Round Inkstone in Bluish-White Porcelain

One Inkstone, National Treasure since 1953

Round Inkstone in Bluish-White Porcelain (青白磁円硯, Seihakuji Enken) is a craft object owned by Domyoji Tenmangu in Osaka Prefecture, made an Important Cultural Property on 9 June 1951 and designated a National Treasure on 31 March 1953. The quantity is one inkstone.

Both dates are exactly those of the rhinoceros-horn knife and the ivory comb at the same shrine. All three belong to a group described as six surviving objects.

It measures 27.0 centimetres across and 6.4 centimetres high. The address field in the Agency's database is blank, the eighteenth such case.

Six Objects Sharing One Number by Branch

The designation number takes a form not met before.

This inkstone carries number 00106, branch 02.

Under the same 00106 stand the ivory sceptre as branch 01 and a mirror as branch 06.

The six objects share one number, divided by branch. Every property covered here so far has carried branch 00.

At Aoi Aso Shrine, five buildings were counted separately; at Kirishima Jingu, three were gathered as one. Those turn on the count.

Here the division runs through the numbering itself. The grouping shows in the shape of the number.

The Country Field Reads Japan, the Text Says Tang

The fields and the description do not agree.

The country field gives Japan and the period field the Heian. The sceptre and the mirror under the same number carry the same two entries.

The field for form, however, closes by calling the piece a rare survival of bluish-white porcelain made in the Tang period.

The Tang is a Chinese period. The country field says Japan while the description says Chinese work.

The commentary itself allows the mixture: of the six objects, it says, some were carried over from Tang China and some made in Japan.

Registering the six together has left the country and period fields uniform, so that individual origins are not reflected. With the biography of Huineng and the gilded bronze staff head, the country field read China plainly.

Twenty Feet, Their Lower Parts Long Since Lost

Form and loss are written in one breath.

A round inkstone hollowed at the centre, with a water well around it and twenty feet set on the body, of which the lower parts have long since been lost.

Twenty feet, and then the loss.

Long since, the record says. When is not given, but the damage is marked as not recent.

With the ivory comb, beads in dyed horn were noted as having fallen away by now. With the engraved mirror at Suijinja, marks of a fire remained.

Here the timing of the loss is given a wide margin. The glazing is recorded closely too: white glaze covers the outer rim, while the grinding surface, the well and the underside beneath them are left unglazed.

Seeing It

The inkstone belongs to Domyoji Tenmangu. The field for prefecture gives Osaka and the address field is blank.

The field for supplementary notes reads that the piece is held by tradition to have belonged to Sugawara no Michizane.

With the Engishiki, that field carried the date of a colophon; with the biography of Huineng, a date under a Chinese era name. Here it carries the provenance.

The body is described as a hard porcelain close to pure white.

Of the same six objects, the rhinoceros-horn knife and the ivory comb have already been covered. This is a shrine holding, not kept on permanent display. Check before travelling.