The Seventeen-Article Constitution in Akoma Ntoso

Japan’s Seventeen-Article Constitution of 604, traditionally attributed to Prince Shōtoku, in its classical Chinese text with W. G. Aston’s English translation, marked up in Akoma Ntoso, the OASIS standard for legal and legislative documents. The original is set in vertical columns and read from right to left.

How it was made

The XML was generated by Claude for Grant Vergottini from the text in the Gunsho Ruiju, as given on Japanese Wikisource, and from Aston’s 1896 translation of the Nihongi. The text is preserved in the Nihon Shoki of 720, and scholars debate how much of it dates from 604. It reads more as moral guidance for officials than as a constitution in the modern sense. The page is a modern rendering, not a copy of any manuscript.

Files

• seventeen-article-constitution.xml: the Akoma Ntoso document
• seventeen-article-constitution.css: the stylesheet that renders it