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

Land deeds and household registers fell under the purview of the Ministry of Civil Affairs (Minbushō), part of the bureaucracy centered at the capital. This document was issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs on the 13th day of the 2nd month of Enchō 4 (March 29, 926 [Julian calendar]) to the governor of Yamato Province. It makes official the return of land to Gufukuji Temple in Takachi District (now Takaichi, Nara Prefecture) that the government had seized in Gangyō 4 (880). The document is a fu, which is a kind of official order that was issued to subordinate offices in the ritsuryō system of government during the Nara (710–794) and Heian (794–1185) periods.

It makes reference to three other documents, and from these a detailed picture of the workings of the ritsuryō 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 fields. Then, the Yamato Province government passed along information of Gufukuji’s petition to the highest level of government, the Council of State (Daijōkan), on the 29th day of the intercalary 4th month of Enchō 1 (June 16, 923). Then, after deliberations at the Council of State, a decision was conveyed in a fu transmitted from the Council of State to the Ministry of Civil Affairs on the 26th day of the intercalary 12th month of Enchō 3 (February 11, 926). This document is where the Ministry of Civil Affairs passed along word of the Council of State’s decision to the governor of Yamato Province. We can assume, furthermore, that the governor of Yamato Province 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 ritsuryō bureaucracy. It is all the more invaluable as the oldest known example of an official fu issued by the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

A close examination of the paper reveals the edges have been trimmed slightly on all four sides. The document was written in a single hand, however, the government official who issued it brushed their own signature. The writing is stamped eleven times with the red “Privy Seal of the Emperor,” making it one of only a handful of documents that preserve the seal’s appearance in this time period.

Formerly held by Tōji Temple, it is included in such compilations as the Collection of Historical Materials from the Heian Period (Heian ibun; No. 223).