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

All eight volumes of this early-Heian (794-1185) copy of the Lotus Sutra (J., Hokekyo) are densely marked with red and white reading annotations, making these scrolls an invaluable source in understanding the development of the Japanese language. The early Japanese writing system man’yogana, composed of Chinese characters, has been used to represent the phonetic syllabary, and red ink was used to annotate Fahua wenju (J., Hokke mongu), a textual commentary on the Lotus Sutra by the Chinese Tientai patriarch Zhiyi (J., Chigi, 538-597), which appears within the text. In addition to this, other comments can be seen within the text and on its obverse.