A newly acquired eighth-century Buddhist artifact joins extraordinary Japanese rarities at Regenstein Library
New acquisition: Eighth-century Buddhist pagoda and mantra
By Ayako Yoshimura, Japanese Studies Librarian, The University of Chicago Library
An exquisite piece of tangible cultural heritage from Japan has recently been added to the holdings of the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center (SCRC). Commonly known as Hyakumantō darani 百万塔陀羅尼 [One million pagodas and mantras], the artifact consists of a small strip of paper—imprinted with a Buddhist mantra—rolled and stored inside a miniature wooden pagoda. This item dates from the eighth-century reign of the Japanese Empress Shōtoku 称徳 (718–770), who commissioned the manufacture of one million such objects for Buddhist ritualistic purposes—though the project seems to have ended before its completion. While the pagoda itself is perhaps the more visually striking, the strip of paper is of particularly high value and interest, as it is one of the oldest examples of printed material in the world.
This acquisition was inspired by the recent residency of Professor Peter F. Kornicki, Emeritus Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Cambridge, who was invited to the University in 2024 through the Paleography and the Book Visiting Scholar Program sponsored by the Division of the Humanities. During the spring quarter Professor Kornicki taught a course entitled “Books in Japan from the Earliest Times to the 1890s,” and offered several workshops at SCRC.
Amid his teaching and research Professor Kornicki examined many rare Japanese materials from the Edo (1600–1868) and Meiji (1868–1912) periods held in the Library’s Japanese studies collection. His work also led to the rediscovery of an eighth-century glass-mounted slip bearing a mantra from the Buddhist sutra Muku jōkō-kyō 無垢淨光經 that had long been in the Library’s collection (see Entry 42 in Far East: An Exhibition of Resources in the University of Chicago Library, the Joseph Regenstein Library, March-June, 1973). This is none other than a paper strip that once resided in a wooden pagoda, as a part of another of the Hyakumantō darani. Professor Kornicki discusses this artifact alongside other highlights of his findings in a brief article farther below.
As Japanese studies librarian, I decided to acquire a complete Hyakumantō darani after learning more about its historical significance from Professor Kornicki. I located on the antiquarian market a set accompanied by a donor certificate issued in 1908 by the Japanese Buddhist temple Hōryūji 法隆寺, which—finding itself in dire financial straits—had decided to present the pagoda to a private citizen in exchange for a sizable monetary donation. This set illuminates several facets of the historical context in which the Hyakumantō darani has lived, showing both its original eighth-century form and its eventual passing from its sacred home into the hands of a layperson in the early twentieth century.
I wanted the acquisition of this Hyakumantō darani to pay tribute to my predecessor Mr. Eizaburo Okuizumi (longtime Japanese studies librarian), and also to commemorate the enlightening experience of working with Professor Kornicki. Below I describe a few treasured moments from those interactions with Kornicki-sensei and with my colleague Catherine Uecker (Director of the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center and Regenstein liaison for the Paleography and the Book Visiting Scholar Program).
Rikka yōshū 立花要集 (1686) is one of the earliest known books on kadō 華道, the Japanese practice of flower arrangement. To my amazement, Catherine—thanks to the impressive accessioning records of the John Crerar Library and to her own impressive knowledge of those records—was able to trace the item’s provenance: the book itself contained a slip marked “Crerar rare book 16804,” which corresponded to Entry 94551 in the Crerar Library’s accessions log, volume 118 (1903). In consulting this oversized leather-bound handwritten ledger, Catherine, Peter, and I discovered that the book had been acquired as part of a lot purchased from Gustavus Goward (1845–1908), an American diplomat stationed variously in Japan, Korea, and the Pacific Islands whose collections of Far Eastern artifacts eventually found their way to various American institutions. We all got excited, as none of us had previously known about this functionary and his connection to the Crerar collection. Subsequently I confirmed that a Meiji-period volume also dealing with flower-arrangement, Shoryū ikebana hayashinan 諸流生花早指南 (1881), had arrived as part of the same lot. Overall, I was surprised to learn of the Crerar Library’s early acquisitions of Japanese materials beyond those associated with Berthold Laufer’s rather better-known expeditions of the twentieth century’s first decades. Our scholarly community is fortunate that these materials—and the records of their procurement—remain available today.
Another treasured recollection surrounds Sanron yoku 産論翼, a nineteenth-century reprint of an eighteenth-century obstetrics textbook. As Professor Kornicki reviewed the book, he found inside the front cover a dedicatory letter handwritten in German (dated 1882) from one Dr. Shimizu Ikutarō 清水郁太郎 (1857–1885) to the august Dr. August Eduard Martin, noted second-generation German obstetrician. When Peter looked up Dr. Shimizu on his laptop, we discovered that after interning in Vienna and Berlin he had become one of the first generation of modern (that is, Western-trained) obstetricians in Meiji Japan, though he had perished from tuberculosis at the age of 28. “Wakai! [So young!],” I exclaimed. Later I was pleased to find that Dr. Martin had mentioned Dr. Shimizu as an able apprentice in his memoir (August Eduard Martin, Werden und Wirken eines deutschen Frauenarztes: Lebenserinnerungen [Berlin: S. Karger, 1924], p. 115).
It was an edifying experience to absorb details about the history of publications in Japan from a world-class scholar while examining pre-1900 materials together with him. In my capacity as Japanese cataloguer I was able to create and update the bibliographic records of many items thanks to the impetus and assistance afforded by Professor Kornicki’s expertise. It is always a delight to share moments of discovery with researchers and colleagues, and learning in the process about those who have come before us is touching to the folklorist in me.
The following remarks were written by Professor Peter F. Kornicki during his residency:
Japanese treasures in Regenstein Library
By Peter F. Kornicki, Emeritus Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Cambridge
Before arriving in Chicago in the middle of March to take up the Hannah Holborn Gray Visiting Professorship in Paleography and the History of the Book, I was really looking forward to exploring the Japanese treasures in the Joseph Regenstein Library. I was not, however, expecting to find some extraordinary rarities, two of which are unknown even in Japan. Let me tell you about five of them, which I have been looking at recently with the Japanese studies librarian at the Regenstein, Dr. Ayako Yoshimura.
The oldest printed item in the Regenstein, Muku jōkō-kyō: jishin'in darani 無垢淨光經: 自心印陀羅尼, was printed in the years 764–770. No, that is not a typo. In those years, at least a hundred thousand Buddhist invocations were printed in Nara, central Japan: there is one in the Regenstein, one in the Art Institute and one in the Newberry Library. They are each about one foot long and three inches high and contain about twenty short lines of text in Chinese characters. But they are not in Chinese: the Chinese characters are used for their sound value alone to represent the sounds of Sanskrit, a language that nobody knew in eighth-century Japan. What is more, once these invocations had been printed, they were rolled up and placed inside miniature wooden pagodas, and there they were left. In other words, this is a very unfamiliar kind of printing. The object was not to produce texts to read; it was instead a ritual act and its origins lie in Indian Buddhist practices which were then transmitted to China, Korea and ultimately Japan. It was not until the tenth or eleventh centuries that books were printed in East Asia for people to read. It was the ritual reduplication of texts that came first.
The oldest dated Japanese book in the collection is Shinkan jūshi keiraku hakki新刊十四經絡發揮, a Japanese edition of Shisijing fahui 十四經絡發揮 [The fourteen bodily tracts explained], a study of the theory and practice of acupuncture focusing on the so-called fourteen bodily tracts. It was written in 1341 by Hua Shou 滑壽 (1304–1386), a distinguished physician, and was first printed in 1364. It was a popular work in Japan, where it was first printed in 1596. The copy in the Regenstein was printed in 1631 and it is based on a Ming edition printed in China. The publisher was a Kyoto physician called Baiju 梅壽, who took up printing in order to make medical knowledge more widely available.
The Taiheiki 太平記 [Chronicle of Great Peace] is a Japanese chronicle that, ironically, deals with a period of continuous warfare in fourteenth-century Japan. Taiheiki was printed innumerable times from the early seventeenth century onwards, but the Regenstein’s copy belongs to a rare edition in hiragana script which was published in the 1660s. There is one copy in Rome and a few in Japan but none of the surviving copies carry a date and most are missing one or two volumes. The Regenstein copy is complete, and shows all the signs of having been frequently handled—stains and the marks of grubby fingers turning the pages.
The last two books are unique to the Regenstein. The first is a manual of flower arrangement published in 1686 called Rikka yōshū 立花要集. The title appears in eighteenth-century printed book catalogues but no copies seem to survive in Japan. This book reached the Regenstein in 1903 when it was bought from Gustavus Goward (1845–1908) along with some other old Japanese books. Goward was born in Boston, graduated from Harvard in 1869 and served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the US embassy in Tokyo from 1883 to 1885. He also visited Samoa in an official capacity and in May 1891 he arrived in Seoul to persuade King Kojong 고종to participate in the Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. In 1906 Goward was living in Chicago and exhibiting some of his art works at the Art Institute.
The last book is Reisho haimo 隷書坏模, a beautiful calligraphy manual published in Kyoto in 1718. There is a manuscript copy in Japan, but no printed copies survive in Japan. The calligraphy samples are printed in white on a black background to imitate the effect of rubbings. The inside of the back cover contains an advertisement for other calligraphy manuals published in Kyoto.
These are just a few of the treasures I have seen, and my students have been enjoying the opportunity to examine them close up. It has been a privilege to be able to teach in Special Collections where students can work with old materials, and I am grateful to Catherine Uecker and her colleagues for having made this possible.
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All items reviewed by Professor Kornicki (which are included in this list) are housed in the Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, where they are accessible to the campus community and to general public researchers.
The purchase of the complete Hyakumantō darani was made possible with funding from the Osaka Collection in Japanese Studies, the Fund for East Asian Studies, and the Eizaburo Okuizumi Memorial Book Fund.
