Shishuo xinshu (New Account of Tales of the World), Segment of Volume 6

The Chinese literary scholar Liu Yiqing (403–444) compiled this collection of anecdotes, known as The New Book of Tales of the World (Ch. Shishuo xinshu; J. Sesetsu shinsho), during the Song period (420–479), one of the Southern dynasties of the Six Dynasties period. The work relates the words and actions of prominent figures in China from the Later Han to the Eastern Jin dynasty, and it reflects the atmosphere surrounding daily life and society for members of the military class in that day.
This scroll, part of the original volume 6, comprises the second half of the section entitled “Admonitions and Warnings” and the entire section entitled “Quick Perception”. The script is at once bold, rigorously proper, and elegant. Written on high-quality paper, it dates to the early Tang dynasty, unquestionably within the seventh century. This work is a masterpiece that embodies the height of Tang calligraphy. Also, because it has later additions of phonetic Japanese kana characters and diacritical marks in red, together with other notations in black ink, this text has been prized as a reference for the study of how Chinese texts were read in Japanese.
This scroll was preserved for centuries in the Buddhist temple of Tō-ji, in Kyoto. On its reverse side appears an esoteric Buddhist manual entitled Kongōchō rengebushin nenju giki, which appears to have been copied during the late Heian period, and which attests to this Chinese scroll’s longterm presence in Japan.