- Bussokusekika
, also known as Bussokuseki no Uta, are poems inscribed beside the stone Buddha Foot monument at Yakushi Temple in Nara.
Numbering twenty one poems in total, they are divided into two sections:
*Seventeen poems praising the virtue of Buddha.
*Four poems warn against the impermanence of life and preach the true Buddhist path.Part of the stone monument has worn away making the eleventh poem of the first section and the fourth poem of the second section partially unreadable.The Buddha Foot monument at Yakushi Temple was constructed in
753 and the poems are viewed as being composed around that time. The author is unknown.The poems are written in
Man'yōgana , a precursor tokana where Chinese characters are used for their phonetic value, and in Bussokuseki-style. Named after the poems, Bussokuseki-style is an archaic poetic device in which lines are written in a 5-7-5-7-7-7 mora pattern. It is seen during theNara period but greatly diminishes by theHeian period . It is an early form of waka.External links
*Manuscript [http://archive.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kosho/chi10/chi10_00055/chi10_00055.html scan] (1752) at
Waseda University Library References
* cite book
last = Tsuchihashi
first = Yutaka
coauthors = Jin'ichi Konishi
title = Nihon Koten Bungaku Taikei 3: Kodai Kayōshū
publisher = Iwanami Shoten
date = 1957
location =Tōkyō
id = ISBN 4-00-060003-6
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