Paper short abstract:

In this paper, after reviewing Kūkai’s own textual legacy, I survey various forms of media used to carry works of literary Chinese from the Heian period and beyond. I consider the manner in which these texts existed as material “things,” and how this “shaped” their historical meaning and function.

Paper long abstract:

When Kūkai (774-835) returned home from his sojourn in Tang-dynasty China, he came bearing a significant cargo in foreign-origin texts. Among other characteristics, this invaluable collection stands out particularly for its variety. For example, in a list of texts later offered up by Kūkai to Emperor Saga, in addition to several contemporary-era poetry collections, we find reference to textual objects such as “Dezong Huangdi zhenji” (Authentic Calligraphy of the Emperor Dezong) and “Bukong sanzang bei” (Stele-text of the Tripiṭaka Master Amoghavajra), even to something called “Feibai shu” ([Writings in the] ‘Flying White Script’). Nor was this variety limited to dimensions only of content, but extended also to differing modes of textual presentation and consumption. It is recorded, for instance, that at Saga’s request, Kūkai undertook to produce a “textual” folding screen, one to be decorated with writing by Kūkai’s own hand. Moreover, in the various dedicatory texts provided by Kūkai to accompany these offerings, we find copious evidence of a guiding sensibility, leaving little doubt that as much in the production of texts as in their delivery, much care and thought was given to physical medium, to calligraphic style, indeed even to textual layout. The relationship between texts themselves, in other words, and the particulars of their physical manifestations, was a matter of constant preoccupation.

In this paper, starting with an investigation of Kūkai’s own textual legacy in discourse and artifact, I look at various forms of media used to carry works of literary Chinese. Focusing in particular on the Heian and medieval periods, I take up questions such as: What was the significance of texts found on “media” like folding screens and monumental plaques? How should we understand the shape and purpose of texts found, not in books, but rather in hanging scrolls made for viewing and display? Why were mere fragments of books collected and even appreciated as objects in and of themselves? More generally, I seek to understand the manner in which Japanese texts of Chinese prose and poetry existed as material “things,” gleaning from their examined media incarnations the essence of their contemporary meaning and function.