Kamakura

At Jokoin near Hokekyo-ji in Ichikawa, Chiba, hangs the Water-Mirror Portrait, a strikingly lifelike Kamakura-period image of Nichiren reading the Lotus Sutra.

A late-Kamakura silk scroll at Chōtokuji in Sōsa, Chiba: a twenty-armed Fugen Enmei on four six-tusked white elephants, opened to the public one Sunday each January.

Rare amber-glazed ceramic guardian lion-dogs from medieval Seto, barely 18 cm tall, kept at Katori Jingu in Chiba and made an Important Cultural Property in 1953.

Designated in 2023, Koami-ji's 20 gilt-bronze esoteric ritual implements bear the engraved name of the monk Shinkai, linking Awa and Kanazawa across Tokyo Bay.

In 1278 a rumor of a planned debate reached Nichiren at Minobu. His 21-line autograph reply, held at Hondoji as an Important Cultural Property, captures his joy.

Naritasan Buddhist Library holds the oldest manuscript of the Sumiyoshi Monogatari, a Kamakura retelling of a lost Heian tale of a stepdaughter saved by the Kannon.

At Hondo-ji, Chiba's famed hydrangea temple, a 3.8-meter scroll holds a letter Nichiren wrote to Hiki Yoshimoto, sole survivor of his clan's massacre and the monk's devoted patron and scribe.

A gilt-bronze Jizō cast in 1309 as a memorial at Kanpuku-ji—one of four medieval Buddhas made for Katori Jingū, the earliest tied to the Mongol invasions.

Cast in gilt bronze in 1282 by the sculptor Rengan, this seated Buddha at Kanpukuji once served Katori Shrine and bears a prayer to repel the Mongol invaders.

This bronze Eleven-Headed Kannon at Kanpuku-ji in Chiba once served Katori Shrine. Cast in 1282, it carries a prayer to repel the invading Mongol fleet of 1281.

A 47-cm bronze Acala at Ketsuen-ji in Chiba, an Important Cultural Property dated to 1303. The hidden image is unveiled just one day a year, on 28 September.

This gilt-bronze Medicine Buddha at Kanpuku-ji once stood before the deity of Katori Jingu. Saved from melting in 1869, it is now an Important Cultural Property.

Newly designated in 2024, 839 documents trace one Nichiren temple across 620 years, from a monk's vow to guard his master's writings to letters from the Edo shogun's court.

Hokekyo-ji in Ichikawa, Chiba, holds over a hundred letters and treatises in the hand of the monk Nichiren, a rare survival named an Important Cultural Property.

A Kamakura white-bronze mirror, 20.5 cm across, from Tamasaki Shrine in Chiba, cast with an old plum, two sparrows and pampas grass; once hung before the altar.

A 1321 bronze bell cast for a temple in Shimotsuke, moved to Kamakura's Jomyoji and then to Nihonji on Mount Nokogiri, Chiba; now kept inside the Dharma Hall.

A 1286 bronze bell by the Kamakura founder Mononobe no Kunimitsu at Koamiji in Tateyama, Chiba, cast with a Sanskrit dharani; it hangs in the temple's bell tower.

Chiba's oldest dated temple bell, cast in 1264 by Hiroshina Shigenaga for Ganzoji in Nagara: a rare bell without bosses, bearing Womb Realm seed syllables.

A 1278 bell by Onakatomi Kanemori, moved from Daifukuji to Hondoji in Matsudo, Chiba, in 1482, when its seed syllables were replaced with Nichiren's lineage.

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.