Wahon Literacies: A Collection of Books for the Study of Japanese Book History

UCLA Library holds a valuable collection of Japanese prints and manuscripts from the premodern (pre-1868) period. Mostly acquired through the effort of two UCLA professors during the 1950s-60s, it helped to lay the foundation for the UCLA East Asian collection. One of them is Richard C. Rudolph, a professor of Chinese literature and archaeology and director of the Oriental Library, the precursor of today’s East Asian Library, who established a new department of Oriental Languages at UCLA in 1947. Another is Enshō Ashikaga (足利演正), a Jōdo Shinshū priest from Sakai, Osaka, professor of Japanese language and culture, and specialist in Japanese and Tibetan Buddhism, who started the Japanese program in the Oriental Languages department in the same year. Dr. Rudolph purchased Chinese and Japanese materials during his sabbaticals in Kyoto in the 1950s-60s after his one-year acquisitions trip to China in 1948-49 while Rev. Ashikaga acquired Buddhist materials. The collection contains over 220 Edo maps, over 400 medical books, 60 medical ukiyoe prints, and over 330 volumes (115 titles) of Buddisht books from the Shōun Toganoo (栂尾祥雲) collection among others. With a gift addition of over 220 volumes (105 titles) of Edo-period woodblock prints by Mr. Julian Chapman Wright, a local art teacher, in 1978, it became a more inclusive well-rounded premodern collection for research. For details please refer to Catalog of Rare Japanese Materials at the University of California, Los Angeles (Tōsui Shobō, 2000) compiled by Jun Suzuki, Professor of Literature at the National Institute of Japanese Literature, and Mihoko Miki, the first Japanese Studies Librarian at UCLA, which lists total 1,306 items.