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Paper short abstract

This paper foregrounds the significance of Parhae poetry in Japan by examining the surviving Sinitic poems of Yang T’aesa, Parhae envoy to Nara in 758-59, at the intersection of their original historical context and their early Heian recontextualizations.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines the surviving poems in literary Sinitic attributed to Yang T’aesa (?-?), vice-ambassador of the Parhae kingdom (698–926) during the fourth embassy to Nara in 758-59. Eighth-century historiographical sources record that Yang participated in a poetic exchange at a farewell banquet hosted by the powerful statesman Fujiwara no Nakamaro (706-764), though these compositions are no longer extant. What survives are two poems preserved in the early ninth-century imperially sponsored anthology Keikokushū (Collection for Binding the Realm, 827), likely composed in different circumstances and subsequently recontextualized within an emerging early Heian imperial poetic canon. Yang T’aesa’s embassy coincided with a pivotal post-An Lushan juncture in East Asia, when Parhae played an increasingly significant role in mediating people, texts, and knowledge between the Nara court and the continent. From the late eighth century onward, such transregional connections contributed decisively to the political and cultural consolidation of the new imperial line and to the formation of a distinct early Heian literary elite. Rather than treating Yang T’aesa’s poems solely as records of diplomatic encounter, this paper situates them at the intersection of their original historical context in late Nara and their later poetic recontextualization within the early Heian imperial archive. Through the case of Yang T’aesa’s poetry, this paper traces the earliest recorded stage of Parhae’s poetic channel in Japan and foregrounds its entrenchment with the transformation of poetic literacy, training, and performance from the Nara to the early Heian period.