Eighth Day

I have finished the course. I have to be honest however and say that I couldn't keep up the same level of motivation throughout the course, to the point where my posts couldn't have amount of quality that I know they could have had. Especially if I wanted to make this blog a detailed summary of the course. There was also the fact that I didn't feel the need to write down many thoughts as I went through the course. There were times where I felt the blog even distracted me from it.

I have heard that Keio University will prepare a new course, one on China and Japan. I will use this blog further to document my progress through that course.

It will be awkward however with the title and all. I will have to use a different titling format for the new course.

Seventh Day

Week 3 is focused on Edo period book publishing.

Hyakumantoudarani is the oldest printed work which can be confirmed with certainty, with the actual item and references to it in records both available. It was made by the second half of the 8th century.

However by that time, printing in China and Korea was widespread.

A copy of the Diamond Sutra at the British Library was printed in China at around 868 and is considered the world's first printed book.

Printing in Japan initially was done mostly by Buddhist monks for Buddhist works, one aspect of it being that sutra printing, like sutra copying, was a form of devotion.

Waka and monogatari works were never printed during the 800-year period up to the Edo period. They were written mostly in Hiragana and they were enjoyed by small elite circles with means to produce luxurious handwritten works.

Printing initially produced mostly official Chinese works. Japanese works by Japanese people made a tiny percentage of printed works in Japan in the past.