Hōryūji Treasures
By Akiko Walley
In March of 1868, the newly established modern Japanese government issued a series of decrees that plunged Buddhist institutions across the nation into dire financial straits. The government mandated clerics to convert to Shinto priesthood en masse and confiscated the monasteries’ estates that provided their primary source of income, resulting in the abandonment or destruction of century-old worship halls and the dispersal of icons and other temple treasures.
This wave of unfavorable government policies also hit the small but prestigious ancient temple of Hōryūji, located in a rural area of today’s Nara prefecture. To protect the integrity of the temple’s buildings and central icons, in 1876 the clerical leaders of Hōryūji made the difficult decision to gift hundreds of treasures from the temple’s collection to the imperial household in exchange for a donation. These so-called Hōryūji kennō hōmotsu (lit. “treasures gifted by Hōryūji”) are a treasure trove of Buddhist sculpture, painting, crafts, and documents of the premodern period (circa sixteenth century and earlier), most notably from the nascent period of Japanese Buddhism between the seventh and eighth century.
This essay introduces how and why the Hōryūji kennō hōmotsu (hereinafter Hōryūji Treasures) came to be, and how and where they are cared for and used today.
(1) Hōryūji and the Prince Shōtoku Cult
In the town of Ikaruga, located to the west of Nara City, Japan, there stands an ancient Buddhist temple called Hōryūji (“temple of exalted law”) (Figure 1).
Figure 1. West Precinct. Hōryūji, Nara prefecture. Asuka period, latter half of 7th-early 8th century. Image: The John C. and Susan L. Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Related Art, The Ohio State University. Image accessed through Artstor, https://library-artstor-org.uoregon.idm.oclc.org/asset/HUNT_54688.
At first glance, the temple may appear unassuming compared to other monuments such as St. Paul’s Basilica, the Pyramids, Machu Picchu, or the colossal Great Buddha Hall in the nearby Tōdaiji. Hōryūji, however, is one of the most important cultural heritage sites, not just in Japan, but also in the world. The temple’s main sanctuary, the West Precinct, features three of the world’s oldest post-and-lintel structures. The Golden Hall to the east (right) is the main image hall that enshrines Buddhist statues of the seventh to the thirteenth century,including the central deity of the bronze seated Buddha and two bodhisattva attendants datable to the first half of the seventh century. The five-story pagoda stands tall to the west (left) of the sanctuary, protecting the relics of the Buddha cocooned inside the foundation stone that is buried 3m below the ground. The corridor surrounding the two main sacred buildings connects the central gateway to the south and the tenth-century lecture hall to the north.
A prince heir apparent named Umayato (or Umayado) no Toyotomimi (574-621 or 622) built the precursor to Hōryūji - called Ikarugadera - as his family temple just south of the present West Precinct. Buddhism had emerged in ancient India around the fifth century BCE and gradually traveled east through the Gandharan region, Central Asia, to China then the Korean peninsula. Migrants and official ambassadors from the kingdoms of the Korean peninsula had brought Buddhism to the Japanese archipelago in the first half of the sixth century. Completed less than a century after the introduction of the religion, Ikarugadera was thus one of the earliest fully-fledged Buddhist sanctuaries in Japan.
Tragedy haunted the later history of the original Ikarugadera. Only two decades after Prince Umayato’s untimely death at the age of 49, his descendants met a violent demise at the hands of their extended kin. Now masterless, Umayato’s Ikaruga Palace to the east of Ikarugadera quickly fell into disrepair. Then in 670 CE, lightning hit Ikarugadera and burned it to the ground. Through the great effort of clerics and lay followers, the temple was rebuilt as Hōryūji in the first half of the eighth century and has been serving as a key site of the cultic devotion to the original founder, Prince Umayato.
Heralded as the “father of Buddhism,” Umayato no Toyotomimi garnered reverence almost immediately after his death. Prince Umayato’s life as a historical figure is shrouded in myth. All surviving accounts of the prince’s life are hagiographic texts. We do know, however, that the yearning for the prince intensified over the centuries, growing first among the elite members of the imperial court in the eighth century, then eventually spreading to generations of leaders of virtually all Buddhist sects, shoguns and warrior lords, and the people.
By the eighth century, Prince Umayato was respectfully called “Prince Shōtoku” or the “Prince Saintly Virtue” by his followers. Prince Shōtoku’s life story became increasingly elaborate. By the Kamakura period (1192-1333), his hagiography portrayed him simultaneously as an ideal ruler who delivered lectures on Buddhist scriptures and established Japan’s oldest code of official conduct according to Buddhism and other Chinese thoughts, as a sage possessing the intuition to recognize an immortal, as the reincarnation of an eminent Chinese monk, Huisi (515-577 CE), and as a this-worldly manifestation of Buddhist deities.
Between 729 and 748 CE, a monk named Gyōshin (fl. mid-eighth century) spearheaded a project to build a hexagonal worship hall at the former site of Prince Shōtoku’s Ikaruga Palace about 400 m east of the West Precinct.
Figure 2. East Precinct. Hōryūji, Nara prefecture. Nara period, 8th century. Image: The John C. and Susan L. Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Related Art, The Ohio State University. Image accessed through Artstor, https://library-artstor-org.uoregon.idm.oclc.org/asset/HUNT_54737.
The hexagonal hall—nicknamed Yumedono or the “Dream Pavilion”—enshrined a seventh-century wooden statue of a standing Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara closely associated with Prince Shōtoku. To the north of Yumedono stood the Seven-Bay Sutra Repository. Mirroring the layout of the West Precinct, a corridor surrounded the main sanctuary, connecting the worship hall to the south and the sutra repository to the north. Known originally as Jōgūō-in (a monastery for Prince Shōtoku), Gyōshin established this new compound as an independent sanctuary dedicated to Prince Shōtoku. By the eleventh century, this sanctuary came under the auspices of Hōryūji and was called the East Precinct. In 1219, the temple renovated the Seven-Bay Sutra Repository into a rare design of two twin halls connected by the roof but separated by a corridor. The Painting Hall to the west housed a set of ten panel-paintings depicting episodes from the life of Prince Shōtoku, while the Relics Hall to the east enshrined the relics of the Buddha believed to have fallen out of the prince’s palms when he was two years old.
Figure 3. Relic and Painting Halls, East Precinct. Hōryūji, Nara prefecture. Kamakura period, 1219. Photo by the author.
The history of the East Precinct directly connects to the history of the Hōryūji Treasures. Gyōshin also took the lead in collecting and donating artifacts associated with Prince Shōtoku to Jōgūō-in. According to Tōno Haruyuki, Queen Consort Kōmyō (701-760), who was the wife of Emperor Shōmu and among the most powerful female political leaders in Japanese history, along with her female blood kins and their aristocratic husbands, patronized Gyōshin in both the construction of Jōgūō-in and the amassing of Prince Shōtoku-related artifacts. The objects Gyōshin donated to Jōgūō-in already included pieces that later became part of the Hōryūji Treasures, such as the Abridged Interpretation of the Lotus Sutra (Hokke gisho) that Prince Shōtoku is believed to have composed in preparation for his sermon in 598, and another Small-Character Lotus Sutra, attributed to the prince in his previous incarnation as the Chinese Monk Huisi (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Lotus Sutra (known as “Lotus Sutra in Minute Characters”). Tang dynasty, China, 694. Handscroll, ink on paper. Hōryūji Treasure N-7. Tokyo National Museum. Image: https://webarchives.tnm.jp/imgsearch/show/C0025626.
Hōryūji continued to amass objects associated with Prince Shōtoku, with many of these being stored in the Relics Hall. Notably, Tōno argues that the East Precinct was not only used to store these Shōtoku-related artworks, but also to display them to devotees, at least by the twelfth century.
(2) From Temple Collection to Museum
In short, throughout its history, Hōryūji maintained its status as one of the oldest Buddhist institutions in the Japanese archipelago and a key spiritual center for devout followers of Prince Shōtoku. The temple controlled its own estates to manage the day-to-day expenses. Why, then, did a renowned institution like Hōryūji come to part with hundreds of its precious artworks in the nineteenth century?
Even in the premodern period, the revenue from temple estates did not always cover expenses for costly projects such as the restoration of worship halls. In the Edo period, in order to raise funds, temples and shrines that enjoyed popular recognition often toured their treasures to cities to put on a government-sanctioned special viewing, gokaichō (lit. “lifting the curtain”). Hōryūji organized a total of at least four special viewings: two in the imperial capital of Kyoto (1695 and 1800) and two more in the Tokugawa shogun’s seat of power of Edo (present-day Tokyo; 1694 and 1842). The 1694 gokaichō in the city of Edo was especially successful: it attracted so many visitors that a temporary market popped up in front of Ekō-in Temple, which had hosted the event. Hōryūji had initially received the government’s approval to hold the special viewing for two months. Due to its extreme popularity, the organizers secured permission to extend the viewing for one more month. Ultimately, the 1694 gokaichō raised over 4,200-ryō, which roughly calculates to 420,000,000 Japanese Yen (or $4,200,000) in today’s currency. Anticipating a similar fervent reception, Hōryūji prepared a printed catalogue of exhibited objects for the 1842 gokaichō (Figure 5).
Figure 5. A two-page spread with illustrations of the “seven kinds of precious artifacts.” Illustrations of Treasures (Go-hōmotsu zue). Edo period, 1842. Bound book, ink on paper. Tokyo National Museum. Image: https://webarchives.tnm.jp/imgsearch/show/C0045683.
The catalogue for the 1842 gokaichō reveals that the majority of the pieces the temple selected for the Hōryūji Treasures thirty-some years later had already been selected for the traveling exhibitions in the Edo period.
Gokaichō of the premodern era served as a precedent when Japan embraced the more modern and Western-style exhibition practices in the subsequent Meiji period (1868-1912). Throughout the Edo period, the Tokugawa government had regulated Japan’s access to foreign information, people, and goods. However, in 1853, Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1794-1858) of the United States Navy and his squadron of “black ships” had appeared on the coast of Uraga at the mouth of the Edo (now Tokyo) Bay. With “gunboat diplomacy,” Perry demanded that the Tokugawa opened Japan’s ports and forge trade relations. In 1854, Japan signed the Treaty of Kanagawa, which became the first in a series of treaties of amenity and commerce that Japan would sign with the United States, Britain, France, the Dutch, and Russia. The threat of colonization triggered a chain of events that eventually led to the downfall of the Tokugawa regime, marking the beginning of Japan’s modern era under the restored imperial rule in 1868. Known as the Meiji Restoration, the new Japanese government considered a priority to, on the one hand, strengthen Japan’s military, and on the other, modernize and civilize the nation according to Western precedents. Adapting Western notions and practices of artmaking and appreciation became a core strategy for the latter initiative, which included establishing modern/Western-style museums.
Already in the 1870s, the fledgling Meiji imperial government began organizing “expositions” (hakurankai) to protect the nation’s cultural properties, promote industry, and educate the populace. The 1875 and 1876 expositions that took place in the ancient capital of Nara showcased collections from, among other places, Hōryūji. The 1875 exposition lasted for eighty days and received an astonishing 172,000 visitors (figure 6).
Figure 6. Page 2 of the Catalogue of Artifacts from Nara Exposition (Nara Hakurankai buppin mokuroku). Woodblock print, ink on paper. Meiji period, 1875. Nara Prefectural Library, https://meta01.library.pref.nara.jp/opac/repository/repo/153598/?lang=0&mode=0&opkey=R161624160919165&idx=25&srch_flflg=1#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&r=0&xywh=729%2C2768%2C6386%2C4609.
Here, it is worth underscoring the key difference between the modern hakurankai and the premodern gokaichō. As opposed to gokaichō which a religious institution executed to solicit financial support for itself, Hōryūji and other monasteries gained no financial benefit from loaning their treasures to a hakurankai. In fact, in the early years following the Meiji Restoration, Buddhist institutions faced an existential crisis of an unprecedented magnitude.
Beginning in the latter half of the seventh century, generations of Japanese emperors traced their mythological ancestry from the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu. To establish the emperor as a modern monarch, the Meiji government issued a series of decrees to reorient Shinto (the worship of Japanese gods or kami) as the foundation of the nation’s spiritual, philosophical, and political activities. There was, however, one complication. Over the centuries, Buddhism had taken deep root in Japan, becoming inseparably intertwined with the devotion to the native kami. Buddhist temples commonly housed Shinto shrines within their compounds, while it was equally common to find a Buddhist worship hall and designated “shrine monks” within a Shinto institution. What the Meiji government deemed most problematic was the prevalent perception that kami were this-worldly manifestations of Buddhist deities, which in effect placed Buddhism—a foreign religion—above Shinto. To recenter Shinto as the national religion that could boost the sense of loyalty to the emperor among Japanese citizens, the Meiji government had to first separate Shinto from Buddhism and unequivocally assert the former’s supremacy over the latter. Two sets of decrees issued between 1868 and 1875 had a devastating impact on Buddhist temples. First, a series of decrees issued in 1868 mandated the separation of Shinto and Buddhist institutions. Second, decrees issued in 1871 and 1875 ordered the requisition of all estates owned by Buddhist temples beyond the monastic compound proper as national lands. Stripped of traditional sources of revenue and, in many cases, also the support from the local community and policy makers, even the oldest and most prestigious temples fell into a state of ruin within just a few years of the restructuring campaign: buildings were abandoned or vandalized, and treasured icons and other artifacts were looted or sold as “antiques.”
Faced with the sudden plunge in revenue, Hōryūji struggled to make ends meet, let alone provide the necessary care for its eighth-century buildings and precious collection. The success of the 1875 exposition prompted a discussion among the Hōryūji’s clerical leaders about gifting part of the temple treasures to the imperial household in exchange for a donation that would allow them to protect the overall integrity of Hōryūji as an institution. In November of 1876, the then-abbot of Hōryūji, Chihaya Jōchō (1823-1899), submitted the “Petition to Offer the Ancient Artifacts” (kokibutsu kenbi on-negai) to the Sakai prefectural governor, Saisho Atsushi (1827-1910). The prefectural bureau accepted the petition in 1878, giving birth to the Hōryūji Treasures.
An inventory with 156 item listings, entailing a total of over 300 objects, accompanied the 1876 petition. The temple selected most of the works for this gift from the items exhibited in the 1875 and 1876 Nara Expositions, which in turn closely mirrored the artifacts taken to the special viewings during the Edo period. In exchange for this gift, Hōryūji received from the Imperial Household Ministry a donation of 10,000 Japanese yen, which is roughly 200,000,000 Japanese yen in today’s currency (or $2,000,000).
Hōryūji submitted the petition the same year as the 1876 Nara Exposition. For this reason, upon the conclusion of the 1876 exposition on June 25, the pieces from Hōryūji never returned to the temple. When Hōryūji and the Imperial Household Ministry agreed upon the gift arrangement, the artifacts were transferred to the Shōsō-in imperial repository at Tōdaiji temple. The Hōryūji Treasures remained in Shōsō-in until 1882, when the first modern museum opened in Ueno, Tokyo (present-day Tokyo National Museum).
In 1949, following Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War, the Imperial Household Ministry transferred custody of most of the objects in the Hōryūji Treasures to the national government. The pieces continued to physically remain in the Tokyo National Museum. The museum opened a new gallery designated for the Hōryūji Treasures in 1964. Designed to primarily protect the artifacts, the Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures only opened its doors once a week.
In the first half of the 1990s, the Tokyo National Museum responded to the growing requests for greater access to the Hōryūji Treasures by commissioning internationally renowned architect, Taniguchi Yoshio (b. 1937), to design a new building. Completed in 1999, the new Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures occupies the southwest corner of the Tokyo National Museum compound (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures, Tokyo National Museum. Designed by Taniguchi Yoshio (b. 1937). Heisei period, 1999. Photo by the author.
Covering over 4,000 m2, the new gallery consists of six exhibition spaces across two floors for permanent and rotating installations. Taniguchi aimed to infuse his design – especially of the exterior, entrance hall, and the first-floor sculpture room – with the same sense of serenity and reverence one would experience during a visit to Hōryūji. For instance, the main approach through the reflection pools in the front courtyard is positioned asymmetrically, harking back to the asymmetrical arrangement of the Golden Hall and five-story pagoda in the West Precinct. Taniguchi’s incorporation of elements inspired by traditional Japanese temple architecture contrasts starkly with what we can observe in the main building of the Tokyo National Museum, which was rebuilt in 1938 based on the design by Watanabe Jin (1887-1973) after the original 1882 building, designed by English architect Josiah Condor (1852-1920), was destroyed in the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923. The main building entertains a hybrid style of architecture, with a Western façade topped with a Japanese-style tiled roof. Taniguchi’s design of the Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures, on the other hand, presents nothing overtly Japanese or temple-like. However, the emphasis on verticality, especially at the entrance hall, and the intentional blocking of a direct line of sight, remind one of timber-frame architecture and more specifically the view into the West Precinct at Hōryūji through a lattice window in the surrounding corridor.
Figure 8. Galley 2. Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures (Interior), Tokyo National Museum. Designed by Taniguchi Yoshio (b. 1937). Heisei period, 1999. Photo by the author.
The most unusual space within the Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures is Gallery 2 on the first floor, where the so-called “forty-eight gilt bronze statues,” halos, and other Buddhist images in metal relief are on permanent display (Figure 8). At first glance, the pillars of plexiglass cases each containing one miniature Buddhist statue may seem jarring—almost Science Fiction-like. Yet Taniguchi’s design of this exhibition space succeeds in evoking the wooden posts that support a timber-frame architecture and the serene atmosphere of a Buddhist worship hall.
(3) Hōryūji Treasures Highlights
Officially, the Hōryūji Treasures include 319 items. However, the actual number of pieces far exceeds this official count because the initial inventory bundled the textile fragments within the gift as just one item. Fourteen works in the collection are designated as National Treasures and the additional 239 objects as Important Cultural Properties. The Hōryūji Treasures represent one of the largest concentrations of seventh-century Japanese Buddhist artworks in the world. In addition, this is among the major repositories of the visual and material culture linked to the Prince Shōtoku devotion. Recall that Hōryūji largely selected the content of the Hōryūji Treasures from the pieces exhibited at the Nara expositions, which were themselves based on the gokaichō precedents of the Edo period, which had cashed in on the popular veneration of Prince Shōtoku. It is no wonder, then, that the Hōryūji Treasures’ prized pieces are objects associated in objects traditionally associated with the charismatic prince. For example, the Hōryūji Treasures include what was traditionally known as the “seven kinds of precious artifacts” believed to have been either owned or commissioned by the prince:
A priest’s robe of patchwork silk fragments called funsō-e (lit. “robe for dusting excrement) (Hōryūji Treasure N33; hereinafter HTN)
A copy of the Buddhist scripture, Bonmōkyō, written in gold on indigo-dyed paper (HTN13) that was believed to have been by the hand of Prince Shōtoku (Figure 9)
A ritual bell bearing relief images of the Five Luminous Kings (HTN64)
A Tang-dynasty vase made of a gourd with relief carvings of eight immortals (currently in the collection of the Museum of the Imperial Collection, Sannomaru Shūzōkan)
A silk fragment believed to retain Prince Shōtoku’s footprints (HTN36)
An eighth-century talismanic bow to ward off evil spirits, believed to have been owned by Prince Shōtoku (HTN133)
A whistling arrowhead believed to have been used by Prince Shōtoku during a battle against an anti-Buddhist faction in 598CE (HTN134)
The above seven objects appear at the outset of the inventory that accompanied Hōryūji’s 1876 petition, indicating that they were the prizes of the collection. Each work is directly tied to a key aspect of the prince’s life story. For instance, legends surrounding Prince Shōtoku’s intuitive grasp of Buddhist teachings grew over the centuries. By the Edo period, a popular and widely-circulated hagiography claimed that, at the age of six, Prince Shōtoku (who had barely started learning to read and write) could already comprehend Buddhist scriptures which no adult around him could read, because he had studied them in his previous lives. Naturally, Hōryūji owned multiple copies of Buddhist sutras attributed to the prince, including the Bonmōkyō in the seven kinds of precious artifacts.
Figure 9. Brahmāʼs Net Sutra. Traditionally attributed to Prince Shōtoku. Heian period, 9th century. Handscroll, Gold on indigo-dyed paper. Hōryūji Treasure N-13. Tokyo National Museum. Image: https://webarchives.tnm.jp/imgsearch/show/C0041300.
Beyond the seven precious artifacts, the Hōryūji Treasures also hold a total of thirty-one seventh- and eighth-century wooden theatrical masks. That Hōryūji retained such a rich collection of the oldest wooden masks in Japan reminds one of another detail from Prince Shōtoku’s hagiography: that he was responsible for introducing the continental theatrical tradition into the Japanese archipelago.
Another highlight of the Hōryūji Treasures – which again attests to the influence of Prince Shōtoku’s hagiography on Hōryūji’s collecting activities – is a set of ten paintings by a Heian period (794-1192) artist named Hata no Chitei (or Chishin; fl. circa 11th century). Datable to 1069, this set of paintings narrates the life story of the prince and originally adorned the interior of the East Precinct’s Painting Hall (Figure 10).
Figure 10. Prince Shōtoku flying over Mt. Fuji on his horse (detail). Illustrated Biography of Prince Regent Shōtoku. By Hata no Chitei (fl. circa 11th century). Heian period, 1069. Ten-panel painting, ink and color on silk. Hōryūji Treasure N-1. Tokyo National Museum. Image: https://webarchives.tnm.jp/imgsearch/show/C0045112.
In addition, the Hōryūji Treasures include textual evidence of pre- and early-modern Prince Shōtoku devotion, such as the Abridged Inventory of Objects from Past and Present (Kokon mokuroku shō; HTN18), also known as the Personal Record of Prince Shōtoku’s Hagiography (Shōtoku Taishi-den shiki). Compiled by a Hōryūji monk of the medieval period, Kenshin (1131-1192), the two-volume Abridged Inventory functions as a record of Hōryūji’s treasures in the thirteenth century, as well as an encyclopedia of Shōtoku’s hagiography.
All pieces in the Hōryūji Treasures traditionally associated with Shōtoku postdate his death. Today, scholars and museum visitors recognize such attribution to the prince as part of the afterlife of the objects that has no bearing on the actuality of Prince Umayato no Toyotomimi as a historical figure. It is nevertheless important to acknowledge that the Hōryūji Treasures present rich material and documentary traces of arguably the most impactful local evolution in Japanese Buddhist practices.
Another notable characteristic of the Hōryūji Treasures is their clustering of the same object types, such as roughly fifty small-size bronze Buddhist statues, thirty-one theatrical masks, eleven ceremonial bronze ewers, at least twenty-four ritual banners, and countless other fragmented or whole examples of textiles made in Japan or imported from the Asian continent. This clustering of works helps us gain a fuller view of the changing devotional practices over time. In particular, the bronze statues – which include examples from the Korean peninsula – provide a glimpse into the growing enthusiasm toward Buddhism within Japan because each piece represents a donation by an individual devotee (Figure 11). From an art historical perspective, the set of statues is indispensable evidence of the early stylistic development of Japanese and East Asian Buddhist sculpture.
Figure 11. Standing Buddha and two bodhisattva attendants. Three Kingdoms period, Korea, 6th-7th century. Gilt bronze. Hōryūji Treasure N-143. Tokyo National Museum. Image: https://webarchives.tnm.jp/imgsearch/show/C0054613.
(4) Collection Management and Use
How have temples in Japan historically managed their collections? The Hōryūji Treasures present an excellent case study to answer this question. The fact that the Hōryūji Treasures are derived from a series of exhibitions has made this group of objects a kind of self-contained collection that tells its own history.
Historically, temples and shrines in Japan cared for their precious artifacts by keeping meticulous inventories and airing them regularly to prevent insect damage. Hōryūji’s oldest record of the temple’s origin and its assets dates to 747CE and it was compiled at the request of an emperor. The East Precinct also produced its own inventory in 761CE, which already lists some pieces in the future Hōryūji Treasures. For instance, the Hōryūji Treasure N87 may appear to us simply as a rustic bamboo cabinet, but the 761 inventory reveals that it was one of the four cabinets donated to the temple by none other than Gyōshin, for storing copies of Buddhist scriptures (Figure 12).
Figure 12. Bamboo cabinet. Nara period, 8th century. Hōryūji Treasure N-87. Tokyo National Museum. Image: https://webarchives.tnm.jp/imgsearch/show/E0119028.
The other important premodern record of the Hōryūji collection is the aforementioned Kenshin’s Abridged Inventory. The Hōryūji Treasures include both Kenshin’s handwritten draft of the inventory with fascinating traces of notations and corrections, as well as a copy of the finalized version from the sixteenth century (N19). Comparing the eighth-century inventory and Kenshin’s version can provide interesting insights into the development of the Prince Shōtoku devotion. For instance, the Hōryūji Treasure N286 is an elegant wooden core of a ceremonial instrument called shubi (originally a fly whisk) typically used during a Buddhist sermon (Figure 13).
Figure 13. Stem of a shubi (ceremonial “deer’s tail” whisk). Nara period, 8th century. Lacquered wood. Hōryūji Treasure N-286. Tokyo National Museum. Image: https://webarchives.tnm.jp/imgsearch/show/E0118954.
This eighth-century fan appears in both the eighth- and thirteenth-century inventories. In the 761 inventory, the listing of this fan only comes with a brief notation stating that it once belonged to Prince Shōtoku (though the fan postdates the prince’s lifetime). Five centuries later, Kenshin further augments the provenance by noting not only that the fan initially belonged to Prince Shōtoku, but that it was in fact the very fan the prince used during his famed sermon on the Queen Śrīmālā Sutra in 604.
However, even with all the careful care and recording, mistakes do happen. Intriguingly, not all the Hōryūji objects that were gifted to the imperial family in 1878 made their way to the museum in 1882. Like many notable art collections, the Hōryūji Treasures have their own complex history. Recall that while the set of objects waited for the new museum to be built, Hōryūji arranged for it to be temporarily stored in the imperial repository, Shōsō-in. Shōsō-in holds its own rich collection of premodern treasures that happened to be organized in very similar containers to those used for the Hōryūji Treasures. When the Hōryūji Treasures were finally moved to their new home in Ueno, Tokyo, a box of Hōryūji textiles accidentally got switched with another box also of textiles that belonged to Shōsō-in. The mistake was never corrected. So, to this day, part of Hōryūji’s original gift remains in Shōsō-in, while the present Hōryūji Treasures include some textiles formerly belonged to the Shōsō-in’s collection.
This vignette from the history of the Hōryūji Treasures testifies to the challenges of maintaining an art collection intact. In addition to the mishap, there were 10 items from the initial gift that also never made their way to the museum because Emperor Meiji (1852-1912) kept them for the imperial household due to their particularly strong ties to the history of the imperial lineage. Among these works, the most famous is the alleged portrait of Prince Shōtoku created during the Kamakura period (1192-1333) (Figure 14).
Figure 14. Prince Shōtoku and two princes. Copy of the Kamakura-period original. Kanō Seisen-in Osanobu (1796-1846). Edo period, 1842. Hanging scroll, ink and color on paper. Tokyo National Museum. Image: https://webarchives.tnm.jp/imgsearch/show/E0105000.
The hanging scroll depicts an adult male figure in ancient courtly attire flanked by two youthful attendants. The three protagonists appear to be processing from right to left. The face of the central figure, which has long been attributed to Prince Shōtoku himself, adorned Japanese banknotes from 1930 to 1984. Even in the postwar period, when the majority of the Hōryūji Treasures become national property, this painting continued to remain within the imperial household. Presently, the hanging scroll belongs to the collection at the Imperial Household Museum, Sannōmaru Shūkokan, in Tokyo.
Lastly, there were also four artifacts from the initial gift that the imperial household subsequently returned to Hōryūji. They include the original “inverted bowl” (fukuhachi) of the five-story pagoda’s metal finial, the swords that were the attributes of the statues of the Four Guardian Kings enshrined in the temple’s Golden Hall, and the wooden shoes for the twelfth-century statue of the seated Prince Shōtoku.
As a modern museum, the Tokyo National Museum considers its primary mission to research and protect the Hōryūji Treasures. Since 1981, the Tokyo National Museum has been conducting annual surveys of the uncatalogued textile fragments in the Hōryūji Treasures. As of 1999, the museum completed researching 176 fragments, which has increased the total number of the treasures from the original 319 to 495 pieces. The research is still ongoing.
Another key use of the collection is exhibition and public outreach. In addition to rebuilding the Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures—which significantly increase public access—the Tokyo National Museum has also been engaged in creating educational replicas restoring the original appearance of select pieces (such as the theatrical masks) based on cutting-edge historical and scientific research. In recent years, the museum has also been developing high-resolution interactive digital displays of works that are too fragile to sustain permanent display. The ten-panel painting of Prince Shōtoku’s hagiography was the first piece to be selected for this project. The museum completed the digitization project in 2019, and the promotional video highlights the intricate details of the painting a viewer can see through this digital interface.
Bibliography
*A significant amount of seminal scholarship on Hōryūji and its treasures exists, especially in Japanese. This list below is more a list of recommended further readings than a bibliography, and provides a handful of accessible works that come with their own extensive bibliography.
Carr, Kevin Gray. Plotting the Prince: Shōtoku Cults and the Mapping of Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2012.
Kaneko Hiroaki. “Hōryūji kennō hōmotsu no yurai to Shōtoku Taishi shinkō: Tenpō 13-nen no Hōryūji degaichō o chūshin ni” [Origin of the Hōryūji Treasures and Prince Shōtoku Cult: 1842 special viewing of Hōryūji objects at Edo as a case study]. In Hōryūji kennō hōmotsu [Hōryūji Gifted Treasures], ed. Tokyo National Museum. Tokyo: Tokyo National Museum, 1996, 7-19.
McDermott, Hiroko T. “The Hōryūji Treasures and Early Meiji Cultural Policy.” Monumenta Nipponica 61, no. 3 (2006): 339-374.
National Institutes for Cultural Heritage. “Hōryūji Treasures.” e-Museum: National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan. July 27, 2023. https://emuseum.nich.go.jp/result?langId=en&webView=&class=12&pageCnt=1.
Pradel, Chari. “‘Portrait of Prince Shōtoku and Two Princes’: From Devotional Painting to Imperial Object.” Artibus Asiae 74, no. 1 (2014): 191-219.
Tanaka, Stefan. “Discoveries of the Hōryūji.” In Constructing Nationhood in Modern East Asia, ed. Kai-wing Chow et al. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2001, 117-47.
Tokyo National Museum. “History of the TNM.” Tokyo National Museum. July 27, 2023. https://www.tnm.jp/modules/r_free_page/index.php?id=143&lang=en.
Tōno Haruyuki. “Shoki no Taishi shinkō to Jōgūō-in” [Early Prince Shōtoku Cult and Jōgūō-in]. In Shōtoku Taishi jiten [Prince Shōtoku Dictionary], ed. Ishida Hisatoyo. Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1997, 453-66.
Walley, Akiko. Constructing the Dharma King: The Hōryūji Shaka Trian and the Birth of the Prince Shōtoku Cult. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015.
Akiko Walley is the Maude I. Kerns Associate Professor of Japanese Art at the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, University of Oregon. Walley specializes in the Japanese Buddhist visual and material cultures of the seventh and eighth centuries. She is the author of Constructing the Dharma King: The Hōryūji Shaka Triad and the Birth of the Prince Shōtoku Cult (Japanese Visual Culture Series, vol. 15; Leiden: Brill, 2015). Her work has also been published in journals including Ars Orientalis, Archives of Asian Art, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Artibus Asiae, Impressions, Religions, and Journal of Asian Humanities at Kyushu University.
