Jikyōshū

The was a circa 1245 CE Japanese dictionary of Chinese characters. The "Mirror of Characters" title echoes the (circa 900 CE) "Shinsen Jikyō", and the internal organization closely follows the (circa 1100 CE) "Ruiju Myōgishō".

This "Jikyōshū" dictionary exists in three editions of 3, 7, and 20 fascicles ("kan" "scroll; volume"). The anonymous 3-fascicle edition, also known as the "Jikyōshō" (字鏡抄, "Mirror of Characters, Annotated"), is presumably (Chen 1996:119) the original version. The 7-fascicle edition has a postscript dated 1245 that mentions the Buddhist monk Ogawa Shōchō 小川承澄 (1205-1281 CE), but does not clarify his editorial role. The 20-fascicle edition records the Kamakura Period court noble Sugawara no Tamenaga (菅原為長, 1158-1246 CE) as the dictionary editor. He likely compiled it at the end of his life, sometime during the Kangen era (1243-1247 CE).

Head entries in the "Jikyōshū" give the "kanji", rime group (from the "Guangyun"), "on'yomi" Sino-Japanese reading (usually in Chinese "fanqie"), and "kun'yomi" Japanese reading in "katakana". "Compared to the last preceding similar dictionary, the twelfth-century "Ruiju Myōgishō"," writes Bailey (1960:30), "it is a greatly Japanized work."

The primary collation of the "Jikyōshū" is by logographic radical, with the characters under a given radical further organized semantically. The 7-fascicle edition has 12 headings ("mon" ), which the 20-fascicle version reduces to 9. These 12 semantic headings are clearly adapted from the first 13 of the 21 headings in the "Iroha Jiruishō". They begin with "Tenshō" (天象 "astronomical phenomena") and end with "Jiji" (辞字 "miscellaneous 1-character words"), with one change: "Iroha Jiruishō" headings 8 and 9, "Inshoku" (飲食 "foods, drinks") and "Zatsubutsu" (雑物 "miscellaneous things"), are combined into "Jikyōshū" heading 8 "Zatsubutsu". The 20-fascicle "Jikyōshū" edition likewise combines "Inshoku" and "Zatsubutsu" into heading 8 and omits "Iroha Jiruishō" headings 5, 10, 11, and 12.

The modern Mojikyo computer font software includes character data from the ancient "Shinsen Jikyō" and "Jikyōshū".

References

*Bailey, Don Clifford. (1960). "Early Japanese Lexicography". "Monumenta Nipponica" 16:1-52.
*Chen Liwei 陳力衛. (1996). "字鏡抄 ("Jikyōshō")." In "Nihon jisho jiten" 日本辞書辞典 ("The Encyclopedia of Dictionaries Published in Japan"), Okimori Takuya 沖森卓也, et al., eds., pp. 117-118. Tokyo: Ōfū. ISBN 4-273-02890-5
*Kaneko Akira 金子彰. (1996). "字鏡集 ("Jikyōshū")." In "Nihon jisho jiten" 日本辞書辞典 ("The Encyclopedia of Dictionaries Published in Japan"), Okimori Takuya 沖森卓也, et al., eds., p. 117. Tokyo: Ōfū.