Four Sheets of Paper inscribed with Religious Texts, Poems, Charms [mounted on a board]

The texts sealed inside the sculpture of Prince Shōtoku indicate that the group of people who placed them there did not adhere rigidly to a single sectarian stream of Buddhist practices, but put their faith in a variety of devotional beliefs and merit-making activities. The printed text mounted at the top of this board is an invocation against epidemic diseases. The manuscript sheet at bottom right describes a meditation centered on visualization of the monk-deity Jizō. Patterns of staining on the two sheets of paper suggest that the smaller visualization text may have been rolled inside the larger printed text before being placed inside the sculpture.