The Kunōji-kyō at the Gotoh Museum: Two Scrolls of a Court's Devotion
Before a single line of scripture appears, the paper already shines. Gold and silver have been cut into flecks and fine threads and scattered across the surface, and over them lie lotus ponds and waterbirds painted in azurite blue and malachite green. These are two handscrolls of the Lotus Sutra known together as the Kunōji-kyō, held by the Gotoh Museum in the Kaminoge district of Setagaya, Tokyo. One carries the opening chapter, the Introduction (Jobon); the other holds the nineteenth scroll, the chapter on the Merits of the Dharma Teacher (Hosshi-kudoku-bon).
They belong to the Heian period, the age of the Kyoto court, and they are examples of what Japanese calls a shōgon-kyō, a sutra copied not plainly but lavishly adorned. The Lotus Sutra was the most widely revered scripture of the time, and copying it by hand was an act of faith believed to generate spiritual merit. Here that act was turned into something close to a jeweled object.
One Set, Thirty Hands
The Kunōji-kyō was produced as a kechien ippongyō, a form of group devotion in which a scripture is divided so that each participant copies a single portion. The Lotus Sutra's twenty-eight chapters, together with an opening and a closing sutra, were split into thirty scrolls, and thirty people each took one. The names recorded at the ends of the scrolls show who they were: a circle around Retired Emperor Toba and his consort, Taikenmon-in, including court ladies and attendants. The work is generally dated to around 1141, a moment tied to the consort's taking of Buddhist vows.
That makes the set roughly a quarter century older than the more famous Heike Nōkyō, the decorated Lotus Sutra dedicated by the Taira clan in the 1160s. Among surviving decorated copies of the sutra that still hold together as a group, the Kunōji-kyō is the oldest. Because each chapter passed through a different hand, the scrolls differ from one another in brushwork and ornament, and the set reads less like a single commission than like a gathering of individual offerings.
The collection was first kept at Anrakuju-in, Toba's prayer temple in Kyoto, and later moved to Kunō-ji, a temple at the foot of Mount Kunō in Suruga, present-day Shizuoka. The name Kunōji-kyō comes from that second home. Kunō-ji itself was revived in the Meiji era by the statesman and swordsman Yamaoka Tesshū and is now called Tesshū-ji.
Important Cultural Property, and Why Not National Treasure
The two Gotoh scrolls were designated an Important Cultural Property on 29 March 1952. Japan's heritage system places National Treasure at its summit and Important Cultural Property a step below, and the Kunōji-kyō happens to sit across both ranks because its scrolls were scattered. The thirty-scroll set never stayed whole. Nineteen scrolls remain at Tesshū-ji and are designated a National Treasure; three are at the Tokyo National Museum and two at the Gotoh Museum, all Important Cultural Properties; others passed into private hands, and several scrolls are now lost.
The split rankings are a reminder that designation often follows the accidents of survival as much as the merit of the work. The Introduction chapter and the chapter on the Merits of the Dharma Teacher are no less the product of the same court workshop than their National Treasure siblings; they were simply parted from the main body and judged on their own.
What to Look For
The decoration runs across every visible surface, the cover, the frontispiece, and both faces of the text paper. On the frontispiece sits a pattern of hōsōge arabesque, a stylized imaginary flower scroll favored in Buddhist art. The body paper carries its scattered gold and silver, and ruled guide lines for the columns of text were drawn in metallic pigment rather than ink. The painted lotus ponds and waterfowl belong to a Buddhist visual language of the Pure Land, where the lotus is a symbol of purity rising from muddy water.
Time has not been gentle. The chapter on the Merits of the Dharma Teacher in particular shows heavy damage, and part of what the scrolls now offer is the sight of fragile beauty held together across nearly nine centuries. The Gotoh Museum shows them only on occasion and usually one at a time, so seeing both in a single visit is rare. When they appear, it is worth slowing down to read the surface as much as the script.
Around the Museum
The Gotoh Museum opened in 1960 from the collection of Gotō Keita, the railway entrepreneur behind the Tokyu group, and it specializes in classical Japanese and East Asian art. Its hillside garden, descending toward the Tama River valley, is a draw in its own right and is laid out with stone Buddhist figures and tea houses. The museum stands a short walk from Kaminoge Station on the Tokyu Ōimachi Line.
Because the scrolls are light-sensitive and fragile, they are not on permanent display. Anyone making the trip specifically to see the Kunōji-kyō should check the current exhibition schedule first; the museum tends to bring out early calligraphy and sutra material in dedicated seasonal shows.
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Q&A
- Can I see these scrolls any time I visit?
- No. They are fragile and shown only during certain exhibitions, usually one scroll at a time. Check the Gotoh Museum's schedule before planning a visit around them.
- Why are some Kunōji-kyō scrolls National Treasures and these only Important Cultural Properties?
- The original thirty-scroll set was dispersed. The nineteen scrolls kept together at Tesshū-ji are a National Treasure, while the scrolls that became separated, including these two, were designated Important Cultural Properties on their own.
- What does "one chapter per person" mean?
- It refers to a devotional practice in which a sutra is divided and each participant copies one part. For the Kunōji-kyō, thirty people in the court circle of Retired Emperor Toba each brushed a single scroll.
- How old is this compared with the Heike Nōkyō?
- The Kunōji-kyō dates to around 1141, roughly twenty-five years before the Heike Nōkyō of the 1160s, making it the oldest decorated Lotus Sutra set that still survives as a coherent group.
- How do I reach the Gotoh Museum?
- It is a short walk from Kaminoge Station on the Tokyu Ōimachi Line in Setagaya, Tokyo.
Basic Information
| Name | Lotus Sutra, Introduction Chapter and Chapter on the Merits of the Dharma Teacher (Kunōji-kyō) |
|---|---|
| Holder / Location | Gotoh Museum, 3-9-25 Kaminoge, Setagaya, Tokyo |
| Designation | Important Cultural Property (calligraphy / classics) |
| Designated | 29 March 1952 |
| Count | 2 scrolls |
| Period | Heian period (around 1141) |
| Form | Decorated sutra handscrolls; gold and silver foil, painted lotus ponds and waterfowl, arabesque frontispiece |
| Owner | Gotoh Museum (public-interest foundation) |
| Access | Short walk from Kaminoge Station, Tokyu Ōimachi Line |
| On view | Only during special exhibitions; confirm the schedule |
References
- National Database of Designated Cultural Properties, Agency for Cultural Affairs — Lotus Sutra (Kunōji-kyō)
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/201/8167
- e-Museum, National Institutes for Cultural Heritage — Lotus Sutra (Kunōji-kyō)
- https://emuseum.nich.go.jp/detail?content_base_id=100369
- Gotoh Museum — Kunōji-kyō, Lotus Sutra, Chapter on the Merits of the Dharma Teacher
- https://www.gotoh-museum.or.jp/2020/10/08/08-206-373/
- Shizuoka Prefecture Cultural Property Navigator — Lotus Sutra (Kunōji-kyō)
- https://www.pref.shizuoka.jp/...1021036.html
Last verified: 2026.06.22