Hiroki Kikuchi, "Letting the Copy out of the Window: a history of Copying Texts in Japan", The East Asian Library Journal 4, no. (2010): 120-157
Yüklə 25,89 Mb. Pdf görüntüsü
|
- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- To request permission to use some material for scholarly publication, and to apply for higher-quality images, please contact gestcirc@princeton.edu
- Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544 United States
| This title is provided ONLY for personal scholarly use. Any publication, reprint, or reproduction of this material is strictly forbidden, and the researcher assumes all responsibility for conforming with the laws of libel and copyright. Titles should be referred to with the following credit line: © The East Asian Library and the Gest Collection, Princeton University To request permission to use some material for scholarly publication, and to apply for higher-quality images, please contact gestcirc@princeton.edu , or The East Asian Library and the Gest Collection 33 Frist Campus Center, Room 317 Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544 United States A fee may be involved (usually according to the general rules listed on http://www.princeton.edu/~rbsc/research/rights.html ).
Hiroki Kikuchi, "Letting the Copy out of the Window: A History of Copying Texts in Japan", The East Asian Library Journal 14, no. 1 (2010): 120-157, accessed October 1, 2018, https://library.princeton.edu/eastasian/EALJ/kikuchi_hiroki.ealj.v14.n01.p120.pdf 1a. Manuscript text of a shōsoku-gyo copy of the Hokekyō (Lotus Sutra), vol. 1, commissioned by Emperor Fushimi (1265–1317) and copied in 1304 onto the back of letters written by his father Emperor Gofukakusa (1243–1304). Exemplar held in the Myoren-ji Temple. 1b. Manuscript letter written by Emperor Gofukakusa, on the back of which is a shōsoku-gyo copy of the Hokekyō (Lotus Sutra).
· 121 · Letting the Copy Out of the Window A History of Copying Texts in Japan hiroki kikuchi I n 1906 a young scholar named Asakawa Kan’ichi (1873–1948), who was the first professor of Japanese studies at Yale University, returned to Japan from the United States. During his one-and-a-half year stay in Japan, he collected many his- torical documents and books in cooperation with scholars in the Historiographical Institute (Shiryō Hensanjo) at the University of Tokyo. 1 Today, his aquisitions are shelved in the Sterling Memorial Library at Yale University and in the Library of Congress. One of the characteristics of what he collected is that it includes a number of hand-copied texts. Before the micro-camera for the production of microfilm and microfiche came to be commonly used in the 1950s, hand-copied texts were still indispensable for historiography in Japan, which has a long his- tory of copying texts. The country holds what is nearly the world’s oldest extant printed sutra, yet printing was not as prominent as handwriting in the medieval period. And though print culture had gradually developed throughout the early modern period, hand copies were still being produced even in the modern period.
The copying of texts by hand and the significance of this practice in Japan are phenomena that explain the existence of hand-copied texts in the Asakawa collection. Especially considering how Buddhist texts and diary records (kokiroku) were copied in the medieval period, one can see that the interest in hand-copied texts drifted in response to social change. 2 The Sanemikyō-ki (Diary of [Senior Noble] Sanemi) copying project in the Edo (1603–1867) period will be an in- formative case on this point. 3 In the modern period, hand-copied texts were still produced for academic research at places like the Historiographical Institute, and the institute’s historiography project and its connections with American scholar- 122 hiroki kikuchi ship provide clear examples of the continued importance of the hand copying of Japanese documents. Manuscripts in Buddhism In the eighth century Empress Shōtoku (718–770) had one million copies of dhāranī (Buddhist incantations) printed and put into small wooden pagodas. 4
to confirm the production date. However, print culture was not always dominant afterwards. Around the same time, in the eighth century, a great number of sutras were copied by hand in the sutra-copying institution (shakyōjo). 5 In 740 Empress Kōmyō (701–760), the mother of Empress Shōtoku, commissioned a copy of the entire Buddhist canon (issaikyō) by hand. 6 At that time, technological limitation may have been one of the reasons for making a hand copy, since it might have been more difficult to produce various kinds of woodblock prints than to simply write out a copy by hand.
However, another reason for copying sutras by hand was that the act was thought to accrue Buddhist virtue. For example, Empress Kōmyō started her copy- ing project in memory of her parents. In the medieval period the most famous case of sutras copied for the attainment of merit is Heike nōkyō (Sutra Dedicated by the Taira Clan) housed in the Itsukushima shrine in the Hiroshima prefecture. 7
clan (also known as Heike). Each chapter was copied onto a scroll by a member of the family, a copying style called ipponkyō kuyō. Though the virtue of copying sutras is originally preached in Mahayana sutras, the teachings do not necessarily emphasize hand copying. But in Japan the virtue of copying sutras by hand was sometimes thought to be superior to that of printing sutras. By participating in a sutra copying project, each person was able to develop his or her own merit. Furthermore, when a sutra copying project was done in memory of a deceased person, sutras were usually copied onto the back of written texts such as letters, manuscripts, and drafts originally written by the deceased person. 8 The most im- portant point in this case was to copy sutras onto the back of actual writings of the person memorialized since this was thought to establish a strong connection between a sutra and that person’s personality, or even his or her spirit. Thus, hand copies and handwriting had a religious significance in medieval Japan. (See figure 1.)
Moreover, Buddhist commentaries as well were usually copied by hand. Yüklə 25,89 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
|