Fang Scepter

A Slip of Ivory from the Heian Court

At Dōmyōji Tenmangū, a shrine in the Osaka suburb of Fujiidera, one of the quietest treasures in Japan is a thin length of ivory just 36.4 centimeters long and 5.7 centimeters wide. It is a geshaku, an ivory court scepter, and it belongs to a small group of six personal effects long believed to have come from Sugawara no Michizane, the Heian-period scholar and statesman later revered across Japan as the deity of learning.

A shaku is a flat tablet that court nobles held upright in the right hand during formal ceremonies. The custom came from Tang China, where officials originally pasted a slip of paper on the back to note the order of proceedings. In Japan it became a mark of rank and bearing. Under the eighth-century dress code, officials of the fifth rank and above were entitled to ivory scepters, while those of the sixth rank and below carried wooden ones.

Why an Ivory Scepter Is So Rare

Ivory was scarce in early Japan, and the privilege of carrying a geshaku did not last. By the early Heian period the ivory version was reserved for the most formal court costume, and an order of 809 allowed senior officials to use plain white wood instead. Wooden scepters of yew, cherry, or cryptomeria became the norm, and surviving ancient ivory examples can now be counted on one hand: three are kept in the Shōsōin imperial repository in Nara, one descended at Hōryū-ji, and this one at Dōmyōji Tenmangū.

The shrine's scepter has a plain, straight head finished with a gently rounded top. The Agency for Cultural Affairs records that no comparable piece survives outside the Shōsōin collection. Because the form is so simple and bears no inscription or date, the scepter itself is hard to place precisely in time. It is generally assigned to the Heian period, though its closeness to the Nara-period ivory in the Shōsōin has long been noted.

The Relics of a Disgraced Minister

The story attached to the scepter is what gives it its weight. Sugawara no Michizane (845–903) rose to the rank of Minister of the Right at the Heian court before political rivals engineered his demotion and exile to Dazaifu in distant Kyushu. He died there in 903, far from the capital. By tradition his belongings were carried back and entrusted, in keeping with his own wishes, to his aunt, the nun Kakuju-ni, who served as abbess of Haji-dera, his clan temple. That temple later took the name Dōmyōji, after one of Michizane's own sobriquets, and the relics have remained in its care ever since.

Six of these objects are designated National Treasures as a single group, the Den Kankō ihin, or "relics said to be Lord Sugawara's." Besides the ivory scepter they include a bluish-white porcelain inkstone from a Tang official kiln, a silver-mounted leather belt set with rock crystal, an ivory comb decorated with tortoiseshell, a small knife with a rhinoceros-horn handle, and a bronze mirror picturing the legendary musician Bo Ya at his zither. Some were imported from Tang China and some made in Japan, yet all reflect Tang taste, and together they offer one of the few surviving glimpses into the refined material world of an early Heian aristocrat.

The six pieces were first designated Important Cultural Properties on June 9, 1951, and raised to National Treasure status on March 31, 1953.

Seeing It in Person

The treasures are kept in the shrine's Treasure House (Hōmotsukan), a building put up in 1902 to mark the thousandth anniversary of Michizane's death. Because they are fragile and irreplaceable, the National Treasures are shown only on a handful of days each year, mostly around the New Year and during the plum-blossom season. On some viewing days only three of the six are displayed, so anyone hoping to see the scepter in particular should check ahead. Outside the scheduled open days, viewing can sometimes be arranged by telephone reservation.

Standing before the case, what strikes most visitors is the gap between the object's plainness and its meaning. It is almost austere, with no decoration to speak of. Yet this was an instrument of ceremony at the very top of court society, bound up with one of the most famous lives in Japanese history.

Around Dōmyōji Tenmangū

The shrine sits in Fujiidera, an easy day trip from Osaka and a short walk from Dōmyōji Station on the Kintetsu Minami-Osaka Line. Its grounds are best known for a plum garden of some eight hundred trees, which draws crowds in late February and early March and has been named one of Osaka's hundred notable green spaces. The garden's reputation is fitting, since the plum was Michizane's beloved flower.

Next door stands Dōmyōji, the nunnery descended from Michizane's clan temple, where a Heian-period wooden statue of the Eleven-Headed Kannon, itself a National Treasure, is shown on the 18th and 25th of each month. The surrounding area also falls within the Mozu-Furuichi Kofun group, a cluster of giant ancient burial mounds inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, which makes this corner of Osaka an unusually dense layering of Japanese history.