Imperial Edict of Emperor Shomu (20th Day of Leap Month, May

An Emperor's Brushstroke in a Country Zen Temple

On the twentieth day of the intercalary fifth month of 749, Emperor Shomu took up a brush and wrote a single oversized character: choku, "imperial decree." The document it authorized announced donations of silk, silk floss, and newly cultivated rice land to twelve great temples, among them Todai-ji, Kofuku-ji, and Yakushi-ji, with a prayer for peace under heaven and the happiness of all people. That sheet of hemp paper survives today, not in Nara or Kyoto, but at Heidenji, a small Rinzai Zen temple amid the tea fields and fishing harbors of Makinohara City, Shizuoka Prefecture.

The document was designated a National Treasure on March 29, 1952. It is held to be the oldest National Treasure in Shizuoka Prefecture, and the prefectural cultural properties register describes it as the only surviving dedication document from this particular round of imperial gifts.

What the Edict Says, and Why 749 Mattered

The year 749 was extraordinary even by the standards of Shomu's eventful reign. Gold had been discovered in Mutsu Province in the northeast, the first ever found in Japan, and it arrived just as gilders needed it for the colossal bronze Buddha then rising at Todai-ji. The emperor was so moved that he changed the era name to Tenpyo-kanpo, "Heavenly Peace, Wondrous Treasure." That era lasted only a few months before another renaming, which makes any document dated to it a rarity in itself.

According to the Shoku Nihongi, the official court chronicle, Shomu marked the occasion by endowing the twelve great temples with ashiginu plain-weave silk, silk floss, and konden reclaimed paddy fields, asking the temples to pray for the tranquility of the realm. The Heidenji scroll is the formal petition of dedication issued for these gifts. Weeks later, in the seventh month of the same year, Shomu abdicated in favor of his daughter, who reigned as Empress Koken. The edict thus dates from the final stretch of his rule, when the Great Buddha project consumed his attention.

The text runs in careful standing-block script on yellowish hemp paper. Visitors who saw the scroll during its 2025 display noted a sheet roughly 30 centimeters tall and about a meter long, now mounted as a handscroll, though the Agency for Cultural Affairs database records the designation simply as one scroll without published dimensions.

Why It Became a National Treasure

Three features give the document its standing. First is the emperor's own hand. The large character choku at the document's opening is accepted as Shomu's autograph, his shinpitsu. Genuine writing by Shomu, or by any Nara-period sovereign, is vanishingly scarce; the best-known example is the Zasshu anthology in his hand preserved among the Shosoin treasures. A second specimen surviving outside the imperial repository is an event in Japanese paleography.

Second are the signatures at the end. The edict carries the countersignatures of the two highest officials of the day: Tachibana no Moroe, Minister of the Left, and Fujiwara no Toyonari, Minister of the Right. A single sheet thus gathers the emperor and both heads of his government, a snapshot of the Nara court's chain of command.

Third is the sealing. The entire surface is covered edge to edge with red impressions of the tenno gyoji, the imperial seal, stamped repeatedly so that no line of text could be altered or excised without cutting through a seal. The forest of vermilion squares over black ink is the document's most striking visual feature.

The Mystery of Its Journey East

How did a state document addressed to the great monasteries of Nara end up at a Zen temple on the Suruga coast, more than 200 kilometers from the old capital? Nobody knows. Temple records confirm only that the scroll was already at Heidenji by 1818. Local historians in Makinohara like to call it the city's greatest historical mystery, and no theory has yet won general acceptance.

Heidenji itself has history worth telling. Founded in 1283 under the mountain name Kyukozan, it is counted among the oldest Zen temples in the Enshu region. Its founding priest, Ryuho Koun, is said to have been an uncle of Ashikaga Takauji, the first Muromachi shogun. Five centuries later the temple found a powerful patron in Tanuma Okitsugu, the famous senior councilor of the Tokugawa shogunate, who became lord of the local Sagara domain in 1758 and made Heidenji the memorial temple of his family. The present main hall, rebuilt in 1786 with a dedicated entrance reserved for the Tanuma household, is a Makinohara City designated cultural property.

Visiting Heidenji and the Sagara Coast

Be aware before planning a trip: the edict itself is not on public view, and the city asks that inquiries about it not be directed to the temple. It has left Shizuoka on occasion, including a loan to the Kyoto National Museum in 2012, and on March 22 and 23, 2025 it was shown at Heidenji for the first time in living memory, timed to the once-in-thirteen-years opening of the temple's hidden statue of Sho Kannon. Queues that weekend reportedly ran to an hour. Any future showing will be announced by the city or the temple.

The temple grounds, a quiet wooded compound in the Oe district near Sagara harbor, can be enjoyed on an ordinary visit. Look for the stone hoto pagoda of 1310, a Shizuoka Prefecture designated cultural property, and a monument to the opera singer Tamaki Miura, the first Japanese vocalist to win an international reputation, who had ties to the area.

Sagara rewards a half day. The site of Sagara Castle, seat of Tanuma Okitsugu, lies near the harbor, with the Makinohara City Museum of History close by. The thatched Osane Residence in Katahama, an Important Cultural Property, opens its Edo-period main house and gate to visitors. Inland, the Makinohara plateau carries one of Japan's largest contiguous tea fields, and in early summer the rows of deep green run to the horizon. Access is straightforward by car via the Sagara-Makinohara Interchange on the Tomei Expressway; by public transport, take an express bus from JR Shizuoka Station toward Sagara and continue locally from the Sagara bus terminal.