16010.a.3

Variant title: Shittan jiki shō 悉曇字記鈔 [悉曇字記抄]

Author/compiler: Yūkai 宥快, Shingon monk of Kōyasan, 1345-1416, compiler of commentary. Zhiguang 智廣, Chinese monk, d. 806, author of original work.

Imprint: N.p., n.d. [c. Kanbun 寛文 period, 1661-73 ?] . No colophon.

Description: 6 kan, formerly in 6 satsu, now rebound in 1 vol. western style. (1) ff. 23; (2) ff. 22; (3) ff. 27; (4) ff. 19; (5) ff. 33; (6) ff. 30. 26.8 x 17.5 cm. Fukurotoji.

Blockprint. Printing frame 21.9 x 15.3 cm. (average). Single-line borders. 'Flower petal' fishtail design on hanshin.

Kanbun text, including some siddham script, with printed okurigana and kaeriten. 14 lines to page, 19 characters to line.

Mid-brown front cover of satsu 1 only, with title slip added on left bearing manuscript gedai: Shittan jiki shō 悉曇字記鈔. Title from naidai at head of each maki. Hashiragaki: Jiki 字記 + maki no. + folio no. In a western style half-leather binding.

Edition: No dated edition of this work is recorded, but the present copy appears to have been printed in or after the Kanbun period (1661-73). Numerous editions of the original work, Shittan jiki 悉曇字記, on which this is a commentary, were published before and during the Edo period. The earliest recorded edition was a Kōya-ban dated Kōan 3 弘安三年 (1280). Note that two other works with the alternative title Shittan jiki shō, with commentary by different writers, were published during the 17th century.

Contents: An extensive commentary on Zhiguang's Xitan ziji 悉曇字記, a work of instruction in the use of siddham script for religious purposes written in the early 9th century. The present commentary was composed in the 14th or early 15th century.