Numerous very fine brush & ink illus. in the text & 52 stamped mon. 19 folding leaves (the first two leaves & the final leaf are blank). Large 8vo (292 x 210 mm.), orig. patterned wrappers, stitched as issued (stitching a little loose), gold-decorated endpapers. [Japan]: mid-Edo.

An uncommonly well-illustrated and interesting manuscript, which appears to be unpublished; our manuscript is a copy, with considerable variations, of the Buddhist priest Ningai’s “Koen [or “Kodo”] gangu,” which first circulated in manuscript about 1729. Ningai (1675-1747 or 1670-1752), was active in the Yonekawa ryu incense ceremony school in Kyoto. His “Koen gangu,”which... More