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

A shakuhachi is an instrument used originally for playing tōgaku (Tang music or the Japanese gagaku (court music) based on it), the style of music which became popular in the late seventh century. Six oval-shaped tone holes are pierced on both sides of the three nodes of henon-bamboo pipe, with a nozzle and bottom hole at each end. This piece is considered to be one of the ancient shakuhachi for gagaku, along with the chikukan (lit. bamboo-pipe) in the Shōsōin Treasures, different from hitoyogiri (short end-blown flute), which began to be used in mediaeval times. It is written in Kokon-mokurokushō (Literature on Prince Regent Shotoku) that Shōtoku played shakuhachi before yamagami (mountain-god) at Shīsaka, on the way to Tennōji.