뉴스레터

Recently, the NAHF published a Korean translation of Shosoin: Its History and Treasures (Chukoshinsho (中公新書), 2008) by Sugimoto Kazuki (杉本一樹). If you were ever curious about Shosoin (正倉院), the treasure house of Japan, this is the book to read, for it shows Shosoin's collection of treasures at a glance, and provides a systematic summary of how the ancient artifacts and documents came to be collected and stored in a single place, how they are preserved and maintained, where the artifacts came from, and how they are studied, and so on. The author of this book is an expert who knows Shosoin better than anyone else, having spent over thirty years of his career at Shosoin alone. Currently, he is the director of Shosoin.

Shosoin's Collection: Its Provenance and Management System

Shosoin is part of Todaiji (東大寺), a Buddhist temple complex located in the city of Nara, Japan, the construction of which was ordered by Emperor Shomu (聖武). On the second day of May in 756, forty-nine days after the Emperor's death, a ceremony was held as a Buddhist tradition. On that day, Empress Komyo (光明) donated about 60 medicines and 600 items in her late husband's possession to Vairocana Buddha of Todaiji. Later, she made three more donations, including her own items and additional items of her late husband. Her donations are the reason why Shosoin has a collection of treasures. A comprehensive look into the collection is provided by the Register of the Donated Items, which consists of five documents that detail the name, quantity, size, material, technique, and provenance of each of the donated items.

Shosoin houses not only items made in Japan but also various items from abroad. While most of the foreign artifacts, works of art of high value for their beauty and sophistication, are from neighboring countries (Korea (Silla) and China (Tang)), some of them were made in farther regions, such as Southeast Asia, India, Persia, and even Rome. Shosoin is a world-class treasure repository, or an ancient time capsule, if you will, especially for the fact that its remaining collection has always been stored and maintained in a structure above the ground for 1,300 years, and has never been buried underground. Over the years, Shosoin's collection has lost quite a few items, sometimes to the borrowers who failed to return them for one reason or another. But the collection is what it is today because the state has placed it under a system of stringent management.

The Shosoin building, its contents now relocated and stored in a modern building

According to the author's classification system, Shosoin's treasures are divided into four groups. First of all, Group A includes the first five donations (from Empress Komu), the core treasures of Shosoin. Group B includes items originally owned by Todaiji and stored in its storehouse Shosoin. Group C includes items related to the office established for the construction of Todaiji and the scriptorium affiliated with that office. These items were considered unusable and abandoned in a junkyard at first, until accidently discovered and included in the treasure collection. Group D is a massive collection of nearly 5,000 volumes of Buddhist sutra scriptures handed down from the archive of Sonshoin (尊勝院), a sub-temple of Todaiji.

After detailed verification during the Meiji period, Shosoin's treasures were finally listed on The List of Royal Objects in Shosoin, which currently has up to 9,000 registered items. These treasures are classified into several categories according to their provenance, use, production technique, material, and the time and place of their production. The provenance category is subdivided into North Section (Register of the Donated Items, or donated treasures), Middle Section (arms, documents, stationery, and so on), South Section (Todaiji materials), and Shogozo (Buddhist sutra scripts).

The author traces how the treasures were managed and maintained for 100 years from 758, when the first donation was made, to 856. From the time of arrival at the storehouse, each item's trajectory is documented in the Register of the Donated Items, including information about what and how many items were relocated, and when and where they were relocated and why. The relocations orders are also kept in a separate file. The storehouse uses what appears to be an emergency document management system under which the contents of each container are documented in notes, which are then made in multiple copies to be used as labels on the containers or sent to the office that collects information. Next, the author describes various events that took place in Shosoin for about a thousand years spanning from the Heian to Edo periods, including, for example, how the influential people of the time paid visits to Shosoin, provided financial support for repair, and donated all kinds of treasure containers, and caught the thieves who broke into Shosoin. Finally, the author describes Shosoin's treasure management system from the Meiji period to the present.

The List of National Rare Treasures including the items donated to Todaiji by Empress Komyo

Old Documents of Japan: From Waste to First-Class Historical Records

The Shosoin documents that are familiar to us Koreans were written in the office of Empress Komyo and the scriptorium of Todaiji. In the 8th-century Nara period, during which the Ritsuryou system was up and running, official documents were kept for a certain period of time and then discarded afterwards, recycled as scratch paper by lower agencies. The files of these documents, abandoned as waste in a corner of the storehouse, were discovered in 1833 (the 4th year of the Tenpo era) and compiled over a three-year period into a 45-volume official collection as part of The Documents of Shosoin. Later, in the Meiji period, the existing primary documents, including such official documents as family registers, contracts, and annual accounts reports, and the scriptorium documents were put together and classified chronologically, which the Historiographical Institute at the University of Tokyo has published into Dai-Nihon Komonjo (Old Documents of Japan)(25 volumes).

As the author also noted, Shosoin has such a great power as a 'place' with an awe-inspiring ability to preserve its collection. While the nearby Great Buddha Hall of Todaiji was burned to the ground twice during the wars of 1180 (the fourth year of the Jisho era) and 1567 (the 10th year of Eiroku era), Shosoin survived. This was incredibly good luck, without which Shosoin's artifacts and documents would have remained only in memory.

This book's Korean translation will serve as a guide to the history and state of Shosoin which have been little known in Korea, and also provide fundamental information about this field for those who intend to study it in the future.