National Treasure
国 宝 一 覧Browse Japan’s National Treasures by prefecture, period, and type. Clear stories highlight what to look for at temples, shrines, castles, and museums—plus maps and travel tips.
Korin's Red and White Plum Blossoms, a National Treasure at MOA Museum of Art in Atami, sets red and white plums on gold leaf around a blackened silver stream.
Around 1141, Retired Emperor Toba's court copied the Lotus Sutra one scroll per person on gold-strewn papers. Trace Tesshuji's nineteen-scroll National Treasure.
Ninsei's Iroe Pheasant Incense Burner, a National Treasure in Kanazawa, is a life-size ceramic male pheasant with gold-lined feathers and four smoke vents.
A 22.9 cm blade by Awataguchi Yoshimitsu, brought to Kaga in a 1633 bridal trousseau and offered to Shirayama Hime Shrine. Its story and where to see it.
The Ino Tadataka Related Materials gather 2,345 items, from 123 finished Ino maps and 399 drafts to 63 instruments, showing how Japan's first measured map was made.
Nichiren's autograph treatise of 1273, written in exile on Sado Island, survives at Hokekyoji Temple in Ichikawa, Chiba, designated a National Treasure in 1952.
Hokekyoji Temple in Ichikawa, Chiba, preserves Nichiren's own 1269 copy of his warning to the shogunate, a 15.98-meter scroll named a National Treasure in 1952.
The Kannon Hall of Koonji in Kaizuka, Osaka, a late Kamakura National Treasure known as the hall without nails, mixes old and new styles under a gyoki-tiled roof.
The Tahōtō pagoda of Jigen-in Temple in Izumisano, Osaka, is a National Treasure built in 1271 during the Kamakura period. Counted among Japan's Three Great Tahōtō Pagodas alongside Ishiyama-dera and Kongō Sanmai-in, it is regarded as the smallest outdoor wooden tahōtō with National Treasure or Important Cultural Property status. Its cypress-bark roof, refined four-step bracketing, and well-preserved original altar make it an architectural jewel. Just minutes from Kansai International Airport, the temple sits within the Hine-no-Shō Japan Heritage district, offering a serene encounter with medieval Japan.
An unsigned straight double-edged Heian sword owned by Kongo-ji, tied by temple tradition to the monk Akan's esoteric rites and kept at the Kyoto National Museum.
Kongo-ji in Osaka keeps a National Treasure scroll of the Engishiki shrine register, copied in 1127, naming 2,861 shrines recognized by the Heian court.
Six Bai Juyi poems in three scripts, with Ono no Michikaze's only surviving standard-script hand. See this National Treasure at Osaka's Masaki Art Museum.
Seven Heian-era kakemamori amulets at Osaka's Shitennoji, National Treasures worn at the neck, one concealing a wooden Buddha revealed by a 2018 CT scan.
A Heian National Treasure handscroll pairing thirty poets across fifteen rounds, with 130 waka in mature kana on purple-and-indigo tobikumo paper, in Izumi, Osaka.
The Kacho Maki-e Kyosoku, a 9th-century lacquered armrest at Osaka's Fujita Museum, is one of Japan's earliest maki-e works, decorated in gold and rare tin.
The National Treasure Senju Kannon at Fujiidera Temple in Osaka has 1,041 real hands, each palm once painted with an eye. Shown only on the 18th of each month.
Dated 883, this National Treasure handscroll records Kanshinji's founding by Kukai's disciple Jichie and inventories the Osaka temple's early Heian halls and images.
A Heian court belt at Domyoji Tenmangu in Osaka, set with fifteen silver-plated plaques of hunters and ducks. A National Treasure linked to Sugawara no Michizane.
At Dōmyōji Tenmangū near Osaka, this 36.4 cm ivory court scepter is a National Treasure and one of six relics tied by tradition to Sugawara no Michizane.
The Revelation of the Two Great Sutras, a pair of Heian paintings at Osaka's Fujita Museum and a National Treasure since 1973, depicts two esoteric sutra legends.