The Shin'yaku Kegonkyō Ongi Shiki (新訳華厳経音義私記) is a Japanese annotation of the Avatamsaka Sūtra. Dated to 794[1], it is the oldest Japanese ongi, or collection of difficult to interpret words showing their pronunciation and meaning[2], and is a National Treasure of Japan[3].
Contents |
The text is two fascicles in length[4][5]. The compiler is unknown but is presumed to have related to Tōdai-ji[3]. It is an annotation of the 80-volume Avatamsaka Sūtra. As the original was written in Chinese, the annotation contains a list of words and expressions from the original and glosses them with Japanese readings and meanings. The orthography of the Japanese suggests that it is a late Nara period text[4][5]. However, the manuscript contains a number of errors and is judged to be a copy of an earlier original[4][5]. There is only one known existing manuscript.
The text is viewed as a valuable reference for Old Japanese linguistics[4][1][5]. The Japanese annotations are written in Man'yōgana and, with the exception of /to1, to2/[4], distinguishes between Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai. It contains a total of 162 Japanese words, many of which are the oldest extant citations[4][1][5]. In addition, it also contains the oldest example of a long vowel[4] as well as a number of Japanese-specific readings (慣用音) to kanji[5].