Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra

A Sutra Dated to the Year 712

At a small Zen temple in the mountains of southern Shiga, 142 folded volumes of handwritten scripture have survived for more than thirteen centuries. They form part of the Daihannya-kyo, the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, and they carry a colophon naming the year Wado 5, which corresponds to 712. That date makes the set the oldest copy of this scripture in Japan whose year of writing is recorded in the text itself.

The temple is Taiheiji, in the Ayuga district of Tsuchiyama, Koka City. Scholars know the volumes as the Wado-kyo, after the era name in their colophon, and more fully as the votive sutra of Prince Nagaya. The Agency for Cultural Affairs designated them a National Treasure in 1962.

Why a Prince Copied Six Hundred Volumes

The complete Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra runs to 600 fascicles. The monk Xuanzang translated it from Sanskrit into Chinese between 660 and 663, so a copy made in 712 was produced only about half a century after the text reached its Chinese form.

Prince Nagaya, who ordered the copying, was one of the most powerful figures at the early Nara court. A grandson of Emperor Tenmu through Prince Takechi, he held the post of head of the Ministry of Ceremonies at the time. The colophon records that he had the 600 volumes written to pray for the repose of his cousin, Emperor Monmu, who had died in 707.

The work took place at a residence the colophon calls the Northern Palace. Excavations at Prince Nagaya's mansion in Nara have led researchers to identify this as the home of his consort, Princess Kibi, who was Emperor Monmu's sister. Read that way, the project was as much her act of mourning as his.

Prince Nagaya's own story ended badly. In 729 he was accused of plotting against the throne and forced to take his own life, in an affair generally understood as a move by the rising Fujiwara family to clear away a rival. The scripture he commissioned outlasted him by more than a thousand years.

What Makes It a National Treasure

Two qualities set the Wado-kyo apart. The first is the certainty of its date. Many early sutras survive, but few state plainly when they were brushed. Because these volumes name the year 712, they serve as a fixed point against which other, undated manuscripts can be measured.

The second is the writing. The text was copied onto yellow hemp paper without the ruled vertical lines that normally guide a scribe's columns. The characters are small but firm and disciplined, close to the styles of Sui and early Tang China. Researchers believe six or seven scribes shared the labor of the scripture itself, while the votive preface was written by two hands. The preface holds a small surprise: although it was added after the main text, its brushwork follows an older sixth-century manner, so the dedication looks more archaic than the sutra it introduces.

One Set Scattered Across Three Temples

The original 600 volumes did not stay together. A little over 220 are accounted for today. Taiheiji holds the largest share at 142 volumes. Two temples in the same Tsuchiyama valley keep more between them: Jomyoji has 27 volumes, also a National Treasure, and Kenshoan has 43, designated an Important Cultural Property. A dozen or so further volumes are dispersed among museums and private hands, with one fascicle in the Tokyo National Museum.

Tradition holds that the set followed a long road to reach these mountains, passing from Yakushiji in Nara by way of Kuwanomi-dera near Azuchi before arriving at the three temples of Tsuchiyama. Somewhere along that journey the volumes were also remounted. They began as handscrolls and were later refolded into the accordion format counted in jo, the unit used for the 142 volumes at Taiheiji.

Visiting Taiheiji and the Ayuga Valley

Taiheiji is a Rinzai Zen temple of the Tofukuji line, founded by tradition in 1491 by the priest Kogaku, with a statue of the Sacred Kannon as its principal image. It is a working parish temple rather than a museum, and the National Treasure sutra is not on regular public view. A manuscript this old and this fragile is kept in storage and brought out only on rare occasions. Visitors come instead for the setting.

That setting is the reason most people make the trip. Ayuga sits at the foot of the Suzuka mountains, and the banks of the clear Uguigawa river running through the hamlet are lined with around 200 cherry trees. Counting the blossoms near the Ozuchi Dam beyond, locals speak of a thousand cherries in all, and the show draws steady crowds each spring. Because the village lies in the hills, the trees here open about a week later than in the lowlands, usually in early to mid April.

The valley stays quiet the rest of the year, with Tamura Shrine, hot-spring lodging at Okawara, and the reservoir walks at Ozuchi Dam all within easy reach. Reaching Ayuga is simplest by car, roughly 20 minutes from the Koka-Tsuchiyama interchange on the Shin-Meishin Expressway. By train, take the JR Kusatsu Line to Kibukawa Station and continue on the Koka community bus toward Tsuchiyama, a ride of about 40 minutes; services are limited, so check the timetable before you set out. During cherry-blossom season the lanes grow congested, and the bus is the easier choice.