Exploring Japan’s National Treasures | Books

Statue of Murasaki Shikibu, author of *The Tale of Genji*.

On the sea at Ômi,
Plovers fly the waves at dusk
And with their cries
My mind is turned
To thoughts of long ago.

Poem by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, circa 700 AD

An ancient Japanese manuscript fragment with elegant vertical calligraphy in black ink on aged paper, likely a poetry anthology. — *Man’yōshū*

Ancient words on fragile paper. Poems that have survived earthquakes, wars, and the simple passage of time. Books are one category of Japan’s system of officially designated “National Treasures,” which aren’t just old things kept in museums — they’re living connections to a cultural heritage that continues to educate and inspire.

The story of how these treasures came to be protected is itself a tale of loss and rediscovery. After the Meiji Restoration of 1868, Japan raced toward modernization, often at the expense of its traditional arts. Temples were abandoned, artifacts sold abroad, and ancient practices neglected. But in the late 19^th century, a movement to preserve the nation’s cultural heritage grew, and by the 1920s, the government began investing in the preservation of historic buildings, paintings, sculptures, and other artifacts. The term “National Treasure” was born, a designation that was used not only to preserve and conserve historically important art objects and buildings, but also to prevent them from being exported outside Japan. In 1950, the Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties went into effect, and since then, Japan’s Ministry for Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has been assigning the status of “Important Cultural Property,” or jūyō bunkazai (重要文化財) to certain important buildings and artifacts. From 1951 onwards, the designation “National Treasure,” or kokuhō (国宝), has been bestowed on artifacts considered outstanding treasures of the Japanese people or of particularly high value to world culture as a whole.

Waka no Ura Manyoshu Landscape — Wakanoura Bay, Wakayama

Today, Japan counts 1,144 National Treasures in its registry. About 20% (231) are temples, shrines, and other historically important structures, and the remaining 80% (932) are divided into ancient documents, archaeological materials, crafts, historical materials, paintings, sculpture, and writings. The 200 Japanese Books in the writings category include historical texts, biographies, tales and legends, and at least 30 collections of waka, Japan’s classical form of poetry. The earliest extant poetry collection is the Manyōshu (Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves), a 20-volume anthology originally complied sometime after 759AD and containing over 4,500 poems written by people of various social statuses. The Manyōshu is so highly revered that it was copied by hand many times by poets and poetry lovers of later eras, and several surviving Heian-period (79401185) versions have been designated National Treasures. One such treasure is the 12th-century Kanazawa Manyō, a bound volume containing parts of the larger anthology. It survived through the protection of the Maeda clan of Kanazawa (in Ishikawa prefecture) and now resides in Tokyo under the care of the Maeda Ikutokukai, the organization preserving the clan’s cultural legacy.

The waka poem above is one that was preserved as part of the Manyōshu and was written by Kakimoto no Hitomaro (d. 708 AD), a nobleman and revered poet. Like many Manyōshu poems, it speaks of emotions we still understand today – love, loss, nostalgia, and the bittersweet passage of time. In this particular verse, the cries of sea birds flying over the waves at Omi evoke the poet’s nostalgia for precious, earlier times. References to such classical love poems reverberate throughout Japanese art and literature, including Edo-period woodblock prints and books illustrated by artists like Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) and published by Tsutaya Juzaburo (1750-1797).

In our contemporary digital world, where virtually any text can be accessed with a few keystrokes, there’s something powerful about preserving the original, physical books. They’re not just artifacts — they’re reminders that human hearts and minds have remained remarkably consistent across the centuries. The plovers may have long since flown, but their echoes remain in poems that still move us today.

*Note: Japanese names in this article are written in the traditional Japanese order, with the family name first and personal name last.