Author Archives: bdlowe

I recently received a volume about the Shōsōin collection that contains valuable historiographical and methodological pieces by eminent Shōsōin scholars such as Sakaehara Towao, Yamashita Yumi, Iida Takehiko, Yamaguchi Hideo, and others. The volume is a must read for anyone … Continue reading →

The Tokyo Historiographical Institute has added a new resource for using Shōsōin documents to their database. This tool, called the SHOMUS 正倉院文書マルチ支援データベース, provides data from the Shōsōin monjo mokuroku, the key catalog for using Shōsōin documents, in an online and … Continue reading →

I won’t post every typo I find in my published works on this blog, but I did want to note one unfortunate infelicity regarding a date that was just brought to my attention. In a recent JJRS article, I refer … Continue reading →

Here’s a short video clip recording part of the ceremony related to opening the Shōsōin in preparation for this year’s exhibition: More on the exhibition itself, can be found here.

The new article on Buddhist manuscript cultures in premodern Japan has been published in Religion Compass. Please contact me if you can’t access it and I can send you a copy.

I am in the process of writing an article on Buddhist manuscript cultures in early and medieval Japan. Part of the essay will introduce recent research on the Shōsōin as well as approaches to Buddhist manuscripts more generally. Most significantly … Continue reading →