JJRS > Volume 44 Issue 2 Copying for the Kami The Manuscript Set of the Buddhist Canon held by Matsuno’o Shrine

Keyworth, George A.

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The nearly-complete set of the Buddhist canon dedicated to the chief clansmen—and kami—of the Hata clan at Matsuno’o Shrine in Kyoto, Japan, hand-copied during the mid-twelfth century and kept on site until the late nineteenth century, and only “rediscovered” by researchers in the early 1990s, provides a distinct example of what manuscript cultures can teach us in today’s digital age. The Matsuno’o Shrine Canon is of great value for researchers of premodern religious literature in Chinese because it contains very early and significantly different versions of many canonical Buddhist scriptures that had already been canonized through numerous printed editions by the twelfth century in China and neighboring kingdoms. Also, the narrative of its ownership and provenance in Japan during the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries will be insightful for those investigating the crossroads between sectarianism, iconoclasm, and religious violence in the modern age.