Ōmi no Mifune
Ōmi no Mifune | |
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| Native name | 淡海三船 |
| Born | 722 |
| Died | July 17, 785 |
| Language | Classical Chinese |
| Period | Nara |
| Genre | kanshi |
| Relatives | Emperor Kōbun (paternal great-grandfather), Prince Kadono (葛野王, Kadono no Ōkimi, paternal grandfather), Prince Ikebe (池辺王, Ikebe no Ōkimi, father) |
Ōmi no Mifune (淡海三船, 722—785) was a Japanese scholar and writer of kanshi (poetry in Classical Chinese) and kanbun (prose in Classical Chinese), who lived in the Nara period of Japanese history.
Biography[edit]
Birth and ancestry[edit]
Mifune was born in 722.[1][2][3][4]
His father was Prince Ikebe (池辺王, Ikebe no Ōkimi), who was a son of Prince Kadono (葛野王, Kadono no Ōkimi), a son of Emperor Kōbun.[1][2] He was originally an imperial prince, known as Prince Mifune (御船王 or 三船王, Mifune no Ōkimi),[1] but in the first month of 751 was made a commoner and given the surname Ōmi and the title Mahito.[1][2]
Political career[edit]
He served as Head of the University (大学頭, daigaku no kami), Professor of Letters (文章博士, monjō hakase) and Steward of the Prosecution Bureau (刑部大輔, gyōbu no taifu).[4]
Death[edit]
Literary career[edit]
In 770 he composed the work Tō Daiwajō Tōseiden (唐大和上東征伝), an account of the Chinese monk Jianzhen's work in Japan.[2][3][4]
It has been theorized that he was the compiler of the oldest extant Japanese collection of kanshi, the Kaifūsō.>[2][3]
Some of his poetry was included in the kanshi anthology Keikokushū.[3]
Scholarship[edit]
Mifune is credited with determining the canonical Chinese style posthumous names of early emperors who did not have them before his time (they only had Japanese style posthumous names).[3] Between 762 and 764 he set the names of Emperor Jinmu, Emperor Suizei, Emperor Annei and so on.[2]
Based on his research into Buddhist scriptures, in 779 he declared the Shakuma Kaen Ron (釈摩訶衍論), a commentary on the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna attributed to Nāgārjuna (龍樹, Ryūju), to be a forgery.[2]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e Nihon Koten Bungaku Daijiten article "Ōmi no Mifune" (pp. 410-411, author: Noriyuki Kojima).
- ^ a b c d e f g h Britannica Kokusai Dai-Hyakkajiten article "Ōmi no Mifune". Britannica.
- ^ a b c d e f MyPaedia article "Ōmi no Mifune". Hitachi.
- ^ a b c d Daijisen entry "Ōmi no Mifune". Shogakukan.
External links[edit]
- Ōmi no Mifune on Kotobank.
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