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“It
will doubtless become a standard reference, and remain so, for many years
to come.” “An
enlightening treatment of Cho€mei and the issues of his day.” This
is the first monograph-length study in English of Kamo no Chomei, one of
the most important literary figures of medieval Japan. Pandey situates
Chomei’s works within a debate that had become central in both China and
Japan: litterateurs considered the implications of writing, seen as a
fundamentally worldly pursuit, for the goals of detachment and
renunciation as central to the experience of Buddhist enlightenment.
Drawing upon a wide range of writings in a variety of genres from the
Heian and Kamakura periods, Pandey shows how the terms kyogen kigo (wild
words and fancy phrases), shoji soku nehan (samsara is nirvana), ho€ben
(expedient means), and suki (single-minded devotion to an art) were
deployed by writers in an attempt to reconcile literary and artistic
activities with a commitment to Buddhism. By locating Chomei within this
broad context, the book offers an original reading of his texts, while at
the same time casting light upon intellectual preoccupations that were
central to the times. Through
an examination of records left by Chomei’s contemporaries, the book also
traces the life of Chomei, particularly his activities as a court poet and
the circumstances that led to his taking the tonsure. Focusing on one key
term, suki, which finds a central place in Chomei’s poetic treatise, the
Mumyosho, and his collection of religious setsuwa, the Hosshinshu, Pandey
argues that Chomei’s reworking of this concept and his exploration of
its semantic possibilities are central to his project of reconciling the
contesting claims of writing and renunciation. The Hojoki too emerges as a
text that reworks this tension and places it at the very center of its
concerns. Published by Center
for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan |
