Man’yōshū
Also known as: Manyoshu, Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves, Man'yoshu, Man'yō-shū
The Man’yōshū is the earliest extant anthology of Japanese poetry, gathering more than four thousand waka from the 7th–8th centuries across twenty books. It preserves courtly, frontier, and popular voices, shaping the classical canon and Japan’s poetic language.
Description
Compiled in the Nara period, the Man’yōshū preserves a vast range of waka—chiefly tanka and chōka—by emperors, nobles, soldiers, and commoners. It records love, travel, elegy, and hymn-like praise to places and deities, often employing man’yōgana, an early phonetic use of Chinese characters. The anthology’s arrangement by book blends chronological and thematic groupings, including frontier guards’ songs, eastern folk lays, and court celebrations. Attributed in final form to Ōtomo no Yakamochi, it canonized poets such as Kakinomoto no Hitomaro and Yamabe no Akahito and became foundational for later poetics and philology.
Historiography
The textual tradition survives through Heian and medieval manuscript lines, with orthography reflecting early man’yōgana usage. Early modern kokugaku scholars, notably Keichū and Kamo no Mabuchi, produced influential commentaries that clarified archaic diction and metrics. Editorial attributions place the final compilation with Ōtomo no Yakamochi, though earlier layers derive from court and provincial collections. Reception shaped later imperial anthologies and modern national philology.
Date Notes
Poems span reigns from late Asuka through early Nara; final redaction traditionally placed in 759 under Ōtomo no Yakamochi.
Major Characters
- Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
- Ōtomo no Yakamochi
- Yamanoue no Okura
- Emperor Tenji
- Empress Jitō
Myths
- Imperial Songs and Sacred Kingship
- Mythic Allusions to Yamato Origins
- Laments and Courtly Elegies
Facts
- Earliest surviving anthology of Japanese poetry.
- Final compilation traditionally dated to 759 CE.
- Organized into twenty books spanning late Asuka to early Nara periods.
- Preserves over 4,500 poems, chiefly tanka and chōka.
- Written in man’yōgana, an early phonetic use of Chinese characters.
- Includes corpora such as Sakimori songs and Azuma-uta.
- Canonizes major poets like Hitomaro, Okura, Akahito, Tabito, and Yakamochi.
- Blends courtly, provincial, and popular voices, including women poets.
- Influenced later imperial anthologies such as the Kokinshū and Shin Kokinshū.
- Key objects of early modern kokugaku scholarship and commentary.