Heian

A Heian-period tachi held at the Tokyo National Museum in Tokyo. Its signature does survive, but several smiths in Bizen once bore this very same name.

Two Heian-period scrolls kept in Tokyo, written on paper bearing indigo cloud shapes. Tradition and inference here name two quite different hands for it.

An eight-lobed Heian-period mirror in Nara Prefecture. Nine Buddhist figures stand engraved upon its face, while flowers and birds cover all the back.

Twelve Heian-period hanging scrolls held at the Kyoto National Museum. Twelve more of the very same name and owner hang at a different museum entirely.

Discover Byōbu Dodai, a National Treasure calligraphy scroll by Ono no Michikaze, written in 928 as a draft for imperial folding screens. Housed at the Sannomaru Shōzōkan in Tokyo, this rare Heian-period masterpiece marks the birth of Japan's native wayō calligraphy style. Learn its history, highlights, and how to visit.

This late-Heian National Treasure at the Kyoto National Museum shows the dead Buddha rising from his golden coffin to preach a last sermon to his mother, Queen Maya.

The only screen painting surviving from Japan's Heian period, this 11th-century National Treasure from To-ji temple may depict the Tang poet Bai Juyi at his retreat.

Kūkai's own ninth-century draft preface to the Diamond Sutra, at the Kyoto National Museum. Sixty-three lines whose deletions catch this monk mid-thought.

Forty Tang poems by Li Bai, Wang Wei, and others fill this 5.5-meter ninth-century cursive scroll at the Kyoto National Museum, a National Treasure since 1962.

A late ninth-century vertical genealogy of the Amabe family, priests of Kono Shrine in Miyazu, privately owned and a National Treasure since 1976.

The gilt bronze sutra case Fujiwara no Michinaga buried on Mount Kinpu in 1007, the oldest in Japan, kept at the Kyoto National Museum; a National Treasure since 1952.

Discover the Persian Manuscript in Japan, a remarkable 13th-century document brought from Song-dynasty Quanzhou by the monk Keisei. This Important Cultural Property contains Persian poetry and reveals the vibrant maritime Silk Road connections between medieval Japan, China, and Persia.

The Suhama-u Raden Suzuribako is a Heian-period writing box designated as an Important Cultural Property of Japan. Adorned with mother-of-pearl inlay depicting cormorants on a sandbar motif, this exquisite lacquerwork masterpiece showcases the extraordinary craftsmanship and refined aesthetic of Heian-era artisans. Discover the beauty of this rare treasure held in a private collection in Kyoto Prefecture, and explore the world of classical Japanese lacquer arts.

Held privately in Kyoto, this Important Cultural Property is a stone Buddhist relief dated to Kaiyuan 12 (724 CE). One of the famed Baoqing Temple group that once adorned Empress Wu Zetian's Seven-Treasure Platform in Tang Chang'an, it represents the High Tang synthesis of Indian Gupta and Chinese sculptural traditions.

Discover the National Treasure sutra boxes and artifacts from the Kinpusen Sutra Mounds at the Kyoto National Museum, testifying to the deep faith and artistic mastery of Heian-period aristocrats led by Fujiwara no Michinaga.

Privately owned in Kyoto Prefecture, the Bunpitsu Ganshinshō is a one-volume treatise on Chinese poetics compiled in 820 by the great Heian monk Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi) as his own abridgment of his larger six-volume Bunkyō Hifuron. As one of Japan's earliest works of literary theory and a window onto Kūkai's identity as a literary scholar, it is designated a national Important Cultural Property in the calligraphy and classical books category.

An Important Cultural Property of Japan held privately in Kyoto Prefecture. This hanging scroll is a Zen ink-trace (bokuseki) brushed in 1268 by the Southern Song Chan master Wu'er Kexuan (also known as Shiqiao Kexuan), giving a verse-poem to his disciple Ming, who served as the temple's head of guests. As a precisely dated late-Southern-Song original, it is a primary document of Sino-Japanese Zen exchange and an exemplar of the calligraphy that came to be revered as the highest form of hanging scroll in the Japanese tea ceremony.

Discover the Wooden Standing Eleven-Faced Kannon, a designated cultural property in Kyoto Prefecture. Explore the bodhisattva's symbolism, the artistry of Japanese wood-carved Buddhist sculpture, and Kyoto's deep tradition of Kannon worship, with guidance on related temples and museums.

Designated an Important Cultural Property in 1943, this Heian fragment of the annotated Wen Xuan preserves Chinese commentaries that survive nowhere else.

Preserved at the Kyoto National Museum, this manuscript carries the Benmeiron, or 'Discourse on Discriminating Fate,' from volume fifty-four of the Wen Xuan—the oldest surviving anthology of Chinese literature, compiled by Crown Prince Xiao Tong of the Liang dynasty. Reaching Japan by the Nara period and treasured by Heian-era aristocrats, manuscripts of the Wen Xuan reveal the deep cultural ties between Japan and continental East Asia. A meaningful destination for travelers drawn to classical Chinese thought, calligraphic beauty, and the literary world that shaped Japan's classical age.