Hokke gengi [no] jo 法華玄義序

Variant title: Hokke shiki engi 法華私記緣起 [法華私記縁起]. Author/compiler: Guanding 灌頂, 561-632. Imprint: [Kyōto] , Honkokuji 本國寺, Nippō 日保, Bunroku 4, 1595. Kanki on last fold of orihon reads: 奉寄進 法華玄義序 百部 ／ 文禄四乙未曆極月二十四日 ／ 大光山本國寺常住 願主 一輪房日保. Description: 1 kan, 1 jō in 8=folds. 27 x 8.6 cm. (each half-fold). Orihon. Movable type. Printing frame (height) 19.3 cm. No borders. No vertical rules. Kanbun text, without printed kunten or reading marks. 5 lines to half-fold, 17 characters to line. Original vermilion covers, without title slip. Manuscript gedai, possibly in the hand of the publisher Nippō: 法華玄義序. Title taken from this gedai. Naidai at head of text: Hokke shiki engi 法華私記緣起. Printed on mica-sprinkled paper. In a new chitsu case with recently written title slip bearing same gedai as above, followed by: 文禄活字本. A label printed in red states: 稀覯本須珍重. Edition: Notable as the earliest surviving book printed in kanji with movable type in Japan, published at the Honkokuji in the same year (1595) as Tendai shikyōgi shūge 天台四教義集解, but about one month earlier. (An edition of Kobun kōkyō 古文孝經 is believed to have been printed in 1593, but no copies have survived). The present work, according to the kanki quoted above, was issued in a limited edition of 100 copies. No further movable type edition is recorded. Contents: Guanding's preface to his 10-kan work Fahua xuanyi 法華玄義, in which the doctrines of the Lotus Sutra are expounded through an explanation of the inner meaning of the five characters forming its title Miaofa lianhua-jing 妙法蓮華經.

Unrestricted

Acquired from Kōbunsō (cat. no. 33) through Charles E. Tuttle Co., 4 April 1960.

Kenneth Gardner, Descriptive Catalogue of Japanese books in the British Library printed before 1700 (London and Tenri, 1993).B. Buddhist works 仏書 10. Tendai sect 天台宗

Kokatsujiban no kenkyū 古活字版の研究, pp. 154, 689, pl. 37; Ryūmon bunko zenpon shomoku 竜門文庫善本書目, p. 186; Ishii Sekisuiken bunko zenpon shomoku 石井積翠軒文庫善本書目, p. 146, pl. 285.