Oshinabete munashiki sora to omoishi ni fuji sakinureba murasaki no kumo - Shin Kokin Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

をしなべて空しき空と思ひしに
藤咲きぬれば紫の雲

Roma-ji: Oshinabete munashiki sora to omoishi ni fuji sakinureba murasaki no kumo
English Translation: All of it, I thought,
was nothing but an empty sky—
so had I believed,
yet now the wisteria blooms,
and there, the purple clouds.
Meaning: I had thought it all an empty sky, but now that the wisteria blooms, there are the purple clouds.
Commentary: Book Twenty Buddhist Poems 1944

Headnote: "The Universal Gate chapter: 'Keeping him in mind is never in vain.'"
This is the fourth poem in the sequence of Jien's poems on the twenty-eight chapters of the Lotus Sutra, closing that sequence. The poet had thought everything an empty sky, but when the wisteria blooms, it seems a trail of purple clouds. According to the headnote, it was composed on the meaning of "Keeping him in mind is never in vain" from the Universal Gate chapter of the Lotus Sutra.
The conviction that keeping Kannon in mind never ends in vain, but in time appears as the purple clouds of the welcome, is entrusted to the scene of wisteria in bloom.
No author is named in the text; continuing from the preceding poem, this is a poem by Saki no Daisōjō Jien, a Tendai monk, son of Regent Fujiwara no Tadamichi and younger brother of Kujō Kanezane. He served four times as head abbot of the Tendai school and wrote the historical work Gukanshō.
The Universal Gate chapter is the chapter on the Bodhisattva Kannon, which teaches that those who hear Kannon's name, see his form, and keep him in mind will not pass their lives in vain and can extinguish every suffering.

The first line, "oshinabete," means "all alike." The next poem also begins with "oshinabete," so the two poems are joined by the same opening line.
The second line, "munashiki sora to," means the empty void, doubling "empty" and "sky." It turns the "not in vain" of the scripture inside out, leading to the reversal that follows. The phrase "munashiki sora" appears also in poem 1952 of this book.
The third line, "omoishi ni," is adversative, formed by the attributive of the past "ki" with the particle "ni": "though I had thought so."
The fourth line, "fuji sakinureba," means "since the wisteria has bloomed." The hanging clusters of pale purple wisteria are seen as trailing clouds.
The last line, "murasaki no kumo," is the purple cloud of the welcome, ending on a noun. Following the "purple clouds" of 1929 and 1937 in this book, it shows in a single phrase the sky once thought empty turning into clouds of salvation.
Author: Jien
Source: Shin Kokin Wakashu
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