JAPAN THROUGH WESTERN EYES
Manuscript Records of Traders, Travellers, Missionaries and Diplomats, 1853-1941

Part 10: Japan Manuscripts from the Oriental Manuscripts Collection at the British Library

Editorial Introduction by Hamish Todd, Head of Japanese Section,
Asia, Pacific & Africa Collections, British Library

The rich holdings of the British Library’s Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections (APAC) include a collection of some five hundred manuscripts in the Japanese language covering a wide range of subjects and periods from medieval folk tales, through religion, military affairs, maps, history, geography and botany to modern calligraphic works.  The development of Japanese printing from the eighth century onwards, coupled with the rise of secular and commercial publishing from the seventeenth, means that most of the major Buddhist scriptures as well as the literary classics have come down to us in print from relatively early dates.  Yet, the manuscript tradition continued and the two media flourished side by side.

Of the pre-modern manuscripts over 120 were acquired in Japan by the German physician Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866).  A selection from this collection can be found in JAPAN THROUGH WESTERN EYES Part 10.  The items included in this set of micofilm comprise some of the lesser known but nonetheless interesting works among the British Library’s Japanese manuscripts dating chiefly from the 19th century.  Space does not permit a detailed description here of each of them but some brief notes on a few should serve as an introduction to the rest.

For over two centuries from the 1630s Japan adopted an official policy of seclusion which, in principle, prevented foreigners, other than a small group of Dutch and Chinese merchants, from entering Japan or the Japanese from leaving it.  By the mid-19th century this isolation was being challenged by western nations and the Japanese authorities had to deal with the changing realities.  The keen interest in other countries which accompanied the opening of Japan is reflected in the quantity of manuscripts discussing foreign lands.

There are a number of accounts written by Japanese who travelled overseas.  Some of these were shipwrecked sailors who found themselves washed up on foreign shores, others were members of missions dispatched by the Japanese government as official contact with the rest of the world as contact was resumed.  As a representative of the former we have Ezo Roshakoku fudoki (OR 2643), an illustrated account of the experiences of a group of sailors who were shipwrecked on the Russian coast in 1784.  They stayed in Russia for eight years travelling widely.  Some chose to remain there but a number were eventually permitted by the Shogunate to return to Japan in 1792, the first of such shipwrecked mariners to be allowed to do so.  Manuscript OR 2642 also contains material relating to this episode while OR 2647 contains a number of documents concerning other shipwreck incidents.

Of the manuscripts relating to official missions, Obae oko manroku (OR 1288), was written by Ichikawa Seiryu (1824-?) and describes his journey to Europe as a member of a delegation dispatched by the Japanese government in 1862.  The British diplomat Ernest Satow (1843-1929), then just beginning his career in Japan, considered it sufficiently important to translate it into English under the unusual title of ‘A confused account of a trip to Europe, like a fly on a horse’s tail’.  It was later published in instalments in “The Chinese and Japanese Repository” in 1865.

In a similar vein is Kobei nichiroku (OR 2158, OR 2648) which details the experiences of the first Japanese mission to the United States sent in 1860 to ratify the “Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation” of 1858.  It gives a insight into how the Japanese reacted to American culture, the things they saw and the people they met.

In addition there are many other manuscripts dealing with foreign relations and the history and geography of foreign lands.  Many focus on western countries but Sankoku tsuran zusetsu (OR 2635) deals with Korea and the kingdom of Ryukyu (Okinawa) while Meifukuki (OR 2633) is an account of voyages to southern China and Annam.

OR 2644-2646 Wateki higa kakuron, which were given the misleading title “General geography” when they were listed in the old British Museum manuscripts register, are in fact a collection of documents relating to Japan’s international relations.

Apart from foreign affairs, the current selection of manuscripts contains representative works on a variety of other subjects.  Military matters are represented by OR1603, OR1604, OR1289 and OR1290 while OR 1601 Kotomei shusei is a collection of sword inscriptions and OR 1602 is an illustrated work on Japanese archery or kyudo. Works on Japanese history include a very fine copy of the famous medieval chronicle Okagami (OR1266) and an account of the assassination of the controversial statesman Ii Naosuke in 1860 (Ansei mizu-karakuri OR 5457).

Two very important linguistic manuscripts are those relating to the Okinawan language: Elements or contributions towards a Loochooan and Japanese grammar (1849) (OR 41) and English Loochooan dictionary (1851) (OR 40) written by Bernard Jean Bettelheim, the first Protestant missionary in Okinawa, and a pioneer in the study of the Ryukyuan language.  Bettelheim was born in 1811 in Pressburg (Bratislava) of Jewish descent but later converted to Christianity, He obtained a doctorate of medicine at the University of Padua in 1836 and moved to London in 1840 where he married an Englishwoman and took British nationality.  He joined the "Loochooan Naval Mission" and in April 1846 he arrived in Naha, Okinawa where he remained for eight years working as a missionary, studying the Ryukyuan (or Loochooan) language and translating the bible into Rykukyuan.  He left Okinawa aboard an American warship (part of Commodore Matthew Perry's fleet) in the summer of 1854 and went to Hong Kong where his Ryukuyan translations of the gospels were published in 1855.  From Hong Kong he went to the USA where he died in 1870.

Finally there are also a number of interesting “oddities”.  OR 3582 is a document written in 1867 confirming that certain named residents of the village of Fukuda in the province of Shinano are adherents of the Buddhism faith and swearing on pain of death that they are not Christians. OR 4225 is a police register for a street in Osaka detailing the names, addresses and professions of the inhabitants while OR 1311 is a delightful illustrated treatise on the raising of bees and production of honey.

In the listing of the manuscripts the English titles are in most cases those which were ascribed to them when they were first entered in the British Museum’s Register of Manuscripts and are often descriptions of the contents rather than precise translations of the Japanese titles.  The latter have been included in transliteration to aid identification.