National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

Saibara is an old ballad that had emerged from ordinary people in the early Heian period and along with chanting and imayo, it was incorporated into court music and cherished by court nobles. Ballads, which were folk songs, were chanted to the accompaniment of gagaku (ancient court music), and by the mid-Heian period, two musical scales of ritsu and ryo were established. This selection first lists ryo and ritsu in this order as a table of contents and enumerates 21 songs for ryo and 15 songs for ritsu. Since the postscript states that this was transferred in March 1125, it seems that this was written before 1125. This is a valuable material as a relic book written by a male writer mainly in kana with some kanji.