Shimada Collection is a unique collection of 480 books on Shugendo, Japanese mountain asceticism-shamanism incorporating Shinto and Buddhist concepts. In the Meiji Period, a Buddhist scholar, Bankon Shimada (1827-1907) completed Shimada Collection by integrating the historical records handed down in the Shimada Family and his own collection.
One of the rarest books among the collection is Hiuchi shidai, which was handwritten in 1185.
The heir of Bankon, Kanzaburo, deposited the collection at Kyoto University Library for the use of researchers in 1939 and ten years later, in 1949, when the deposit contract expired, the university library bought it.
As a monk-turned-professor, Bankon completed the great project of the publication of Shukusatsu Daizokyo, reduced-size edition of the Tripitaka (complete Buddhist canon), while contributing to the preservation of Buddhism publications.