Front page of the Heian Ibun collection, which is included in the “Ibun Series” (遺文シリーズ) archive on JKBooks.
We are pleased to announce another significant addition to our growing collection of accessible archives and databases: the complete digital transcription of Heian Ibun (平安遺文), one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Heian-period (794–1185) historical documents in the world. This digitization greatly expands research possibilities by providing full-text, searchable transcriptions of all included materials.
Heian Ibun was compiled by historian Dr. Rizō Takeuchi (竹内理三博士), who began assembling the collection in 1947. Over the course of approximately twenty years, he brought together more than 5,500 documents, publishing them across 11 volumes arranged largely in chronological order and spanning the entirety of the Heian period. In 1974, Dr. Takeuchi returned to the project to revise and reorganize the volumes into a new format.
These revised editions were later digitized and further updated by historians at the University of Tokyo, who have continued to make corrections and enhancements since 1996. The most up-to-date versions of these texts are now available digitally through the JKBooks platform on JapanKnowledge.
The volumes contain a wide range of document types, including land records, imperial edicts, documents confirming transfers of authority or property, and other administrative and legal materials from the Heian period. The documents are primarily written in kanbun, the classical, Chinese-based written style used extensively in premodern Japan. To aid contemporary readers, selected passages include annotations in modern Japanese that clarify difficult or specialized content.
All 11 volumes of Heian Ibun have been fully digitized, including 10 volumes of Heian-period documents and one supplementary volume containing explanatory and reference materials. The JapanKnowledge platform supports both basic and advanced search functionality, allowing researchers to search across the Heian Ibun as well as other JapanKnowledge resources available through our library.
The Heian Ibun is one of 14 e-collections currently accessible through the JKBooks archive. These resources are available to anybody with OSU login credentials and can be accessed via the JapanKnowledge database. For support accessing the Heian Ibun archives or any other archives accessible via JKBooks, please contact Japanese Studies Librarian Dr. Ann Marie Davis at davis.5257@osu.edu.
A side-by-side comparison of the original document and its transcription, showing the possibility of searching the archive via keywords and phrases.
