is an early ninth century
Buddhist text. It is best known as a valuable resource for
Japanese historical linguistics
Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...
as well as
Buddhist history.
[Nihon Koten Bungaku Daijiten Henshū Iinkai (1983:1309)][Yoshida (2001:31, 135)]
Manuscript
''Tōdaiji Fujumonkō'' was composed sometime between 796 and 830. It was written on the reverse side of and is one volume in length. The compiler is unknown but speculated to have been a priest belonging to the
Dharma character school due to the large usage of related vocabulary. The original manuscript did not contain a title, but one was later added.
In 1939, the manuscript owner published a two-volume
collotype
Collotype is a gelatin-based photographic process, photographic printing process invented by Alphonse Poitevin in 1855 to print images in a wide variety of Tone (color), tones without the need for Halftone, halftone screens. The majority of coll ...
facsimile reproduction, one for the front and the other for the back. The original manuscript was designated as a
National Treasure of Japan on July 4, 1938, but removed due to its destruction on April 14, 1945, in the fires resulting from the
war. Only
facsimiles remain.
Contents
The text is 396 lines in length. It is primarily a collection of prayers recorded at Buddhist memorial services.
Linguistics
''Tōdaiji Fujumonkō'' is primarily important as a resource for early
Early Middle Japanese. It is the oldest example of text written in
kanji
are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...
with
katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji).
The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...
annotations. In addition, it exhibits many elements of
Old Japanese grammar and vocabulary and maintains the
phonetic distinction between ''/ko
1/'' and ''/ko
2/''. It also contains accounts in several
dialects.
[Omodaka (1967:881-882)]
Notes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Todaiji Fujumonko
Late Old Japanese texts
Japanese language
Japanese Buddhist texts
Buddhism in the Heian period
Old National Treasures of Japan
9th-century Japanese literature