Muromachi
室町Browse Japan’s cultural heritage from the Muromachi period (1336 – 1573). Filter by prefecture, type, and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
An ink manuscript written at Eigen-ji in 1377, recording the Dharma address spoken as the Zen master Jakushitsu Genko was enshrined in the founder's hall.
Three scrolls at Eigen-ji, Shiga, recording the sermon and incense verse for the 33rd memorial of founder Jakushitsu Genko, held on his death anniversary in 1399.
A 1367 ink scroll preserves the verse chanted over incense at founder Jakushitsu Genkō's seventh-day rite, when his disciples resolved to keep Eigenji alive.
Two ink-on-paper scrolls hold a Zen sermon spoken at Eigenji in 1379 for the founder's thirteenth-anniversary memorial. An Important Cultural Property since 1936.
Three ink-on-paper scrolls show how Jōrakuji in Konan, Shiga rebuilt after the 1360 lightning fire that razed it. These medieval appeals funded the temple's National Treasure main hall and pagoda.
A late Muromachi shrine hall in Isa, Kagoshima, an Important Cultural Property since 1989, one of few medieval buildings in southern Kyushu, built of camphor wood.
A late Muromachi shrine hall in Isa, Kagoshima, an Important Cultural Property since 1949, where carpenters' graffiti of 1559 records the word shochu for the first time.
The kagura hall of Haushiwake Shrine in Yokote, Akita, a mid-Muromachi building of a mountain ascetic shrine, takes the rare double-nagare form in heavy timbers.
Uonuma Shrine Amida Hall in Ojiya, Niigata: a thatched pyramidal-roofed hall of 1563 in a shrine, with short eaves suited to heavy snow and an Amida triad inside.
The Kannon Hall of Gotokuji in Aga, Niigata, a thatched three-bay hall dated to 1557, has a late Muromachi style showing the links between Aizu and Niigata.
The Rengebuji Temple Kotsudo on Sado, built about 1348, is a tiny thatched hall regarded as the oldest building in eastern Japan with authentic Zen-style detail.
The Rengebuji Temple Kondo on Sado, standing by 1459, is the Important Cultural Property main hall of Rengebuji, five bays square under a copper roof in thatch form.
An early Muromachi pagoda moved from Kyoto to Sankeien Garden in Yokohama in 1914 and designated in 1931. Kanto's oldest timber tower, hidden by repairs from 2027.
A medieval Buddhist hall from Kyoto, dismantled in 1949 and reassembled at Sankeien Garden in Yokohama by 1987, restored to its original early Muromachi form.
This National Treasure colophon by Yuan literatus Feng Zizhen praises a lost insect scroll by Song painter Yi Yuanji. Sen no Rikyu's letter saved it from being cut.
At Engaku-ji in Fukaura, Aomori, this cabinet-shrine of 1506 holds the Medicine Buddha. A one-bay, Zen-style structure, it is reckoned Aomori's oldest building.
Reizan-ji Niōmon, a thatched 1516 gate on Mount Ōuchi above Shimizu, is the prefecture's second-oldest building. Its Niō statues returned in 2026 after restoration.
Kanbokujo, a National Treasure at the MOA Museum of Art in Atami, holds 311 calligraphy fragments from the 8th to 15th centuries, and a leaf by Fujiwara no Yukinari.
The main hall of Hakusan Shrine in Suzu, near the tip of the Noto Peninsula, is a three-bay nagare-style hall of the late Muromachi period, key to medieval styles.
The main hall of Fujitsuhiko Shrine in Nanao, on the Noto Peninsula, is a three-bay nagare-style hall of the Muromachi period, a rare medieval survival in Hokuriku.