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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Hijiri88 (talk | contribs) at 16:51, 5 March 2014 (You mean the readers who check an un-annotated manuscript of the Man'yoshu? How many readers of English Misplaced Pages have access to these manuscripts? Anyway, this article is not about the Japanese calendar, and most Japanese books give the CE date as well.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Template:Japanese name Yamanoue no Okura (山上憶良, also written as 山於億良, 660?–733?) was a Japanese poet, the best known for his poems of children and commoners. He was a member of Japanese missions to Tang China. He was also a contributor to the Man'yōshū and his writing had a strong Chinese influence. Unlike other Japanese poetry of the time, his work emphasizes a morality based on the teachings of Confucius. Most scholars believe that he was born in 660, on the basis of his Chinese prose "Chin'a Jiai-bun" recorded in the fifth volume of Man'yōshū as a work written in 733, in which he says, "In this year, I am 74."

He was traditionally said to be descendant of Emperor Kōshō, but literary scholars including Susumu Nakanishi have proposed that he was born in the Korean kingdom of Baekje.

Yamanoue no Okura accompanied a mission to Tang China in 701 and returned to Japan in 707. In the years following his return he served in various official capacities. He served as the Governor of Hōki (near present day Tottori), tutor to the crown prince, and Governor of Chikuzen. While there, he associated with Otomo no Tabito, who was serving in Dazaifu.

Notes

1. Nakanishi Susumu (1973), Yamanoue no Okura, Kawade Shobo Shinsha, pp.9-22
2. Also traditionally taken as an ancestor of Okura's senior poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (Itō, Haku 1983. "Yamanoue no Okura" in Encyclopedia Japonica).
3. Nakanishi, Susumu 1983. "Yamanoue no Okura" in Epoca (vol. 17). Ōbunsha.
4. Keene, Donald 1993. Seeds in the Heart page 160, note 9.
5. Keene, 132

Further reading

• Nakanishi Susumu (1973), Yamanoue no Okura, Kawade Shobo Shinsha

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