Sources for the history of the game of Igo

[ian.rapley]

I’m really a modern historian, but I’ve been a subscriber/reader of this list for a long time and have learned a lot over the years. I’m starting a new project on the game of Go/Igo. I’m mostly interested in the post-Restoration history, but would like to be as thorough as possible, and so am interested in the pre-modern history as well. There are good sources I’m aware of for the Edo period – including commented versions of some texts by a member of the Nihon Kiin, Akita Shoichi, and I know that there are some mentions of the game in The Pillow Book, but I thought I would ask the list whether there were any other likely places to look to piece together a longer trajectory of Go in Japan?

Thanks in advance

Ian

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Dr Ian Rapley,

Senior Lecturer in East Asian History, Cardiff University

https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/rapleyi

[Leonardo Wolfe]

Dear Ian,

I'm not sure why replies to your post are being split into separate posts, however, to add to the discussion, an extensive list, with quotes, can be found here.

Kind regards.

Leonardo Wolfe

BSc (Hons) (SOAS) - International Management (Japan & Korea)
MA Student (SOAS) - Buddhist Studies and Intensive Language (Japanese)

[ian.rapley]

Many thanks to everyone who replied.

The story of a mysterious woman-demon who started the game at tengen, the centre point, has some intriguing echoes of themes of the 20^th Century game. As Bernard mentioned, tengen is not a common opening move but it was one idea explored during the ‘shinfuseki’ revolution in play in the 1930s. And demonic possession might not be a major trend in 20^th century Go, but a central part of the hit manga, Hikaru no Go, was the release of the spirit of a Heian era player who helps the main character learn to play.

In the interests of browsers of the future, I’m just gathering here the info from various different threads, and a couple more that were sent to me off-site:

• Charles de Wolf, “Glimpses of the Game of Go in Japanese Literature,” The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, fourth series, 14 (4).  
• Bernard Scheid (trans), Masukawa K., “Castle Games of the Edo Period The Ôhashi records” http://pokspace.goverband.at/essays/masukawa.htm & other items on Go in Austria.
• A bibliography of sources for pre-modern Go: Ozawa & Masuda, “日本古代の囲碁史に関わる文献資料リスト”, https://ouc.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/642 There are some other publications on pre-modern Go also linked to this research group in the Osaka University of Commerce https://ouc.daishodai.ac.jp/ams_labo/
• A current Kaken grant to look into ancient games playing in East Asia: https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/ja/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-23H00662/
• Conor Aherne shared with me his master’s thesis, “Upping the Ante : Gambling, Gamblers and Go in Heian and Kamakura Japan”:  https://sucra.repo.nii.ac.jp/records/19706 which I’m very much looking forward to reading properly.
• A few people have pointed me in the direction of Masukawa Koichi’s work on Go and Shogi, in particular 遊芸師の誕生 and a volume in the Hosei Daigaku seriesものと人間の文化史59

 Finally, it’s been noted that Go was a regular subject in prints and paintings. I’ll leave you all with a link to one of the more popular themes: Sato Tadanobu fighting off some assailants using a Go board: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_2008-3037-02809

 

Thanks again to all.

Ian

[Robert Borgen]

I confess I haven’t been following this thread carefully, since igo isn’t among my research interests.  Or at least that’s what I was thinking as I skimmed through the various posting.  This one, for some reason, jogged my memory.  The game does, after all, does pop up in something tangentially related to my research:  the story of Kibi no Makibi’s journey to China.  Not the actual journey, by the emaki version of it, in which he plays a game against Chinese masters.  You can find a very nicely done version, both animated and explicated, at:

Robert Borgen

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[Leonardo Wolfe]

Dear Ian,

As somebody that frequently researches Japanese mythology and folklore, the repeated mention of a "demon woman" had me intrigued. Upon further investigation, I came across this page, which provides some further background and related tales. The Japanese version of the page, which is available here, uses the term '化け物', whereas this modern translation uses the term '妖怪変化', an explanation of which is provided here. The original text can be found here.

Kind regards,

Leonardo Wolfe

BSc (Hons) (SOAS) - International Management (Japan & Korea)
MA Student (SOAS) - Buddhist Studies and Intensive Language (Japanese)

[ian.rapley]

...And no sooner than I clicked send, I realised I left off the mentions direct to primary sources. The Ozawa article above looks like a good collection of citations for primary material, but the following specific mentions also came up:

- Genji, in particular chapter 3 ("Utsusemi")
- Konjaku Monogatari, in particular the story of Kanren

- Tsurezuregusa, in particular 110, 111, 188 and 193 (SNKBZ edition)

Apologies for botching this summary.

Ian