Buddhist motifs in the haiku-poems of Issa Kobayashi (1763-1827)

The general view of many researchers in the West is that Zen is the principal Buddhist expression in Japan, which had a decisive influence on Japanese culture. Meanwhile the most popular form of Buddhism in Japan is Amida Buddhism, which had greater influence on Japanese culture then Zen. The goal of this short article to introduce the Amida-buddhism as a general form of Japanese Buddhism and emphasize it’s influence on the Japanese medieval literature, especially on the outstanding haiku poet Kobayashi Issa, who was the strong believer of Amida-buddhism. His haiku-poems are full of animal images and humor and his poems and text Ora ga haru are the representative pieces of his insight to Amida-buddhism. The Buddhist motifs determine the best features of Issa’s poetry such as humanism, love and compassion to all beings, humor and the ability to find beauty in the trivial things.