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

This segment comes from a commentary on the Golden Light Sutra of the Most Victorious Kings (J., Kongomyo saishookyo) in ten volumes by Myoichi (728-98), a Japanese Buddhist monk of Todai-ji Temple in Nara. Its appellation Iimuro gire, or Iimuro edition, comes from its provenance of the Iimuro Practice Hall in the Yokawa area of Mount Hiei. This text is said to been brushed in the hand of Emperor Saga (786-842; r. 809-823). The Iimuro edition consists of 108 and a half lines in four segments from volumes two and four in total and serves as an important source in understanding early Heian-period (794-1185) annotations in Buddhist texts.