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In [a shrine graffito](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File%3aShochu-
rakugaki.jpg) written in 1559, two carpenters complain:

> 其時座主ハ大キナコスデオチヤリテ一度モ焼酎ヲ不被下候  
>  'At that time, the high priest (stingy bugger!) gave us not even a drop of
> shochu to drink.'

The form of the main verb `不被下候` includes `不` (negation) and `被`
(passivisation), followed by the verb with `そうろう`. Thus, `くだされずそうろう` "(we)
were not given". The order of the morphemes as is pronounced is inverted from
the order as is written.

Meanwhile, a shochu manufacturer has a product
[不被下候](http://www.sakasho.com/hp-kudasarazusouro.html) in reference to this
legendary act. They give the reading `くださらずそうろう`.

  * When was it common to write in this manner?
  * In what other ways was Japanese verbal morphology mapped onto kanji in this way?
  * Which of the readings くださらずそうろう and くだされずそうろう is correct?
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question
kanji orthography negation classical-japanese
不被下候: When was it common, and what were the rules?
It is a tradition since 漢文訓読. Cf.
<http://www.ic.daito.ac.jp/~oukodou/kuzukago/kundoku.html#9>. You can simply
regard that the 返り点 is omitted.
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answer
As sawa and Gradius say, this is part of the kundoku tradition, but I feel
that this particular example is more usefully identified as [sōrō
bun](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%80%99%E6%96%87), which is a Medieval-
through-Modern phenomenon and has a couple of distinguishing characteristics,
most notably:

  * Use of sōrō 候 at the end of sentences (hence the name of the style)

  * Use of Japanese rather than Chinese word order, with the exception of certain multi-character groups like 不被下候 (verbs were particularly prone to this because Japanese verb morphology is synthetic; to express "(verb) + passive/honorific + not + polite" you need four different Chinese characters. So this sort of multi-character group was written in Chinese order due to the influence of kanbun, but it was read as a purely Japanese verb (that is, its meaning was interpreted as a gestalt, and a Japanese "reading" was assigned).

Re your last question, I would certainly expect /kudasarezu/ rather than
/kudasarazu/ for 不被下, but I'm not confident enough in my understanding of the
ins and outs of sōrō bun to declare the latter "incorrect".
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