Kokin Wakashu Volume 20 (Koya-Giri Version)

One Scroll, National Treasure since 1951

Kokin Wakashu Volume 20 (Koya-Giri Version) (古今和歌集巻第廿, Kokin Wakashu Maki Dai Niju) is a late Heian work of calligraphy at the Kochi Castle Museum of History, 2-7-5 Otesuji, Kochi City, Kochi Prefecture, designated a National Treasure on 9 June 1951. The designation number is 00016 and the owner Kochi Prefecture.

The field for designation as an Important Cultural Property is blank in the Agency's database: the scroll went to National Treasure without that earlier step, the twenty-second such case covered here.

It measures 26.4 by 262.2 centimetres and is counted as one scroll. The paper is a fine sheet dressed with mica, and the period the late Heian, the eleventh century.

The Owner Is a Prefecture

The owner field reads Kochi Prefecture.

The figurine from the Kazabari 1 site, covered just before, belonged to Hachinohe City. After a city, a prefecture.

Owners so far have included temples and shrines, religious corporations, individuals, a foundation, the state, a national institute, a company, an inter-university corporation and a national university. The Ninsei tea jar belonged to a religious body of modern founding.

Two local authorities in succession, then. The scroll is kept at the Kochi Castle Museum of History.

The designation number is 00016. A low number marks an early listing within the field of calligraphy. 9 June 1951 is the day of both Yohen Tenmoku bowls, the Mikazuki Munechika and the Himeji Castle turrets.

A Fragment's Name Applied to a Complete Scroll

The origin of the name Koya-gire is recorded.

Part of the manuscript came down at Mount Koya, and from that it is called the Koya cutting.

The word used means a cut piece, a detached fragment. The by-name arose from the fragments held at Mount Koya.

This scroll, however, is the twentieth volume, complete and counted as one scroll. A scroll that was never cut carries a name derived from cuttings.

Related entries include fragments of the first, second and nineteenth volumes, all under the same by-name. Those are actual fragments.

With the cloud-paper Wakan Roeishu, many fragments were recorded under names of their own. Here a fragment's name has reached something that is not a fragment.

Handed Down under One Name, Written by Three Hands

The account of the writer divides between tradition and inference.

It has been handed down as the work of Ki no Tsurayuki, who died in 946, but three manners of writing are in fact mixed in it, and it is taken to be a joint copying of the mid-eleventh century.

Joint copying means several people writing in turn. What came down under one name is held to be the work of three.

With the cloud-paper Wakan Roeishu, the writer's field named one man by tradition and the commentary inferred another. With the Odenta tachi, one maker carried three names.

Here the reverse holds: what came down under one name divides among several people.

The three are given numbers. This scroll shows the manner called the first kind. People are referred to not by name but by number.

Seeing It

The scroll is at the Kochi Castle Museum of History, owned by Kochi Prefecture. It is a museum holding, not kept on permanent display; work on paper is vulnerable to light and shown only briefly.

The assessment is recorded: the Koya cutting is the oldest surviving manuscript of the anthology and has long been famous as calligraphy showing the completed form of Heian kana writing.

Of this scroll's hand: the restrained and well-ordered writing is taken to be by the most accomplished of the three who wrote the Koya cutting. One of the three is measured against the other two.

A separate property at the Tokugawa Museum also bears the name Koya cutting; it is a single leaf mounted in an album, and its period is given as Kamakura. Same name, different period recorded.

Exhibition plans can change, so check the museum's information before travelling.