Meibutsu may take so many forms that it’s hard to single out a representative example, but one that I found particularly fascinating, because it exemplifies the cultural specificity of the meibutsu value system, is an ancient piece of aromatic agarwood in the Shōsōin Imperial Storehouse on the grounds of Nara’s Tōdaiji temple. Agarwood was a luxury commodity imported from Southeast Asia prized for its use in making incense. This roughly three-foot long log was named Ranjatai after the temple complex where the Storehouse is located. Pieces of it were much sought after but only members of the Imperial family and powerful warlords were allowed to cut small chips from it for their own use. The Meiji Emperor (d. 1912) was the last to do so, but Ranjatai’s aura is such that it was included in an exhibition of the Shōsōin Imperial treasures on the occasion of the current Emperor Naruhito’s ascension to the throne in 2019. 

Why was a hollow wooden log designated a meibutsu? In the sphere of art, the qualities that led to recognition as a meibutsu were aesthetic quality combined with historic pedigree — the antiquity of the object, or the fact that it belonged to someone famous or an esteemed connoisseur. In the case of Ranjatai, age –it was believed to date to the eighth century— and its association with the Imperial family— played a role.  But the aura of mystery, power and awe it embodies also speaks to belief that the aroma of wafting incense mediates between the human and the divine. Burning incense is central to Buddhist ritual, and legend holds that the first image of the Buddha in Japan was carved in the sixth century from a piece of aromatic wood that had floated ashore. The piece of incense wood in the Shōsōin, however, was only given its personal name and designated a meibutsu much later, with the development of a market for rare imported agar and aloeswoods. The social and political elite collected and named various aromatic woods to use in games in which participants competed with one another to identify different scents, the ability to do so being a mark of cultural discernment.

As a historian of Japanese art and material culture I am interested in how and why individuals, groups, institutions, and governments developed hierarchies of objects around the concept of meibutsu. I hope that my research will help readers see how the pre-modern practice of compiling authoritative lists of these exemplary things was part of a strategy of building political and cultural authority that informs the Japanese government’s designation of historical artifacts as “National Treasures,” “Important Cultural Properties,” and of people possessing exceptional craft skills as “Holders of Intangible Cultural Property,” or more commonly as “Living National Treasures.”