Shinshu Honso (volumes 4, 5, 12/17, 19)

Shinshū Honzō (Xinxiu Bencao), Volumes 4, 5, 12, 17, 19: A Window into the World's First Official Pharmacopoeia at Ninnaji Temple

Tucked away in the treasure house of Ninnaji Temple in Kyoto lies a set of five fragile scrolls that connect medieval Japan to one of the great intellectual achievements of Tang Dynasty China. The Shinshū Honzō — known in Chinese as Xinxiu Bencao — is widely regarded as the world's first government-compiled pharmacopoeia, a comprehensive catalog of medicines that shaped East Asian medicine for centuries. While the original Tang manuscripts have long since been lost in China itself, Japan preserved this remarkable knowledge through careful copying across generations. The five scrolls held by Ninnaji are among the oldest surviving witnesses to this text anywhere in the world, designated a National Treasure of Japan in 1952.

What is the Shinshū Honzō?

The Xinxiu Bencao (literally "Newly Revised Materia Medica") was compiled in 659 CE by imperial decree of Emperor Gaozong of the Tang Dynasty. A team of scholars led by Li Ji and Su Jing expanded an earlier work by the physician Tao Hongjing, producing a definitive twenty-volume guide to medicinal substances. The text catalogued plants, animals, and minerals used in healing, describing their properties, preparation methods, and therapeutic uses.

What made this work revolutionary was its imperial sponsorship and systematic approach. Most pharmacopoeias before it were compiled privately by individual physicians. The Xinxiu Bencao, by contrast, was an officially sanctioned standard — a centralized reference that doctors throughout the Tang Empire were expected to consult. Many historians of medicine consider it the world's first true state pharmacopoeia, predating European equivalents by nearly a millennium.

The text was also a record of the cosmopolitan reach of Tang China. Among the 115 newly added entries are substances imported via the Silk Road — asafoetida from Persia, myrobalan from India, black pepper from Southeast Asia, and theriac, a celebrated antidote originally formulated in the ancient Mediterranean. The scrolls thus reveal how medical knowledge traveled the trade routes connecting Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

How the Text Reached Japan

Japan received the Shinshū Honzō remarkably early. Envoys to the Tang court brought copies back to the archipelago during the eighth century, and the text quickly became foundational to Japanese medicine. Historical records show that by 787 the Bureau of Medicine (Ten'yakuryō) had adopted it as a required textbook for medical students. Court chronicles describe lectures on the text being given at the imperial university in 799, and imperial edicts in 820 ordered its continued study. The tenth-century legal code Engishiki even specifies that a full course of study on the Shinshū Honzō should take 310 days.

Centuries later, in China itself, the Northern Song Dynasty issued a new printed pharmacopoeia called the Kaibao Bencao, which absorbed and superseded the older Tang text. The original Xinxiu Bencao gradually fell out of use on the continent and its manuscripts were lost. Japan, however, continued to treasure and copy the work — making the Japanese tradition the primary surviving lineage of this foundational text.

Why This Was Designated a National Treasure

The Ninnaji scrolls were designated a National Treasure on March 29, 1952, in recognition of their extraordinary scholarly and historical value. Several factors elevate them above ordinary historical manuscripts.

First, they preserve a text whose Tang-period original no longer exists. Although the Ninnaji scrolls were copied in the Kamakura period (early thirteenth century), they faithfully transmit the form and content of the original sixth-century compilation. For scholars seeking to understand the development of East Asian medicine, they are an irreplaceable primary source.

Second, they preserve a distinctive scribal feature known as shubokuzassho — the alternating use of red and black ink to distinguish layers of the text. Earlier passages from the foundational Shennong Bencao Jing were written in red, with later commentaries added in black. This layered presentation is invaluable for textual scholars trying to disentangle the centuries of accumulated knowledge embedded in the work.

Third, the five Ninnaji volumes complement the single volume (Volume 15) held by the Takeda Science Foundation's Kyō-u Library in Osaka, also a National Treasure. Together, these six surviving Kamakura-period scrolls represent the most authoritative early witness to the Shinshū Honzō that exists anywhere in the world.

Highlights and Things to Notice

Although the scrolls themselves are displayed only during periodic special exhibitions at Ninnaji's Reihōkan (Treasure House), understanding what to look for can transform the experience of seeing them.

The format itself is striking — these are kansubon, traditional rolled scrolls of paper, rather than bound books. Each line carries about thirty characters, in columns of seventeen lines per sheet, written in careful Kamakura-period calligraphy. The contrast between the red entries and the surrounding black commentary creates an immediately visible map of how the text accumulated layers of medical knowledge over centuries.

The five surviving volumes cover specific categories of medicinal substances. Volumes 4 and 5 deal with mineral and stone-based medicines, Volume 12 covers woody plants, and Volumes 17 and 19 treat various plant species used as remedies. Reading entries on familiar substances — ginseng, cinnamon, or various aromatic resins — offers an intimate sense of how Tang-era physicians understood the natural world.

The Reihōkan itself is a worthwhile destination beyond this single treasure. It houses the original Heian-period Amida Triad (also a National Treasure), Buddhist paintings, and other manuscripts from the temple's centuries as an imperial monastery.

Visiting Ninnaji Temple

Ninnaji is one of the great temples of Kyoto, founded in 888 by Emperor Uda and registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the Historic Monuments of Ancient Kyoto. For more than a thousand years, until the Meiji period, its abbots were members of the imperial family, earning the temple the alternate name Omuro Gosho ("Omuro Imperial Palace").

The Reihōkan is open only seasonally — typically during the spring and autumn name-treasure exhibitions, with occasional summer openings. The Shinshū Honzō is not always on display; visitors who wish to see it should check the current exhibition theme on the temple's official website before traveling.

Even when the scrolls are not on view, the grounds offer extraordinary historical depth. The Niōmon Gate, one of the three great gates of Kyoto, leads visitors past the Five-Story Pagoda toward the Kondō Main Hall — itself a National Treasure relocated from the Kyoto Imperial Palace in the early Edo period. The Omuro Goten complex preserves the elegant residence style of an imperial monastery, with painted screens, refined gardens, and an atmosphere of quiet aristocratic refinement.

Around Ninnaji

The Omuro district of Kyoto is rich in cultural sites. Walking distance from Ninnaji are several other important temples and gardens worth combining into a single day of exploration.

• Ryōanji Temple — famous for its enigmatic rock garden, about a fifteen-minute walk east
• Kinkakuji Temple — the Golden Pavilion, easily reached by bus or a longer walk
• Myōshinji Temple — a major Rinzai Zen complex south of Ninnaji
• Tōji-in Temple — a quieter site with a serene garden, founded by Ashikaga Takauji
• Arashiyama — the bamboo grove and Tenryūji Temple, a short ride west on the Randen tram

The Randen tram line that passes through Omuro is a delightful experience in its own right, with vintage carriages winding through residential streets and connecting many of western Kyoto's most beloved destinations.