National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

The lid of this rectangular sutra box is flush with the sides. It was used to store sutras with concertina bindings.

The sides of the lid are beveled to fit on the deep box. Its entire surface is coated in black lacquer and features designs rendered in gold inlay. On top of the lid, a pair of phoenixes are depicted flying in a circle within a floral diamond. A pair of peacocks in the same arrangement are on either of the box’s long lateral sides. One of the short sides has a pair of parrots in the same flight pattern, and the other short side has four monks (Skt. bhikkhu) praying among the clouds. Inlay of green limpet shell was added along the rim and angled corners. The box’s interior is coated in red lacquer, creating bright contrast with the black lacquer on the outside.

Though they differ slightly in dimensions and design, similar boxes have been preserved at Seiganji Temple in Fukuoka Prefecture, Jōdoji Temple and Kōmyō-bō Temple in Hiroshima Prefecture, the Kyushu National Museum (formerly owned by Hagaji Temple in Fukui Prefecture), Saifukuji Temple in Fukui Prefecture (formerly owned by Jōke-in Temple in Kyoto), and Daitokuji Temple, Myōrenji Temple, and Hōshakuji Temple in Kyoto. Among these, those with the same dimensions and same style of inscriptions are owned by Seiganji Temple, Kōmyō-bō Temple, and the Kyushu National Museum. They appear to have been made in the same year in the same place by the same craftspeople. The box owned by Jōdoji Temple appears to have been made by different craftspeople. The inscription on the back of the lid of each box shows that they were all created in Yanyou 2 (1315) during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) in Hangzhou, China. Characters from the Thousand-Character Classic (Ch. Qian zi wen) are inscribed on each box, as they were used as an indexing system, suggesting that they were mass produced by several contractors. This box does not bear such inscriptions but was presumably produced under similar conditions.

Due to the use of characters from the Thousand-Character Classic, some have suggested the sutra boxes—including this one—were meant to be used as a set to hold the entire Buddhist canon. In that case, however, there are issues with the arrangement of the characters that require further study. This sutra box was preserved at Kōsanji Temple in Kyoto.