Wasan Collection

This collection consists of the former book collections of Tsuruichi Hayashi (1873-1935), a professor at the Faculty of Science of Tohoku Imperial University and the first director of the library, and Matsusaburo Fujiwara (1881-1946), a colleague at the founding of the arithmetic course, as well as 14,470 books of Japanese Wasan materials collected by both professors, in addition this large collection includes 2,667 books from the former book collection of Norifumi Okamoto (1847-1931), a member of the Imperial Academy, and others. This is a large collection totaling 18,335 books.

Tsuruich Hayashi was the leading person among Japanese arithmetic studies of those days, but was also a successor to the Seki school of Japanese arithmetic. Therefore, this collection also includes the license for Seki-Ryu Wasan. This collection, together with the Wasan-related materials contained in the Kano collection, accounts for two-thirds of all Wasan materials in Japan. This is the biggest reason why Tohoku University has become a major center for Wasan research.

As to the characteristics of this collection, it holds many originals and manuscripts of provincial arithmeticians while covering most of the major printed books. It also contains many materials on astronomy, calendar calculations, and measurement, as well as Japanese arithmetic. Particularly valuable works include "Warizan-sho" (published in 1622) by Shigeyoshi Mouri and "Jugai-roku" (published in 1639) by Tomoaki Imamura, a disciple of Shigeyoshi Mouri. In addition, the collection of various "Jinkoki" can be said to be of the highest standard in terms of both quantity and quality.

This collection was kept in the department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science for a long time, but in 1968, it was transferred to the Research Institute for Japanese Culture in the Faculty of Arts and Letters, and in 1979, it was moved to the Tohoku University library.
 Images of materials are currently being prepared.