Heian Period Series: Overview INTRODUCTION
16 works of kana bungaku (‘literature written using the Japanese syllabary’) have been made public in the “Corpus of Historical Japanese Heian Period Series I: Kana literature”, the first volume of the early Heian Period-annotated kundokubun (Chinese text annotated for translation into Native Japanese) within the Saidai-ji copy of the Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō (a Chinese translation of the ‘Golden Light Sutra’) in the “Corpus of Historical Japanese Heian Period Series II: Kunten materials”, and 3 works of kanbun-based materials in the “Corpus of Historical Japanese Heian Period Series III: Kanbun-based materials”.
- ● “Corpus of Historical Japanese Heian Period Series I: Kana literature”
- ● “Corpus of Historical Japanese Heian Period Series II: Kunten materials”
- ● “Corpus of Historical Japanese Heian Period Series III: Kanbun-based materials”
Kana literature, Heian Period Series I
Texts
All the texts in the Heian Period Series are based on the Shinpen Nihon Koten Bungaku Zenshū(Shogakukan Publishing), JapanKnowledge.
Works comprising the corpus
- Kokin Waka-shū 古今和歌集
- Tosa Nikki 土佐日記
- Taketori Monogatari 竹取物語
- Ise Monogatari 伊勢物語
- Ochikubo Monogatari 落窪物語
- Yamato Monogatari 大和物語
- Makura no Sōshi 枕草子
- Genji Monogatari 源氏物語
- Murasaki Shikibu Nikki 紫式部日記
- Izumi Shikibu Nikki 和泉式部日記
- Heichū Monogatari 平中物語
- Tsutsumi Chūnagon Monogatari 堤中納言物語
- Sarashina Nikki 更級日記
- Sanuki no Suke Nikki 讃岐典侍日記
- Kagerō Nikki 蜻蛉日記
- Ōkagami 大鏡
Overview / Annotation Guidelines
Please read before using.
- · Overview of the Morphological Information in the Heian Period Series from the Corpus of Historical Japanese (CHJ)
- · Annotation Guidelines for the Morphological Information in the Heian Period Series from the Corpus of Historical Japanese (CHJ)
Link to the Shinpen Nihon Koten Bungaku Zenshū in JapanKnowledge
We have established a link from the Corpus of Historical Japanese, Heian Period Series to the Shinpen Nihon Koten Bungaku Zenshū (Shogakukan) in JapanKnowledge.
From any entry in the list of examples in the search results from the online search application Chunagon, it is now possible to jump directly to the corresponding page in the Shinpen Nihon Koten Bungaku Zenshū in JapanKnowledge, which contains the source text, a Modern Japanese translation, and footnotes. Users can refer to translations and notes while they analyze Classical Japanese language through corpora.
Note for users
Presentations of research results using the Corpus of Historical Japanese must include a citation taking the general form of the example below (with appropriate modifications depending on the version and the date of access):
- National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (Fujiike, Yumi; Sunaga, Tetsuya; Ikegami, Nao; et al.) (eds.) (2016) "Corpus of Historical Japanese, Heian Period Series." (Short Unit Word data 1.1 / Long Unit Word data 1.1, Chunagon version 2.2.1）https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/chj/heian.html (accessed October, 26, 2016).
* As long as one of either the version or the date of access is clearly cited, the other can be omitted, as below:
- National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (2016) "Corpus of Historical Japanese, Heian Period Series." https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/chj/heian.html (accessed October 26, 2016).
- National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (2016) "Corpus of Historical Japanese, Heian Period Series." (Short Unit Word data 1.1 / Long Unit Word data 1.1) https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/chj/heian.html
Users will need to access the Corpus of Historical Japanese through the online search engine Chunagon. Completion of a Users Licensing Agreement is required.
Please refer to the following: The Corpus of Historical Japanese: How to apply
Development Staff (Heian Period Series I: Kana literature)
- Developers
- Fujiike, Yumi; Sunaga, Tetsuya; Ikegami, Nao (Adjunct Researcher)
- Assisting in Development
- Ogiso, Toshinobu (Associate Professor); Tanaka, Makirō (Invited Scholar, The National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics; Professor, Meiji University); Kondō, Yasuhiro (Invited Scholar, The National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics; Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University)
- Kōno, Tomoaki (Postdoctoral Research Fellow)
- Kawase, Akihiro (Adjunct Researcher)
- Okamoto, Yūko; Takida, Yūko; Katayama, Kurumi; Watanabe, Ayumi (Technical Staff)
* Titles are current with the time of development.
The corpus compilation was supported by the "Design for a Diachronic Corpus" (2009-2016) project and the "Construction of Diachronic Corpora and New Developments in Research on the History of Japanese" (2016-2022) project.
Kunten materials, Heian Period Series II
Overview
Kunten materials are Chinese classics and Buddhist scriptures, etc. that are written in kanbun (‘Classical Chinese writing’) but are also marked with symbols serving as kana glosses, as wokoto-ten (‘marks for grammatical function particles’), and as kaeri-ten (‘marks for transposition’), etc., which indicate the way those texts are to be “read out in” (or “translated into”) the Japanese language. Kunten materials employ lexical items and grammatical constructions differing from those used in kana literature, and thus are crucial materials for learning more about diversity in the Japanese language in the relevant historical period.
In the “Heian Period Series II: Kunten materials” corpus is collected a work that is considered particularly important among the kunten materials of the early Heian Period: the first volume of the early Heian Period-annotated kundokubun in the Saidai-ji copy of the Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō (a Chinese translation of the ‘Golden Light Sutra’). This material preserves the form of the Japanese language in the first half of the ninth century, a time period for which there are not many materials remaining in existence, and thus it is a crucial resource capturing traces of the ascent and decline of Old Japanese as well as developments in the Japanese language subsequent to ancient times.
Materials comprising the corpus
- Volume 1 of the early Heian Period-annotated Saidai-ji copy of the Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō (a Chinese translation of the ‘Golden Light Sutra’).
About corpus text and the coverage of the texts
Corpus Text
The corpus 西大寺本『金光明最勝王経』平安初期点 (Saidaiji-hon “Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō” Heian shoki-ten ‘Early Heian Period-annotated Saidai-ji copy of a Chinese translation of the “Golden Light Sutra”) takes as its main text an original kundokubun ‘Classical Chinese to Japanese translation’ generated by the present project. In the process of generating the text, reference was made to the following resources:
- Kasuga, Masaji (1924) Saidai-ji-hon Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō koten no kokugogaku-teki kenkyū (Research on old annotations in the Saidai-ji copy of a Chinese translation of the Golden Light Sutra). Iwanami Shoten.
- ※ This is from Kasuga Masaji chosakushū (The collected works of Kasuga, Masaji), Bensei-sha (1985). Sōhonzan Saidai-ji (ed.) (2013) Saidai-ji-hon Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō Tenpyō Hōji 6-nen Hyakusai Toyomushi gankyō. Bensei Shuppan.
About the coverage of the texts
In principle, the present corpus takes as its main text a kundokubun derived from all of the kanbun text in Volume I of the Saidai-ji-hon Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō, along with the early Heian Period-annotated kunten added thereto. However, the following textual elements were excluded from the coverage of the kundoku ‘translation’ process:
- Outer title
- Notes on transcription
- Volume-final notes on the pronunciation of Chinese characters
- Notes written either in kanbun (Classical Chinese text) or in kanbun-kana majiribun (‘writing that mixes kanbun and kana together’)
In addition, out of the kundokubun thus generated, the following elements were excluded from the coverage of the corpus:
- Ikun (readings other than those with the highest priority in those cases where a given piece of kanbun was indicated as having multiple possible readings)
Overview / Annotation Guidelines
Please read before using.
Please consult the Annotation Guidelines before use.
Note for Users
Presentations of research results using this corpus must include a citation taking the general form of the example below (with appropriate modifications depending on the version and the date of access):
- National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (Yanagihara, Etsuko, et. al.) (eds.) (2022) "Corpus of Historical Japanese, Heian Period Series, Volume II: ." https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/chj/heian-en.html#kunten (Ver.0.4) (accessed April 1, 2022)
* As long as one of either the version or the date of access is clearly cited, the other can be omitted, as below:
- National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (2022) "Corpus of Historical Japanese, Heian Period Series, Volume II: ." https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/chj/heian-en.html#kunten (accessed April 1, 2022)
- National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (2022) "Corpus of Historical Japanese, Heian Period Series, Volume II: ." https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/chj/heian-en.html#kunten (Ver.0.4)
Users will need to access the Corpus of Historical Japanese through the online search engine Chunagon. Completion of a Users Licensing Agreement is required.
Please refer to the following: The Corpus of Historical Japanese: How to apply
Development Staff (Heian Period Series II: Kunten materials)
- Developers
- Yanagihara, Etsuko(Adjunct Researcher); Kondō, Asuko（Project Assistant Professor）
- Assisting in Development
- Takada, Tomokazu (Professor); Ogiso, Toshinobu (Professor)
- Mabuchi, Yōko (Project Assistant Professor)
- Kōno, Tomoaki (Assistant Professor, Tokyo University)
- Saeki, Shungen (Professor, Shuchiin University)
- Takayama, Michiaki (Professor, Kyushu University)
- Tanaka, Sōta (Junior Associate Professor, Kyoto University)
- Tsukimoto, Masayuki (Honorary professor, Tokyo University)
* Titles are current with the time of development.
The corpus compilation was supported by the "Construction of Diachronic Corpora and New Developments in Research on the History of Japanese" (2016-2022) project, JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 18H00674 (2015-2019), and "Refining the Corpus of Historical Japanese with Information on Notation and Bibliographical Form" (2016-2022) project.
Related data
In addition to the present corpus, other data resources for Volume I of the early Heian Period-annotated Saidai-ji copy of the Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō are available, listed below. Please refer to the following:
- ● Himawari Version of Corpus of Saidaiji-hon “Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō” Heian shoki-ten Ver.0.1
- ● Kundokubun of Saidaiji-hon “Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō” Heian shoki-ten (xml)
- ● Kundokubun of Saidaiji-hon “Konkōmyōsaishōōkyō” Heian shoki-ten (txt)
Kanbun-based materials, Heian Period Series III
Overview
"Heian Period Series III: Kanbun-based materials" is a corpus consist of kanji-hiragana mixture texts created from reliable transcriptions of kanji-katakana mixture texts and waka-kanbun materials which were written in the mid-to-late Heian period. Following the wabun and kanbun-kundoku materials, this release contains kanji-katakana mixture texts and waka-kanbun materials for the first time.
This corpus contains data from "Hokke Hyakuza Kikigaki-shō", "Kōzanji-bon Ko-ōrai (Kōzanji copy, annotated in the Insei period)", and "Owari-no-kuni Gebumi (Shinpukuji copy, annotated in the 2nd year of Shōchū)". These belong to diverse genres such as sermons, ōraimono, and documents, but they are all characterized by a style that blends kanbun with wabun. They constitute an important collection of materials to understand the actual state of written Japanese in that period.
Materials comprising the corpus
Corpus Text
The corpus takes as its main text the kundokubun with a mixture of kanji and hiragana, and as its original text the transcription of the original kanbun with kunten added to it. The corpus text was created with reference to Kobayashi (ed.) (1975) for "Hokke Hyakuza Kikigaki-shō", Kōzanji Tenseki Monjo Sōgō-chōsadan (ed.) (1972) for "Kōzanji-bon Ko-ōrai", and mainly Utsunomiya (2000) and publicly available color images as appropriate for "Owari-no-kuni Gebumi". Part of text is edited and some word forms are identified independently. The reference materials are listed below.
- Kobayashi, Yoshinori (ed.) (1975) Hokke Hyakuza Kikigaki-shō Sō-sakuin. Musashino Shoin.
- Kōzanji Tenseki Monjo Sōgō-chōsadan (ed.) (1972) Kōzanji-bon Ko-ōrai Hyōhaku-shū. Tokyō Daigaku Shuppankai.
- Utsunomiya, Mutsuo (2000) Shinpukuji Hōshōin-zō Owari-no-kuni Gebumi Shōchū 2 Nen-ten Kundokubun. Nihon Bunka Ronsō, 8.
- Aichiken-shi Hensan-iinkai (ed.) (2009) Aichiken-shi Shiryō-hen 7 (Kodai 2). Aichi Prefecture.
- Owari-no-kuni Gunji Hyakushō-ra Gebumi. Waseda University Library KOTENSEKI SOGO DATABASE.
Works comprising the corpus
- Hokke Hyakuza Kikigaki-shō 法華百座聞書抄
- Kōzanji-bon Ko-ōrai 高山寺本古往来
- Owari-no-kuni Gebumi 尾張国解文
About the coverage of the texts
In principle, the corpus takes as its main text the kundokubun derived from the transcription of the 3 works in the reference materials. However, the following textual elements were excluded from the coverage of the kundoku process:
Hokke Hyakuza Kikigaki-shō 法華百座聞書抄
- Title
- Sutra
Owari-no-kuni Gebumi 尾張国解文
- Afterword (title)
- Postscript
- Added text on the front endpaper
Overview / Annotation Guidelines
Please read before using.
Please consult the Annotation Guidelines before use.
Links to Reference Images and Author Information
Reference images can be accessed from Chūnagon through some of the examples within the search results of “Corpus of Historical Japanese Heian Period Series III: Kanbun-based materials”.
As of now, only the inner title and subtitle at the beginning of the "Owari-no-kuni Gebumi", and part of the first half of article 1 are available for reference. Since these contents are missing from the Shinpukuji copy, we referred to color images from the Waseda University KOTENSEKI SOGO DATABASE for these parts and have provided the links.
Note for Users
Presentations of research results using this corpus must include a citation taking the general form of the example below (with appropriate modifications depending on the version and the date of access):
- National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (Yamamoto, Hisashi; Wu, Zifan; et. al.) (eds.) (2022) "Corpus of Historical Japanese, Heian Period Series, Volume III: ." https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/chj/heian-en.html#kanbun (Ver.0.9) (accessed March 4, 2026)
* As long as one of either the version or the date of access is clearly cited, the other can be omitted, as below:
- National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (2026) "Corpus of Historical Japanese, Heian Period Series, Volume III: ." https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/chj/heian-en.html#kanbun (accessed March 4, 2026)
- National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (2026) "Corpus of Historical Japanese, Heian Period Series, Volume III: ." https://clrd.ninjal.ac.jp/chj/heian-en.html#kanbun (Ver.0.9)
Users will need to access the Corpus of Historical Japanese through the online search engine Chunagon. Completion of a Users Licensing Agreement is required.
Please refer to the following: The Corpus of Historical Japanese: How to apply
Development Staff (Heian Period Series III: Kanbun-based materials)
- Developers
- Yamamoto, Hisashi (Adjunct Researcher)
- Wu, Zifan（Adjunct Researcher)
- Assisting in Development
- Ogiso, Toshinobu (Professor)
- Kōno, Tomoaki (Lecturer, the University of Osaka)
- Tanaka, Makirō (Professor, Meiji University)
- Takahashi, Yūta (Project Assistant Professor, NINJAL)
- Tanaka, Sōta (Associate Professor, Kyoto University)
- Kawase, Akihiro (Associate Professor, Doshisha University)
- Yamamoto, Shingo (Professor, Shirayuri University)
- Kubo, Masako (Adjunct Researcher, NINJAL)
- Noda, Takahiro (Adjunct Researcher, Center for Corpus Development, NINJAL)
- Ono, Asuka; Tonomura, Ruri (Production assistants)
* Titles are current with the time of development.
The corpus compilation was supported by the NINJAL collaborative project "Extending the Diachronic Corpus through an Open Co-construction Environment" (2022-), JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 25H01243 "Construction of historical knowledge base" (2025-2030) project, and the JSPS KAKENHI Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) “A lexical study for compilation of the corpus of Heian Kamakura Japanese which combines kanbun kundoku bun texts and wabun texts” (2012-2015, Project Number: 24320086, Principal Investigator: Tanaka, Makirō).
