Sources & Provenance
Each design on this site is traced from a specific historical source. This page lists those sources and explains how we decide what we may use.
What we use
We use only three kinds of source:
- Books and prints whose term of copyright protection has expired, confirmed against the holding library’s own rights statement (for example, the National Diet Library of Japan’s designation “internet-public, term of protection expired”).
- Images released by their holding institution for free reuse with attribution (for example, the Kyoto University Rare Materials Digital Archive).
- Objects in our own collection, identified as such.
The ledger below also lists works we consulted for research but do not trace designs from.
We do not trace designs from modern books, even when those books reproduce old talismans, and we do not trace from talismans currently issued by a living temple or shrine.
How we verify
Where we can, we check a claim against the original: the page image, the colophon, the woodblock print itself. Where a claim rests on a secondary study, we cite the study. Where it rests on our own inference, we say so.
Corrections
If you find an error, write to us at soft@netperfect.co.jp. We will check it against the source and, if you are right, correct the page and record the change.
The ledger
Design sources
Works we trace designs from.
- Tenteison-sei reifu himitsu shūden 天帝尊星霊符秘密集伝（一名 国乃宝）
- 藤崎孝教
- 天皇館, 1910-12
- 国立国会図書館
- DOI 10.11501/760924
- Public domain (copyright term expired)
- Chintaku reifu-shin: Tenka muhi fukuju hittoku 鎮宅霊符神：天下無比福寿必得
- 金華山人
- 瑞祥書院, 1912
- 国立国会図書館
- DOI 10.11501/909927
- Public domain (copyright term expired)
- 正對化霊天眞坤元霊符傳
- 大江匡弼
- 1773
- 京都大学附属図書館（蔵経書院文庫）
- RMDA RB00018547
- Free reuse with attribution to the holding institution
- Three goōhōin sheets found in a straw rice bale
- JUFU ARCHIVES collection
- In our collection
Consulted for research
Works we cite or compare, but do not trace designs from.
- 太上玄靈北斗本命延生眞經註 卷之五
- 徐道齡 集註
- 1445
- 宮内庁書陵部（紅葉山文庫）第1921帖
- 宮内庁書陵部収蔵漢籍集覧 bibid 007074 子目620
- Terms of use under review; not used as a design source
- 宮地神仙道叢書1 霊符集
- 山雅房, 1988
- Consulted for research; not used as a design source
- 萬呪秘法
- 1920
- 国立国会図書館
- pid 913629
- Public domain (copyright term expired). Consulted for research; not used as a design source
- A Star God Is Born: Chintaku Reifujin Talismans in Japanese Religions
- Sujung Kim
- Religions 13, no. 5: 431, 2022
- DOI 10.3390/rel13050431
- Consulted for research; not used as a design source
- Taoism and the Arts of China, cat. 113
- Shawn Eichman (in Stephen Little with Shawn Eichman)
- Art Institute of Chicago / University of California Press, 2000
- Consulted for research; not used as a design source