My plan for this page is to include a range of resources that will make the classical Japanese law codes easier to access and navigate. My goal is to eventually provide a list of all clauses in the codes with short English descriptions of what each law does or includes. I hope this will allow scholars to more quickly survey the law codes and identify key clauses or sections that are relevant to their research. Over time, I plan to also include citations to any existing translations of each law (I can cover French, German, and English, but would love to add other languages). A submission form will allow anyone to send in citations that I’ve missed. This will all take some time, but I welcome any comments, questions, or ideas for how to set this resource up or for what would be most useful.
Below you will find a table created using Airtable that lists the chapters of the Yōrō Administrative Code (757 CE). I have included English translations for each chapter title, the Japanese title and reading, the number of clauses, the volume number, and an alternative set of translations for the titles.
Navigating the table
The content can be filtered or searched with keywords, and the table can also be searched using the magnifying glass icon on the top right, or can be downloaded to your own computer as a static CSV file. If viewing online, I recommend viewing the table in a new window - click "view larger version" on the bottom right of the table to do so.
Citations
The primary translations of the chapter titles listed here are drawn from the “Appendix: Chapters of the Yôrô Administrative Code” in Yoshie Akiko, Ijuin Yōko, and Joan R. Piggott’s extremely useful “Gender in the Administrative Code, Part 1: Laws on Residence Units,” which can be found in the Teikyo Journal of History 28 of February 2013, pages 317–418. I have also included George Sansom’s commonly-cited translations of the same chapter titles, which can be found in “Early Japanese Law and Administration - Part I,” published in the 1932 Transactions of the Asiatic Society in Japan, number 9.
