concerns primarily with the latter. ==Buddhist poetry in Asia== A typical example of a Buddhist poet is Monk Aśvaghoṣa who used his poetic talent and education in Brahmanic tradition to compose poetry on various Buddhist themes, e.g. the life of the Buddha, the ''Buddhacarita''.〔Johnston (1998)〕 Buddhist poetry – like the bulk of the scriptures produced by Buddhists – is not limited to compositions in Pali and Sanskrit; it has flourished in practically every language that Buddhists speak. *Notable examples in the Tibetan tradition are works of Milarepa.〔Chang (2006).〕 *Chinese Buddhist Tradition is particularly rich in poetic expression. In the poetry of Bai Juyi,〔B. Watson (1988, 2000).〕 for instance,we see a tension between the secular and Buddhist poetic expression: many Buddhists considered poetry as an attachment and advocated against it, despite the fact that the scriptures revered by them were abundant in poetic forms. Bai is credited with the coinage of the expression ''kyōgen kigo'' (狂言綺語, lit. "deranged words and embellished language"), which, to his view, referred to futility of poetic expression in comparison to Buddhist practice. Perhaps, the most successful Chinese Buddhist poet to resolve this paradox was Jiao Ran 皎然 (730-799), who proposed treatment of poetry as an intellectual instrument of Buddhist practice.〔Nienhauser (1985: 270-2).〕 Chan Buddhism (Ch. Chan; Jap. Zen) provided a rich ground for Buddhist poetry. Chan Buddhists created a complex language in which indirection, suggestion, ambiguity, paradox, and metaphor are prized over straightforward explanation. This complex language of Chan literature is also applied in Chan poetry. Chan Buddhists asserted that though enlightenment cannot be explained in ordinary terms, poetry, as a special language, can point the way. As the Chan monk Juefan Huihong (1071–1128) wrote, “The subtleties of the mind cannot be transmitted in words, but can be seen in words.” In Chan poetry, images as simple as the moon, clouds, boats, reflections in water, plum and lotus, bamboo and pine took on complex connotations based in Chan ideas, famous verbal exchanges, and Chan and Buddhist texts.〔Egan, Charles, and Charles Chu (2010).〕 To exemplify the use of specialized Buddhist metaphor, this well-known poem by Hanshan (Tang Dynasty) will suffice: 我心如秋月 寒潭清皎洁 无物堪比拟 教我如何言 My mind is like the autumn moon, As fresh and pure as a jade pond. But nothing really compares with it – Tell me, how can I explain? *Korean poets wrote mostly in Classical Chinese. *Japanese poets also contributed to Buddhist poetic tradition in classical Chinese (e.g. the poetic genius of Kūkai inspired many poets of later generations.)〔Gibson and Murakami (2008).〕 Kūkai, in turn was influenced by Jiao Ran's ''Shi shi'' 詩式, as the latter is included in Kūkai's magnum opus of poetics, the ''Bunkyō hifuron'' 文鏡秘府論.〔More on Kukai's poetry, cf. R.Green: http://ww2.coastal.edu/rgreen/kukaipoetry.htm〕 In medieval Japan, Buddhist poetry was accorded a special status of a separate genre within the corpus of the waka collections. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Buddhist poetry」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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