Abstract The Shōsōin Treasury in Nara, Japan, contains more than nine thousand treasures that date to the seventh and eighth centuries and are from different cultures across the Asian world. It originated from the offering in 756 CE by Empress Kōmyō of more than six hundred treasures once belonging to the deceased Emperor Shōmu to Tōdaiji's Great Buddha Vairocana. This study examines the meaning of the 756 bequest according to three different perspectives—the theatrical, the lineal, and the soteriological. The theatrical perspective examines the offering in terms of the representation of Shōmu as an ideal Buddhist sovereign or bodhisattva-ruler. The lineal approach considers the offering in relation to the lineal rivalries between the Fujiwara clan, to which both Shōmu and Kōmyō belonged, and other political lineages at the Yamato court. The soteriological perspective explores the meaning of the bequest in terms of the afterlife journey of Shōmu's spirit to Vairocana's paradise. The article proposes that the meaning of the 756 donation can be understood by combining all three perspectives, which themselves illuminate the meaning of the treasures included in the original Shōsōin bequest.
Yukio Lippit (2026) studied this question.