Hizen no Kuni Fudoki (Gazetteer of Hizen Province)

A Heian-Period Manuscript, National Treasure since 1955

Hizen no Kuni Fudoki (Gazetteer of Hizen Province) (肥前国風土記) is a manuscript in Kagawa Prefecture, designated a National Treasure in 1955, on 2 February. The quantity is one bound volume, the category calligraphy and books, and the designation number 00214.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives the country as Japan and the period as Heian. Both year fields are blank, and the commentary runs to a single line: a work of the Heian period. The field for the Important Cultural Property designation is also blank, with only the National Treasure date recorded.

What is designated is the manuscript, not the gazetteer as a text. The text was compiled in the eighth century; the Heian period in the Agency's record refers to when this volume was copied. The two should not be run together.

It Is Held in Kagawa

Hizen province covers what are now Saga and Nagasaki prefectures. The manuscript, however, is recorded in Kagawa Prefecture.

The Agency records the owner as a private individual and leaves both the location field and the holding institution field blank. The present place of keeping cannot be read from the official record.

The land described and the land where the manuscript came to rest are different. Descriptions that work in visitor information for Saga and Nagasaki appear elsewhere, but that is not where the manuscript is.

A National Treasure in private hands is not necessarily shown on any regular footing. Seeing it means waiting for a loan to an exhibition.

What a Fudoki Is

A fudoki is a gazetteer compiled province by province under the ritsuryo system, reporting the origins of place names, local products and traditions.

In 713 an order went out for reports on the character and customs of each region, and gazetteers were compiled province by province. They were made across nearly the whole country at the time, but only those of five provinces survive. This is one of them.

The content turns on the origins of place names. Each entry records what event or figure a name derives from, so tradition is set down through the names of places.

This gazetteer has much in common with that of Bungo province and with surviving fragments from elsewhere in Kyushu, which has led to the view that it was compiled at the Dazaifu.

Counted as One Volume

The counter used is that for a folded or bound book rather than a scroll. It has come down in bound form.

Of the five surviving gazetteers, the manuscripts of Hizen and of Harima carry National Treasure status. The other three fall under different classes of designation.

That the manuscript is a single volume means the account of the whole province is contained in one book. It is not complete, however, and parts are missing.

The Agency leaves both the dimensions field and the materials field blank, so the size and the paper cannot be established from the official record.

Reading It

The manuscript itself is in private hands and is not on regular display. Seeing it means waiting for a loan to an exhibition.

The text, on the other hand, has long been available in printed editions, so reading it presents no difficulty. Reading the text and seeing the manuscript are two different things.

Museums in the region that was Hizen, such as the Saga Prefectural Museum, sometimes mount displays or explanations drawing on the gazetteer. The places that explain the content and the place that holds the manuscript are not the same.

Calligraphy and books are vulnerable to light and humidity, and display periods are usually short even when a loan is made. Check the notice of any showing before travelling.