In the Spring, March, the 19th year [of Empress Suiko],[2] the king of Koma[3] offered up [the] priest[s] Donchō and Hōjō[4] as tribute [to Japan].

"On the grounds that this is the first appearance about the manufacture of paper, it has been said, all in all, from the Edo period, that he brought papermaking skills to Japan first.

B. Jugaku, in his study The Japanese Paper, making a comparative review of surviving ancient documents, concludes the text is a compliment for the Buddhist priest who was also familiar with Confucianism, what is more, never ignorant of crafts; and if properly read, it does not state that he was the first person to bring the methods for color, ink and papermaking, rather that he was quite a craftsman for producing them.

[7] Additionally, at that time, maintenance of the state apparatus, which required enormous amounts of paper such as for family registers, had been started.

[10] In Korea, in recent years, some people have claimed that the wall painting in the Kondō of Hōryū-ji was made by Damjing,[11] but this is not based on any surviving documents.