Artifacts Excavated from the Kyogamine Sutra Mounds on Mount Asama, Ise Province

From Three Sutra Mounds, National Treasure since 1963

Artifacts Excavated from the Kyogamine Sutra Mounds on Mount Asama, Ise Province (伊勢国朝熊山経ケ峯経塚出土品) are the finds from sutra mounds at Kyogamine on Mount Asama in Ise City, Mie Prefecture, designated a National Treasure in 1963, on 1 July. They had become an Important Cultural Property on 8 February 1912. The quantity is recorded as a single lot, the category archaeological materials, and the designation number 00030.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs gives the period as Heian and the date as 1159 to 1173. The date is a span because more than one of the objects carries an inscription and the years differ.

The commentary runs to a single line, material of the Heian period, but the itemised list sets out what the lot contains. The finds are arranged mound by mound across three mounds, which is what marks this designation.

What Came from Each Mound

Ise City sets out the itemised list by mound.

The first mound yielded one ceramic sutra container, inscribed with a year corresponding to 1173. The second yielded two bronze sutra containers, two bronze mirrors and one bluish-white porcelain box. The third yielded one bronze sutra container, thirteen sutra scrolls, one incised mirror image of the Amida triad, two incised mirror images of the Amida triad descending, one incised mirror image of Amida, one bronze ewer and one earthenware outer casing; the container and the scrolls carry a year corresponding to 1159.

The span of 1159 to 1173 in the Agency's record answers to those two inscriptions. The third mound gives the earlier year and the first mound the later, fourteen years apart.

The third mound holds the most. That thirteen sutra scrolls survive is worth noting: sutra mounds exist to bury scriptures, but paper scrolls seldom come through.

Four Incised Mirror Images

Among the finds from the third mound, four are incised mirror images.

An incised mirror image is a bronze mirror with a buddha cut into its reflecting face in line. A mirror is made to reflect; cutting a figure into it turns it into an object of worship. The reflecting surface becomes a drawn surface.

They comprise one image of the Amida triad, two of the Amida triad descending, and one of Amida alone. All four take Amida as their subject.

Descending refers to the moment when Amida comes to receive the dying. That all four are of Amida shows the belief of the Pure Land teaching lying behind the burial. The same point is made of the Amida triad on the box of the Copperplate Lotus Sutra in Fukuoka.

The Course of the Designation

The finds became an Important Cultural Property on 8 February 1912 and a National Treasure on 1 July 1963.

Fifty-one years separate the two. Among the archaeological materials treated here, most moved from Important Cultural Property to National Treasure within a few years or a decade or so; this lot took half a century.

Designation number 00030 falls late among archaeological materials, and the year 1963 is later than most of the others.

The Kyogamine mound group on Mount Asama is itself a national Historic Site, a designation separate from that of the finds. Objects as National Treasure and mound as Historic Site is the same arrangement as at the Hoki Ichinomiya mound.

Seeing Them

The Agency's database leaves both the location field and the holding institution field blank. The present place of keeping cannot be read from the official record.

The finds are associated with Kongoshoji on Mount Asama, where they are sometimes shown. To see them, check the temple's or the city's information for any planned display.

The mound group is at Kyogamine on Mount Asama. Finds and mounds are handled separately, so seeing both takes checking.

Mount Asama is reached by the Ise-Shima Skyline. A footpath climbs from Asama Station on the Kintetsu Toba Line.