Research on Japanese Kanbun Materials outside Japan

日本自古以来就受到中国文化的影响，与其他属于汉字界定的东亚文化圈的国家一样，它始终坚决地挪用中国文化。接受中国文化的具体方法是研究看报文本。因此，许多手稿和印刷版本直接从中国或通过朝鲜半岛到达日本，在日本境内，书籍复制和印刷的做法也很盛行。此外，日本人自己也用看文写作。日本人使用的这些在日本境内流通的看文，广义上被定义为“日本看文”。本研究的目标是对明治时期以来离开日本、目前保存在海外公共机构的看文文本进行系统的书目调查，并对稀有书籍材料编写详细的书目注释。从2003年到2006年进行调查的保存日本kanbun资料的外国机构有：美国的美国国会图书馆、耶鲁大学斯特林纪念图书馆、拜内克珍本书稿图书馆、哥伦比亚大学斯塔尔东亚图书馆、哈佛大学燕京图书馆、哈佛大学福格美术馆；在英国，是大英图书馆；在中国，上海图书馆；在韩国，韩国研究学院和其他机构。其中，已编制了美国国会图书馆、哥伦比亚大学史塔尔东亚图书馆、哈佛大学燕京图书馆和韩国韩国学研究院保存的日本kanbun资料目录，并编写了美国国会图书馆珍本藏书的书目说明。

Since earliest times Japan has been influenced by Chinese culture and, like other countries belonging to the East Asian cultural sphere defined by the Chinese script, it has always resolutely appropriated Chinese culture. The concrete method for the reception of Chinese culture has been the study of kanbun texts. Accordingly, many manuscripts and printed editions have reached Japan either directly from China or through the Korean Peninsula, and also within Japan the practices of book copying and printing flourished. Moreover, the Japanese themselves authored works in kanbun. All these kanbun texts circulating within Japan used by Japanese are broadly defined as "Japanese kanbun texts." The goal of the present research has been to conduct a systematic bibliographic investigation regarding kanbun texts that have left Japan since the Meiji Period and that are currently preserved in publicly accessible institutions overseas and to write detailed bibliographic notes on rare book materials. The foreign institutions preserving Japanese kanbun materials where investigations have been conducted from 2003 to 2006 are, in the US, the Library of Congress, the Sterling Memorial Library and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, the C. V. Starr East Asian Library of Columbia University, the Harvard-Yenching Library and Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University; in Britain, the British Library; in China, the Shanghai Library; in Korea, the Academy of Korean Studies and others. Among these a catalogue of Japanese kanbun materials preserved, in the US, in the Library of Congress, the C. V. Starr East Asian Library of Columbia University, and the Harvard-Yenching Library of Harvard University and, in Korea, in the Academy of Korean Studies has been compiled and bibliographic notes of the rare book holdings of the Library of Congress have been written.