Konjaku Monogatari

Konjaku Monogatarishū (今昔物語集^?, lit. Anthology of Tales from the Past), also known as the Konjaku Monogatari (今昔物語^?), is a Japanese collection of over one thousand tales written during the late Heian period (794–1185). The entire collection was originally contained in 31 volumes, of which 28 remain today. The volumes cover various tales from India, China and Japan. Detailed evidence of lost monogatari exist in the form of literary critique, which can be studied to reconstruct the objects of their critique to some extent.

Each tale in the Konjaku Monogatarishū starts with the phrase once upon a time (今は昔^?) (lit. now long ago), which in its Japanese reading is pronounced ima wa mukashi. The Chinese-style pronunciation of this phrase is konjaku, and it is from the Chinese-style reading that the collection is named. The Konjaku Monogatarishū is commonly known by the shorter name "Konjaku Monogatari". Since it is an anthology rather than a single tale, however, the longer title is more accurate.

The Konjaku Monogatarishū is divided according to the region of the text. The first five volumes, the 天竺 (Tenjiku) section, contain tales set in India. The next five volumes, the 震旦 (Shintan) section, contain tales set in China. The remainder of the anthology, the 本朝 (Honchō) section, contains tales from Japan.

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