Category Archives: News

Ceremony for Opening Shōsōin

Posted on October 3, 2014 by bdlowe

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.

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New Article in Religion Compass

Posted on September 28, 2014 by bdlowe

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.

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Article and updates

Posted on April 22, 2014 by bdlowe

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 →

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Color photos of Shōsōin documents

Posted on January 3, 2014 by bdlowe

The web page for the Shōsōin Office 正倉院事務所, which has for some number of years included images of Shōsōin treasures, has also begun to add a limited number of color images of Shōsōin documents. I first learned of this from the Blog … Continue reading →

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Yamamoto Yukio’s Recent Research on Genbō

Posted on September 5, 2013 by bdlowe

In this blog, I plan to occasionally introduce (relatively) recent Japanese articles related to Shōsōin documents. I’d like to start this series with a pair of articles on the monk Genbō 玄昉 (d. 746). Genbō is one of the most famous … Continue reading →

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On Trash and Treasures: Thoughts on “Global Archivalities: A conceptual workshop”

Posted on May 7, 2013 by bdlowe

Today, I was fortunate to participate in the inaugural workshop of an exciting new project on global archivalities. The aim of the project, as I understand it, is to consider the meanings and uses of archives from cross-cultural comparative and … Continue reading →

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First Encounters

Posted on April 1, 2013 by bdlowe

I began studying Shōsōin documents 正倉院文書 for my dissertation research on sutra copying in early Japan (roughly seventh through ninth centuries). Although I had frequently heard of an important building known as the Shōsōin, I knew nothing of its collection … Continue reading →

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