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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 (Tenpyō 5), in which he says, "In this year, I am 74."

Based on a reference to the Yamanoue clan in the Shinsen Shōjiroku, he was said to be a descendant of Emperor Kōshō. A large number of literary scholars led by Susumu Nakanishi have proposed that he was born in the Korean kingdom of Baekje, but the views of these scholars were criticized by the historians Kazuo Aoki and Arikiyo Saeki in their respective works, Criticism of the view which regards Okura as an immigrant ((憶良帰化人説批判, Okura kikajinsetsu hihan) and The birth and character of the Yamanoue family (古代東アジア史論集, Kodai Higashi Ajiashi ronshū).

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. Nihon Koten Bungaku Daijiten article on "Yamanoue no Okura". Ken Akiyama (Japanese) (ed.) Nihon Koten Bungaku Daijiten (Vol. 6) 1985.
4. Nakanishi, Susumu 1983. "Yamanoue no Okura" in Epoca (vol. 17). Ōbunsha.
5. Keene, Donald 1993. Seeds in the Heart page 160, note 9.
6. Acta Asiatica: Bulletin of the Institute of Eastern Culture. Tōhō Gakkai. 1984. p. v.
7. Keene, 132

Further reading

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

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