Part of Volume 30 of Governing Principles of Ancient China
- Date
-
制作年 Late Heian period(11th century)
- Title
- グンショチヨウ マキダイ 30 ダンカン
- Measurements
- 26.6×49.2
- Materials, techniques and shape
- Ink colour and gold on paper
- Collections
- Century Akao Collection
- Depository
- Institute of Oriental Classics (Shido Bunko) Campus Mita
- Ref. number
- AW-CEN-001207-0000
- License
- CC BY Images license
- Creditline
-
慶應義塾（センチュリー赤尾コレクション）
- URL
- Classification
- Art
- AI Tagging
- Handwriting Font Paper Art Paper product
The 50-volume Governing Principles of Ancient China is a political text compiled in 631 under the order of the Tang Dynasty emperor Taizong (598–649). It is a text that was initially lost in China but survived in Japan. The oldest manuscript of the text is a 13-volume copy formerly owned by the Sekke-Kujō family, which is a designated national treasure currently held at the Tokyo National Museum (TNM), and is thought to have been copied in the 11th century. The TNM copy is bound in scrolls, as was common for Chinese classical texts during the Heian period (794–1184), and is made of paper dyed in purple, light blue, and brown hues, and ‘floating-cloud’ paper, all unique to the Heian period. This scroll covers part of volume 30, which is missing in the TNM copy. The 13 lines on ‘floating-cloud’ paper and the 8 lines on brown paper of this version are not connected, but the 21 lines in between can be found at the Tenri Library. It is part of volume 1, which was copied by FUJIWARA no Yukinari (972–1027), who had received the text from SANJŌNISHI Sanetaka (1455–1537) by Prince Kunitaka of Fushimi Palace (1456–1532) on the 16th day of the 11th month of the second year of the Entoku era (1490), and was divided into two parts after World War II. It now comes with a box with calligraphy by HŌNAN Tayama (1903–80) dated 1966, and is known to have been exhibited at the Tokyo Classics Fair in 1963.
Description from the exhibition Catalogue "Letter-scape: Century Akao Collection, A World of Letters and Figures", Keio Museum Commons, April 2021
Upon the edict issued by Emperor Taizong (Taitsung; Jp. Taiso) of the Tang Dynasty in China, court officials headed by Wei Zheng selected and compiled sections from various books and reference materials into the 50 volumes of the Qunshu Zhiyao (‘book of politics’ completed in 631). Sixty-eight different books and reference materials covering various subjects which had been handed down from ancient China were used as the source. Many of the original books used as the source have been lost. Qunshu Zhiyao itself had long been scattered and lost in China. A copy seems to have been brought to Japan as early as the Nara Period. The Shoku Nihon Koki (chronicles of Japan from 833 to 850) and Nihon Sandai Jitsuroku (chronicles of 30 years, 858-887, under the reigns of Emperors Seiwa, Yozei and Koko), both of which are two of the six different types of imperially-commissioned history books of ancient Japan, contain anecdotes which evidence that Qunshu Zhiyao was read in the ancient Japanese court. Gyokuyo (lit. ‘beautiful leaves’), the diary of Kujo Kanezane (1149-1207), a minister of the late Heian court toward the end of the period, wrote that he had asked pronunciation guides to be added to the book to render it easier to read.The oldest handwritten copy (of 13 volumes, a national treasure) of Qunshu Zhiyao preserved at the Tokyo National Museum had been passed down in the noble Kujo family. The segment shown here is considered to have been a part of the Kujo family collection, which includes Volumes 22, 26, 31, 33, 35, 36, 37, 42, 43, 45, 47, 48, and 49. Handwritten copies seem to have been made by a number of scribes (calligraphers). The fragment shown here is a calligraphic copy from Volume 30, which is not included in the Kujo family collection. The decorative paper on which this calligraphy masterpiece is written has a tobikumo (dyed paper fiber showing small cloud patterns) design in the first half, but dark-brown dyed paper in the second half. These halves were then pasted together, matching the color and design. From the soft print style of writing and the characteristic use of decorative paper, this fragment is assumed to have been written in the mid-11th century.
Overview
Rights
Depository and ID
Components
OPEN DATADESIGN
Keio Object Hub makes data on cultural objects open and tries designing various experiences using open data.
Details
Identifiers
- Title (EN)
- Part of Volume 30 of Governing Principles of Ancient China
Physical description
- Weights and quantities
-
Quantity 1幅
- Attachments
- 外箱（二重箱）
Provenance
As a prototype feature, the Keio Object Hub uses AI (machine learning) to generate keywords for searches and filtering.
For the first launch, Google Cloud's Vision API will be used to analyze the images of each object and automatically generate keywords.