Kuretake no munashi to tokeru koto no ha wa miyo no hotoke no haha to koso kike - Senzai Wakashu(English Translation & Meaning)

呉竹のむなしと説ける言の葉は
三世の仏の母とこそ聞け

Roma-ji: Kuretake no munashi to tokeru koto no ha wa miyo no hotoke no haha to koso kike
English Translation: Like black bamboo,
the leaves of words that teach
that all is empty
are the mother, so I hear,
of the buddhas of three worlds
Meaning: The words that teach that all is empty, hollow as the black bamboo, are, I hear, the mother of the buddhas of the three worlds.
Commentary: Book Nineteen Buddhist Poems 1228

Headnote: "Composed on the Prajñā Sutra among the poems on the Buddhist teaching, when the Regent and Former Minister of the Right had a hundred-poem sequence composed at his house"
When Kujō Kanezane had a hundred-poem sequence composed at his house, the poet wrote this on the Prajñā Sutra among the poems on the Buddhist teaching. The words that teach emptiness are, I hear, the mother of the buddhas of the three worlds, he says. The Prajñā Sutra teaches that all things are empty, and prajñā, its wisdom, is said to be the mother who gives birth to all buddhas. Setting the hollow black bamboo before "munashi," empty, and making the "ha," leaves, of "koto no ha," words, an associated word of the bamboo, he praises the teaching of prajñā through these devices.
The author, "Fujiwara no Takanobu Ason," was a son of Fujiwara no Tametsune, and his mother was Bifukumon'in no Kaga. Since his mother later married Fujiwara no Shunzei, he was the elder half-brother of Fujiwara no Teika. He was known as a master of nise-e likeness portraits.
Like 1223 in this book, it comes from the hundred-poem sequence at Kanezane's house, and the next poem, 1229, is from the same sequence. The word "munashi," empty, appears again at 1229, 1230 and 1233, so poems on the teaching of emptiness follow one after another.

First line, "kuretake no": "kuretake" is a kind of bamboo, hollow inside, and so it leads to "munashi," empty, in the second line.
Second line, "munashi to tokeru": "that teach that all is empty," the Prajñā Sutra's teaching of emptiness, with "ru" the attributive of the perfective "ri." It is the same phrase as "munashi to tokeru" in the fourth line of 1233 in this book.
Third line, "koto no ha wa": "the words of the sutra," with "ha," leaves, an associated word of the bamboo of the first line.
Fourth line, "miyo no hotoke no": "of all the buddhas of past, present and future."
Fifth line, "haha to koso kike": "haha," mother, means that the wisdom of prajñā gives birth to all buddhas, and "koso," an emphatic binding particle, closes with the perfective form "kike." The sound of "ha wa" in the third line echoes in "haha."
Author: Fujiwara no Takanobu
Source: Senzai Wakashu
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