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The is the oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry, compiled sometime after 759 AD during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in a series of compilers, is today widely believed to be Ōtomo no Yakamochi, although numerous other theories have been proposed. The collection contains poems ranging from AD 347 (poems #85–89)〔Satake (2004: 527)〕 through 759 (#4516),〔Satake (2004: 555)〕 the bulk of them representing the period after 600. The precise significance of the title is not known with certainty. The collection is divided into twenty parts or books; this number was followed in most later collections. The collection contains 265 ''chōka'' (long poems), 4,207 ''tanka'' (short poems), one ''tan-renga'' (short connecting poem), one ''bussokusekika'' (poems on the Buddha's footprints at Yakushi-ji in Nara), four ''kanshi'' (Chinese poems), and 22 Chinese prose passages. Unlike later collections, such as the ''Kokin Wakashū'', there is no preface. The ''Man'yōshū'' is widely regarded as being a particularly unique Japanese work. This does not mean that the poems and passages of the collection differed starkly from the scholarly standard (in Yakamochi's time) of Chinese literature and poetics. Certainly many entries of the ''Man'yōshū'' have a continental tone, earlier poems having Confucian or Taoist themes and later poems reflecting on Buddhist teachings. Yet, the ''Man'yōshū'' is singular, even in comparison with later works, in choosing primarily Ancient Japanese themes, extolling ''Shintō'' virtues of and virility ''(masuraoburi)''. In addition, the language of many entries of the ''Man'yōshū'' exerts a powerful sentimental appeal to readers:
==Name== Although the name ''Man'yōshū'' literally means "Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves" or "Collection of Myriad Leaves", it has been interpreted variously by scholars.〔Uemura, Etsuko 1981 (24th edition, 2010). ''Man'yōshū-nyūmon'' p.17. Tokyo: Kōdansha Gakujutsu Bunko.〕 Sengaku, Kamo no Mabuchi and Kada no Azumamaro considered the character 葉 ''yō'' to represent ''koto no ha'' (words), and so give the meaning of the title as "collection of countless words". Keichū and Kamochi Masazumi (鹿持雅澄) took the middle character to refer to an "era", thus giving "a collection to last ten thousand ages". The ''kanbun'' scholar Okada Masayuki (岡田正之) considered 葉 ''yō'' to be a metaphor comparing the massive collection of poems to the leaves on a tree. Another theory is that the name refers to the large number of pages used in the collection. Of these, "collection to last ten thousand ages" is considered to be the interpretation with the most weight.〔Uemura 1981:17.〕 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「Man'yōshū」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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