Taichu 袋中(1552-1639) is the priest who belonged to the Nago'e sect 名越派 of Jodo shu 浄土宗, that is the school of Pure Land Buddhism established by Honen 法然(1133-1212) in Japan. In the 8^
year of Genna(1622), he moved to Nara and built Nembutsuji temple 念仏寺. Then he collected the Buddhist sutras, both manuscripts and editions, with his disciples in various places and copied for the sutras those were not able to be collected. Finally, he kept them in the Buddhist sutra storehouse of Nembutsuji temple. But the Buddhist sutras collected by him were scattered and lost. Now, some of them exist in all over the world. Its history was cleared by the investigation of the Buddhist sutras collected by him and the check of the catalogues of libraries and museums which possess them in part now. By checking of the colophons and seals of their sutras, the original owners of them were cleared. Those were Joruriji temple 浄瑠璃時 in Kyoto, Kimpusenji temple 金峰山寺 in Nara, and the other temples that existed in Kyoto or Nara once. It is likely that Taichu collected the sutras existed in Kyoto and Nara, that is to say the vicinity of Nembutsuji temple, in the beginning of Edo period. The extent of his collecting sutras was relatively narrow. Because many of the Buddhist manuscripts or editions existed in that area.
