was a Japanese poet, historian, and Buddhist monk.

Biography

Jien was the son of Fujiwara no Tadamichi, a member of the

Fujiwara clan was a powerful family of imperial regents in Japan, descending from the Nakatomi clan and, as legend held, through them their ancestral god Ame-no-Koyane. The Fujiwara prospered since the ancient times and dominated the imperial court until ...

of powerful aristocrats. His brother was the future regent Fujiwara no Kanezane. Jien became a

Tendai , also known as the Tendai Lotus School (天台法華宗 ''Tendai hokke shū,'' sometimes just "''hokke shū''") is a Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition (with significant esoteric elements) officially established in Japan in 806 by the Japanese ...

monk early in his life, entering Shōren-in at age eleven. He first took the Buddhist name ''Dokaei'', and later changed it to ''Jien''. He eventually rose to the rank of , leader of the Tendai. Jien eventually began to study and write

Japanese history The first human inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago have been traced to prehistoric times around 30,000 BC. The Jōmon period, named after its cord-marked pottery, was followed by the Yayoi period in the first millennium BC when new inven ...

, his purpose being to "enlighten people who find it hard to understand the vicissitudes of life". His masterpiece, completed around 1220, was humbly entitled, ''

Gukanshō is a historical and literary work about the history of Japan. Seven volumes in length, it was composed by Buddhist priest Jien of the Tendai sect . Political problems arising from the relations between the Imperial government and the ''bakufu ...

'', which translates as ''Jottings of a Fool''. In it he tried to analyze the facts of Japanese history. The ''Gukanshō'' held a ''

mappo The Three Ages of Buddhism, also known as the Three Ages of the Dharma (), are three divisions of time following Shakyamuni Buddha's death and passing into Nirvana in East Asian Buddhism. Three Ages The Three Ages of Buddhism are three divi ...

'' and therefore pessimistic view of his age, the Feudal Period, and claimed that it was a period of religious decline and saw the disintegration of civilization. This is the viewpoint generally held today. Jien claimed that changes in the feudal structure were necessary and defended the ''

shōgun , officially , was the title of the military dictators of Japan during most of the period spanning from 1185 to 1868. Nominally appointed by the Emperor, shoguns were usually the de facto rulers of the country, though during part of the Kamakur ...

''s claim of power. As a poet, he was named one of the

Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry The are a group of Japanese poets of the Asuka, Nara, and Heian periods selected by Fujiwara no Kintō as exemplars of Japanese poetic ability. The oldest surviving collection of the 36 poets' works is '' Nishi Honganji Sanju-rokunin Kash ...

, and was the second-best represented poet in the '' Shin Kokin Wakashū''. He was included by

Fujiwara no Teika , better-known as Fujiwara no Teika"Sadaie" and "Teika" are both possible readings of ; "...there is the further problem, the rendition of the name in romanized form. Teika probably referred to himself as Sadaie, and his father probably called ...

in the ''

Ogura Hyakunin Isshu is a classical Japanese anthology of one hundred Japanese ''waka'' by one hundred poets. ''Hyakunin isshu'' can be translated to "one hundred people, one poem ach; it can also refer to the card game of '' uta-garuta'', which uses a deck compo ...

''.

References

Bibliography

* Brown, Delmer and Ichiro Ishida, eds. (1979). ien (1221) ''

; "The Future and the Past: a translation and study of the 'Gukanshō', an interpretive history of Japan written in 1219" translated from the Japanese and edited by Delmer M. Brown & Ichirō Ishida.'' Berkeley:

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by facult ...

. * Encyclopædia Britannica 2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, article "Jien" * Mostow, Joshua S., (1996) ''Pictures of the Heart: The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image'', pp. 421–422 * Robert, Jean-Noël (2008). ''La Centurie du Lotus: Poèmes de Jien (1155–1225) sur le Sûtra du Lotus''; Paris: Collège de France, Institut des hautes études japonaises. * Swanson, Eric Haruki. (2019). ''The Restoration of Peace Through the Pacification of Vengeful Spirits: Jien (1155-1225) and the Construction of Buddhist Orthodoxy.'' Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42029681 1155 births 1225 deaths Japanese poets Japanese Buddhist clergy People of Heian-period Japan People of Kamakura-period Japan 13th-century Buddhists Hyakunin Isshu poets Heian period Buddhist clergy Kamakura period Buddhist clergy Buddhist poets 13th-century Japanese historians {{Japan-writer-stub

Biography

See also

References

Bibliography