Abstract

VILLAMOR HERRERO, Efraín. “The Soul of Flowers”: The Compassion of the Gotama Buddha in Kaneko Misuzu’s Poetry. Estud. Asia Áfr. [online]. 2021, vol.56, n.2, pp.325-345.  Epub June 11, 2021. ISSN 2448-654X.  https://doi.org/10.24201/eaa.v56i2.2668.

Kaneko Misuzu’s children’s poems are some of the most delightful in modern Japanese literature. In her poems the author portrays the world with an extraordinary sensitivity. Many previous studies in Japan have highlighted the influence on her work of the Jōdo-shinshū school, with which she was in constant contact from a young age. However, some of the ideas expressed in her poems involve feelings of compassion towards plants and even inanimate objects. This paper discusses the similarity of some of Misuzu’s poems with the teachings of the Goutama Buddha, mainly focusing on how she professes compassion towards plants and other objects regarded as lifeless in the Buddhist philosophical context.

Keywords : Kaneko Misuzu; Buddhism; Japanese Buddhism; karuṇā; Japanese literature.

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