Textual Research of the Pillow Word “薦” in Manyoshu

Japanese scholars provided viewpoints such as sasa theory, chimaki sasa theory, nemagaridake theory, water bamboo theory and zizania latifolia theory about image research of the pillow word “薦” in the 96th and the 97th poem in volume 2 of Manyoshu. They have a common ground in concluding result from the pillow word itself. But that is also a shortage. Based on the pillow word theory of Japanese waka, this paper draw the conclusion of薦=nemagaridake through the textual research of the subject word, culture connotation of Shinano and nemagaridake, the theme of the 96th and the 97th peom in volume 2 of Manyoshu.