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

These nested boxes were reportedly owned by Murōji Temple in Nara. The sides of the lidded inner box are painted with surging waves. The top of its lid shows eight oni (demon-like beings) standing on a reef in the sea, and the lid’s obverse has seven oni accompanied by a child acolyte. The depiction of the reef and the sea on the top continues onto the sides of the lid. The interior of the box is coated in red lacquer, giving the work an air of mysticism.

The outer box is in the style of a footed chest. On the sides, the five deities of Kasuga Taisha Shrine are painted mounted on deer accompanied by their retinues. On the front, the deity of Kasuga’s second shrine (Buddhist form: the buddha Yakushi) is shown with the Twelve Divine Generals as well as the deity of Kasuga’s third shrine (Buddhist form: the bodhisattva Jizō) with the Ten Kings of Hell and their clerks, a reader (Shimyō) and scribe (Shiroku). From there, the side to the viewer’s left has a painting of the deity of Kasuga’s first shrine (Buddhist form: the buddha Śākyamuni) with the Twelve Devas, and the side to the right shows the deity of Kasuga’s fourth shrine with Wakamiya and sy mbols of the twelve constellations of the zodiac on a blank background. Three sacred jewels are painted on each side of the lid, which is consistent with the theory that the box was used to hold sacred jewels. The top of the lid is severely damaged but presumably once showed a dragon deity holding a sacred jewel . The lid’s obverse has a painting of eight men in formal Japanese court attire with dragons on their backs together with three additional dragons and the gods of wind and thunder. These are thought to represent the Eight Dragon Kings.

The boxes are traditionally held to have once contained sacred jewels, and the paintings on their surfaces suggest they were closely connected to beliefs surrounding Kasuga Taisha Shrine and serpentine dragon deities. Belief in dragon deities as it relates to Kasuga is a complicated topic, for example, the fifth Kasuga deity, Wakamiya, is said to have appeared in the form of a small snake, but dragon-deity worship was clearly a fundamental part of the Kasuga’s past.