Kakinomoto no Hitomaro

Who They Were

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (柿本人麻呂) was a Japanese poet of the late Asuka period (538–710). He lived from roughly 662 to 710, and he is counted among the Thirty-six Poetry Immortals, the canonical list of great poets compiled centuries after his death. He was a member of the Wani clan, and his father was Kakinomoto no Ōba.

Hitomaro was the most prominent poet included in the Man'yōshū, the oldest surviving anthology of Japanese poetry. The details of his life are largely uncertain, and what is known comes mostly from hints scattered through his own poems in that collection. He was born to the Kakinomoto clan, based in Yamato Province, which corresponds to modern Nara Prefecture, and he likely died in Iwami Province, modern Shimane Prefecture, around the year 709.

Life and Career

Hitomaro served as a court poet to Empress Jitō, who reigned from 686 to 697. In that role, he composed many works praising the imperial family, and he is best remembered for his elegies written for various imperial princes. These poems mourned the deaths of members of the ruling house and were performed as part of court ritual.

He also wrote well-regarded travel poems, which describe journeys through the Japanese landscape with a vividness that later poets admired. His career spanned the transition from the reign of Emperor Tenmu to that of Empress Jitō and beyond, and his poetry reflects the formal, ceremonial world of the late seventh-century court.

The era name associated with his lifetime is Hakuhō (白鳳), which began in the second year of that era. He was a professional writer by occupation, working as a waka poet — waka being the classical Japanese verse form of thirty-one syllables. His collected works survive in a volume titled Kakinomoto no Ason Hitomaro Kashū.

Why They Matter

Hitomaro is significant because he stands at the head of the Japanese poetic tradition. The Man'yōshū, compiled in the eighth century, contains more of his poems than those of any other single poet, and his work set a standard for the elegy and the praise poem that later generations tried to match.

His reputation was cemented early. Ōtomo no Yakamochi, the presumed compiler of the Man'yōshū, praised him as one of the masters of the art. Ki no Tsurayuki, the principal compiler of the Kokin Wakashū, the first imperial anthology of Japanese poetry, went further and called him Uta no Hijiri, meaning "saint of poetry." From the Heian period onward, he was often referred to by the shortened name Hito-maru (人丸).

He has come to be revered as a god of poetry and scholarship. Along with Fujiwara no Teika, Sōgi, and Bashō, he is considered one of the four greatest poets in Japanese history.

The Name in Japanese

The name is 柿本人麻呂.

• Kana reading: かきのもと ひとまろ
• Romaji: Kakinomoto no Hitomaro

The name breaks down as follows:

• 柿 (kaki) — persimmon. This is the first character of the family name.
• 本 (moto) — origin, base, root. Together, 柿本 (Kakinomoto) means "base of the persimmon tree," a place-name that became the clan name.
• 人 (hito) — person, human being. This is the first character of the given name.
• 麻 (ma) — hemp, flax. In this name it is used for its phonetic value, contributing the sound ma.
• 呂 (ro) — spine, backbone. Like 麻, it is used here for its phonetic value, contributing the sound ro.

So the given name Hitomaro is written with the character for "person" plus two characters chosen for sound rather than meaning. The full name, Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, uses the particle no to link the clan name to the personal name, a standard pattern for aristocratic names of the period.

Legacy

Hitomaro's influence runs through the entire history of Japanese poetry. The Man'yōshū preserves his elegies and travel poems, and later anthologies and critical writings treat him as a founding figure. The title Uta no Hijiri, "saint of poetry," given by Ki no Tsurayuki in the tenth century, became a permanent part of his reputation.

In the centuries after his death, shrines were established in his honour, and he was worshipped as a deity of poetry and learning. Students of waka and later of all Japanese verse looked to him as a model. His poems were studied, imitated, and quoted by poets of the Heian, Kamakura, and Edo periods.

His inclusion among the Thirty-six Poetry Immortals, a list fixed in the Heian period, guaranteed his place in the standard canon. The fact that he is still grouped with Fujiwara no Teika, Sōgi, and Bashō — poets from very different eras — shows how enduring his reputation has been. For students of Japanese, his name appears in every survey of classical literature, and his poems remain among the earliest and most admired works in the language.