A Kamakura Scroll of the Wen Xuan, Opened to the Rhapsodies
Unroll the opening of this single handscroll and the first columns announce themselves plainly: Wen Xuan, Scroll One, Rhapsodies A. The brushed characters carry the text that medieval Japanese scholars copied, read aloud, and argued over for centuries. The object itself is modest in form, ink on paper mounted as a rolled scroll (kansubon), yet it preserves the first volume of one of the most consequential anthologies in East Asian letters.
The Wen Xuan (Japanese: Monzen), or "Selections of Refined Literature," was assembled in the early sixth century at the southern court of Liang. The compiler was Xiao Tong, the crown prince later known by his posthumous title Zhaoming. Around him gathered scholars and writers who sifted some eight hundred works by roughly 130 authors, reaching from the Warring States era down to their own day, and sorted them into dozens of literary genres.
This scroll holds Volume One. In the expanded sixty-volume edition that carries Li Shan's commentary, the anthology opens not with poetry but with fu, the long descriptive compositions sometimes translated as rhapsody or rhyme-prose. Volume One gathers the grandest of these, the capital rhapsodies, and begins with Ban Gu's "Rhapsody on the Two Capitals." That piece sets the rival merits of Chang'an, the western capital, against Luoyang, the eastern capital, a debate dressed as literature that a Han reader would have recognized at once.
Why a Single Scroll Was Designated
Japan registered this volume as an Important Cultural Property on June 9, 1943. The reasoning rests less on the famous Chinese text, which survives in many forms, than on this particular witness to it: a copy brushed in Japan during the Kamakura period, roughly the thirteenth to early fourteenth century.
By that time the Wen Xuan had been required reading among the Japanese aristocracy for five hundred years. It arrived in the Nara period and left its mark on early works such as the Nihon Shoki and the poetry of the Man'yoshu. Court writers quoted it as a benchmark of taste. The Heian essayist Sei Shonagon listed it among the books worth knowing, and the later recluse Kenko praised the moving quality of its individual scrolls.
A Kamakura manuscript of Volume One therefore documents how a Chinese classic was physically reproduced and transmitted inside a Japanese scholarly household at a specific moment. Each surviving copy differs in its text, its layout, and the small decisions a scribe made, so a dated and designated example becomes a primary source for the history of reading itself.
What Rewards a Closer Look
The first thing to register is the handwriting. A study text like this was copied to be used, not displayed, and the brushwork shows a working hand moving steadily down each column. The discipline of the script, the spacing between graphs, and the ruled or unruled lines all reflect the conventions a medieval copyist followed.
Then there is the content of the opening passage. Ban Gu frames his rhapsody as a contest of words between a guest who champions the old western capital and a host who defends the new eastern one. Reading the first columns, you are entering an argument about which city better embodies good government, conducted entirely through dense, ornate description. It is worth pausing on the sheer density of allusion that a Kamakura reader was expected to follow.
For visitors more accustomed to scrolls of painting, the appeal here is different. There is no picture. The interest lies in the manuscript as a made thing and as a link in a long chain of transmission that runs from a Liang prince's library, through Tang and Song commentators, to a scribe at work in medieval Japan.
Seeing the Monzen Tradition for Yourself
This scroll is held in Kyoto Prefecture, but its owner is not publicly listed and there is no record of it being on regular display. Travelers hoping to encounter the Wen Xuan in person are better served by related holdings that institutions exhibit periodically.
The most celebrated is the Monzen shuchu, a separate Japanese manuscript tradition that gathers layers of Tang commentary into a single collated edition. Surviving volumes are designated National Treasures and are associated with the Kanazawa Bunko collection in Yokohama, now the Kanagawa Prefectural Kanazawa Bunko museum, which rotates its medieval books into view through changing exhibitions.
In Kyoto itself, the Kyoto National Museum regularly features early calligraphy and classical texts among its rotating displays, and the Nara National Museum does the same with its collection of shoseki tenseki, brushed books and documents. Checking a current exhibition schedule before a visit is the surest way to see manuscripts of this kind, since light-sensitive works on paper are shown only for limited periods.
- 📍 Plan Your Visit to Kyoto
- Find tours, activities & transport passes near Wen Xuan Volume 1
- [ Kinkakuji Fushimi Inari & Kimono Rental ]
Q&A
- What exactly is the Wen Xuan, and how is it different from this scroll?
- The Wen Xuan is a Chinese literary anthology compiled in the sixth century. This object is a single handscroll containing only its first volume, copied by hand in Japan during the Kamakura period. The text is Chinese; the manuscript is a Japanese witness to that text.
- What does "Rhapsodies A" in the inner title mean?
- The notation marks the literary genre that opens the anthology. The fu, or rhapsody, section fills the early volumes, and Volume One begins with the capital rhapsodies. The first work is Ban Gu's "Rhapsody on the Two Capitals," comparing Chang'an and Luoyang.
- Can I go and see this specific scroll?
- Not on a casual basis. Its owner is not publicly identified and it is not part of any permanent display. Related manuscripts of the Wen Xuan tradition do appear in temporary museum exhibitions, which is the practical way to see comparable material.
- Why was a Chinese anthology so important in Japan?
- From the Nara period onward it served as a model of refined composition for the aristocracy. Classical Japanese works echo it, and Heian and medieval writers cited it as essential reading, which is why scribes kept copying it for centuries.
- How can I read the text in translation?
- Several annotated Japanese editions exist, including multi-volume sets in the Shinshaku Kanbun Taikei and Zenshaku Kanbun Taikei series, and partial English translations of the rhapsodies have been published by scholars of Chinese literature.
Basic Information
| Name | Monzen, Scroll One (Wen Xuan, Volume One) |
|---|---|
| Inner title | "Wen Xuan, Scroll One, Rhapsodies A"; end title "Wen Xuan, Scroll One" |
| Category | Calligraphy and Classical Texts (shoseki / tenseki) |
| Quantity | 1 scroll |
| Form | Ink on paper, handscroll mounting (kansubon) |
| Period | Kamakura period |
| Designation | Important Cultural Property (designated June 9, 1943) |
| Location | Kyoto Prefecture (owner not publicly listed) |
| Public access | Not on regular display |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties (Agency for Cultural Affairs): Monzen, Scroll One
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/201/8031
- Wen Xuan (anthology), Japanese Wikipedia
- https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/文選_(書物)
- Cultural Heritage Online (National Institute of Informatics / Agency for Cultural Affairs)
- https://bunka.nii.ac.jp/
Last verified: 2026.06.13