Ruijū Karin

The Ruijū Karin was compiled by Yamanoue no Okura.[1] It was likely compiled after Yōrō 5 (721) when Okura become a tutor to the crown prince (later Emperor Shōmu).[1]

The work's title has been translated into English as:

• The Grove of Poetry, Arranged by Topic
• Forest of Classified Verse
• Forest of Classified Verses
• The Grove of Poems Classified
• Classified Forest of Poetry
• Classified Forest of Verse

The work is now lost.[1]

It apparently survived until around the end of the Heian period.[1] The late-Heian books of poetic criticism Yakumo Mishō[2] and Fukuro-zōshi[3] record that copies of it were in the holdings of Byōdō-in[3] and/or Hōjō-ji[3]), and in addition to these works[4] it was also mentioned in a diary entry from 1015 (永承五年四月二十六日前麗景殿女御延子歌絵合, 正子内親王絵合),[4] Ōgishō (奥義抄),[4] Fujiwara no Shunzei's Korai Fūteishō,[4] Waka Genzaisho Mokuroku (和歌現在書目録),[4] Waka Iroha,[4] but none of these works quote it directly.[4]

Its contents are now known only from nine fragmentary passages[2] quoted in books I, II and IX the Man'yōshū,[3] as a source of information poets and the circumstances of composition of poems,[1] and its full contents are unknown.[1] The number of books which comprised the anthology is unknown,[1] although the Shōsōin supposedly included a Karin Nanakan (歌林七巻)[1] copied by Prince Ichihara[3] which, if it was the same as this work, would mean it consisted of seven books.[1]

The work divided poems into categories based on some sort of criteria[1] and, using resources such as the Nihon Shoki and Fudoki,[1] investigated the circumstances under which its poems were composed.[1] As far as the Man'yōshū tells us, it apparently included poems by emperors[1] and members of the imperial family,[1] as well as court poems such as those commemorating imperial processions to various parts of the country (行幸従駕 gyōkō-jūga).[1] This has led to the theory that it was compiled to be presented to the crown prince.[1]

It may have been modeled on the Chinese work Yiwen Leiju.[3]