Bequest Virtue

This large calligraphy scroll was brushed by Myoho, a former abbot of the Zen Buddhist temple of Kosho-ji, located in northern Japan. Myoho was seventy-three years old at the time he executed this work, and according to traditional connoisseurship of Zen calligraphy, he would have been at the height of his artistic and spiritual powers because of his venerable age.

The text, which reads "Bequest Virtue / The greatest legacy of all," is not a standard Zen aphorism but a moral injunction of the type imparted by spiritual advisors to their lay disciples, in this case most probably a local military lord. The restrained, unselfconscious, and seemingly awkward brushwork distinguishes this work as a visually compelling example of Zen calligraphy.