An attempt to Reproduce the original Southern Song edition of “Tianzhu lingqian”

Take the later block number 75 as an example

Abstract

In this paper I presumed the original edition of “Tianzhu lingqian”, which is said to be the oldest illustrated oracular verses in China, and I investigated a method to reproduce the missing blocks and later blocks.

This “Tianzhu lingqian” is said to have been published in the Southern Song Dynasty (hereinafter referred to as the Southern Song edition), and it is said that some pieces have missing partial characters and figures, as well as the later blocks in the existing 86 blocks. The Southern Song edition’s verses is inherited to later generations including Ming Dynasty in China and Japan since the 17th century. In Japan, various types of “Tianzhu lingqian”, including illustrations, have been published in 100 blocks, so it is conceivable that the original edition was composed of 100 blocks with 100 illustrations. In this article, I focused on the Japanese Genroku 8th year (1695) “Kannonsenchuge” (hereinafter referred to as the Genroku edition). The purpose is to present a method for assuming and supplementing the missing page of the illustrations and later blocks, using the Genroku edition and the existing Southern Song edition. In order to complete the goal, I first examined the extent to which the Genroku edition inherited the text and the figure from the Chinese oracular verses. Besides the composition of the existing 86 illustrations of the Southern Song edition were considered from the viewpoint of “modules.” Based on the results of these verifications, I will present a method of reproduction using the existing edition of the Southern Song edition and the Genroku edition. The reproductions presented this time cannot be said to be completely consistent with the original edition, but it may show a glimpse of what was lost by this method.