National Treasure

A National Treasure at Onjo-ji in Otsu, these ninth-century documents tied to the monk Enchin include two Tang travel passes, the world's only surviving originals.

Saichō's 805 handscroll at Enryaku-ji lists the texts he carried home from Tang China. Partly in his own hand, it bears a Tang prefect's colophon and seals.

Held at Enryaku-ji, this National Treasure is a single scroll of two Tang government permits issued to the monk Saichō in 804 and 805. Part is in his own hand.

Six documents in Saichō's own hand, this National Treasure scroll at Enryaku-ji traces how Tendai won state recognition and its own ordination platform on Mt. Hiei.

A decorated Heian copy of the Lotus Sutra's first chapter, named for Chikubushima island where it was long kept, with birds and flowers in gold and silver.

A National Treasure Eleven-Headed Kannon at Kogen-ji in Shiga, carved from one cypress block in the early Heian period and known for the laughing face at its back.

At Shiga's Mii-dera, a National Treasure portrays Shinra Myojin, a guardian deity said to have appeared to the monk Enchin at sea. Carved in cypress, rarely shown.

A tenth-century National Treasure at Onjō-ji in Ōtsu, Shiga: the seated portrait of Chishō Daishi, the Naka-son Daishi, a secret image opened only on 29 October.

At Onjo-ji in Otsu, this older of two National Treasure portraits of the monk Enchin is said to hold his cremated remains. A concealed image, it is rarely opened.

A National Treasure at Onjo-ji near Lake Biwa, this Tang handscroll in ink line maps the deities of the Diamond World mandala, brought from China by Enchin in 855.

A National Treasure of early Edo Japan: fifteen figures in a Kyoto pleasure quarter, the classical kinki shoga theme recast as shamisen, sugoroku, and love letters.

Kagoshima's only National Treasure: a mid-Kamakura tachi by the Bizen smith Kunimune. A Shimazu heirloom lost after WWII, returned in 1963, now at the Reimeikan.

Held at Kenchoji, this 1271 portrait of Lanxi Daolong is Japan's oldest dated Zen-master portrait. The monk inscribed it himself, and his eyes are ringed in gold.

Explore the silk portrait of Hojo Sanetoki at Shomyo-ji, Yokohama — a rarely-shown National Treasure depicting the Kamakura samurai-scholar who founded Kanazawa Bunko, Japan's oldest samurai library.

Five Kamakura-period silk court robes and lacquered arms, kept together at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu. Complete court dress of that age survives almost nowhere else.

Sacred arms offered to the war god Hachiman at Tsurugaoka Hachimangū: a vermilion bow, arrows, and gold-ground quivers and swords inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

A National Treasure at Yokohama's Kanazawa Bunko: 16,692 Buddhist scriptures and 4,149 medieval documents from the Kanazawa Hojo library and the temple of Shomyoji.

Preserved at Kenchō-ji in Kamakura, the National Treasure Daikaku Zenji Bokuseki (Hōgo Kisoku) is a pair of hanging scrolls written by Rankei Dōryū, the Chinese Chan master invited from Southern Song to found Japan's first pure Zen monastery in 1253. One scroll admonishes monks to devote themselves to practice; the other lays out the monastery's daily rules in remarkable detail. Executed in a calligraphic style derived from the Southern Song master Zhang Jizhi, the scrolls are both an unparalleled document of Kamakura-era Zen and a work of art.

Preserved at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine in Kamakura, this National Treasure tachi was forged by Masatsune of the Ko-Aoe school in Bitchu Province during the Kamakura period. Offered to the shrine in 1736 by the eighth Tokugawa shogun, Yoshimune, at the rededication of its halls, the sword is admired for its distinctive chirimen-hada steel and graceful curvature, and is shown with its ornate silk-wrapped mounting in periodic special exhibitions at the Kamakura Museum of National Treasures.

Kōtoku-in's Great Buddha is a bronze Amida cast from 1252, about 11.3 m tall and 121 tonnes. Once housed in a hall, it has stood outdoors for over five centuries.