The was a circa 1245 CE Japanese dictionary of Chinese characters. The "Mirror of Characters" title echoes the (circa 900 CE) Shinsen Jikyō

Shinsen Jikyo

The is the first Japanese dictionary containing native kun'yomi "Japanese readings" of Chinese characters. The title is also written 新選字鏡 with the graphic variant sen for sen ....

, and the internal organization closely follows the (circa 1100 CE) Ruiju Myōgishō

Ruiju Myogisho

The , alternatively misread as Ruijū myōgishō, is a Japanese dictionary from the late Heian Period. The title, sometimes abbreviated as Myōgishō, combines the ruiju from the Wamyō Ruijushō and the myōgi from the Tenrei Banshō Myōgi...

.

This Jikyōshū dictionary exists in three editions of 3, 7, and 20 fascicles (kan 卷 "scroll; volume"). The anonymous 3-fascicle edition, also known as the Jikyōshō (字鏡抄, "Mirror of Characters, Annotated"), is presumably (Chen 1996:119) the original version. The 7-fascicle edition has a postscript dated 1245 that mentions the Buddhist monk Ogawa Shōchō 小川承澄 (1205-1281 CE), but does not clarify his editorial role. The 20-fascicle edition records the Kamakura Period

Kamakura period

The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura Shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first shogun Minamoto no Yoritomo....

 court noble Sugawara no Tamenaga (菅原為長, 1158-1246 CE) as the dictionary editor. He likely compiled it at the end of his life, in the Kangen

Kangen

was a after Ninji and before Hoji. This period spanned the years from February 1243 to February 1247. The reigning emperor was .-Change of era:; 1243: The new era name was created to mark an event or a number of events...

 era (1243-1247 CE).

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...

, rime group (from the Guangyun

Guangyun

The Guangyun is a Chinese rime dictionary that was compiled from 1007 to 1008 under the auspices of Emperor Zhenzong of Song. Chen Pengnian and Qiu Yong were the chief editors....

), on'yomi Sino-Japanese reading (usually in Chinese fanqie

Fanqiè

In Chinese phonology, fanqie is a method to indicate the pronunciation of a character by using two other characters.-The Origin:...

), and kun'yomi Japanese reading 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...

. "Compared to the last preceding similar dictionary, the twelfth-century Ruiju Myōgishō," writes Bailey (1960:30), "it is a greatly Japanized work."

The primary 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...

 of the Jikyōshū is by logographic radical

Radical (Chinese character)

A Chinese radical is a component of a Chinese character. The term may variously refer to the original semantic element of a character, or to any semantic element, or, loosely, to any element whatever its origin or purpose...

, with the characters under a given radical further organized semantically. The 7-fascicle edition has 12 headings (mon 門), which the 20-fascicle version reduces to 9. These 12 semantic headings are clearly adapted from the first 13 of the 21 headings in the 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,...

. They begin with Tenshō (天象 "astronomical phenomena") and end with Jiji (辞字 "miscellaneous 1-character words"), with one change: Iroha Jiruishō headings 8 and 9, Inshoku (飲食 "foods, drinks") and Zatsubutsu (雑物 "miscellaneous things"), are combined into Jikyōshū heading 8 Zatsubutsu. The 20-fascicle Jikyōshū edition likewise combines Inshoku and Zatsubutsu into heading 8 and omits Iroha Jiruishō headings 5, 10, 11, and 12.

The modern Mojikyo

Mojikyo

is a set of computer software and fonts for enhanced logogram word-processing. , it collected 126,560/142,228 characters . Among them, 101,936/128,573 characters belong to the extended CJKV family...

computer font software includes character data from the ancient Shinsen Jikyō and Jikyōshū.