The is an early

Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kammu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means in Japanese. It is a ...

setsuwa collection. Written by Kyōkai between 787 and 824, it is

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

's oldest collection of Buddhist setsuwa. It is three volumes in length.

Title

Commonly abbreviated as ''Nihon Ryōiki'', which means "Record of Miraculous Events in Japan," the full title is . It may also be read as ''Nihon Reiiki''. The book has been translated into English under the title ''Miraculous Stories from the Japanese Buddhist Tradition'', but this does not represent a literal translation of the Japanese title.

The work is composed of three parts contained within three volumes. Each volume begins with a preface, and the final volume contains an epilogue. There are a total of 116 tales all dealing with Buddhist elements. There are also a total of nine poems.

Manuscripts

There are five existing manuscripts, two of which are designated National Treasures: * Kōfuku-ji, 904 ( National Treasure) * Maeda estate, 1236 * Raigō-in, late

( National Treasure) * Sanmai-in, 1214 * Shinpuku-ji,

Kamakura period The is a period of History of Japan, Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura, Kanagawa, Kamakura by the first ''shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the G ...

All manuscripts are incomplete. The full text must be reconstructed from the multiple sources, and this was only possible after the Raigō-in manuscript was discovered in 1973.

Linguistics

The text contains a number of words in man'yōgana, an archaic orthography that may be used to express Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai. While it is an Early Middle Japanese text, it is early enough to still preserve the distinction between ko₁, ko₂Yoshida (2001: 147) and pe₁, pe₂ prior to their mergers.

Notes

References

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External links