Haiku poetry in its modern form is a three line poem consisting of 7 + 5 + 7 syllables.  It is identified as a form of literature indigenous to Japan. But like any culture and nation it is a product of many influences. So it is not a surprise to learn that Haiku poetry may have its origins in powerful Syriac Christian influences.

There were three major Syriac influences on Japanese poetry: the arrival of a Syriac tribe in  8th century,  transmission of Syriac literary techniques to a founder of Japanese Buddhism in the following century, and the invention and distribution of the kana phonetic script in the same period.

Hata Tribe

Haiku arose about the same time as the arrival of that Hata tribe who carried with them Syriac literature. They no doubt carried with them the poetry of Ephrem and Jacob of Serug embedded in their liturgy and hymns. Syriac poetry prior to the 8th century was defined by the pattern of syllables (hegyana). Ephrem was famous for his 7 syllable lines. Jacob of Serug for his 12 syllable lines constructed on 4 + 4 + 4 and sometimes a 7 + 5  word patterns.

The Hatas migrated from  Persian domination in Khotan and relocated in Japan through China and Korea in search of religious freedom. They first settled at Sakoshi near the present city of Himeji in Kyogo  1500 years ago and there erected the first Christian churches. Later they moved to Uzumasa. The name is a varient of Aramaic, "Ishoo M’shikha" meaning Jesus Christ. Finally they moved to Kyoto. Though they were persecuted by Buddhists in China and Korea, they were granted freedom  from the time of their arrival to the days of Empress Suiko. As a result they influenced Japanese culture and literature.

Kukai the Poet

In the same period K?kai (??), also known posthumously as K?b?-Daishi (????, K?b?-Daishi?), 774–835, a  founded the Shingon or "True Word" school of Buddhism. He is said to have invented kana, the syllabary in which  Japanese language is written. His religious writings, some fifty works, expound the esoteric Shingon doctrine.  According to tradition, K?kai wrote the iroha, one of the most famous poems in Japanese, which uses every phonetic kana syllable. It was written in lines of 7 characters each except for the last line, which contained 5.
 
Converting into the Roman alphabet, it goes like this:

I ro ha ni ho he to
Chi ri nu ru (w)o wa ka
Yo ta re so tsu ne na
Ra mu u (w)i no o ku
Ya ma ke fu ko e te
A sa ki yu me mi shi
(W)e hi mo se su

Structurally, the poem follows the standard 7-5 pattern of Japanese poetry (with one hypometric line).

An  English translation by Professor Ryuichi Abe reads as:

Although its scent still lingers on
the form of a flower has scattered away
For whom will the glory
of this world remain unchanged?
Arriving today at the yonder side
of the deep mountains of evanescent existence 
We shall never allow ourselves to drift away
intoxicated, in the world of shallow dreams.

Komatsu Hideo also revealed that the last syllable of each line of the Man'y?gana original, when put together, revealed another hidden sentence, toka [=toga] nakute shisu, which means "die without sin". Likewise, taking the first sound of the first and last lines together with the last syllable comes out the same in pronunciation as "Jesus" (Iesu in Japanese).

There is a great similarity been the poetry of Kukai and Ephrem. Although this is not direct proof, when you consider the constellation of other Syriac influences on Kukai, it is weights the evidence toward probable direct influence.

Ken Joseph has theorized that both kana script and the iroha poem were influenced by Syriac Christians. Both the script and the poem  were products of Kukai or his followers who were directly influenced by Syriac Chrisitian literature.

Kukai visited and lived in China in 804 and received from the hands of a Syriac priest translated copies of the life of Buddha. These texts became the foundation of Kukai's life work when he returned to Japan. Kukai was exposed to Syriac literature through Father Adam (Alopen) through the texts that were translated and interpreted for him. This is the same Father Adam who authored the famous Xian stone monument with Syriac and Chinese writing carved on it.  No doubt that Kukai listened to Syriac poetic hymns and poetry as a guest of the Syriac speaking community in Xian, China.

Back home in Japan Kukai lived in and near major Syriac Christian centers. Kyoto was a Christian city of the Hata tribe where Kukai would be within earshot of the sounds of Syriac hymns using the syllabic cadences that match well known forms of Japanese poetry.
 
Sakoshi Japan was probably where the Hata Syriacs first arrived. Ken Joseph, a Syriac Christian from  Assyrian origins visited his ancestral city of Sakoshi. He wrote that when he entered the Buddhist temple built on top of the Syriac church he saw a mask with a Semitic figure that looked like his father. The priest admitted that the image was Semitic and it was used with ceremonial music called “gagaku” and the priest further explained:

 "Actually, the gagaku music traditions all came from the Ancient Near East."

He  explained that the music uses 12 syllables which suggests a strong influence from Jacob of Serug. Because this music has poetic lyrics it is easy to understand how the syllabic patterns could have influenced a great poet as Kukai.

Kana Script

The development of the kana script was an effort to make Japanese literature available to the common person. It was a phonetic script that has Semitic and perhaps even Syriac origins much like Sogdian and Mongolian scripts. It was a practice of Syriac speaking Christians along the Silk road to adapt Syriac script to teach people to read the Bible in their own languages.  Uighar, Manchurian, and even Arabic traces its literary roots to the influence of the Aramaic dialect. Why would it be any different at the end of the Silk Road in Japan? Inventing new script for the purpose of evangelizing populations of illiterate people was the basic stratagem of Syriac missionaries.

Haiku became really popular in the 1600s when Matsuo Basho  (1644-1694) and Onitsura (1661-1738) wrote prolifically. Today, Basho is considered one of the greatest Japanese poets ever.

Haiku writers started developing rules for the art form in the 15th century. By the 16th century, the form was characterized by its unique brand of humor and use of haigon, colloquiallisms borrowed from the Chinese. These poems came to be called haikai renga and one of their chief proponents was a poet by the name of Matsunaga Teitoku (1571-1653).

Fred Aprim has published a Haiku poem in Syriac. It maybe that this literary form  generally associated with Japanese is returning to its Syriac origin.
 
“Remembering”
Forget! Forget! Forget!
I close my eyes,
but cannot.



Note: For a long and highly personal discussion of historic Syriac influences on Japan read http://www.onmarkproductions.com/LostIdentity.pdf by Ken Joseph.