【Reading】しょうそういんもんじょ

【English Name】Shosoin Documents

Among the historical sources that help unravel ancient Japan, the Shosoin documents—sleeping in the Shosoin of Todai-ji Temple in Nara—rank at the very first tier. At their core are the account ledgers written and left behind at the Todai-ji sutra-copying office of the 8th century, numbering in the tens of thousands of items. The great majority of ancient documents written in the Nara period are gathered in this document group, giving them incomparable value as primary sources for approaching the true image of ancient society.

This sutra-copying enterprise was based on a private organization established by Fujiwara no Komyoshi, and the copying of the complete Buddhist canon began in Tenpyo 8 (736). Because Empress Komyo composed a votive text dated the first day of the fifth month of Tenpyo 12 (740), the name "Gogatsu Tsuitachi-kyo" (Sutra of the First of the Fifth Month) spread. The range covered by the ledgers is wide-ranging—work reports of those engaged in sutra copying, records of wages paid in cloth and coin, the inflow and outflow of rice and provisions, and the allotment of paper and ink—making them sources that vividly bring to light the whole picture of the organization's operation.

Especially not to be overlooked are the shihai monjo (documents on the reverse of paper). At a time when paper was expensive, the practice of turning over official documents that had served their purpose and using them for ledgers was widely rooted. As a byproduct of this reuse, administrative records of the ritsuryo system—including household registers (koseki), tax-rice ledgers (shozeicho), and census ledgers (keicho)—were by chance spared from being scattered and lost. The oldest extant household register is one compiled in Taiho 2 (702).

From the standpoint of exploring the origins of sushi culture, there is a high possibility that fragments confirming the distribution structure of food and processing techniques lie hidden within such Nara-period administrative and daily-life records, and this is a document group worth noting as a clue to reconstructing the original form of techniques related to fermentation and preservation.