Important cultural property

Held at Ishiyama-dera near Lake Biwa, this two-scroll ink-on-paper land register from the 1190s lists fields, areas, and dues from the medieval estate system.

Eigenji's founder Jakushitsu Genko died in 1367 after writing this order: return the land, scatter, leave nothing behind. His monks refused, and the temple stands.

An ink letter by Jakushitsu Genkō, the Zen monk who founded Eigen-ji in 1361. An Important Cultural Property since 1936, kept among the temple's treasures in Shiga.

Three ink-on-paper scrolls show how Jōrakuji in Konan, Shiga rebuilt after the 1360 lightning fire that razed it. These medieval appeals funded the temple's National Treasure main hall and pagoda.

At Onjō-ji survive 592 volumes of a Buddhist canon the shogun Ashikaga Takauji had copied in 1354, praying for Emperor Go-Daigo and the war dead of both sides.

A Heian document at Enryaku-ji, Mount Hiei, tied to the 805 transmission of the bodhisattva precepts from the master Daosui to Saichō, founder of Tendai.

This Important Cultural Property scroll at Renge-ji, Shiga, names Hōjō Nakatoki and the 432 men who died with him at Banba in 1333, as the Kamakura shogunate fell.

At Eigen-ji in Shiga, this scroll holds a poem brushed by Jakushitsu Genko, the Zen monk who founded the temple. A 14th-century Important Cultural Property.

On the day of his death in 1367, the Zen monk Jakushitsu Genko brushed a final verse, now an Important Cultural Property held at the Eigenji temple he founded.

In 1366 the Zen master Jakushitsu Genkō named his disciple 'Ekkei' on pale-blue Chinese wax paper patterned with carp — a rare Important Cultural Property.

At Jōraku-ji in Shiga, a Heian cast-bronze ringed staff sets a pagoda and water vessel in its loop. An Important Cultural Property and stored treasure, rarely shown.

Copied in 768 by order of Empress Shōtoku for a departed sovereign's repose, this scroll of the Sarvāstivāda monastic code survives at Ishiyama-dera in Shiga.

Hakozaki Shrine's main hall in Isa, Kagoshima, is a small late-Muromachi hall of camphor wood, one of southern Kyushu's rare surviving medieval buildings.

Hachiman Shrine's main hall in Isa, Kagoshima is an Important Cultural Property nicknamed the Shōchū Shrine for Japan's oldest written shōchū, found inside.

The Furuichi Family Residence on Tanegashima is the island's oldest dated house, built in 1846 by a rural samurai and village headman. A ridge tag fixes its date.

The Okubo Toshimichi Related Documents, designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan and housed at the Reimeikan in Kagoshima, comprise 1,650 items including diaries, letters, government documents, and personal artifacts of Okubo Toshimichi — one of the Three Great Nobles of the Meiji Restoration. Featuring correspondence with Saigo Takamori, Iwakura Tomomi, and other founding figures of modern Japan, this extraordinary collection reveals the behind-the-scenes story of Japan's transformation from feudal society to modern nation-state.

Discover the Satake Family Mausoleum (Satake-ke Tamaya), a magnificently adorned 1672 funerary hall designated as an Important Cultural Property, nestled within the historic Tentokuji Temple in Akita City.

The Kannon-do within Shinmeisha Shrine in Katagami City, Akita Prefecture, is an all-zelkova shrine hall rebuilt in 1734. Featuring an irimoya hip-and-gable roof with elegant karahafu cusped gable and exquisite carvings throughout, it was designated a National Important Cultural Property in 1952 along with its interior miniature shrine and ridge-beam plaque. A mysterious mummified white fox discovered during restoration is still preserved inside.

Tucked into the forests of southern Akita, the Kagura Hall of Haushiwake Shrine is a rare Muromachi-period shrine built in the unusual ryōnagare-zukuri style and designated an Important Cultural Property in 1980. It still serves as the stage for the nationally designated Horowa-san Shimotsuki Kagura, a living ritual tradition rooted in medieval mountain worship.

The Amida Hall within the precincts of Uonuma Shrine in Ojiya City, Niigata Prefecture, is a nationally designated Important Cultural Property dating to approximately 1563. This compact thatched Buddhist hall features remarkably short eaves and other snow-country adaptations, offering a rare and authentic example of late Muromachi-period religious architecture connected to the legendary warlord Uesugi Kenshin.