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Buddhist poetry is agenre ofliterature that forms a part ofBuddhistdiscourse.

The first examples of Buddhist poetry can be found in traditional scriptures such as theDhammapada, according to which,Siddhārtha Gautama (the founder of Buddhism), upon his reaching enlightenment, proclaimed:

Traditionally, mostBuddhist sutras have a prose component supplemented by verses (known asgatha) that reiterate and poetically summarize the themes of preceding prose passages. Gatha functions as amnemonic device helping the Buddhist practitioner commit to memory a certain doctrinal maxim. And in fact, the earliest extant forms of Buddhist discourse appear in verse, which is hardly surprising, considering that the texts were not originally written, but memorized. Linguistic analysis shows that the prose component of the sutras is likely to have been modified by later editing, while the poems often contain earlier forms of language. This view is confirmed by Japanese Buddhist scholar Hajime Nakamura, who states that the verse components of the Pali Canon actually predate the prose components, the former being a way of facilitating memorization, as the Pali Canon was transmitted orally for the first 300 or so years.

CurrentBuddhology generally maintains that even theliturgical scriptures are products of literary composition. Hence, the study of Buddhist text in general and Buddhist poetry in particular cannot be disengaged from the literary field. But for the sake of classification it is useful to distinguish between

1. Buddhist poetry that is attributed to the Buddha himself, which forms a part of "Buddha Speech" (Sk.Buddhavacana), and
2. Buddhist poetry written by Buddhists, which is not included in the sutras.

Theearly Buddhist sources mention a Buddhist monk called Vaṅgīsa, who was considered by the Buddha as the foremost of his disciples with respect to spontaneity of speech because he could recite poetry by composing it on the spot. He is considered to have been the author of the final and longest section of theTheragatha, theMahanipata or "Great Section."^[3]

TheTherīgāthā, often translated asVerses of the Elder Nuns (Pāli:therī elder (feminine) +gāthā verses), is aBuddhist text, a collection of short poems of early women who wereelder nuns (having experienced 10Vassa or monsoon periods). It is the earliest known collection of women's literature composed in India.^[4] The poems date from a three hundred year period, with some dated as early as the late 6th century BCE.^[5] In thePāli Canon, theTherigatha is classified as part of theKhuddaka Nikaya, the collection of short books in theSutta Pitaka. It consists of 73 poems organized into 16 chapters. It is the companion text to theTheragatha.

TheTherigatha is a very significant document in the study ofearly Buddhism as well as the earliest-known collection of women's literature. TheTherigatha contains a passages reaffirming the view that women are the equal of men in terms of spiritual attainment as well as verses that address issues of particular interest to women in ancientSouth Asian society. Included in theTherigatha are the verses of a mother whose child has died (Thig VI.1 and VI.2), a formersex worker who became a nun (Thig V.2), a wealthy heiress who abandoned her life of pleasure (Thig VI.5) and even verses by the Buddha's own aunt and stepmother,Mahapajapati Gotami (Thig VI.6).

An additional collection of scriptures concerning the role and abilities of women in the early Sangha is found in the fifth division of theSamyutta Nikaya, known as theBhikkhunī-Saṃyutta "Nun's discourse".

A number of the nuns whose verses are found in theTherigatha also have verses in the book of theKhuddaka Nikaya known as theApadāna, often called theBiographical Stories in English. The majority of these have been translated into the English language.

A significant number of Buddhist poets composed their works inSanskrit.

One of the first and best known isAśvaghoṣa, of whom two complete "Great Poems" (mahākāvya) survive, i.e. the "Acts of the Buddha" (Buddhacarita.^[6]) and "Handsome Nanda" (Saundarananda^[7]). The first tells the life-story ofŚākyamuni Buddha, while the second tells the story of Nanda, the Buddha's handsome cousin, who was guided towards liberation by turning his greatest weakness – desire – into a motivating factor for practice. Fragments of a drama calledŚāriputraprakaraṇa (^[8]) are also extant, and these may be some of the oldest, perhaps even the oldest example of Sanskrit drama. Aśvaghoṣa's verses are often simple yet very suggestive, casting key Buddhist teachings, such as impermanence, in evocatively paced similes:

Other verses of Aśvaghoṣa capture in vivid images human indecision, uncertainty and sorrow. The following verse describes Nanda at the door of his house, torn between the wish to remain with his beloved wife and the sense of respect that prompts him to leave and meet the Buddha to make amends for neglecting the Buddha's alms-round in front of his house:

Sanskrit poetry is subdivided into three types: verse works (padya) prose works (gadya) and mixed works (campū); nowhere in the Indic tradition is versification taken as the distinguishing feature of literary diction, as all sorts of works, whether philosophical, medical, etc., were composed in verse, for ease of memorization. Several Buddhist authors specialized in mixed verse-prose compositions, often re-telling traditional stories about the Buddha's previous births (jātaka). Among the authors writing on the basis of the Jātakas, most prominent is perhaps Āryaśūra;^{[12][13][14][15][16]} other beautiful collections of literary Jātakas are those of Haribhaṭṭa^[17] and Gopadatta. Haribhaṭṭa's collection includes a concise version of the life story of Śākyamuni Buddha; he describesMāra's dejection after understanding the Buddha's victory and superiority in the following verse:

This is reminiscent of a famous verse fromKālidāsa'sKumārasaṁbhava,^[18] and the (probably intended) contrast between the two verses is itself suggestive.

Kālidāsa celebrates the budding presence of the God of Love in Pārvatī’s mind, as she is thrilled to hear a discussion about her future husband; Haribhaṭṭa describes the Love God’s defeat at the time of the Buddha’s Awakening. Pārvatī is holding lotus-petals; Māra is holding a wooden stick.

Another important type of mixed verse/prose works is Sanskrit drama (nāṭaka), and here king Harṣadeva deserves special mention. The patron of the great Chinese monk Xuanzang composed theNāgānanda,^[21] an outstanding drama based on the traditional story of Jīmūtavāhana, prince of the Vidyādharas. While perfectly at ease within the conventions of court poetry, including the depiction of love and attraction, Harṣadeva's Nāgānanda is suffused with Buddhist reflections on compassion and on the futility of hatred, and on impermanence and the inevitability of death. The following words are spoken by a brave Nāga boy to his mother, who is suffering from extreme sorrow as her child will soon be sacrificed to the voracious bird Garuḍa:

Another genre where Buddhist poets excelled is the "good-sayings" (subhāṣita), collections of proverb-like verses often dealing with universally applicable principles not so specific to the Buddhist tradition. One such collection of verses is attributed to the Buddha himself, and preserved in different versions as theUdānavarga (Sanskrit),^[22]Dhammapada (Pāli),Dharmapada (Prākr̥t and Gāndhārī). This collection often uses similes (upamā) to exemplify key Buddhist teachings:

Other significant collections are Ravigupta's Āryakośa, Vararuci's Gāthāśataka, Ratnamati's Prakaraṇa,^[23] and several others. One of the largest anthologies of good sayings extant in Sanskrit is by a Buddhist abbot, i.e. Vidyākara's Subhāṣitaratnakośa.^[24] The Subhāṣita genre became also well-established in Tibet, one of the greatest examples being Sakya Paṇḍita, an early and influential master of the Sakyapa school, known to have been fluent in Sanskrit from an early age.

ĀryaŚāntideva's "Entrance into the practice of the Bodhisattvas" (Bodhicaryāvatāra)^[25] partly resembles a collection of good sayings, yet in many ways defies classification. It is written in a number of rather different literary registers, resembling court poetry in places, while being very dramatic in others; some verses are indeed "good-sayings", in both content and style, while an entire chapter is written in the confident and terse tone of aMadhyamaka philosophical text, with the usual alternation of objections and rebuttals. The work is a compendium ofMahāyāna practice, covering the six perfections (pāramitā) which may be said to function as its main structural guideline. The "Compendium of Perfections" by Āryaśūra is another such guide, containing numerous excellent verses and organized even more systematically in terms of the six perfections.

Other guides to Buddhist practices were written in the form of versified letters; among these, the "Letter to a Friend" (Suhr̥llekhā) and the "Garland of Gems" (Ratnāvalī^[26]) ofNāgārjuna deserve special mention, not just for their content and style, but also for being very influential in India and Tibet; another remarkable epistle extant in Sanskrit is Candragomin's "Letter to a disciple" (śiṣyalekhā^[27]), also outlining the Buddhist path for a disciple. These letters exemplify the friendly and respectful relationship between Buddhist masters and their patrons, who received advice on a number of different topics, both worldly and supramundane.

Buddhist poets wrote very many praises ofthe Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha, and ofBodhisattvas and meditational deities.^[28]The One Hundred and Fifty Verses of Mātr̥ceṭa seem to have been particularly popular; Nandipriya's extensive commentary on this work still survives in the Tibetan Tangyur (Śatapañcaśatkanāmastotraṭīkā, Brgya lṅa bcu pa źes bya ba’i bstod pa’i ’grel pa, Tg bstod tshogs ka 116a5-178a1.). Mātr̥ceṭa's verses use accessible language, with strong echoes from different types of Buddhist literature, and transmit a sense of great devotion all the more highlighted by the poet's restrained and measured diction:

Buddhist praises often have didactic purposes; some of them (like Nāgārjuna'sCatuḥstava) expound philosophical ideas of specific schools, while praises of Bodhisattvas and meditational deities often facilitate readers/listeners in acquiring familiarity with important features that become the focus of recollection and or formal meditative contemplation.

Buddhist authors also wrote on prosody (chandas), offering their own poetic examples for different types of Sanskrit meter. Two notable works on Sanskrit poetry are theChandoratnākara ofRatnākaraśānti^[30] and theVr̥ttamālāstuti ofJñānaśrīmitra,^[31] by two great contemporaryVikramaśīla masters who were active on several intellectual fronts and well-known exponents ofYogācāra thought. TheVr̥ttamālāstuti is particularly striking: it consists in verses of praise of the Bodhisattva of Wisdom,Mañjuśrī, which at the same time offer information about the verse that is being exemplified, such as its name and the position of the caesura (yati). A simple example, for the śaraṇa meter:

Pāli poetry follows very similar patters as Sanskrit poetry, in terms of prosody, vocabulary, genres, and poetic conventions; indeed several Pāli authors were well conversant with Sanskrit and even composed works in that language (such as, for example, theAnuruddhaśataka). Sanskrit meters and poetic conventions were more broadly very influential throughout South-East Asia even in respect to vernacular languages (Thai, Burmese, etc.), also thanks to the popularity of literary aesthetic ideas from the tradition ofAlaṁkāraśāstra ("The science of ornaments") regarding the purposes and nature of literature.

While discussing praises, literary praises of meditational deities have been briefly mentioned; this brings us into the fold of Buddhist Tantric poetry, which is esoteric in character and thus often laden with evocative symbols meant to be understood only thanks to one's relationship with a living master. Notable are the "Songs of Practice" (Caryāgīti^[33]), written inApabhraṁśa rather than Sanskrit, and including among their authors the "Great Accomplished Ones" (mahāsiddha), such asSaraha, Śāntipā, and many others.

Buddhist poetry – like the bulk of the scriptures produced by Buddhists – is not limited to compositions inPali andSanskrit; it has flourished in practically every language that Buddhists speak.

• Notable examples in the Tibetan tradition are works ofMilarepa.^[34]
• Chinese Buddhist Tradition is particularly rich in poetic expression. In the poetry ofBai Juyi,^[35] for instance, we see a tension between the secular and Buddhist poetic expression: many Buddhists considered poetry as an attachment and advocated against it, despite the fact that the scriptures revered by them were abundant in poetic forms. Bai is credited with the coinage of the expressionkyōgen kigo (狂言綺語, lit. "deranged words and embellished language"), which, to his view, referred to futility of poetic expression in comparison to Buddhist practice. Perhaps, the most successful Chinese Buddhist poet to resolve this paradox was Jiao Ran 皎然 (730–799), who proposed treatment of poetry as an intellectual instrument of Buddhist practice.^[36]Chan Buddhism (Ch. Chan; Jap. Zen) provided a rich ground for Buddhist poetry. Chan Buddhists created a complex language in which indirection, suggestion, ambiguity, paradox, and metaphor are prized over straightforward explanation. This complex language of Chan literature is also applied in Chan poetry. Chan Buddhists asserted that though enlightenment cannot be explained in ordinary terms, poetry, as a special language, can point the way. As the Chan monkJuefan Huihong (1071–1128) wrote, “The subtleties of the mind cannot be transmitted in words, but can be seen in words.” In Chan poetry, images as simple as the moon, clouds, boats, reflections in water, plum and lotus, bamboo and pine took on complex connotations based in Chan ideas, famous verbal exchanges, and Chan and Buddhist texts.^[37]

To exemplify the use of specialized Buddhist metaphor, this well-known poem byHanshan (Tang Dynasty) will suffice:

• Korean poets wrote mostly inClassical Chinese.^[38]
• Japanese poets also contributed to Buddhist poetic tradition in classical Chinese (e.g. the poetic genius ofKūkai inspired many poets of later generations.)^[39] Kūkai, in turn was influenced by Jiao Ran'sShi shi 詩式, as the latter is included in Kūkai's magnum opus of poetics, theBunkyō hifuron 文鏡秘府論.^[40]

In medievalJapan, Buddhist poetry was accorded a special status of a separate genre within the corpus of thewaka collections.

1. The earliest extant collection of the Japanese poetry, theMan'yōshū, contains a preface (Jp.jo 序 ordaishi 題詞) to two poems on the love of parents towards their children:"Sakyamuni expounds truthfully from his golden mouth, 'I love all things equally, the way I love my child, Rahula.' He also teaches that 'no love is greater than the love for ones child.' Even the greatest of saints cherishes his child. Who, then, among the living creatures of this world could fail to love children claimed as one's own?"^[41] There are several prefaces and poems in theMan'yōshū that mention the name of Buddha Śākyamuni (Jp. Shaka Nyorai 釋迦如来 /an honorific title ofSiddhārtha Gautama), Buddhist temples (Jp.tera 寺), monks and nuns.^[42]

2. Among the treasures ofYakushi-ji Temple in Nara there are stone blocks dating from theNara period modeled as "the footsteps" of the Buddha (Jp.Bussokuseki 佛足石). These blocks contain poems inman'yōgana that may be considered the oldest Buddhistwaka (Japanese language poems) known to date.　These poems are usually referred to asbussokusekika (lit. "poems on stone imprints of Buddha's feet": 仏足石歌). Consider the following example:

Both examples above have one trait in common. Namely, the focus on thephysical characteristics of the Buddha is prominent: "the golden mouth" of the Buddha in theMan'yoshu and the "feet of the Buddha" in the stone inscriptions relate to the marks of perfection of the Buddha's body / speech (Skt.mahāpuruṣa, lit. [signs of] "a great person").^[44]

In theHeian period, Buddhist poetry began to be anthologized in theImperial Anthologies (Jp.chokusenshū 勅選集. Among the 21 Imperial Anthologies, 19 contain Buddhisttanka (lit. shortwaka) starting with theShūi Wakashū, compiled between 1005 and 1007 C.E.

The first Imperial Anthology to treat Buddhist tanka as a separate genre, i.e.shakkyōka (lit. "Poems of Śākyamuni's Teaching": 釈教歌), is theSenzai Wakashū, which has an exclusive section dedicated to the Buddhist Poems in Volume 19 (第十九巻).Among the most famous poets who wrote shakkyōka are:Saigyō;Jakuren;Kamo no Chōmei;Fujiwara no Shunzei;Jien;Nōin;Dōgen,Ton'a, etc. Many of the so-called "Thirty-six Poetry Immortals" wrote Buddhist poetry.

Shakkyōka can be subdivided according to the ten following motifs:

1. Buddhas and bodhisattvas;
2. Eminent monks / nuns;
3. A passage from a sutra;
4. A passage from commentatorial corpus of the Buddhist canon;
5. Buddhist Experience (meditative / devotional states);
6. Mental states, such as delusion, passion, anger, etc. that are important in the Buddhist discourse;
7. Religious deeds;
8. Related to temples and shrines;
9. Buddhist views of Nature;
10. Natural phenomena alluding to Buddhist themes (e.g. transience of flowers blooming)^[45]

These motifs are not mutually exclusive and are very often combined within a given poem.

One of the most famous collections of Japanese tanka of theKamakura period, theHyakunin Isshu contains several shakkyōka, for instance Poem 95, byJien (also anthologized in theSenzai Wakashū: 巻十七, 雑中, No. 1137):

In later periods, as tanka was slowly being overshadowed byrenga andhaiku – the two poetic forms that derived from tanka – such famous poets as "the seven worthies of renga", (Jp.renga shichiken 連歌七賢) of theMuromachi period,^[47]Sōgi, and still later,Matsuo Bashō,Kobayashi Issa, among many others, carried on the tradition of Buddhist poetry with their compositions.

The nostalgic feeling of the ancient capital,Nara – interspersed with the scent of chrysanthemums (symbol ofJapanese monarchy) and the old Buddha statues – captures well the aesthetic ideals ofsabi andyūgen in this famous haiku. Although these three lines appear to be a mere utterance of almost prosaic quality, the imagery invoked is far from simplistic. Buddhas, emperors, passage of time, the ethereal beauty of flowers that presents itself obliquely, i.e., appealing to scent rather than sight – all suggest that the poet sought to use language as a medium of condensed imagery to map an immediate experience, whose richness can only be read in the blanks.

Here the poet uses the image of evanescence of our world, the dewdrop – one of the classicalallegories of the Buddhist teaching – to express grief caused by the death of his daughter. In theory, Buddhism teaches its followers to regard all the vicissitudes of life as transitory and ephemeral, akin to magic apparitions without substance or dewdrops soon to evaporate under the sun. Yet, a father's loss of his child is more than reason can counter.^[49]

As Japan reached the era of industrializedmodernity, many of the poets of theMeiji period started to experiment with the European styles of poetic composition. Some poets, notablyMiyazawa Kenji—a devout Buddhist who expressed his convictions in his poetry and fiction—often composed poems with Buddhist overtones. HisAme ni mo Makezu (雨ニモマケズ), known to practically every Japanese today,^[50] takes its theme (Chapter 14:Peaceful and Joyous Deeds / Jp.Anrakugyō 安楽行) from theLotus Sutra 妙法蓮華經, which Kenji revered.^[51]

Another Buddhist poem that remains well known today, but for non-religious reasons, is theIroha poem from the Heian period. Originally written inman'yōgana and attributed toKūkai, this Buddhist poem contains everykana precisely once, and is learned in Japanese primary schools mainly for this reason. Many old-style Japanese dictionaries adhere to theIroha order.

A modern Indian Sanskrit poet, Vanikavi Dr. Manomohan Acharya, wrote Sri Gautama Buddha Panchakam in simple and lucid Sanskrit through lyrical style.^[52]

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Japanese Buddhist Poetry – Shakkyoka

• Buddhist Poetry Reader's Guide from Shambhala Publications
• A Sketch of Buddha's Life: contains many of the early Pali poems.
• TheDhammapada, e.g Buddha's Enlightenment poem: 153–154.
• TheSenzaishu in Japanese, cf. Vol 19, 釈教.
• Selected translations and an Introduction to Waka.
• Search Engine of theMan'yoshu in Japanese.
• A fan website on Miyazawa Kenji with translations of works.
• A Buddhist poetry fan site.
• Sacred Poetry from Around the World.
• jeromes niece A collection of poetry Dharma submitted by readers.
• Buddhist Poetry Review

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