The Bodhidharma Style and the Poetry Contest in Six Hundred Rounds

Teika’s early poetry was pejoratively termed “daruma-uta,” or “Bodhidharma poems,” by his rivals, a reference to the founder of Zen Buddhism. The term implied that the poetry was incomprehensible gibberish, like a Zen kōan. Through examples gleaned mainly from Roppyakuban utaawase (The Poetry Contest in Six Hundred Rounds), this chapter attempts to outline the parameters of the new style, and examines the difficulty of innovating in a strongly traditional literary genre. Of particular interest is taigen-dome (nominal termination), the practice of ending a poem with a noun, which is rare in Japanese grammar. Taigen-dome is used as an index for linguistic innovation, and an analysis of it suggests that Teika’s rivals were not as conservative as they seem.