Kamakura

Discover the National Treasure "Mongaku's Forty-Five Article Oath," a 1185 scroll at Jingo-ji Temple in Kyoto. Written by the eminent courtier Fujiwara no Tadachika and bearing Emperor Go-Shirakawa's personal seal, this document reveals the passionate vision of the warrior-monk Mongaku for restoring one of Japan's most historic temples.

At Kyoto's Kitano Tenmangu, eight National Treasure scrolls of about 1219 trace Sugawara no Michizane from official to vengeful thunder god to the deity Tenjin.

Discover the Kagami no Miei, a National Treasure ink portrait of Shinran Shonin at Nishi Honganji Temple in Kyoto. Explore the art of Kamakura-period nise-e portraiture, learn about Shinran's life, and plan your visit to this UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Discover the National Treasure "Illustrated Biography of Hōnen Shōnin" (Hōnen Shōnin Eden) — a magnificent 48-scroll emaki masterpiece spanning 548 meters, housed at Chion-in Temple in Kyoto. Learn about its history, artistic significance, and how to see this extraordinary work.

Discover the National Treasure "Autumn Pasture with Cattle" (Akino Bokugyu-zu), a masterpiece of Southern Song Chinese painting attributed to court artist Yan Ciping. Housed at the Sen-oku Hakukokan Museum in Roppongi, Tokyo, this exquisite silk scroll once belonged to the Ashikaga Shogun's famed Higashiyama Collection.

An unsigned National Treasure tanto by Soshu Sadamune at the Tokyo National Museum, once owned by a Karatsu lord, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and the Tokugawa shoguns.

Discover the Kumano Junisha Gongen Mishōtai, an Important Cultural Property featuring thirteen Buddhist deities on a gilded bronze mirror disc. Explore the beauty of Shinto-Buddhist syncretism at Nara National Museum.

Held at the Kyushu National Museum, this Important Cultural Property is a Yuan-dynasty Chinese tea bowl from the 13th–14th century. A rare kiln effect at the boundary of its black and brown glazes produces a silvery 'rainbow' band that gave the bowl its name. Its provenance traces back to the shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa.

Discover the Shichijō Shinō Kesa, a rare Tang dynasty hemp kesa designated as a National Treasure of Japan. Brought from China by the monk Saichō over 1,200 years ago, this sacred Buddhist vestment is preserved at Enryaku-ji Temple on Mount Hiei, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Kanshin-ji preserves a pair of gilt-bronze lotus vases, one inscribed 1330 (Gentoku 2). Late Kamakura kebyō for Shingon altar rites, Important Cultural Property.

The Two-Poem Kaishi by Fujiwara no Hidetō preserves two summer waka inscribed in 1201 by a young warrior-courtier just before his appointment to Retired Emperor Go-Toba's Bureau of Poetry. Dated precisely to the last day of the sixth month of Kennin 1, the scroll is a reference work for early Kamakura calligraphy and an Important Cultural Property since 1954.

Around 1180, fourteen poets including Saigyo and Jakuren each turned a Lotus Sutra chapter into a waka. The oldest poem papers extant, kept at Kyoto National Museum.

A Tang manuscript of the Book of Han, chapter 57 on poet Yang Xiong, at Kyoto National Museum. Taboo strokes and 948 reading marks trace ten centuries of study.

A Kamakura-period National Treasure in Kyoto: Amida, gilded head to foot, rises beyond a mountain ridge. Cords once ran from his hands to believers at the deathbed.

At the Kyoto National Museum, this gold-on-indigo scroll is the sole survivor of a handwritten Goryeo Buddhist canon vowed in 1006 by a Korean queen dowager.

This Tang-dynasty scroll at the Kyoto National Museum preserves 172 lines of the Shishuo Xinshu, the world's oldest surviving manuscript of the Chinese classic.

A National Treasure at Kyoto National Museum, this 13th-century tachi is one of few blades signed by Norikuni, a refined master of Kyoto's Awataguchi school.

Japan's oldest complete copy of the Nihon Shoki's Age of the Gods books, an autograph manuscript by the Kamakura scholar Urabe no Kanekata, dated around 1286.

Held at the Kyoto National Museum, the National Treasure Myōe Shōnin Kashū is a 13.5-meter handscroll transcribed in 1248 by the disciple Junshōbō Kōshin on the seventeenth memorial anniversary of his teacher, the Kamakura-period monk Myōe (1173–1232). The scroll gathers 155 waka poems, 112 by Myōe himself, and is the only complete surviving collection of his poetry. This guide introduces the work's background, its significance as a National Treasure designated in 1952, highlights such as Myōe's famous moon poem, visitor information for the Kyoto National Museum, and nearby Higashiyama sites including the World Heritage temple Kōzan-ji where Myōe lived and composed.

The National Treasure Yamai no Sōshi paints twelfth-century illness with rare candour, watching the sick and the onlookers who laugh, stare, or look away.