Me, Encyclopedias, and Ancient Records - Kazuhiro Kuramoto

It was 1979, when I was a sophomore at the University of Tokyo's Komaba campus. In the office of Professor Haruo Sasayama, located next to the Komaba dormitory, I was shown the first volume of the "Kokushi Daijiten" (Yoshikawa Kobunkan), which had just begun publication. As it was a 15-volume set, my classmates and I joked, "By the time this is finished, we might be writing for it ourselves," but I actually ended up writing entries for "Fujiwara no Akinobu," "Fujiwara no Tadanobu," "Fujiwara no Michitsuna," "Fujiwara no Nobunobu," "Minamoto no Toshikata," and "Renchusho" in volumes 12, 13, and 14, starting in 1991. Writing a manuscript for the "Kokushi Daijiten" was one of my goals at the time, so I was truly grateful.

In addition, the dictionaries and encyclopedias I have written for include the "Shincho Japanese Biographical Dictionary" (Shinchosha), "Encyclopedia of Japanese History" (Heibonsha), "Encyclopedia of Ancient Japanese History Research" (Tokyodo Shuppan), "Kadokawa Japanese History Dictionary (New Edition)" (Kadokawa Shoten), "Comprehensive Dictionary of Japanese History" (Yamakawa Shuppansha), "Iwanami Japanese History Dictionary" (Iwanami Shoten), "Dictionary of Japanese Historical Literature" (Yoshikawa Kobunkan), "Dictionary of Japanese Historical Figures" (Yamakawa Shuppansha), "Encyclopedia of Historical Studies" (Kobundo), "Small Dictionary of Japanese History" (Yamakawa Shuppansha), "Encyclopedia of Heian Period Rituals and Annual Events" (Tokyodo Shuppan), "Encyclopedia of Japanese Historical Literature" (Kobundo), "Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Japanese Personal Names" (Yoshikawa Kobunkan), "Encyclopedia of Historical Archaeology" (Yoshikawa Kobunkan), "Encyclopedia of Japanese Women's History" (Yoshikawa Kobunkan), "Encyclopedia of Japanese Culture" (Maruzen Publishing), and "Fujiwara no Michinaga Encyclopedia" (Shibunkaku Shuppan) (totaling 465 entries). Recently, I have even taken on the supervision of large encyclopedias. I feel like I was writing for an encyclopedia every year, especially from the 1990s to the 2000s (I was spared from writing for the "Heian Period History Encyclopedia" <Kadokawa Shoten>). When I was asked to write the same entry by multiple publishers, I had trouble differentiating the writing.

Now, in the midst of a rampant epidemic, I was asked by Yoshikawa Kobunkan to write an encyclopedia that uses only ancient records to explain various keywords related to the politics, society, culture, and religion of the regency period in an easy-to-understand manner ("Encyclopedia for Reading Heian Aristocratic Diaries: Mido Kanpakuki, Shoyuki, Gonki"). Having long thought that such an encyclopedia would be nice to have, I simply thought that this would be a fun encyclopedia to create.

However, quite unexpectedly, I was told that I had to write the whole thing by myself. Thinking that was impossible, I pretended not to hear the request and remained buried in various other tasks.

However, I retired from my job in March 2024, and since an incredibly busy and stressful job also ended in December, I could no longer pretend to be ignorant.

Thus, I began writing at the beginning of 2025. I had the person who helped me edit the "Modern Japanese Translation of Shoyuki" select 101 entries, divided them into three ranks, and set categories of 600, 1200, and 2000 characters depending on the content. I started by defining each entry, then citing memorable articles from ancient records in modern Japanese translation or original reading, and explaining the historical background of each. With a 600-character entry, the character count is used up just by the definition, but for a 1200-character entry, I have to find one article from an ancient record. For a 2000-character entry, that means multiple articles.

Writing it like this might make it sound easy, but for each entry, finding interesting articles from the "Mido Kanpakuki," "Shoyuki," and "Gonki," and sometimes from the imperial records of the three emperors Uda, Daigo, and Murakami, or the "Teishinkoki," "Rihooki," "Kyureki," "Sakeiki," and "Shunki" from the preceding and following eras, was quite a time-consuming task.

When I first took on this job, I thought it would be easy to search using the "Regency Period Ancient Record Database" published on the website of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken), but when I actually tried it, the database only displays the characters written, so it doesn't hit well. For example, even if I search for the term "Jin no Sadame" (a council of court nobles during the regency period), even if a council was actually held, it does not necessarily mean that the term "Jin no Sadame" was written in the article (in a database with such a massive amount of articles, the term "Jin no Sadame" only appears 109 times). Furthermore, "Gozen Sadame" only hits one example in the main text.

I finally realized how difficult this job was, but I couldn't quit now. While I was at a loss, I remembered that I had previously published modern Japanese translations of the "Mido Kanpakuki," "Gonki," and "Shoyuki," so I had those files. The three imperial records are still being proofread, but the creation of the modern Japanese translations is finished. All four of them "briefly indicated the main events of the day in bold under each date and sexagenary cycle," so, for example, on a day when a council was held, "Jin no Sadame" was written under the date.

It is a pity that the modern Japanese translation files for "Sakeiki," "Shunki," and others are not complete, but ancient records included in the "Dai Nihon Kokiroku" (Great Japanese Ancient Records) such as "Teishinkoki" and "Kyureki" have headings above each article, and for other ancient records, if you flip through the "Dai Nihon Shiryo" (Great Japanese Historical Materials), you can get a general idea. Since the subtitle of this encyclopedia is "Mido Kanpakuki, Shoyuki, Gonki," I just had to think mainly about these three.

When I searched for "Jin no Sadame" in this way, it did not appear even once in the imperial records of the three emperors Uda, Daigo, and Murakami, Fujiwara no Tadahira's "Teishinkoki," Fujiwara no Saneyori's "Seishinkoki," or Prince Shigeakira's "Rihooki," and the first example was found in Fujiwara no Morosuke's "Kyureki." However, it appears 23 times in Fujiwara no Sanesuke's "Shoyuki," 16 times in Fujiwara no Yukinari's "Gonki," 9 times in Fujiwara no Michinaga's "Mido Kanpakuki," 3 times in Minamoto no Tsuneyori's "Sakeiki," and 6 times in Fujiwara no Sukefusa's "Shunki," which suggests that councils were indeed held frequently during the peak of the regency government.

Thus, for each entry, I proceeded with the work of searching through modern Japanese translation files or flipping through the "Dai Nihon Kokiroku" and "Dai Nihon Shiryo" to select interesting articles and explain them. Once I started, it was quite an interesting task, so the manuscript was completed unexpectedly quickly.

I realized once again how grateful I am for the "main events" in the modern Japanese translation files, but when I think about it, these "main events" were the same as the "shusho" (marginal notes) written here and there in the articles of the "Shoyuki." As is well known, Sanesuke was trying to create a "buruiriki" (classified record) by cutting out the "rekiki" (chronological records) of the "Shoyuki" and collecting them by the content of government affairs and rituals, and for that purpose, he was writing marginal notes in the chronological records. It is unclear whether these were written by Sanesuke himself or by the hands of Sukehira, Sukefusa, and others in the process of creating the classified record, but in any case, their function is the same as the "main events."

Furthermore, I believe that after Sanesuke created the classified records for each government affair and ritual, he selected and arranged the best articles from each, and was eventually planning to create a ritual book. I secretly think that Sanesuke's ambition was for all nobles, including the Emperor, to conduct government affairs and rituals based on the diaries he recorded.

Thus, I am publishing this encyclopedia with the help of the modern Japanese translation files. I think that if these files were published in a database, it would contribute to the study of Heian period history, and above all, it would be convenient for non-specialists, the general public, and foreign researchers of Japan. However, due to copyright relations with publishers, it is difficult to realize. The "Mido Kanpakuki" and "Gonki" are available in Kindle versions, and the "Shoyuki" can also be searched in the Maruzen eBook Library, but these days I wish they could be read and searched as easily as the "Regency Period Ancient Record Database."

(Kazuhiro Kuramoto, Professor Emeritus, International Research Center for Japanese Studies)