Nara

Just 24.2 cm tall, this National Treasure at Tokyo's Nezu Museum is a peak of Southern Song bird-and-flower painting, attributed to Li Anzhong and shown only rarely.

Painted by the Song court artist Li Di and dated 1197, this National Treasure pairs a white and a red cotton rose, one flower as it shifts colour across a day.

A fan-shaped Song-dynasty painting of one apple branch, its blossoms ranging from bud to full bloom. Now a National Treasure at Tokyo's Ebara Hatakeyama Museum.

A National Treasure at the Tokyo National Museum: a Southern Song three-scroll set by Liang Kai of a gaunt Buddha and snowy peaks, held by the Ashikaga shoguns.

A Southern Song scroll attributed to Ma Yuan, this National Treasure shows a lone traveler hurrying under a folded umbrella as wind and rain cross towering peaks.

Ritual deposits found beneath Kofuku-ji's Central Golden Hall in Nara in 1874: gilt bronze vessels, mirrors, gold, and coins, about 1,400 pieces, the richest known.

Discover the Aloeswood Wood-Marquetry Box, an 8th-century National Treasure housed in the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures at Tokyo National Museum. This rare Nara-period sutra box features precious aloeswood, ivory, and ebony arranged in an elegant checkerboard pattern, embodying the artistic legacy of the Silk Road in Japan.

At the Tokyo National Museum, this Important Cultural Property holds the Lotus Sutra in eight handscrolls, all written in one early-Heian hand on yellow hemp paper.

A handscroll of the fifth Lotus Sutra volume, hand-copied in eighth-century Nara, its even script the mark of the state scriptoria. Held by the Gotoh Museum, Tokyo.

A bokuseki scroll at the Tokyo National Museum: a verse brushed by the Southern Song Zen monk Beijian Jujian in a Suzhou pavilion in 1229, an early tea scroll.

Preserved at Waseda University Library in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward, this National Treasure is the sole surviving volume of a lost 100-volume Chinese Confucian commentary. A Tang-dynasty handscroll that reached Japan in the Nara period, it bears the personal library seal of Empress Kōmyō. Discover its extraordinary journey, scholarly importance, and how to experience it today.

The Gotoh Museum in Setagaya, Tokyo, preserves the National Treasure 'Six Patriarch Shouldering a Pole,' a thirteenth-century Southern Song ink painting bearing the seal of the painter Chokuō. Rendered in the delicate mōryōga style with washes of pale ink and selective accents of dark ink, the scroll depicts Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Chan Buddhism, at the life-changing moment he hears the Diamond Sutra. An inscription by Chan master Enkei Kōmon dates the work with unusual precision. Discover the history, artistic value, and visiting information for this masterpiece.

Held by the Nezu Museum in Tokyo's Minami-Aoyama district, Fishing Village at Sunset (attributed to Muqi) is a National Treasure and one of the supreme achievements of Southern Song ink painting. A scene from the famous Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers, it bears the seal of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu and is exhibited only rarely, every few years.

The 3,184 wooden tablets (mokkan) excavated from the Heijō Palace Site in Nara were designated a National Treasure in 2017—the first time in history wooden tablets received this honor. These contemporary primary sources reveal the daily administration and life of 8th-century Japan in ways no compiled history ever could, now accessible at the Heijō Palace Site Museum within the UNESCO World Heritage area.

Standing beside the Yoshino River in Gojo City, Nara Prefecture, the Octagonal Hall of Eisan-ji is a National Treasure built between 760 and 764 by Fujiwara no Nakamaro to honor his father Muchimaro. Together with the Yumedono of Horyu-ji, it is one of only two Nara-period octagonal halls that survive in their original form. Inside, faded but visible eighth-century paintings of bodhisattvas and celestial beings still remain on its pillars and beams.

Discover the Kairyuoji Five-Story Small Pagoda, Japan's smallest National Treasure pagoda, designated as architecture rather than a craft object. Standing only 4.01 meters tall yet faithfully built as a complete five-story structure, this rare Tenpyo-era masterpiece has been enshrined within the West Golden Hall of Kairyuoji Temple in Nara for approximately 1,300 years, offering a rare window into eighth-century Japanese pagoda design closely related to Yakushiji's East Pagoda.

A 5.5-meter wooden pagoda from the late Nara period, built inside like a real tower with mitesaki brackets and equal bays, now shown in Gangoji's Horinkan museum.

A Nara-period hall designated a National Treasure in 1952, with an open-rafter roof, 40 round columns and a round dais for Yakushi and twelve clay generals.

A late Nara-period three-storied pagoda at Taimadera, Nara, a National Treasure since 1952: its oldest building, with two-bay upper tiers and an eight-ring spire.

An eighth-century azekura log storehouse at Tamukeyama Hachimangu in Nara. Once part of Todai-ji's oil store and moved here in 1714, it can be studied up close.