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

Two semi-circular parts, with bent elliptical ornaments on them, are attached to the shaft, forming a large loop. The ends of both are of the warabite shape (lit. bracken-hand, curled), with a treasure-bottle on both of the bottom ends, a five-storied pagoda ornament on the top and a treasure-pagoda (hōtō) at the center. A shakujō (pilgrim's staff) is used by monks, as the sound it makes by shaking is useful for fending off poisonous serpents or harmful insects when they travel around the hills and fields and for visiting places in villages and cities to "beg" for alms. Small shakujō such as this one were used for sutra/mantra chants (bonbai) at Buddhist masses held at temples. On those occasions, the monks would hold a shakujō in their hand and shake it as they chanted. As a result, they are specifically called teshakujō (hand-shakujō). Although it is written in The Pictures of the Treasures (a catalogue of the Hōryūji Treasures), "The Prince was using [this shakujō] when he became a Buddhist monk in his former life," the style of this piece is clearly of the Kamakura period, so it is not as old as the legend suggests.