28 titles (3,561 images) of old Japanese and Chinese materials including Myoho renge-kyo (sad-dharma-pundarika-sutra), Heike Monogatari and Kazashino-hime have been added to the "Rare Books Image Database" (Japanese only), in which unique materials selected from rare books and other materials held by the NDL are provided in digitized color images. In total, 916 titles (45,000 images) are now available.

Backside (letters)

A Buddhist sutra, beautifully decorated with gold and silver leaf. This sutra is on the reverse side of 124 letters written by a Buddhist priest in the Kamakura period (1185-1333). The letters themselves are a treasure-trove of information on those times.

Heike Monogatari is a military epic depicting the rise and fall of a samurai family, the Heike, which lasted for about 60 years from the middle to the late 12th century. Of all the stories in Japanese literature, Heike Monogatari is one that has been the most printed or variously transcribed. Printed with kokatsuji (old movable-type).

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