Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

First, I wished to examine how the poems of the Manyoshu came into being and further investigate the origins of Japanese poetry—that is, to present the literary history of Japanese verse leading to the Manyoshu and trace the textual history of the anthology itself.

All literature, when it reached a civilized age, was created through artistic urges, but in antiquity such impulses did not exist.
Therefore, we must first consider how poetry formed during that primordial era.

Japanese poetry did not originate for literary purposes.
People may readily assume that verse emerged as a tool for attracting mates, but this constitutes a profound misconception—fundamentally distinct from birds singing loudly during mating seasons.
Admittedly, there exists an element of truth in this view, but adopting it wholesale as causation represents an overly simplistic perspective.
Only once literature had reached a certain stage of development could it be co-opted for such purposes.
From this analytical position, I intend to explore different dimensions.

In foreign countries as well, they had followed the same path of development; however, in Japan these traces were even more pronounced, with their vestiges remaining clearly preserved in ancient texts. Even in an anthology like the Manyoshu—compiled during a relatively advanced era of civilization—these traces remained distinctly visible.

I would begin by expounding upon literature’s genesis while seeking all evidence within the Manyoshu to examine Japanese poetry’s nature. By doing so, one could simultaneously grasp poetry’s developmental sequence.

The Manyoshu’s volumes were not arranged chronologically; however, books seventeen through twenty dated from a significantly later period. Among these, I regarded volume twenty’s poems as the most recent. First I intended to trace—through the Manyoshu—the history of how Japanese songs had emerged up to that juncture. Through this approach, the anthology’s proper chronological sequence could be established.

That writing took prose form was a recent development.
In the beginning, it had been verse or ritual texts.
In Japan, it was more accurate to call them ritual texts.
In the ancient era of Japanese literature, ritual texts had been the sole form of literature, and prose was born later.
Prose emerged around the time when the Nara period reached its zenith, but it did not fully develop; pure prose only truly developed during the Heian period.
The literary history of the Heian period became one of prose, while that from the Nara period and earlier remained a history of ritual texts.
Therefore, a literary history of ritual texts—that is, an explanation of the sequence in which the Manyoshu's poems were created—naturally constituted a complete literary history of ancient Japan up to the Nara period.

Since it constitutes literature, it must possess permanence.
Literature does not vanish immediately.
The problem, however, was that in ancient times, there was no writing.
At the very least, at the dawn of Japanese literature, there was no writing.
Literature from the era without writing was transmitted through oral texts, much like ordinary speech.
In other words, texts akin to what we now call children's songs or folk ballads—even if termed oral texts—lack permanence unless they remain lodged in people's memories.
Texts possessing permanence must be verse or ritual texts.
To consider that prose literature possessed permanence in an era without writing is erroneous.

Next, even among ritual texts, there were those that had to endure and those unworthy of survival. In other words, only elements that became central annual events—repeatedly observed across villages and provinces—could achieve permanence. Even today persist customs, traditions, and beliefs bearing traces of ancient religious power. There exist superstitions and folk beliefs unrelated to contemporary life. There remain convictions we cannot discard even while deeming them superstitions. Countless practices survive—transmitted as beliefs from immeasurably ancient generations—retaining only hollow forms now misaligned with modern faith, their original meanings lost.

When considering life in ancient villages—in an era unaware of larger nations—the most vital focal point of village life was divine festivals.
Matters other than festivals could largely be allowed to disappear in various circumstances.
As for matters other than divine festivals—those pertaining to faith in the gods—all of these were transmitted through ritual texts.
They believed that enduring faith was what kept the villages safe.
The elements pertaining to faith in this deity endured through later ages, and it was here that literature also found its starting point.

Namely, when enshrining the gods, the words conveying faith concerning the deities—a form of ritual text or utterance—endured for ages.
Among these, some had become meaningless due to changes in social and religious conditions; nevertheless, only the oral texts concerning the gods possessed the power to endure long into the future.
Prior to this period, no conceivable starting point exists for the emergence of literature.

II

How did the words concerning faith in the gods and divine festivals emerge in our land?
The first words our ancestors deemed necessary to transmit were those spoken by the gods themselves—that is to say, divine messages.
The gods would appear and speak the words they wished to convey—those very words constituted divine messages.
We must consider for what purpose these divine words were delivered.

The gods would appear in villages at appointed times and go on to speak certain words.
These words likely matched what the villagers demanded and were repeated every year.
The gods would pronounce prescribed phrases: that the villagers might live peacefully and their crops grow abundantly.
Though no examples of these divine messages survive intact, I believe they involved more than mere practical pronouncements—the deities would manifest, declare their origins, then withdraw.
They would make pacts with lesser gods—land spirits—dwelling near whichever houses or villages threatened the people before departing.
This constituted their declaration: “I am a god who speaks thus.”
These words meant: “Therefore you must heed my commands.”
After concluding these agreements, the god would leave the village.

This was repeated every year.
These words were of utmost importance to the villagers.
The villagers handed this down as something precious.
Their traces still remain today.
On the night of Setsubun, exorcism rituals were performed; in the Tohoku region, strange beings appeared on the fifteenth night of the New Year to punish the lazy; at year’s end and year’s beginning, demons walked—all these were remnants of the gods’ visits in antiquity. Yet today, this meaning has been forgotten.
These were likely fossils of daily life—vestiges of faith predating the emergence of the modern state, now preserved as formalized relics gradually petrified over time.

Thus, all who came in this manner were gods.
They gradually ceased to be recognized as such, turning into demons or beggars, and their customs gradually became established.
In other words, the gods who visited the villages once a year from distant places came bringing a great number of people.
The words chanted by these gods were of vital importance to the villages.
These ritual texts also evolved in proportion to the increasing complexity of village life.
When building houses, brewing sake, or calming fires, gods who precisely met the villagers' demands would come.
Just as today's exorcists are people, in truth, humans also came in disguise in antiquity.
During that period, they came with the belief that they were gods.

In Yaeyama, various gods came during early spring planting and similar occasions.
In some villages there were demons; in others, figures wearing straw raincoats and hats; in still others, during Obon, ancestors arrived with companions to bestow blessings.
The ritual formulas recited by these visiting gods were transmitted by people disguised as gods.

The young people of the villages were the center of communal life.
The village's center meant serving in Shinto rituals.
To serve these gods required completing a coming-of-age ceremony and obtaining qualification.
Those youths who had undergone the coming-of-age rites became the village's core.
Before and after divine festivals, they underwent ritual purification to become deities themselves.
The chants recited by the gods were transmitted exclusively to these village youths as matters of supreme importance.
These texts all constituted divine autobiographies.

However, the utterances accompanying these [rituals] were words of gods fixated on cornering their adversaries—words that suppressed lowly spirits threatening villagers’ livelihoods without an ounce of sympathy. These words held no power through mere declarations of “I am a mighty god.” Victory was assured only when they proclaimed: “What weaknesses does my foe harbor? I know them all.” “When were you forged?” “What deeds did you commit when?” Such divine autobiographies grew increasingly elaborate, it is believed, until they came to recount even their adversaries’ origins.

First-person ritual texts came to include second-person ritual texts.
Moreover, this history of divine autobiographies was transmitted through ritual texts.
Thus, the oral texts that emerged in Japan are what in ancient terms were called ritual congratulatory words.
Ritual congratulatory words constitute the original form of what we now know as ritual prayers.
Though ritual prayers now exist in altered form, they were originally words meant to admonish land spirits.
Tracing back further still, they constituted the autobiography of the gods themselves.
Among older ritual prayers exist passages resembling divine autobiographies, along with instances where gods exhibit knowledge of their adversaries' weaknesses.
These are the ritual congratulatory words.

This fragmented form exists within the Manyoshu.
There, older forms than those found in the Engishiki ritual prayers remain preserved.
In other words, within ritual congratulatory words there existed accounts narrating the gods' autobiographies and their adversaries' origins; these expanded in their original form and became epic poetry—narratives even older than those from the Heian period, which in modern terms we would call epics.
In this way, those who transmitted historical narratives—at least as facts that had existed—split off from ritual congratulatory words.
However, unlike ritual prayers, they did not develop into formal, grand compositions but instead became shorter forms.
That is, there are instances where only the crucial parts remained while other sections were discarded—as if cast away.
This is what we call incantatory phrases.

In other words, short parts came to be omitted from long texts.
These vestiges remained, to some extent, preserved within the Manyoshu.

III

However, as Japan’s state organization gradually advanced, the villages were, for the most part, brought into alignment with the Japanese state.
Villages that came under state control survived, but those that resisted the state perished.
In other words, the social hierarchy collapsed.
Therefore, the practitioners who had been reciting and transmitting such texts lost this occupation.
At the same time, as villages came to be unified under a single state, the free movement between villages gave rise to wandering people.
That is, so-called ‘beggar’ practitioners appeared.

Religious practitioners who wandered through various provinces emerged, carrying with them the songs and stories that had been passed down in their own villages.
They would sing and chant ritual epics as they wandered.
Thus, those who transmitted these epic narratives orally came to be called kataribe.

The village kataribe and provincial kataribe were those who transmitted the histories of households that served as heads of their respective villages or provinces.
Among them were kataribe belonging to the imperial court—the highest authority of the Japanese state—and others stationed in households of former village heads.
Some among them became wanderers who traveled about reciting incantatory phrases and narratives when their villages and households were destroyed.
At court, they transmitted what was regarded as state history through melodic recitations during important ceremonies of state or court.
Herein we will confine our discussion solely to matters pertaining to the court.

Among long epic poems, the parts most likely to endure in society were those that captured people’s interest.
Within long epic poems, the most intensely interesting parts came to be separated out and sung.
In other words, within long epic poems, people came to sing only the heroic tale portions and select parts of call-and-response songs.
These are called *Ōuta*.

When *Ōuta* became independent as such, this increasingly enhanced their value as vocal music.
The factual accounts in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki may have been transcribed from the narratives of kataribe that had been passed down since ancient times, but there also appear to be legends independently accompanying *Ōuta* that had been incorporated into these texts.
As court music gradually came to be recognized as a distinct profession, individuals who sang *Ōuta* emerged.
That is, *Ōuta* singers.
A custom developed of singing *Ōuta*—ceremonial songs derived from epic poetry—during court rituals and other such occasions.
For example, when Yamato Takeru no Mikoto passed away, the fact emerged that songs composed by his empress and princes came to be sung on certain occasions.

However, as society grew more complex and people's emotions became more nuanced, demands arose for songs surpassing contemporary ones, leading to the creation of Ōuta and ushering in an era when court poetry began to be performed.
When examining Japan's ancient texts, this clearly emerges from around the time of the Asuka capital—that is, during the reigns of Emperor Jomei and Empress Kōgyoku.
It is thought that this momentum reaching maturity led to the emergence of a figure such as Kakinomoto no Hitomaro.
In other words, authors themselves would embody those emotions while imagining the sentiments of the court or nobility to create proxy compositions.

In Japan, proxy compositions were already in practice before one could speak of creating songs from personal desire.
In other words, in ancient times, there had been no need to express one's own emotions through song.
Lower-ranking subordinates would sing on behalf of groups or the emotions of a particular noble.
Rather than songs of emotional expression, they sufficed as forms transmitted since antiquity, adhering strictly to established conventions.
During this period, influential forces exerted their influence on one hand, while on the other arose the motivation to compose songs oneself.
Thus emerged the momentum that would give rise to lyric poetry.
Therefore, among the works found in the Manyoshu, it stands to reason that songs predating the Nara period consist predominantly of proxy compositions.
When examining the Manyoshu, this tendency manifests itself with striking force.
That became the driving force that propelled Hitomaro—the genius poet who produced true lyric poetry from the era of proxy compositions—into sudden prominence.
Hitomaro's lyric poems, when viewed today, contain many works that—though not explicitly labeled as proxy compositions—bear distinct traces of such works.

Pure lyric poetry emerged when one's emotions were honed through entering the Nara period.
That is to say, these refined elements flowed from one direction to be adopted by the aristocracy; through Chinese poetry, *fu*, and prose, Japanese literary sensibilities became purified, giving rise to new lyric poetry.
At the zenith of the Nara period, Ōtomo no Tabito and Yamanoue no Okura stood out as particularly influential figures.
In this era, there existed numerous lyric poems created by Tabito, Okura, and other members of the educated class.
It was during the reigns of Emperor Shōmu and Empress Kōken that something resembling true literature emerged in Japan.

However, even among ancient songs born from such practical activities as proxy composition or speaking in another’s voice, there exist splendid works whose value can never be denied.
Literature necessitates thoroughly internalizing that good works can emerge through one’s own ability, irrespective of motive or attitude.

IV

However，banquet songs too originated from ritual congratulatory words．Banquet songs were originally songs performed during banquets—that is，when welcoming and entertaining deities．Either deities sang ritual congratulatory words，or—while reciting such words—they performed on-the-spot improvisations（that is，deviations from the ritual words），which could be observed within the Manyoshu．They sang songs to the gods．The gods，in turn，sang banquet songs in response．In many cases，this began with constructing a new building and singing banquet songs．That is，when they built a new chamber，they would perform the new chamber hokai．Apart from this new chamber hokai，when traveling，they would build houses at each lodging place and perform what was likewise referred to as new chamber hokai．Even if it was a temporary place，they would perform the new chamber banquet．Those banquet songs，as time advanced，came to be sung by court poets when performed in the court．Here，the sprouts of landscape poetry emerged．

Landscape poetry did not develop that early.
One might carelessly consider the two poems said to have been composed by Princess Isukeyori Hime, consort of Emperor Jimmu, after the emperor’s passing as landscape poetry—but these are not true landscape poetry. (Research must focus on the poems themselves; one must not study them through prefaces or introductory notes.) Therefore, landscape poetry too did not arise from clearly defined intent.
The songs of the new chamber hokai gradually wove into their verses the building materials and surrounding elements of those structures.
Moreover, they were not attempting to sing this from the very beginning.
That is, they were consolidating amorphous elements.
People of old had only a general mood, with no clear plan from the start about what to sing.
Makurakotoba (pillow words) and jokotoba (prefatory verses) are generally fixed upon objects immediately before one’s eyes.

Luxuriantly, under the fence, the children of Kume planted ginger.
Their lips quivered.

I shall never forget.
I shall strike and cease not (Emperor Jimmu—Kojiki).

That is, through prefatory verses, they organized their own emotions.
To assume that prefatory verses were been created through prior planning was a mistake.
Through random prefatory verses, they gradually consolidated their own thoughts.
That was equivalent to divine messages.
When examining the poems in Volume 1 of the Manyoshu, many remained unclear as to whether they constituted landscape poetry or something else.
The banquet songs performed during travels became what constituted landscape poetry.
They sought to sing forth external elements from internal ones.
The one thought to have perfected this was Yamabe no Akahito.
This became Akahito’s achievement.
Among Akahito’s predecessors stood Takaichi no Muraji no Kurohito.
These genius poets emerged, caused a leap forward, and swiftly brought forth landscape poetry.
There had indeed been people with achievements before them, but these two stood out most prominently.
Therefore, in Japanese poetry, there existed no true landscape poetry.
A lyrical mood was added.
After the Heian period, the tendency to express thoughts through this landscape poetry continued.
The landscape poetry we now speak of appeared relatively early and stood one step ahead of the new lyric poetry.

Within the current of epic poetry existed a divergent stream.
This was an expression recited when someone died.
This was called "funerary recitations."
This constituted an offshoot of ritual congratulatory words and a transformed form of epic poetry.
In ancient times, when nobles died, their retainers would remain at their tombs for about a year.
The songs these retainers sang branched off from funerary recitations and developed into elegies.
Elegies too, within court settings, came to be composed by court poets through proxy composition.
If we consider Hitomaro’s own poems as examples, many defy interpretation.

In other words, it was from such tendencies that metaphors arose in Japanese poetry.
It was from such practices of composing completely haphazardly by seizing upon whatever objects were at hand that forms like “lips quiver” came into being.
Among these existed forms that were slightly clearer and others where metaphor and theme intertwined, taking on shapes resembling advanced symbolic poetry and expressing a symbolic mood.
Japanese metaphorical songs largely developed from this tendency.

Although there were still many points requiring explanation, I decided to shift our discussion to other aspects.

Even within forms of divine messages where the same deity spoke, when it spoke alone—this proving insufficient—the form became a dialogue between deities and spirits. When the deity casually addressed another entity, responsive words emerged in return. At present, I believed this development had occurred later than ritual congratulatory words. Conventional scholarship maintained that simple forms emerged first and complex ones developed subsequently. However, this constituted an erroneous approach when analyzing cultural transformations. First came complex forms as primary manifestations. Nature progresses from complexity to simplicity before returning again to complexity—this being its fundamental order.

As one branch of divine messages emerged ritual self-proclamation. That is, they made the other party's spirit speak. An age had persisted where plants and trees did not speak, but through the power of a god from afar, they came to do so. The survival of phrases such as 'plants that do not speak' and 'rocky roots that did not speak' stems from this very origin. Because the other party did not speak, if they forced them to do so, they prevailed. It took an extremely simple form, and the response was merely a single word. In an event that persisted among farm households until recent years, on Setsubun night, they would threaten the fruit-bearing tree, saying, "Will you bear fruit or not? If you don't bear fruit, we'll cut you down!" Then a person hiding in the shadows would answer, "I will! I will!" When they compelled things to speak, the god who made them speak prevailed. Here, within Japanese poetic tradition, the dialogic form emerged.

V

The dialogue between deities and spirits transformed into exchanges between deity-impersonators and people.
This then evolved into interactions between those embodying deities and the village maidens who received them.
These interrogative exchanges were anciently termed katauta.
That two katauta combined to form a single poem demonstrates their inherent dialogic structure.

When Yamato Takeru no Mikoto of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki crossed the eastern provinces and arrived in Kai,

Niihari and Tsukuba he passed through, and several times he slept.

Hioi no Okina harmonized here and sang:

Bowing low, nine nights in the night.
In the day, ten days. (Kojiki, Middle Volume)

5 7 7

5 7 7

This was an antiphonal song.

Originally, katauta could not stand alone, but later there emerged poems composed solely of katauta.
The practice arose of having one person recite both parts.
This became what we call sedoka.
Sedoka strictly adhere to a 5-7-7 syllabic structure.
In essence, sedoka transformed the call-and-response dialogue format between two people into a form performed by a single reciter.

Moreover, there existed what were called poetic competitions.
The development of katauta dialogue exchanges arose because men disguised as deities and maidens serving them—women who engaged with deities as virgins solely during such occasions—performed rituals at sacred sites.
That is, they split into two groups and began their exchange.
The dialogue between deities and humans lost its divine significance as people performed spring festivals to impregnate the five grains.
This was because they believed that marrying both deities and village maidens would make crops in the fields bear abundant fruit.

The divine dialogues became exchanges between deities and maidens alongside interactions between village men and women.
That is, participants divided into male and female groups on both sides and conducted dialogue exchanges using katauta.
Since these were dialogues between men and women, they naturally evolved into sexually charged exchanges.
Those who surpassed their opponents' songs were praised; when women bested men, those women were celebrated.
Thus, these poetic competitions' dialogue exchanges came to focus primarily on talent and wit.
This process gradually transformed until finally giving rise to tanka as a distinct form.

The tanka form became established during the era of the Fujiwara capital—that is, around Hitomaro’s time.
That tanka came to be clearly brought to people’s awareness was Hitomaro’s achievement.

Another cause for the emergence of tanka lay in ōuta.
This was not an era when court poets who composed songs and rural improvisational poets existed as separate entities.
They all emerged from a single source.
The conclusion of choka became detached.
That is, it was an era when the 5-7-5-7-7 form became independent, and songs developed in this sphere were highly celebrated as a performative art.
By this era, truly, people who composed choka and sedoka disappeared.
The tanka systematized these various forms.
On the other hand, from tanka emerged the form of folk songs.
The Azuma-uta of the Manyoshu are representative examples, though these too adopted the form of folk songs.

In the Nara period, as the tanka form became predominant, it became essential to append them to newly composed ōuta.
This was the "Envoy."
The songs of poetic competitions were erotic in nature, but as society progressed, they became refined and gradually transformed into love poetry.
However, when it came to tanka, it formed the boundary between erotic poetry and love poetry.

The earliest Japanese love poetry was not purely such.
Old songs were, in fact, erotic poetry.
Within the context of poetic competitions, they were rooted in an exaggerated erotic desire aimed at surpassing one’s opponent.
This was the impromptu poetry for festival occasions created on the path from erotic poetry to love poetry.

However, as these poetic competition poems were being composed, exceptional individuals gradually emerged.
A person with improvisational poetic talent developed self-awareness as a poet, gained recognition in society, and their songs endured in the world.
Viewed from their outcomes, while some songs created by the ancients may appear to have been crafted as artistic works, they remained fundamentally applied in nature.
Through this process of refinement within them, true love poetry came into being.

Pure lyric poetry had yet another current.
That was the significant poetry narrated by itinerant reciters.
Just as lengthy portions were extracted at court, among common folk too they extracted sections from long poems, with only the engaging parts being sung by these reciters.
Thus did nostalgic and noble romantic sentiments come to be expressed through song among rustic, unsophisticated people.
This phenomenon had existed since before the Fujiwara capital.
The itinerant reciters let fall oil-like droplets upon the stone-like hearts of these rural folk.
The proof manifests clearly within the Manyoshu.
In Volume Thirteen, among folk songs thought to date from the Fujiwara capital era, there exist at least two pieces identical in form to the court's ōuta.

Profoundly moving love stories were transmitted by itinerant reciters, and their influence was left behind as extraordinary beauty in the hearts of unsophisticated villagers. Drawn by this sentiment, the songs of poetic competitions gradually took on a beautiful luster. To give an example, there was the Azumi clan, who had settled from the south to the north. They led the people of the Ama-be. There exist songs of the Azumi clan—undoubtedly left behind along their migratory path—that have also been incorporated into the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki. The term “Ama-katarai uta” appears here—that is, the storytelling songs of the Ama-be people and the Azumi clan.

VI

Itinerant reciters carried religion as they journeyed while also bearing songs.
Through this, they softened provincial hearts and unified historical perspectives.
The power of wandering mendicants granted formidable strength to state formation.
This force worked upon ancient people's hearts.
Yet greater still was how they kindled amorous sentiments among the populace.
Though not true lyric poetry, these works grew rich in lyrical essence and spread across regions.
They exerted profound influence upon folk songs shaped at poetic competitions.
That *mono no aware* springs from love remains an apt articulation of antiquity's sensibilities.

The love poetry created by the Japanese departs from these folk songs, yet it is not true love poetry. In other words, it was something directed at many people; there are none composed for a single lover. They were songs directed at many people, exaggerated songs, skillfully crafted songs. There exist peculiar sections within the Manyoshu whose reasons for transmission seem unclear. These were songs sung to a multitude of people.

Thus, songs that were dramatic and exaggerated constituted love poetry. These are frequently manifested in the "Azuma-uta" (Eastern Songs) of the Manyoshu. This gradually transformed and gave birth to true love poetry. Japanese love poetry became pure lyric poetry at the beginning of the Nara period. Hitomaro's love poetry also contains exaggeration. It became dramatic and appears in the Manyoshu. Even in songs from the latter part of the Manyoshu, this fact can be observed.

Moreover, it appears that itinerant reciters not only composed chōka but also created tanka.
There exist numerous tanka by Nakatomi no Takemori and Sano no Chikami no Iratsume.
These songs in the Manyoshu mostly date from near its final compilation period; however, one might speculate they were not newly composed by itinerant reciters.
In other words, lyric poetry emerged during the Nara period's zenith, but the age of pure lyric poetry began upon entering the Heian period.
The Nara period's lyric poetry traced its lineage through Ariwara no Narihira to become pure lyric poetry.
However, having originated as products of improvised wit or male-female dialogue songs, their influence endured through later generations.

On one hand, these dialogue exchanges gave birth to altered forms within Japanese literature.
Many people would gather and exchange songs from both sides.
When this came to be practiced among the nobility, it became *uta-awase*.
This lineage saw poetic competitions enter the imperial court and become *tōka*.
That is, men and women exchanged songs.
This became the prototype of *uta-awase*.
I believe that what is considered the first instance of *uta-awase* was said to have occurred during Emperor Tenji’s era in Volume 1, when Nakatomi no Kamatari acted as judge in a spring-autumn contest.
At the time of this judgment, it appears that Nukata no Ōkimi alone composed and responded; however, in my view, all gathered people composed poems, but Nukata no Ōkimi’s song was thought to have stood out.

Uta-awase exerted significant influence when viewed through the lens of literary genesis.
What underwent metamorphosis from this form was renga.
Rather than being influenced by uta-awase, it was the dialogic form—the structure where two people exchanged both parts of a poem, or in other words, the literary adaptation of utagaki's call-and-response—that constituted renga.
From literary history's perspective, it flourished around 160-170 years into the late Heian period, but I believe it existed in an earlier era.

This renga came to be continued not only with upper and lower phrases but with fifty or a hundred phrases following them.
This lost classical interest, and haikai arose.
From the Muromachi period, hokku began to emerge as an independent form, but it was not until the Tokugawa period—that is, until Bashō—that it came to be regarded as an independent artistic style.

When considered in this way, a remarkably long history had originated from a single source and set out on its course.
In the history discussed thus far—excluding haikai—all could be interpreted through the Manyoshu.
It was with this intention that I had been considering giving a literary lecture on the Manyoshu.