On the publications of the Book of Filial Duty

Abstract

The Book of Filial Duty was written by Confucius about 3000 years ago in China and through the Book he taught the filial duty to the people. This book was introduced to Japan long ago.
Now about 38 kinds of copies which were copied for 350 years from 1250 to 1600, were remained.
About 1600 the book was begun to be put into print. The first stage of printing was the type-printing. But the copies of that type were lost except one or two. The type-printing had continued only for a short period of half century. Another type of printing was begun to be made from a wood block. Tens and hundreds of copies of that printing remain still now.
These copies were divided into five types. In China only one kind of them was transmitted while four others were lost. But in Japan all of them were handed down and conversely in the later time they were exported to China from Japan.
Since 3000 years ago this Book of Filial Duty was written both in ancient type of letters (i.e. classical type of letters) and in modern ones. Both copies were written about 1850 letters in number. Morality in Japan has been influenced by this Book from thousands of years ago. In the olden times the kings and the emperors of both China and Japan had used to command the people to have at least one copy of the Book in a family.