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transcription of Heian Ibun (平安遺文), one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Heian-period (794–1185) historical documents in the world.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.
