Tsukishima is a ballad for Kowaka-mai (dance dramas) established in the Muromachi era (1338-1573). It is also called "Hyogo" or "Hyogo tsukishima." The literal meaning of "tsukishima" is "making an island," and the ballad is based on an episode when Taira no Kiyomori built a port in Fukuhara, Hyogo. The story starts with Kiyomori's decision to build a new port in Fukuhara. To ensure success in the construction of the port, 30 people are captured to make human sacrifices to the gods. Seeing the grief of the sacrifices and their families, Matsuo, a handsome young page who has gained Kiyomori's favor, offers himself as a sacrifice instead of the 30 people. Eventually he is sunk into the sea alive with 10 thousand copies of the Lotus Sutra, and this incident makes people call the port "kyo-no-shima," the island of sutra.

There is a record that Tsukishima was performed in 1545. Although there are some older manuscripts, this is the first printed edition (wooden-type print) of Tsukishima and no copies of the same edition have been found. The year of publication is not clear, but it must be earlier than 1632, the year which a woodblock edition was published.

This book was designated as a rare book of the NDL by the 36th committee on the designation of rare books in January 2005. At this committee, two other Japanese books and eight western books were designated as rare books and one Japanese book and six titles of serial publications of the 19th century as semi-rare books. (In total, there are 1,206 rare books and 763 semi-rare books to date.)

You can see the whole text of Tsukishima in the Rare Books Image Database in the NDL website. The Database was redesigned in June 1, 2005, adding 39 titles toWakansho (Japanese and Chinese Old Books), 4 titles to Nishikie and a new category "Ezu" which presents 53 old maps.