National Treasure

Held by Fumon-in Temple on Mount Kōya, the National Treasure 'Portrait of High Priest Gonsō on Silk' is a 12th-century Heian masterpiece depicting Kūkai's tonsure master with strikingly lifelike realism. The painting bears an inscribed eulogy traditionally attributed to Kūkai himself. The original is preserved at Kōyasan Reihōkan museum, where it is occasionally shown in special exhibitions of the mountain's treasures.

A National Treasure at Kongōbuji on Mt. Kōya, painted by the monk Jōchi in 1145. This rare dated work shows the rain-bringing dragon king as a deity in court robes.

A National Treasure at Ryukoin on Mount Koya. This late Heian painting shows the Kannon said to have calmed a storm during Kukai's sea voyage to Tang China.

Held by Kongobu-ji on Mount Koya in Wakayama Prefecture, the National Treasure Silk-Colored Buddha's Nirvana Painting bears an ink inscription dated to 1086 and is the oldest nirvana painting in Japan whose date of creation is confirmed. Depicting Shakyamuni entering final nirvana beneath the sala trees with the elegance and refined coloring of Heian aristocratic culture, it is one of the supreme masterpieces of Japanese Buddhist painting. It is housed at the Koyasan Reihokan Museum and shown during special exhibitions.

This Wakayama shrine holds about 1,200 medieval court furnishings from around 1390, from gold-lacquer toiletry boxes with their fittings to painted cypress fans.

A mid-8th-century copy of the ten-scroll Sutra of Golden Light packed into two scrolls in tiny characters. A Kōyasan National Treasure with rare reading marks.

Zoku Hokanshu, a National Treasure on Mount Koya, binds 77 scrolls and 6 booklets of medieval documents, from imperial edicts to a farmer's katakana petition.

A National Treasure at Ryūkō-in on Mount Kōya: a Nara-period Lotus Sutra in oversized characters, annotated for reading by the Heian scholar-monk Myōsan.

A Nara-period National Treasure at Sanboin, Mount Koya: eighteen hand-copied scrolls of the scripture behind bodhisattva Fukukenjaku Kannon and his famous statues.

A Tang imperial anthology compiled in 658, the Wenguan Cilin was lost in China yet survived in Japan. Twelve scrolls at Mt. Kōya's Shōchi-in are a National Treasure.

A 1,000-scroll Tang anthology of 658, the Wenguan Cilin vanished in China but survives in Japan. Hoju-in on Mount Koya keeps one rare scroll, a National Treasure.

A National Treasure at Kongōbu-ji on Mount Kōya, the Hōkanshū is 54 scrolls of some 692 medieval documents, including an autograph letter by Minamoto no Yoshitsune.

Four wooden seated statues of the principal Kumano deities preserved at Kumano Hayatama Taisha in Shingu City, Wakayama. Carved from single blocks of cypress in the early Heian period and collectively designated National Treasures in 2005, these figures of Hayatama Ōkami, Fusumi Ōkami, Ketsumiko Ōkami, and Kunitokotachi-no-mikoto stand among the supreme masterpieces of Japanese deity sculpture.

A sandalwood shrine only 23 cm tall, carved in Tang China with twenty-five tiny deities and tied by tradition to the monk Kukai. A National Treasure on Mount Koya.

Six of the eight wooden youths attending Fudō Myōō on Mount Kōya are National Treasures attributed to Unkei, prized for their crystal eyes and individual faces.

Two ninth-century Bodhisattvas at Dojo-ji flank a forty-four-armed Kannon. Single-block carvings rich with gold leaf, their names Nikko and Gakko stay unconfirmed.

At Jison-in below Koyasan sits a cypress Miroku Buddha dated 892, a National Treasure that anchors early Heian sculpture, shown only once every 21 years.

The largest of Kōyasan's three National Treasure document collections, holding 167 scrolls and 9 volumes, from imperial decrees to a peasants' petition in katakana.

Written in 797 by Kūkai at 24, this is the oldest manuscript in his own hand: three speakers debate the three teachings, voicing his choice of Buddhism.

Ten sliding-door panels by Ike no Taiga (1723–1776), a founding master of Japanese literati painting, preserved at Henjōkōin temple on sacred Mount Kōya in Wakayama. Designated a National Treasure of Japan in 1952, the set includes the celebrated Sansei gakai-zu — Elegant Gathering at the Mountain Pavilion — and stands as one of only three Taiga works ever to receive Japan's highest cultural designation, surviving in the prestigious sub-temple for which it was originally painted.