Jugaku Collection, Muromachi Tales and Daisō-bon have been newly digitized and released

101 items, including 64 items from Jugaku Collection and 3 items of Muromachi Tales held by the Graduate School of Letters, and 34 items from Daisō-bon held by the Main Library, have been newly digitized and released.

▼Graduate School of Letters
▼Daiso-bon

Jugaku Collection was formerly owned by the Japanese linguist Akiko Jugaku (壽岳章子; 1924-2005), and is a collection of mainly Shōmono, commentaries on Chinese classics and Buddhist scriptures produced during the Muromachi period. In 1987, Ms. Jugaku published a facsimile edition of 9 items titled Kōjitsuan Shōmonoshū (向日庵抄物集), and later donated 66 original items to the Graduate School of Letters.
After 37 years since the publication of the facsimile edition, we have now digitized 64 items in addition to the already released Rokumotsuzu (六物圖), and made almost the entire collection available to the public. Overwritten corrections, fill-in erasures and discolored sticky notes found in manuscripts, which were difficult to read in black and white photocopies, are now easier to read in high-resolution digital images.

Left: “古則聞書零本” / Right: “日本書紀巻第一抄（兼俱講抄）”

Muromachi Tales (Otogi Zōshi) is the general term for short stories produced during the Muromachi period. They were often enjoyed in the form of illustrated books.
Shizuka (しづか) was produced as a Nara ehon (Nara picture book) with 18 colored illustrations to the lyrics of the Kōwaka dance piece featuring Shizuka Gozen, the concubine of Minamoto no Yoshitsune. The original format was a booklet, but it has been converted into a scroll.
Kōwaka dance was a popular performing art during the Muromachi period, and books containing its lyrics spread as reading material. The entertaining stories and the highly colored illustrations delight the eyes of viewers, both in the past and present.

“しづか”

We introduce many other Otogi Zōshi on "Colored Illustrations", so please take a look as well.
As of July 3, 2024, Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive provides 2,153,823 images of 25,503 titles.

* The digitization of this collection is conducted under the “Project to Build an International Collaborative Research Network for Pre-modern Japanese Texts” by the National Institute of Japanese Literature in which Kyoto University Library participates.