The , alternatively read as Gegakushū, was a 1444 Japanese dictionary of Chinese characters arranged into semantic headings. The title alludes to Confucius's self-description in the Lunyu: 下学而上達 "My studies lie low, and my penetration rises high." (tr. Legge http://www.afpc.asso.fr/wengu/wg/wengu.php?l=Lunyu&s=14.)

The Kagakushūs colophon

Colophon (publishing)

In publishing, a colophon is either:* A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the reverse of the title page, but can also sometimes be located at the end of the book, or...

 is dated 1444 CE, but does not name the dictionary's editor except for obscurely mentioning Tōroku Hanō (東麓破衲 "East-foothills Torn-robes"; possibly Hadō). Scholars presume this was a Muromachi Period

Muromachi period

The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate, which was officially established in 1338 by the first Muromachi shogun, Ashikaga Takauji, two years after the brief Kemmu restoration of imperial...

 Buddhist priest because Tōroku is a variant name for Tōzan (東山 "East Mountain"), which is the location of Kennin-ji

Kennin-ji

, is a historic Zen Buddhist temple in Higashiyama, Kyoto, Japan, near Gion. It is considered to be one of the so-called Kyoto Gozan or "five most important Zen temples of Kyoto".-History:...

 (建仁寺), the head temple of the Sōtō

Soto

Sōtō Zen , or is, with Rinzai and Ōbaku, one of the three most populous sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism.The Sōtō sect was first established as the Caodong sect during the Tang Dynasty in China by Dongshan Liangjie in the 9th century, which Dōgen Zenji then brought to Japan in the 13th century...

 school of Zen

Zen

Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...

.

The Kagakushū was one of the first Japanese dictionaries designed for common people rather than intelligentsia. In the lexicographical evolution of Japanese dictionaries, Nakao explains how

[R]eference books took a significant further step towards Japanese, and the dictionaries, which had been almost exclusively employed by scholars, priests, literati, and the learned minority of the country, consequently reached a wider audience and began to be used as practical guides to reading and writing. Moreover, the developing technology of printing enabled the literate public to obtain handy and practical dictionaries quite cheaply. Kagakushu (1444), produced in two volumes and edited by a monk in Kyoto, was a sort of Japanese language dictionary with encyclopedic information. It served as a textbook on Chinese characters and was reissued many times, each time with further additions. (1998:37)

This anonymous Japanese dictionary, in two fascicles (kan 卷 "scroll; volume"), defines some 3000 words (Kaneko 1996:51). Head entries in the Jikyōshū give the kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

, Japanese readings in katakana

Katakana

is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...

 to the right, definition, usage notes, and occasionally etymology. Collation

Collation

Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. One common type of collation is called alphabetization, though collation is not limited to ordering letters of the alphabet...

 for the entries involves 18 semantic headings, as shown below.

Classified headings in the Kagakushū

Heading	Rōmaji	Kanji Kanji Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...	Subject
1	Tenchi	天地	nature
2	Jisetsu	時節	seasons
3	Jingi	神祇	Shintō deities
4	Jinrin	人倫	human relations
5	Kan'i	官位	offices and ranks
6	Jinmei	人名	names of people
7	Kaoku	家屋	buildings
8	Kikei	気形	creatures
9	Shitai	支体	anatomy
10	Taigei	態芸	art and form
11	Kenpu	絹布	cloth
12	Inshoku	飲食	foods and drinks
13	Kizai	器材	utensils
14	Sōmoku	草木	plants
15	Saishiki	彩色	colors
16	Sūryō	数量	weights and measures
17	Genji	言辞	miscellaneous words
18	Jōji	畳字	synonym compounds

Compared with the semantic categorizations in earlier Japanese dictionaries such as the Wamyō Ruijushō

Wamyo Ruijusho

The is a 938 CE Japanese dictionary of Chinese characters. The Heian Period scholar Minamoto no Shitagō began compilation in 934, at the request of Emperor Daigo's daughter...

 or Iroha Jiruishō

Iroha Jiruisho

The is a 12th century Japanese dictionary of Kanji . It was the first Heian Period dictionary to collate characters by pronunciation rather than by logographic radical or word meaning .The Iroha Jiruishō has a complex history involving editions of two, three,...

, these simplified 18 in the Kagakushū are easier to understand.

Many Kagakushū editions have an appendix entitled Tenkaku-shōji (点画小異字 "characters differing only by one stroke") that lists pairs like ya 冶 "smelt; cast" and chi 治 "govern; regulate".

The origins of the Kagakushū, like the Setsuyōshū

Setsuyoshu

The was a popular Muromachi Period Japanese dictionary collated in iroha order and subdivided into semantic categories. The title word setsuyō means "reduce usage; economize" and alludes to the Lunyu...

, are associated with an early type of Japanese textbook used in Buddhist Terakoya

Terakoya

Terakoya were private educational institutions that taught writing and reading to the children of Japanese commoners during the Edo period.-History:...

 private schools, the ōraimono (往来物, "correspondences; model letter book; copybook"). According to Don Bailey:

The Kagakushū, although only sparsely annotated, was in fact intended to serve as a small encyclopedia and textbook as well as a dictionary; the compiler, apparently realizing that many of the ōrai then in use were too detailed, cumbersome, and tome-like, condensed and abstracted from these texts in order to produce a reference tool containing minimally essential information and Chinese characters. That he succeeded is attested by the fact that over thirty copies of the Kagakushū have survived from the Muromachi period alone. (1960:37)

External links

• 下学集, first page of Kagakushū, Tsukuba University
• 下学集の複写, Kagakushū entry for 楝 Chinaberry, Tomitaro Makino
  Tomitaro Makino
  thumb|200px|Tomitaro Makino was a pioneer Japanese botanist noted for his taxonomic work. He has been called "Father of Japanese Botany", as he was one of the first Japanese botanists to work extensively on classifying Japanese plants using the system developed by Linnaeus...
  
  
• Manuscript scans at Waseda University Library
  Waseda University Library
  The library of Waseda University is one of the largest libraries in Japan. It was established in 1882, and currently holds some 4.5 million volumes and 46,000 serials.-History:...
  
  : 1669, http://archive.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kosho/ho02/ho02_00890/ho02_00890.html