Important Cultural PropertyCorrespondence from the Minbusho

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  • 民部省符〈延長四年二月十三日〉
  • 1 hanging scroll
  • Ink on paper Hanging scroll
  • H 29.6, L 45.0
  • Heian period/Encho 4(926)
  • Nara National Museum
  • 1465(書162)

  Land deeds and household registers fell under the purview of the Minbusho, part of the bureaucracy centered at the capital. This document was issued by the Minbusho on the thirteenth day of the second month of Encho 4 (926) to the local government in Yamato Province. It makes official the return of land to Gufukuji Temple in Takechi County (present-day Takaichi, Nara Prefecture) that the government had seized in Gangyo 4 (880). The document is a fu, which is a kind of document circulating between the tiers of the government, for instance from the central government to the provincial government—or a higher echelon to a lower one, in the system established by the Ritsuryo legal system of the Nara (710–794) and Heian (794–1185) periods.
  It makes reference to three other sources, and from these a detailed picture of the workings of the Ritsuryo system comes into view. First, they tell us that Gufukuji Temple wrote to the local government in Yamato Province to request the return of their field. Then, the Yamato Province government passed along information of Gufukuji’s petition to the highest level of government, the Daijokan, on the 29th day of the intercalary 4th month of Encho 1 (923). Then, after deliberations at the Daijokan, a decision was conveyed in a fu transmitted from the Daijokan to the Minbusho on the 26th day of the intercalary 12th month of Encho 3 (925). This document is where the Minbusho passed along word of the Daijokan’s decision to the Yamato province government. We can assume, furthermore, that the Yamato province government sent a document after receiving this one to Gufukuji Temple with the decision on its petition. This one piece of paper is therefore of profound importance to paleography and related fields of study: it amounts to a concrete example of how documents involving land disputes were issued and received within the Ritsuryo bureaucracy. It is all the more invaluable as the oldest example of a Minbusho fu known to exist.
  The edges on either side and top and bottom have been cut off. While it was written in a single hand, only the name of one official is signed. The writing is stamped eleven times in vermillion with the “Privy Seal of Emperor (Tenno Gyoji).” The appearance of this seal in the 10th century is unusual, making this document incredibly significant.
  Formerly held by Toji (Kyoo-gokokuji) Temple, it is included in such compilations as the Heian Ibun (No. 223).

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