During the Nara period, in senmyo, documents that recorded orders from an emperor, small-sized Chinese characters with pronunciations corresponding to okurigana and postpositional particles, such as te, ni, wo, and ha, were used for recording these sounds,
奈良時代、天皇の命令を記した宣命という文書では「送りがな」や「てにをは」を漢字の音を借りて小さく書き入れている。