Twice ToldYichu liutie, juan 21: the entry on Japan (日本國)
- Language
- Chinese
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 15 October 2026
The Yichu liutie (義楚六帖) is a Buddhist reference book arranged by subject, compiled by the monk Yichu of the Later Zhou. The text below is read from the page images of the Naikaku Bunko copy of the Japanese print of Kanbun 9 (1669), in 24 volumes, which belonged to the Hayashi family; the National Archives of Japan’s viewer shows it as item 3672704, volume 21. The printed text carries Japanese reading marks beside the Chinese, which are left out here. The entry is read from the right-hand leaf of image 7 and the first columns of the next leaf. The heading 日本國 is printed in large type, and the first two short phrases beside it are in smaller double columns. The text in square brackets with no question mark is the small double-column text beside the heading; the two readings marked with a question mark were hard to make out in the print.
日本國 [亦名倭國，東海中。]秦時徐福將五百童男五百童女止此國也。今人物一如長安。又顯德五年歲在戊午，有日本國傳瑜伽大教弘順大師賜紫寬[輔?]又云：本國都城南五百餘里有金峯山，頂上有金剛藏王菩薩，第一靈異。山有松檜名花軟草，大小寺數百。節行高道者居之，不曾有[女?]人得上。至今男子欲上，三月斷酒肉欲色，所求皆遂。云菩薩是彌勒化身，如五臺文殊。又東北千餘里有山，名富士，亦名蓬萊。其山峻，三面是海，一朵上聳，頂有火煙。日中上有諸寶流下，夜即卻上，常聞音樂。徐福止此，謂蓬萊，至今子孫皆曰秦氏。彼國古今無侵奪者，龍神報護，法不殺人，為過者配在犯人島。其他靈境名山，不及一一記之。
Translation
Japan. Also called Wo. It lies in the eastern sea. In the time of Qin, Xu Fu led five hundred boys and five hundred girls here and stayed. The people and things here are now just like Chang’an. Also: in the fifth year of Xiande, a wuwu year, there was a Japanese monk who transmitted the great teaching of Yoga, the Great Master Hongshun, granted the purple robe, Kuanfu(?), who said further: Five hundred li and more south of the capital of his country is Mount Kinpu. On its summit is the bodhisattva Kongō Zaō, foremost in miraculous power. The mountain has pines, cypresses, famous flowers and soft grass, and hundreds of large and small temples. Monks of upright conduct and great spiritual attainment live there. No woman(?) has ever been able to climb it. To this day a man who wants to go up gives up wine, meat and carnal desire for three months, and whatever he asks for is granted. They say the bodhisattva is a transformation of Maitreya, like Manjushri at Mount Wutai. Also: more than a thousand li to the northeast is a mountain named Fuji, also called Penglai. The mountain is steep, with the sea on three sides, and a single peak rises up with fire and smoke at its top. By day precious things pour down from it, and at night they go back up, and music is always heard. Xu Fu stopped here and called it Penglai, and to this day his descendants are all called Qin. That country has never been invaded or seized, in the past or the present. Dragon spirits repay and protect it. Its law does not put people to death; those who commit offences are sent to an island of offenders. Its other holy places and famous mountains cannot all be recorded one by one.
Notes
- The words about Xu Fu in the first sentence are in Yichu’s own voice. The report beginning “Also: in the fifth year of Xiande” is credited to a Japanese monk named 弘順 (Hongshun, Japanese Kōjun), and the sentences on Mount Kinpu and on Fuji follow it. Wu Weiming (Journal of Chinese Studies 58, 2014, p. 162) says Yichu had the Fuji legend from the Japanese Shingon monk Hongshun.
- How the monk’s titles and name run together is uncertain. The print reads 有日本國傳瑜伽大教弘順大師賜紫寬[輔?]又云, and our translation treats Hongshun as the speaker and reads the rest as his titles. The character after 寬 could be 輔 or a similar one. The third character of 不曾有[女?]人得上 is difficult in the print; 女 fits the sense, since the passage is about a mountain men climb after fasting.
- The date. The fifth year of Xiande is 958 (our conversion), and a wuwu year is correct for 958. Sano Seiko (2015, p. 55) says Yichu’s preface dates the completion to 954, and Wu Weiming says 955. The entry as printed therefore mentions an event four years after the completion date Sano gives. We have not seen the preface or the Southern Song print.
- Wu quotes the opening lines and the Fuji lines from the 1979 Kyoto reprint of the 1669 print (his note 2, vol. 21, 國城州市部 no. 43, p. 459). His quotation agrees with our reading except that it leaves out the sentence on Hongshun and the passage on Mount Kinpu.
- “Qin” in 皆曰秦氏 is the surname 秦, read Hata in Japanese; Wu (p. 165) lists 秦, 波多 and 羽田 as surnames Edo writers connected with it.
- Wo (倭) is the name the Hou Han shu uses for Japan in its section on the eastern peoples. 蓬萊 is Penglai, one of the three spirit mountains the Shiji says Xu Fu was sent to seek.