Kanazawa Bunko, History museum and library in Kanazawa-chō, Japan
Kanazawa Bunko is a history museum, art gallery, and research library in Kanazawa-chō that preserves documents from the 13th to 16th centuries. The building has exhibition rooms for scrolls and artifacts along with a reading hall where scholars can access digitized archives.
The samurai scholar Hōjō Sanetoki founded this institution in the 13th century to preserve his learning from Kamakura for future generations. After centuries of wars and ownership changes, it reopened as a public prefectural library in 1930 and now serves as both research center and museum.
Visitors can explore exhibitions on medieval scholarship, where handwritten Buddhist sutras and Confucian classics show the important role these texts played in samurai life. The collection also includes Chinese writings and paintings that illustrate cultural exchange across the East China Sea.
The institution sits a short walk from Kanazawa-Bunko Station and opens most days of the week except regular closing days. Anyone wanting to see documents or scrolls up close should head to the main exhibition hall, where rotating displays show objects from the collection.
Many of the oldest texts come from Sanetoki's personal journey to China, where he acquired rare works by Song scholars. Today, visitors can use digital kiosks to browse high-resolution scans of manuscripts that are too fragile to display permanently.
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