Scriptorium. In the Nara period, the imperial family, aristocrats and various temples had scriptoriums where scribes were engaged in sutra copying and other people were in charge of papermaking and binding and decorating the sutras. Among these, the scriptorium started by Empress Kōmyō under her palace office and then moved to the Tōdaiji Construction Office is particularly prominent. The office papers used there constitute a considerable portion of the Shōsō-in Old Documents (Shōsō-in komonjo).