1) Haga Norio, “Man’yōshū hikaku bungaku jiten,” in Bessatsu kokubungaku man’yōshū jiten, ed. Inaoka Kōji (Gakutosha, 1993)
Outline that is a handbook for learning about continental texts received by the ancient Japanese that served as nourishment for their own expression. The first goal I had when I became a graduate student was to get ahold of as many of the materials listed in the bibliography as possible. As the list is more than twenty years old it naturally requires some supplementation, but all the materials here are fundamental works that should be remembered. Also, the main article is included in Man’yōshū ni okeru chūgoku bungaku no juyō (Hanawa shobō, 2003), but unfortunately the bibliography has been abbreviated.

2) Ikeda On, ed., Nihon kodai o manabu tame no kanbun nyūmon (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 2006)
This work can be used to supplement the works in the bibliography of Haga’s text given above (the individual articles should also be read). I have also provided some additions in “Jiten hen dai yonbu man’yōshū no hyōgen kiban,” in Man’yōshū kanshō jiten (Kodansha, 2010), 379-387. However, when considering the study of the East Asian classics, some caution is required when using the modern commentaries listed in Haga and Ikeda. For example, it is not appropriate to use Shirakawa Shizuka’s text as a source for the Mao tradition of the Classic of Poetry, Miyazaki Ichisada’s modern translation of the Analects, etc.

3) Kitagawa Kazuhide, “IV bunken mokuroku ichiran,” in Kaku koto no bungaku, ed. Saijō Tsutomu (Kasama shoin, 2001)
In addition to the two reference lists given above, I add one which I am personally fond of. It is structured on “Jōdai no moji hyōki kankei kenkyū bunken” (article collection), “Jōdai no moji hyōki kankei kenkyū bunken” (stand-alone volume), “Jōdai moji shiryō shūsei bunken,” and allows for comprehensively learning the specialized texts for studying the facts of practical application of sinographs by the ancient Japanese.

4) Ogawa Tamaki, Tōshi gaisetsu (Iwanami shoten, 2005 [1st ed. 1958])
If one were selecting what to read from the books given in the list in Haga above, they would probably be the Naitō Konan, Kanda Kiichirō, Ōta Shōjirō, Tōno Haruyuki, and Haga Norio works from the “zengen” section (318-320), Kano Naoki’s Kanbun kenkyū hō (Misuzu shobō, 1979), or Shimizu Shigeru’s Chūgoku mokurokugaku. Aside from these, I strongly recommend “Shotōshi” from Tōshi gaisetsu. While there are too many guidebooks to Chinese poetry to count, I share Kawai Kōzō’s sentiment given in the “Kaisetsu” that this is a “very peculiar book” and that “even though I have read it numerous times since my days as a student, every time I discover something new.”

5) Miura Katsutoshi, Kanbun o yomu tame no joji shōjiten (Uchiyama shoten, 1996 [1st ed. 1984])
As could be surmised from the generous provision of pages (243-301) in the appendix “Tōshi no joji” in Ikeda’s work above, comprehension of auxiliary characters (joji) is required for understanding kanbun. This book is only forty pages, covers the most important 199 auxiliary characters, and its explanations are brief and to the point. On a similar note, Ōta Shōjirō’s “Kobunsho no yomikata: itaiji ichigū,” in Ōta Shōjirō chosakushū daigosatsu (Yoshikawa kōbunkan 1993 [1st ed. 1957]), is also a practical guidebook. Handwritten sources contain character variants that differ from the conventional printed typefaces, and this book allows one to search by character shape and stroke number in order to identify these characters, a very accommodating format.

6) Ōshima Shōji, Kanji to chūgokujin: bunkashi o yomitoki (Iwanami shoten, 2003)
The title of this work is somewhat deceptive; it is primarily an explanation of the major sinograph dictionaries widely used in the world of classical East Asia. After studying the fundamentals here, I recommend proceeding on to Rai Tsutomu’s Chūgoku koten o yomu tame ni: chūgokugo gakushi kōgi, ed. Mizutani Makoto (Taishūkan shoten, 1996). This work similarly has an ambiguous title but is primarily focused on dictionaries.

7) Nishizaki Tōru, ed., Nihon kojisho o manabu hito no tame ni (Sekai shishōsha, 1995)
This work explains sinograph dictionaries that were compiled in Japan, and one can learn their overall theory, historical changes, and the particulars of each dictionary. Though it is an introductory text the overall level is high, and there are several particularly beneficial points in the sections “Kojisho eiin kankō mokuroku” and “Kojisho kankei kenkyū bunken mokuroku.” However, like the Haga above, this list is over twenty years old.

8) Kim Mun’gyŏng, Kanbun to higashi ajia: kundoku no bunkaken (Iwanami shoten, 2010)
Gloss for reading (kundoku) documents are closely connected to early Japanese dictionaries. Mastering reading of kundoku is difficult without studying o-ko-to ten, kana fonts, and character sounds. At any rate, “glossing” literary Sinitic documents so they could be read in a native language was a widespread practice in East Asia, and this book provides an excellent outline of kundoku and kunten with ample examples.

9) Ōta Shōjirō, “‘Yonbu no dokusho’ kō,” Ōta Shōjirō chosakushū daiissatsu (Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1991 [1st ed. 1959])
Ōta Shōjirō’s research generally warrants being read through, and not only “Nihon shoki henshū no sankōsho no ichi,” “Kibi no Makibi no kanseki shōrai,” and “Kobunsho no yomikata.” Among these, this work which long ago identified the importance of primers cannot be skipped regardless of the period or region one studies. Put shortly, its main point is how people in the premodern period acquired literacy and education and how to grasp and vicariously experience that process. The four texts from the tile are the Thousand Character Classic, Li Jiao’s Anthology of 120 Poems, the Meng Qiu, and the Wakan rōeishū (also Bai Juyi’s New Music Bureau).

10) Misumi Yōichi, Genji monogatari to tendai jōdokyō (Wakakusa shobō, 1996)
Up to now I should have provided many reference works on Buddhist studies and the Buddhist canon, which form one half of the “Confucian-Buddhist” duality in studies of the East Asian classics, but I will limit myself to this one work (also the section “Butten to bukkyōteki shibun” in Haga’s text should be consulted). Allow me to cite one passage from Misumi I was stimulated by when I read it long ago (from “Bukkyōteki hōhō oboegaki, 260). “First, in order to study from Tale of Genji to Essays in Idleness and Tale of the Heike from a Buddhist perspective, we should start by sketching the image of the ideal researcher…First they would master the Verses on the Treasury of Abhidharma, and next the three great books of Tendai [Fahua xuanyi, Fahua wenju, and Mohe zhiguan], and then if possible read through the sixty volumes [Fahua xuanyi shiqian, Fahua wenju ji, Zhiguan fuxing zhuan hongjue], then the Maha Prajnaparamita Sastra, then to go through the classics of the Pure Land sect [Infinite Life Sutra, Amitayurdhyana Sutra, Amitabha Sutra, etc] and the Ōjōyōshū.” Regarding the tenets of the Shingon sect, Misumi also notes the need to learn Shingonshū anshin zensho (2 vol., revised ed. Shuchiin daigaku, 1973). For the Hosso sect, Hattori Masaaki and Ueyama Shunpei’s Bukkyō no shisō 4: Ninshiki to chōetsu yuishiki (Kadokawa shoten, 1997 [1st ed. 1970]) and Tagawa Shun’ei’s Yuishiki nyūmon (Shunjūsha, 1989) are excellent. In addition to the above, I also recommend getting ahold of the similar texts Fayuan zhulin and Fuzu tongji.