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

This tekagami is a notebook containing 79 superior calligraphy examples, which Oguchi Shugyo (1864－1920), a poet who played an active role as a poet from the Meiji period to the Taisho period and is also well-known as a researcher on ancient handwriting, created by selecting from among ancient writings and sutra copies that he had long collected. Different from a conventional ordering method in tekagami, he divided them into two groups: the first group comprising 38 ancient handwriting examples, which were pasted on the front sides, and the second group comprising 41 sutra copies, which were pasted on the reverse sides of pages. These examples include the following rather decorative sutra fragments: Sugawara no Michizane's own writing Murasakigirre (Konkomyosaishoo Sutra), Sugawara no Michizane's own writing that survived the fire of Nigatsudo (Kegon Sutra), Empress Komyo's writing on the paper where butterflies and birds are drawn (Four-leaf/Lotus Sutra), Onono Tofu's writing Aichigire (Kanfugen Sutra), Fujiwara no Sadanobu's writing Togakushigire (Lotus Sutra), Emperor Shirakawa's writing Rengeoingire (Legend, Kanmuryoju Sutra), fragments of Menashi Sutra (Konkomyo Sutra), and Emperor Gotoba's writing Kiyomizugire (Lotus Sutra).