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

Shubi (lit. deer's tail) is a Buddhist instrument that is a bundle of hair of a large deer's tail attached to a handle. The hair is fixed by the holding-wood and trimmed to a shape of Japanese fan. Monks held it in their hands when they read sutras aloud. The religious/salvific meaning of shubi is that, as a flock of deer changes its direction by following the movement of the tail of large deer going ahead, monks would lead people, holding shubi as a beacon. The deer's hair of this shubi has been lost. The surviving parts are made from lacquered imported wood (karaki) carved in the shape of Henon bamboo. The holding-wood has three metal washers of a six-petal shape, on which silver tacks with an engraved jewel motif are nailed, fixing the front and the back side of the wood. This shubi is thought to be the piece described as "Lacquered handle, Henon bamboo shaped. The end is fastened by silver [tacks]" in the Inventory of the Eastern Temple of Hōryūji (Hōryūji Tōin Shizai Chō). Also, in The Pictures of the Treasures (catalogue of the Horyuji Treasures), it is written that "[This shubi was] used when the ceremony of reading the Sutra of Queen Srimala of The Lion's Roar (Shōmangyō) was held at Tachibana Temple."