Study on the possibility of a text-database for Koshiki (buddhist ritual)

节气是日本特有的佛教仪式之一，兴起于10世纪下半叶。它不同于其他仪式，因为它是用日语说的，可以说是一个独特的综合文化体系，包括音乐(管弦乐器和佛教声乐)、舞蹈、戏剧和绘画元素。因此，它不仅是研究佛教的重要来源，也是研究日本表演艺术和文化的重要来源。本项目在十多年的研究和资料收集的基础上，旨在建立一个在线目录，包括手稿、前现代版和现代版本的《高木文本》，为日本国内外的研究人员提供必要的信息。超过1000个书目数据被归类在320部著作中，基于荒岛/福岛分类系统，这是对Koshiki最方便的描述系统。书目数据与全文数据库链接，全文数据库包括最重要的Koshiki的文本，其中许多是第一次对更广泛的受众开放。该数据库是以HTML3.2(后来修改为HTML4.0)编写的SGML应用程序。它结构简单，用户可以很容易地根据自己的需要进行修改。作为一个处理前现代日语文本的应用程序，它使用了三重标识来识别未包括在日本标准代码中的字符：‘on-yomi’(日语音节中字符的发音)、Morohashi daikanwa Jiten-Number和GIF格式的字符的位图图像。数据库可通过以下地址访问：http：//faculty.web.waseda.ac.jp/guelberg/koshiki/datenb-j.htm.

Koshiki is one of the Buddhist rituals peculiar to Japan which sprang up in the latter half of the tenth century. It is different from other rituals in that it was spoken in Japanese and it can be said that it is an unique comprehensive cultural system which includes elements of music (wind and string instruments and buddhist vocal music), dance, theatre, and painting. Thus it is an important source for the study of not only Buddhism, but Japanese performance arts and culture as well.Basing on research and collection of materials, which were done over one decade, this project intended an online-catalogue of manuscripts, pre-modern and modern editions of koshiki-texts to provide researchers in and outside of Japan with the necessary informations. Over one thousand bibliographical data were classified in 320 works based on the Arai/Fukushima classification system, which is the most convenient description system for koshiki. The bibliographical data are linked with a fulltext-database which includes texts of the most important koshiki, a lot of them became for the first time accessible to a wider audience.The database was written as a SGML-application in HTML 3.2 (later modified to HTML 4.0). It has a simple structure and can be easily modified by the user to his own needs. As an application handling with pre-modern Jananese texts it used a triple identification for characters not included in the JIS-standard code : the 'on-yomi' (pronounciation of the character in Japanese syllables), the Morohashi daikanwa jiten-number and a bitmap-image of the character in the GIF-format.The database is accessible under the address :http : //faculty.web.waseda.ac.jp/guelberg/koshiki/datenb-j.htm.