Kishōmon: Four oaths and five invocations

Overview

When Princeton University purchased five oaths (kishōmon) from a Japanese antique bookseller in 2017, little was known about their origin except that the bookseller had obtained them from the collection of Takita Eiji (1904-1998), an entrepreneur and a local historian from Aichi prefecture who had studied Zen Buddhism and Japanese History at the University of Tokyo. It is now known that these documents were part of a collection of documents handed down to the Saji, a warrior family based in Kōga district, in Ōmi province (nowadays Kōka city, Shiga prefecture).

View the Princeton University Library holdings

#1 1556 Isano-Saji oath with Daishi kanjō invocation

#2 1563 oath by prominent local warriors with invocation modeled after the 1232 Jōei law code

#3 1569 oath with Reisha jōgan and Daishi kanjō invocations

#4 Invocation clause to oath (1615)

Acknowledgements

For an informative study of these oaths and their significance, see Horikawa Yasufumi, "Oaths and Divine Punishments in Warring States Japan from the Princeton University Collection," in Buc and Conlan, eds., "Oaths in Premodern Japan and Premodern Europe," Medieval Worlds volume 19 (2023), pp. 86-118

The Saji documents are part of a private collection. Images provided by Koka City Board of Education. We appreciate receiving permission to publish these images. We are also grateful for the research, tireless efforts on transcription and translation by Horikawa Yasufumi of the Historiographical Institute, the University of Tokyo. This project could not have come to fruition without his hard work. Special thanks to Setsuko Noguchi who, with the help of Sasaki Takahiro, was able to secure these documents for the Princeton library. This website was developed by Ben Johnston from the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning, Princeton University.