Onritsu kan'yo. Manuscript in the possession of the Research Archives for Japanese Music, Ueno Gakuen College. Single scroll, height 26.2cm, length 404.8cm. Cover of plain paper, in common with that of the rest of the scroll. Total of 10 sheets of kozoshi (or choshi, paper made from the bark of the paper mulberry). It is thought that the original form of the manuscript was a loosely-bound booklet (kari-toji), since the four holes produced in binding in this form can be seen on the cover sheet of the scroll. The binding holes on the paper of the rest of the source have however been cut away, and the sheets pasted together length-wise.
The Onritsu kan'yo is a collection of secret teachings of Shingon sect shomyo, written by Shoson, a shomyo practitioner of the Shingon Daigo school, at Koyasan (Wakayama prefecture) in Shohei 12th year (1357). A large number of copies are extant (for details of these, refer to the table at the end of the Japanese text, pp. 133-138), and it has a number of alternative names, including Onritsu seika-shu, Onritsu jojo and Onritsu hiyo. The title immediately before the text, however, generally reads “Onritsu jojo [“Items concerning pitch”]; written according to recollections, should not be shown to outsiders”. The version of the source presented here in photographic reproduction is that thought to be the oldest existing copy, possibly of the Nambokucho period (1336-1392), held in the Research Archives for Japanese Music, Ueno Gakuen College, from the former collection of the Hobodai-in of Toji (Kyoto). For the purpose of the typographical reprint of the source included after the photographic reproduction, its contents have been collated with those of four other versions of the source, and textual variants noted.