Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art (Art Ebook)

japanese art | religions graham
fa i t h a nd p ow e r in ja pa ne s e bud d hi s t a r t, 16 0 0 – 2 0 0 5
Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art explores the transformation of
Buddhism from the premodern to the contemporary era in Japan and
the central role its visual culture has played in this transformation. The
chapters elucidate the thread of change over time in the practice of Bud-
dhism as revealed in sites of devotion and in imagery representing the fai t h a nd p ow e r
religion’s most popular deities and religious practices. It also introduces
the work of modern and contemporary artists who are not generally as-
sociated with institutional Buddhism but whose faith inspires their art. in ja pa ne s e bud d his t a r t
The author makes a persuasive argument that the neglect of these ma-
terials by scholars results from erroneous presumptions about the aes-
thetic superiority of early Japanese Buddhist artifacts and an asserted 16 0 0 – 2 0 0 5
decline in the institutional power of the religion after the sixteenth
century. She demonstrates that recent works constitute a significant
contribution to the history of Japanese art and architecture, providing
evidence of Buddhism’s persistent and compelling presence at all levels
of Japanese society.
The book is divided into two chronological sections. The first explores
Buddhism in an earlier period of Japanese art (1600–1868), emphasiz-
ing the production of Buddhist temples and imagery within the larger
political, social, and economic concerns of the time. The second section
addresses Buddhism’s visual culture in modern Japan (1868–2005),
specifically the relationship between Buddhist institutions prior to World
War II and the increasingly militaristic national government that had
initially persecuted them. The author then looks at a concurrent develop-
ment: the transformation of sacred imagery from icon into art, which in
turn stimulated the emergence of a new form of Buddhism dominated
by nondenominational practitioners, including secular artists with a per-
sonal affinity for Buddhism. The final chapters focus on Buddhist locales
Cover art: and imagery after the war, introducing some of the most distinctive re-
Maeda Jōsaku (b. 1926).
Meditation on the Silver
cent sites of worship and the new makers of Buddhist art.
River (Ginka meisō),
from the series Personal Patricia J. Graham, a former professor of Japanese art and culture,
Impressions of Mandalas and museum curator, is an independent scholar and Asian art consultant
(Kansō mandara shirizu),
1980–1982. Acrylic paint based in Lawrence, Kansas.
on canvas, 181.8 ∞ 227.3
cm. Toyama Prefectural
Museum of Art.
University of
Cover design:
Hawai‘i Press
April Leidig-Higgins Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888
www.uhpress.hawaii.edu pat rici a j. g r a h a m

Printed in Canada
Faith and Power in
Japanese Buddhist Art,
1600 – 2005
Graham final text 1 7/12/07 4:17:44 PM

Faith and Power in

Japanese Buddhist Art,
–
Patricia J. Graham
University of Hawai‘i Press | Honolulu

Publication of this book has been assisted by the
Kajima Foundation and Mary Livingston Griggs
and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation
© 2007 Patricia J. Graham

All rights reserved
Printed in Canada
12 11 10 09 08 07 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Graham, Patricia Jane.
Faith and power in Japanese Buddhist art, 1600 – 2005 /
Patricia J. Graham.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8248-3126-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8248-3191-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Buddhism — Japan — History — 1600 – 1868.
2. Buddhism — Japan — History — 1868 – 1945.
3. Buddhism — Japan — History — 1945 – 4. Arts,
Buddhist — Japan. I. Title.
bq689.g73 2007
700'.4829430952 — dc22 2007023706
University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-

free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and
durability of the Council on Library Resources.
Designed by April Leidig-Higgins
Printed by Friesens

Contents
vii Acknowledgments
ix Note on Translations, References, and Usage of Chinese
and Japanese Names, Dates, and Terms
xi Map of Japan
1 Introduction
Part I
Buddhism in the Arts of Early
Modern Japan, 1600 – 1868
17 One. Institutional Buddhism under Warrior Rule

45 Two. Buddhist Temples for the Elites
73 Three. Temples for Commoners
96 Four. Depictions of Popular Deities and Spiritual Concerns
127 Five. Professional Icon-Makers
150 Six. Expressions of Faith
Part II
Buddhist Imagery and Sacred Sites
in Modern Japan, 1868 – 2005
177 Seven. Buddhist Institutions after an Era of

Persecution, 1868–1945
199 Eight. From Icon to Art, 1868–1945
226 Nine. Buddhist Sites of Worship, 1945–2005
251 Ten. Visualizing Faith, 1945–2005

275 Conclusion
279 Appendix. Guide to Tokyo-Area Temples
Mentioned in This Book
281 Notes
307 Character Glossary
313 Bibliography
339 Index
Color plates follow pp. 148 and 244
vi | Contents

Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to the organizations that supported my research and

this book’s production. The Asian Cultural Council of New York funded ini-
tial field research in Japan in 2001. A National Endowment for the Humanities
grant allowed for subsequent short research trips and time to devote to writing
over a two-year period from 2003–2005. Publication of this book has also been
assisted by the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation.
Lastly, this book would not have had nearly as many color plates without a major
grant from the Kajima Foundation. I am honored by the faith these organiza-
tions had in this project.
Like my earlier book, Tea of the Sages, this one has substantially benefited
from the magnanimity of Prof. Ōtsuki Mikio, research fellow at the Bunkaden
at Manpukuji and professor at Hanazono University. Sudō Hirotoshi, Patricia
Fister, Ellen Conant, and Joseph Seubert also deserve special acknowledgment
for great help and encouragement. Many other scholars, artists, Buddhist priests,
and museum curators worldwide have also offered advice at various stages of this
project. I thank especially Stephen Addiss, Barbara Ambros, Akiyama Terukazu,
Cynthea Bogel, Gunhild Borggreen, Philip Brown, William Coaldrake, Barbara
Ford, Fukuda Hiroko, Fukushima Keido Roshi, Noelle Giuffrida, Marilyn Grid-
ley, Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Christine Guth, Itō Michiko, Itō Shiori, Iwasa
Mitsuharu, Isozaki Junko, Richard Jaffe, Katsuyama Shigeru, Kōno Motoaki, Ku-
rushima Hiroshi, Elizabeth Lillehoj, Karen Mack, Lawrence Marceau, Andrew
Maske, Matsuda Junko, Matsuda Tsutomu, Nedachi Kensuke, Jonathan Reynolds,
Tom Rimer, Satō Dōshin, Suzuki Yoshihiro, Karin Swanson, Elizabeth de Sabato
Swinton, John Szostak, Takaguchi Yoshiyuki, Taki Kozue, Takishita Yoshihiro,
Willa Tanabe, Reiko Tomii, Tsuchikane Yasuko, William Tsutsui, Tsuji Nobuo,
Norman Waddell, Watanabe Toshio, Andrew Watsky, Duncan Williams, Pa-
mela Winfield, Yasumura Toshinobu, and Yuzurihara Junko. I must also thank
Patricia Crosby of the University of Hawai‘i Press for her insightful criticisms of
preliminary outlines and drafts and for her unwavering belief in this project from
its early stages. The staff of the interlibrary loan department of the University of
Kansas library is also to be commended for their efficiency and ability to obtain
for me some rather obscure materials. Lastly, I need to thank Drs. Mary Vernon

and Christopher Penn, who helped me to regain my health and complete this
project. I really could not have done this without them.
Because this book covers so much ground, I have indebted myself to myriad
others beyond those listed here, including the two anonymous readers for the
University of Hawai‘i Press who pointed out various mistakes and omissions.
Since I have strayed into many areas of research outside my expertise, I apolo-
gize in advance for any inaccuracies that inevitably still remain. My foremost
intention has been to suggest new directions for research and to stimulate new
ways of thinking about Buddhism and its relation to the visual arts.
Above all, I cannot adequately acknowledge the debt of gratitude I owe my
husband, David Dunfield, for his patient support of this study from beginning
to end. I dedicate this book to him.
Unless otherwise indicated in the captions to the photographs, all photos appear
courtesy of the owner institution or collector.
viii | Acknowledgments

Note on Translations, References,
and Usage of Chinese and Japanese
Names, Dates, and Terms
All Chinese and Japanese names, except for those of authors writing
in English, appear with surname first. Following customary usage, premodern
Japanese individuals and most of those born through the nineteenth century are
referred to by their given or artist names. Family names are used for reference to
more recent individuals and authors. Exceptions to this rule occasionally occur
when I employ names customarily used for some long-lived modern artists. I
state ages according to Western calculation and have converted the traditional
system of noting dates according to era names into their Western equivalents.
Names for important Buddhist deities and texts are given in Sanskrit (Skt.) and,
when appropriate, in Chinese (Ch.). Names of Chinese residents in Japan are
rendered in both Chinese Pinyin Romanization and Japanese (Jp.) initially and
subsequently only in Japanese. I provide measurements in the metric system.

Map of Japan showing places mentioned in the text.

Introduction
buddhism, at its Core, espouses compassion for all living things and deep
respect for the sanctity of life. It richly rewards devotees who follow these prin-
ciples by guiding them to a state of awakened consciousness or enlightenment
(satori in the Zen Buddhist sects and often referred to as the Buddha Mind by
Western Buddhist practitioners), freeing them from desire and releasing them
from suffering within an endless cycle of reincarnation. Some denominations of
Buddhism decree that the path to this self-realization lies in intense meditation
and performance of rituals, while others teach that it can be reached through
submission to the benevolent powers of myriad Buddhist deities.1 Some sects
preach that achievement of this awakening is possible in one’s lifetime, others
only after death, when the faithful will be reborn into a paradise world (Skt.
Nirvāna). However, for all sects, as well as for those who practice Buddhism
apart from its formal institutions, Buddhism’s sacred imagery, and special sites,
where rituals designed to create a receptive psyche in the worshiper take place,
create an essential framework that allows for visualization of the faith’s abstract
beliefs.
In Japan as elsewhere, Buddhism’s visual culture has always been funda-
mental to the faith’s practice. Buddhist clerics and lay practitioners alike place
great emphasis on the forms of worship halls and the appearance of devotional,
didactic, and liturgical imagery. These visual materials do not merely reflect
Buddhism’s tenets, but also possess great power to shape them. Many places of
worship emerged at particularly beautiful, awe-inspiring, or strategic locations.
Religious cults devoted to famous icons spread through tales of their miraculous
origins or supernatural powers. Pious teachers stressed that abstract concepts,
such as visions of Buddha worlds depicted in mandalas, could best be explained
through imagery, which conveyed concepts beyond the scope of words.

This book centers on an important, but largely overlooked, aspect of Japanese
Buddhist arts — materials that date from the seventeenth century to the dawn
of the twenty-first century. My selection of works from among the vast quanti-
ties of Buddhist art and architecture created from these centuries highlights
those that elucidate the thread of change over time to the practice of Buddhism:
temple worship halls and other nontraditional sites of devotion, and imagery
that represents the religion’s most widely popular deities or that devotees cre-
ated as expressions of faith. These images, in both pictorial and sculpted form,
can be found in traditional settings and in less formal locations, both within and
apart from Buddhist institutions, including the modern secular environment of
the art museum.
Dearth of study about these materials results from scholarly presumptions
of the aesthetic superiority of early Japanese Buddhist cultural artifacts and
a concomitant asserted decline in the institutional power of the religion after
the sixteenth century in Japan. When assessed as a group, the visual arts reveal
these claims to be erroneous. I believe they constitute a significant contribu-
tion to the history of Japanese art and architecture and provide evidence of a
persistent and compelling presence at all levels of Japanese society of Buddhism,
which has evolved in response to the needs of new generations of supporters
both within and beyond its orthodox institutions.
When most Westerners think of Buddhism in Japan, they associate it with
the Zen sects as practiced by a limited group of adepts who followed its rigor-
ous, meditative practices on a quest for spiritual enlightenment through a focus
on the awakening of their innate subconsciousness. Zen, as promoted in the
West by D. T. (Daisetsu) Suzuki (1870–1966) and others, is credited with giv-
ing rise to the most celebrated of Japanese art forms, including gardens, the
formal, ritualistic tea service (chanoyu), and spontaneous ink painting.2 Artists
in the West have found creative inspiration in Zen ideals and its related arts as
well as in the practices of Buddhism’s esoteric (Tantric) sects, particularly the
Buddhism of Tibet and Nepal, which places similar emphases on introspec-
tive meditations.3 Yet in reality, few Japanese Buddhists have ever been able to
afford to devote their lives to the highly disciplined lifestyle required by these
Zen tenets, although many of them belong to Zen and other Buddhist sects as
lay practitioners. Rather, these lay followers seek in the faith something else, a
way to improve their own or their loved ones’ fortunes in this life or chances for
salvation after death.4
Faith in Buddhism on the part of its individual devotees presupposes belief
in the divine powers of its deities as channeled through their images. Indeed,
many of the arts I consider were created in response to belief in this power. But
donors frequently had another reason for their offerings of Buddhist images
| Introduction

and temple buildings: such donations enhanced their prestige by demonstrating
publicly a link between secular and spiritual authority. That is why Buddhism
was so well received in Japan by those who wielded political power. From its
first appearance in Japan in the sixth century, emperors invoked the power of
Buddhist deities to assure inheritance of their authority by descendants and
to protect, heal, and materially benefit the nation. By the seventeenth century,
individual commoners and groups of devout followers had realized that they
too could elevate their social status, attaining a kind of secular power among
peers as a by-product of donating great sums for temple buildings or impressive
imagery. As Ikumi Kaminishi has eloquently stated, “the power of religious art
empowers those who control its images. The finely made statues and ornaments
housed in Buddhist temples created a theater: a showcase to display a patron’s
splendor” (2006, 16).
Very broadly, this book has three main goals: (1) to reassess the canon of
Japanese art history to allow for the inclusion of later Buddhist imagery and
architecture; (2) to define the social history of recent Japanese Buddhist art
and architecture; and (3) to identify Buddhism as an important source of in-
spiration for artists and architects whose work is generally not associated with
institutional Buddhism and its canonical visual requirements. I intentionally do
not organize this book along traditional lines, distinguishing among arts and
architecture for the various Buddhist sects or following the separate stylistic or
hereditary lineages or workshop ateliers of artists.
The buildings included in this study are mainly those designed for worship
at Buddhist sites, with emphasis placed on defining their cultural contexts and
functions. I discuss style and building techniques only when relevant to issues
of religious practice or popular perception. The imagery I survey illuminates
major liturgical, devotional, and didactic practices. Much of this Buddhist imag-
ery is based on orthodox iconographic models, but artists invoke popular styles
of the day to dynamically transform them into images that resonate with their
audience. In the context of discussing these images, I emphasize how the people
involved with the production of Buddhist imagery, as both makers and patrons,
both reflected and shaped changes to the nature of religious practice. My study
also encompasses the creations of Buddhist image-makers active in Japan’s
modern period (after 1868) that are not traditionally defined as “Buddhist art”
because they have no association with institutional Buddhism. Artists created
these often nondenominational and seemingly heterodox images of spirituality,
loosely inspired by Buddhism, as an expression of personal and private religious
faith, sometimes during the maker’s unique forms of meditative practices. These
types of images are often designed for display not in temples or other formal
places of worship, but in art museums. Inclusion of this material helps to define
Introduction |

Buddhism’s broader impact on Japanese culture. It also underscores an ever-
increasing tendency toward the separation of Buddhist worship from its institu-
tions and the intertwining of religious practice and secular culture.
This study begins at a seminal moment in Japanese Buddhist history, when the
warrior Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542–1616), the first of fifteen successive Tokugawa-
family shoguns who ruled Japan during the Tokugawa or Edo period (1600–1868),
consolidated power over the nation in the early seventeenth century.5 In broader
classifications of Japan’s history, scholars define this era as the early modern
period, a precursor to Japan’s modern era, which is conventionally agreed to
begin with the overthrow of the Tokugawa house and the restoration of impe-
rial authority at the inception of the Meiji period (1868–1912). Scholars generally
note that key elements of modernity include shifting the locus of power from
regional feudal lords to a strong central authority and from the religious to the
secular sphere.6 Tokugawa Ieyasu is widely credited with initiating these shifts
in Japan, in part by suppressing the threat to his and his descendants’ authority
by powerful Buddhist institutions, a policy begun on a more limited scale by
his immediate predecessors Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582) and Toyotomi Hideyo-
shi (1536–1598), the warriors who attempted to unify Japan in the Momoyama
period (1568–1615). The scholar Neil McMullin has described this moment as a
time when “Buddhism underwent not just a ‘quantitative’ change, in the drastic
reduction of the temples’ power, wealth, and independence, but also a ‘qualita-
tive change.’ . . . Buddhism lost the privileged, center-stage position that it had
occupied in Japanese society for almost a millennium and was relegated to a
minor position in the wings” (1984, 5). This is the widely held perception about
the state of Buddhism in Japan and the attitude of the country’s rulers towards
it from the Momoyama period forward, and one that a number of scholars from
various Japanese studies disciplines, including myself, now question.
The general assumption has been that the Tokugawa shoguns, beginning
with Ieyasu, sought to wield power outside of and over Buddhist institutions’
spheres of influence by invoking another belief system, Chinese Confucianism,
as their authority in ethical matters. Confucianism, founded in the sixth cen-
tury BCE, evolved over the centuries to become a complex ideology, knowledge
of which the Chinese imperial bureaucratic system relied on to train its civil ser-
vants. These bureaucrats were selected for service by proving their knowledge
of the Confucian classics, mostly moralistic tales, in rigorous examinations.
Confucianism specified each person’s function in society and taught officials
to administer with justice, compassion, and order and assume responsibility
for their subjects. The masses in turn would obey the authorities because just
laws benefited all strata of society. In short, the ideal Confucian society was one
in which all citizens knew their place and what was expected of them, and this
mutually beneficial arrangement led to social stability and a flourishing civili-
| Introduction

zation. Confucianism encouraged education to enrich, calm, and sharpen the
mind and offered examples of proper behavior in its texts — detailed descrip-
tions of the lives of a group of ancient sages who lived honorably by following
Confucian principles. Students of Confucianism could attain this sagelike wis-
dom through mastery of four scholarly pursuits: painting, calligraphy, playing
go (a board game), and proficiency with the musical instrument called qin (a
type of zither). Of course, neither the Chinese nor their Japanese counterparts
fully realized Confucianism’s vision. Further, in the case of Tokugawa Japan, the
philosophy’s tenets were considerably revised to adapt them to a social hierarchy
quite unlike that envisioned by China’s Confucian adherents.
Confucianism had first become influential as a value system among elite war-
riors in the Momoyama period. Learned Buddhist clerics who had studied it as
part of their education in Chinese language and civilization helped spread it
among their warrior patrons. Written Chinese was the language of the Buddhist
scriptures and of Confucian texts, and literature based on Confucian principles
was an integral part of monastic life in China, which Japanese monks, especially
those of the Zen sects, had learned to appreciate from their Chinese mentors
since the preceding Muromachi period (1392–1568). Yet in a newly published
book on the life and times of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, Beatrice Bodart-Bailey ar-
gues that Confucianism remained virtually unknown among the general popu-
lation until the fifth Tokugawa shogun, Tsunayoshi (1646–1709; r. 1680–1709),
encouraged his vassals, the daimyo (the elite samurai warriors who administered
the various regional domains into which the country was politically divided),
their samurai foot soldiers, and the nation’s commoners all to study it.7
Bodart-Bailey convincingly argues that the domination of Confucianism over
Buddhism through the four Tokugawa shoguns prior to Tsunayoshi is a myth
perpetrated by the authors of the Tokugawa jikki (The memorable true record
of the Tokugawa shoguns). This text, written to serve as an official history of
the reign of the first ten Tokugawa shoguns, was compiled between 1809 and
1849 by Confucian scholars working for the shogunate. Its air of authority is so
convincing that most subsequent scholars consider it factually correct. Bodart-
Bailey notes, however, that there have been some who question the common
interpretation of a passage in this document that states Ieyasu “wisely decided
that in order to govern the land and follow the path proper to man, he must pur-
sue the path of learning. Therefore, from the beginning he encouraged learn-
ing” (Bodart-Bailey 2006, 50). This is normally taken to mean that he promoted
Confucianism in his new realm, although he “established no Confucian schools
or Confucian public service examinations, nor did he delegate important ad-
ministrative functions to Confucian scholars” (Bodart-Bailey 2006, 51). Bodart-
Bailey concludes instead that Ieyasu made Buddhism his state religion because
“it was the only system that could provide the Tokugawa hegemony with the
Introduction |

kind of ideological and administrative support Shinto afforded to the imperial
institution” (2006, 52).
Shinto, Japan’s native religion, explained the divine origin of the country by
kami (Shinto divinities), who continued to reside in the land to protect the na-
tion and its inhabitants. The earliest tales about the origin of Japan in the eighth
century relate that the imperial family directly descended from these kami and
thereby are themselves divine. Thus the stability of the country depended on
perpetuation of the imperial lineage.
According to Bodart-Bailey, only when the fifth shogun authorized the found-
ing of the Yushima Seidō as the first official Confucian academy in 1690 did
Confucianism become central to shogunal policies. But even then the shogun
did not exclude or demean Buddhism. Yet Tsunayoshi received only mixed
praise from the authors of the Tokugawa jikki, partially because the authentic
Chinese form of Confucianism he promoted stripped the daimyo of their power,
and the authors held great sympathy for the rights of the daimyo to rule their
domains as they saw fit (Bodart-Bailey 2006, 295–297).
In China, the political elite that promoted Confucianism used it to create a
stratified society with the emperor at the apex, followed by his civil servants,
who were selected by merit. The rest of the population, generally defined as com-
moners, was ranked according to their perceived public worth: farmers came
next, followed by artisans, with merchants at the bottom of the social ladder.
Education provided a path for individuals to rise above their inherited status and
enter the civil service system. Japan emulated this system only partially because
it had no tradition of promotions based on intellectual accomplishment, which
ran counter to its more rigid social structure predicated on inherited status.
Also, because of belief in the divine origin of the imperial lineage, the emperor
and his extended family were excluded from this hierarchical categorization,
as were priests and outcasts. Through might, since the thirteenth century, the
warriors (the samurai class) had established themselves as the highest status
group in Japan. However, status did not always equate with wealth in Japan. The
aristocrats had become impoverished by the Edo period, and merchants were
getting richer. This conflict between status and affluence began to create frac-
tures in the system, especially for samurai, many of whom lost their livelihoods
due to their own or their overlord’s transgressions and to the linkage of their
income with the rice market, whose value fluctuated considerably in relation to
annual harvest yields. As the distribution of wealth changed and citizens from
the different classes came to interact in shared cultural pursuits, class distinc-
tions began to dissolve. Nevertheless, the Tokugawa insisted on maintaining
status distinctions, a factor that contributed to their eventual downfall (Bodart-
Bailey 2006, 298).
From the latter part of the Edo period, Buddhism had begun to be loudly
| Introduction

criticized by both intellectual supporters and detractors of the Tokugawa clan
as well as popular writers, who complained that its institutions and clergy had
become degenerate and corrupt and devoid of morals and that Buddhist temples
had grown too numerous, thereby straining domain treasuries, peasantry, and
townspeople.8 When scholars in the early Meiji period began constructing a
history of Japan’s premodern civilization, they took these complaints seriously.
When combined with the Tokugawa jikki’s lauding of the Confucian ideals pro-
moted by the early shoguns, the result was that Buddhism and its visual culture
were conspicuously absent in discourses identifying the defining features of Jap-
anese culture and society of the Edo period in historical memory (Gluck 1998).
These critiques have influenced the direction of much modern scholarship
on Edo-period Buddhism, which has lagged behind Buddhist studies of other
periods.9 They have also contributed to the long-standing and widely held schol-
arly perception, recently challenged by younger Japanese scholars, that talented
artists and craftsmakers of this era expended greater effort on their production
of secular arts, many influenced by Confucianism, than on Buddhist imagery,
resulting in a substantial decrease in the quality — both aesthetic and technical
— of Buddhist art and architecture then created.10 Recent studies in Japanese,
especially catalogues of exhibitions by the eminent Japanese art historian Tsuji
Nobuo and some younger scholars, many of them his former students, have
begun to reassess this contention.11 As for scholarship in Western languages,
except for copious writings about Zen painting and calligraphy,12 a few studies of
important sites associated with the highest-echelon samurai,13 unusual images
(by imperial nuns),14 and some materials categorized as folk arts,15 much of this
later Buddhist art, and especially its architecture, remains overlooked.16
Because of these biases, until quite recently few Japanese Buddhist sites and
little imagery of the Edo period were surveyed at all or considered candidates for
conservation. Much recent and still preliminary effort towards restoring newer
buildings is due to municipal or prefectural initiatives rather than national ones.
Since the late nineteenth century, the national government has instead encour-
aged this de-emphasis of later Buddhism’s material culture with its policy of
assigning designation as Important Cultural Properties (Jūyō Bunkazai) mainly
to older imagery and buildings associated with famous and ancient Buddhist
temples built for the elites. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cul-
tural Organization (UNESCO), the global preservation organization, has rein-
forced this perception by adding a number of early Japanese temple complexes
to its list of World Heritage Sites. Current restoration practices in Japan celebrate
mainly the antique structures at these sites at the expense of more recent, but
still premodern, ones (Enders and Gutschow 1998, 55). For example, special-
ists dismantle some early Edo-period structures so that they can create modern
replicas, with varying degrees of accuracy, of the earliest buildings at these sites.
Introduction |

They also seek to reconstruct the original appearance of buildings lost to natural
disasters centuries after construction. These practices obscure or devalue the
evolution of Buddhism and its material culture in Japan.
When most art historians study early modern and modern-era Japanese arts
and architecture, they overlook most Buddhist materials and do not consider
the broader issue of Buddhism’s cultural impact on these arts because their
studies focus on the arts of the secular world: residential architecture and the
creations of individual, often eccentric, artists, multigenerational ateliers of art-
ists working for wealthy and elite groups in society, and art associated with the
urban townspeople. Such historians assess these arts within specific media, a
practical approach that closely links aesthetic studies to that of the technical
production.17 Since most scholars have been trained to regard only Japanese
Buddhist arts of the ancient and early medieval periods (seventh through mid-
fourteenth centuries) as Buddhist art worthy of consideration as “art,” they do
not recognize this omission.
These ancient and medieval Japanese Buddhist sculptures and paintings first
became exalted as artistic masterpieces during the late nineteenth century by
Japanese and American scholars, who included them in their newly created art
history canon — a canon that has only recently, and slowly, begun to change.18
The large body of ancient and medieval Buddhist imagery, originally created in
service to the religion and not as art in the modern sense, came to form the core
of this early canon, in part because very little early secular art had survived.19
Those who first conceived the canon sought to demonstrate both that the Japa-
nese possessed a cultural heritage equal to that of European nations and that
Japan belonged to the modern world of academic scholarship. They privileged
older art over that of more recent times, partially to position their new era of
modernity as superior to the backward culture of the immediate past. The for-
eign scholars who contributed to the canonization of this early Buddhist art did
so for these and other reasons, including their romanticized notion of the need
to reassert the importance of spirituality into discourses on modernity.20
As with much of the European canon, the Japanese canon focuses on art
and buildings dignified by their great age, by their creation in the old imperial
and political capitals (Nara, Kyoto, and Kamakura), by the elite status of their
patrons (the imperial family, courtiers, and high-ranking samurai warriors), and
by their association with identifiable and prestigious artists or artistic lineages.
Scholars proclaimed their highest admiration for the most sacred of the early
Buddhist imagery, bronze and carved-wood icons placed on the altars of wor-
ship halls, despite the fact that only a few of the numerous surviving examples
of Buddhist imagery fit into this category. More recent Buddhist arts and archi-
tecture — especially those associated with temples largely patronized by com-
moners, buildings and images at provincial temples, and the often anonymous
| Introduction

images created in bronze or stone and frequently found amidst temple grounds
or carved upon the sides of buildings — were largely omitted from this canon.
Admitting the more recently produced Japanese Buddhist material into the
canon of Japanese art challenges conventional notions of the parameters of Japa-
nese art. I do not question the aesthetic and technical merits of these early arts
and architecture that have led scholars to value them so highly. Yet emphasis on
products made in the old imperial and political capitals of the distant past for
the elites of Japanese society has caused much worthy material to escape schol-
ars’ scrutiny and has skewed understanding of the sustained impact of Bud-
dhism and its arts on later Japanese cultural history. Determining what material
culture of any civilization to consider as art is always the subjective judgment
of the person or group undertaking the assessment. Art is a defining creation
of the human spirit and is only sometimes synonymous with luxury products
for elites or, recently, with modernist creations of individuals who define them-
selves as artists.
My assertion of the need to reassess the canon of Japanese art history to allow
for the inclusion of these later Japanese Buddhist materials derives from recent
studies in historical consciousness and the history of taste. These reveal con-
noisseurship (judgments on authentication and aesthetic quality) as highly sub-
jective, shaped by a number of factors, including personal preferences, politics,
fashion, and access to materials.21 Particularly in the case of Japan, traditional-
ist scholars decree that the technical sophistication, the rarity and cost of the
raw materials, and the high social standing or wealth of the patrons determine
whether or not a particular artifact should be defined as art. This emphasis
stems from Japan’s intense desire for equality with Western nations during the
Meiji period, the time when Japanese scholars first defined the national canon
of art in the late nineteenth century. This attitude persists and holds true even
for many recent broad studies of Edo-period arts, including those in Western
languages.22
As the materials presented in this book will show, from the seventeenth cen-
tury onward, although the elites did continue to influence the production of Bud-
dhist imagery and sites in Japan, commoners, sometimes wealthy and sometimes
not, became an even greater force in the construction of the physical appearance
of later Japanese Buddhist culture. So, too, did private, personal, and often non-
denominational expressions of religious devotion. Because these tendencies first
appeared in nascent form during the Edo period and have continued to prolifer-
ate during the modern and contemporary eras, I believe it crucial that a study
of later Japanese Buddhist art and architecture begin with Edo-period develop-
ments and encompass this broad four-hundred-year time span. Understanding
modern Japanese Buddhism’s prosperity and the religion’s continued stimulation
of artistic production requires a solid grasp of Edo-period Buddhism’s mate-
Introduction |

rial culture. Conversely, the significance of Edo-period artistic achievements in
the Buddhist realm becomes clearer when examining the relationship of that
period’s Buddhist-inspired art and architecture with later materials. Curiously,
because of arbitrary divisions of scholarly inquiry on the part of scholars work-
ing both in Japan and in the West that generate separate studies of premodern
and modern Japanese art and architectural history, I know of no studies that
address this significant relationship between the Buddhist art and architecture
of the near past and the modern and contemporary eras.
Furthering my conviction of the need for this book to encompass modern
Buddhist art and architecture is the fact that specialists of modern and con-
temporary Japanese art and architecture — that is, those who focus on artistic
developments after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 — even more than those who
specialize in Edo-period art, ignore it. They generally do not consider modern
religious objects made for temples in workshops of professional Buddhist image-
makers as art and focus instead on the creations of independent secular artists.23
Similar omissions plague scholarship on modern and contemporary Buddhist
architecture.24 These omissions stem from scholars’ belief that Buddhism has
continued to decline in cultural importance, where it serves only as a frame-
work for administration of funeral rites and memorials to the deceased or as an
ideological platform for cultlike new sects. Thus significant art and architecture
could not possibly be produced in its service. This attitude reveals that the Japa-
nese scholars who constructed the discipline of Japanese art history in the late
nineteenth century possessed awareness of the ideas of European intellectuals,
primarily sociologists, who in the first half of that century had begun to belittle
the value of formal religious institutions to the modern world. Such critiques
derived from Western civilization’s Enlightenment period have continued well
into the twentieth century and are now described as the Secularization Theory
of Modernity (Promey 2003, 584). This theory became a potent issue for Japan
as it sought to reinvent itself as a modern nation on equal footing with Western
powers. Its impact on the belittling of traditional religious practice during the
modernization process of various Asian nations has been noted by a group of
scholars studying modern Asian religion.25 Indeed, their complementary studies
of discrete religious practice in various Asian nations revealed that religion and
ritual are essential to “the life of ‘modern’ nations and communities, in Asia, as
elsewhere” (Comaroff 1994, 301).
The relationship of this secularization theory to the study of art has been ad-
dressed by Sally Promey, a scholar of American art history who noted that until
recently modern religious imagery has not been considered part of the canon
of American art. She argues that this exclusion is closely tied to this theory,
which has significantly shaped the direction of modern art historical studies in
10 | Introduction

Western civilizations. She notes that this theory, “harnessed to a developmen-
tal model of civilization, suggested that religion’s lasting impact on Western
cultural production was negligible,” and more specifically that “modernization
necessarily leads to religion’s decline, that the secular and the religious will not
coexist in the modern world, that religion represents a premodern vestige of
superstition” (2003, 584). She further notes that “according to this conceptual
framework, religion represents an immature, or ‘primitive,’ stage in cultural evo-
lution, a trace of civilization’s childhood that stultifies and inhibits the mature
imagination” (584). Consequently, she concludes that according to this theory,
art assumed the place of religion, a new locus for spirituality as religious dogmatism
and orthodoxies seemed to render impossible authentic spiritual expression in that
traditional domain and that the marginalization of religion has been reinforced by
prevalent modernist intellectual assumptions concerning religion’s restriction of
creative individuality, its responsibility for an inferior aesthetic or taste culture, and
its presumed universal proclivity toward conservative, sectarian, and ideological ob-
sessions. (585)
Perhaps most significantly, Promey also points out that an important aspect
of the argument for the obsolescence of religion in the modern world revolves
around the issue of how social science scholars define the discipline of religious
studies. She notes how they tend to separate studies of religion from that of
spirituality, with religion emphasizing the formal, doctrinal, institutional, and
public side of religious practice and spirituality referring to more private and
personal religious concerns. Yet she believes, as I do, that religion should be un-
derstood in its broadest context, encompassing spirituality, which “in this sense,
intersects life and art at multiple and complex, even competing and contradic-
tory, sorts of commitments and engagements within a single artist, artifact, or
beholder” (583).
Thus in one sense modern spirituality can be construed as the logical pro-
gression and transformation of traditional religion into the modern age. But as
Promey notes, imagery inspired by nonsectarian spirituality accounts for only
one side of modern religious visuality. Traditional religious institutions and their
rituals continue to thrive in the modern world, where they inspire the production
of orthodox religious imagery.26 Even before I read Promey’s arguments, I had
begun to question the omission of this large body of later traditional religious
material culture from the Japanese art and architecture canon, influenced by my
readings in the emerging interdisciplinary fields of material and visual culture
studies. Yet as relatively young and not so clearly defined fields of inquiry, their
parameters and methodologies are not entirely consistent.27 These disciplines
encouraged me to seek to expand the canon of Japanese art history as well as to
Introduction | 11

study religious artifacts for reasons other than aesthetic assessment, including
probing discrepancies between doctrine and religious practices and the intuitive
appeal of sacred icons for reasons other than aesthetic attraction.28
My methodology is also informed by new approaches to the study of Japanese
religion pioneered by the Japanese scholar Tamamuro Fumio (b. 1935) and his
disciples in the West. He encouraged the study of religious life among indi-
viduals other than eminent priests, of localizing the study of religion, and of
transcending sectarian boundaries.29 These important social facets of Buddhist
worship in Japan have remained overlooked until recently because many reli-
gious studies scholars study the history of individual sects separately. Following
Professor Tamamuro’s lead, I look at the material products of the religious life
by and for overlooked groups of devout worshipers: women of various social
classes, from those associated with imperial Buddhist convents to the wives of
high-ranking feudal lords; urban townspeople; and newly powerful feudal lords
who patronized existing provincial temples and founded others. I also examine
Buddhist imagery made for provincial temples by itinerant, self-taught monks
and by artists trained originally in Nara or Kyoto workshops. This provincial
patronage of image-makers from the old capitals accounts for increased dis-
semination of urban artistic influence from the nation’s cultural centers to its
peripheries. Also influenced by Professor Tamamuro, I explore how devotional
imagery represents the transcendence of sectarian boundaries. This took place
in various ways, such as through deities that commanded universal appeal, and
through artistic styles employed to represent imagery associated with one sect
of Buddhism, such as the abbreviated brush paintings of Zen monks, that be-
came appropriated by artists affiliated with other sectarian traditions.
Omitting later Buddhist art and architecture from the Japanese art and archi-
tectural canons denies the existence of a significant body of material, including
the Buddhist-inspired creations of independent, secular artists. Many of these
artists are best known for their wholly secular work, though they often under-
took religious commissions not only to earn money, but also because of their
deep personal devotion. Many also produced images of popular religious sub-
jects for lay clients that were intended not for repository in religious institutions,
but in private residences. At the same time, devout amateurs, both priests and
laity, became increasingly involved in the production of Buddhist imagery for
dedication to temples and for use in home altars. In the modern period, a num-
ber of artists have also incorporated religious imagery and ideas into creations
intended not for places of worship, but for display in art museums, galleries, and
other secular spaces. The work of all these artists reflects important, new, and
largely overlooked developments in the practice of Buddhism in later Japanese
culture.
I divide this book into two broad chronological sections. Part I explores Bud-
12 | Introduction

dhism in the arts of early modern Japan, roughly 1600–1868, emphasizing pa-
tronage of worship sites and the production of Buddhist imagery with larger
political, social, and economic concerns of the time as a backdrop. The first
three chapters survey important and representative Buddhist sites for people
from all levels of society, from the elite samurai and aristocrats to commoners,
who range widely from wealthy urban dwellers to residents of small, rural vil-
lages. Chapter 1 assesses Buddhist policies and temples patronized by the rul-
ing Tokugawa family, whose leadership, funding, and taste dominated Buddhist
temple construction at the beginning of the era and influenced much of what
came afterward. In chapter 2, my focus shifts to Buddhist temples patronized by
the nation’s elites who served the Tokugawa, the high-ranking samurai (daimyo),
and the aristocrats, whose funding depended on Tokugawa largesse. I also in-
troduce a newly formed Zen sect, Ōbaku, patronized initially by both the sho-
guns and the imperial family and later also by commoners. This chapter leads
into a discussion in chapter 3 of the transition to popular, commoner support
for Buddhist institutions and worship practices, such as pilgrimages and public
exhibitions of temple treasures. The overall diversity of sites surveyed reflects
the wide range of motivations for patronage of Buddhism at that time. The re-
maining three chapters of part I focus on Buddhist imagery of the era. Chapter
4 introduces several deities newly popular at the time whose devotees have con-
tinued to proliferate and other types of religious practices that inspired imagery
production. Chapter 5 considers both the patrons and makers of professionally
made images that were created nationwide for virtually all the different social
groups in Japanese society. Only some of these makers belonged to the heredi-
tary ranks of specialists’ workshops; most others were freelance, secular artists.
Chapter 6 addresses religious imagery created as personal, visual expressions of
faith by both amateur devotees and professional artists, sometimes monks and
nuns and sometimes lay Buddhist practitioners, of various ranks in society.
The four chapters that make up part II concentrate on Buddhist visual culture
in Japan’s modern age, 1868–2005. The first two chapters survey various aspects
of pre–World War II Buddhist arts. In chapter 7, I focus on government policies
and changes within Buddhist organizations that encouraged resurrection of the
faith in the aftermath of government-authorized persecution in the early Meiji
period. Increased acceptance of Buddhism resulted in funding for reconstruc-
tion of worship halls and creation of new and diverse types of sacred imagery for
temple compounds. Chapter 8 focuses on the transformation of sacred imagery
from icon into art, stimulated by two important developments. The first was
the government’s new policies on preservation of cultural heritage that promi-
nently included Buddhist temples and their treasures. The second was the rise
in modern scholarly studies of the faith that led to its separation from its insti-
tutions and its domination by nondenominational practitioners who expressed
Introduction | 13

their devotion privately and personally. Influenced by this latter current, devout
Buddhist secular artists began, for the first time, to create Buddhist images for
display as art in galleries and museums rather than halls of worship. The final
two chapters look at Buddhist sites and imagery in post–World War II Japan.
Chapter 9 explores some of the most unusual and representative of the many
modern and contemporary Buddhist sites of worship, and chapter 10 focuses on
makers of modern Buddhist art, including traditional workshops of profession-
als serving Buddhist organizations, independent secular artists inspired by per-
sonal devotion who create both representational and abstract imagery inspired
by Buddhism, and devout laypersons who function as both makers and patrons
of Buddhist devotional art.
14 | Introduction

Part I
Buddhism in the Arts of Early
Modern Japan, 1600–1868

The copious and diverse Buddhist arts and sites of worship from the Edo period
were created by and for people from all levels of society. They facilitated the prac-
tical needs of Buddhism’s many followers to pray for salvation in the afterlife or
betterment of their present lives. Throughout Japan’s history, the aristocrats and
upper echelon of the warrior class expended great sums of money on imagery
and decorations for temples, considering these expenditures meritorious deeds
that aided their spiritual goals, as asserted in some of the Buddhist scriptures.
Similar to practices in other religious traditions, Buddhism celebrates such beau-
tification of worship spaces and sacred imagery as “an exuberant celebration of
visuality as a path to [Buddhist] illumination and insight through the experience
of ‘awesome beauty’ (shōgon)” (Yiengpruksawan 1998b, 2).
The newly rich merchants, actors, and other celebrity commoners emulated
these elite practices and avidly patronized Buddhist temples as well. No less
abundant than Buddhist arts for the wealthy and those aspiring to the values of
the elites are the humble and anonymous examples of sacred Buddhist imagery
designed by and for the rest of the population: working-class urban residents,
itinerant tradespeople and clerics, and rural peasants. Buddhist cosmologi-
cal concepts, sometimes in association with popular, syncretic superstitious
beliefs, inspired the production of much of their devotional art. The many new
temples and diverse Buddhist images created at this time served all segments
of the population, sometimes simultaneously and sometimes separately. These
reflect the determination of the Buddhist clergy and devotees of this era to prac-
tice their faith despite strict bureaucratic control of Buddhist institutions by the
shogunate.

Chapter One
Institutional Buddhism
under Warrior Rule
the warriors who struggled to unite Japan under their military rule during
the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries understood that their ability
to govern effectively meant controlling the nation’s powerful Buddhist institu-
tions and aligning themselves with the faith’s spiritual authority. The actions
they took in these regards had profound ramifications on the character of the
practice of Buddhism thereafter in Japan. This chapter explores the use of reli-
gious institutions by these warriors, especially the first five Tokugawa shoguns,
under whose direction most of the officially sanctioned Buddhist temples of the
early modern era were erected.
Buddhist Policies of the Momoyama-Period Military Leaders

The first Tokugawa shogun, Ieyasu, based his strategy for subjugating Buddhist
temples on those of the warrior generals who first began the process of unify-
ing the nation during the Momoyama period. The initial unifier of that era,
Oda Nobunaga, gained authority over Buddhist institutions at a heavy price. He
demolished many important temple complexes and treated clergy mercilessly.
Nobunaga did not have enmity against all Buddhists, just those he perceived as
threats to his hegemony. At the time Nobunaga came to power, numerous Bud-
dhist sects had existed in Japan for centuries, each appealing to different types of
followers. Nobunaga distrusted the esoteric (Tantric) Tendai and Shingon sects
patronized by the old elite warrior and aristocratic clans since the Heian period
(794–1185). Both sects were founded in the ninth century by monks who traveled

to China and returned with new doctrines. Tendai (Ch. Tiantai), named after
the mountain headquarters (Mount Tientai) of the sect in southern China, was
founded by Saichō (posthumous name Dengyō Daishi, 767–822). Its doctrine
is inclusive and eclectic, embracing esoteric and Zen meditative practices as
well as elements of Pure Land beliefs (discussed below), and it stresses devotion
to the highly influential Lotus Sutra (Jp. Hokke kyō or Myōhō renge kyō; Skt.
Saddharma pundarīka sūtra; discussed later in this chapter), all of which paved
the way for the formation of new populist sects in the thirteenth century. Shin-
gon (Ch. Zhenyan; the “True Word” or “mantra” sect) was established by Kūkai
(posthumous name Kōbō Daishi, 774–835). Its secretly transmitted doctrine al-
lows for the possibility of attaining enlightenment in this life, not some future
existence, to followers who learned its complex visualization rites that were
focused on schematic mandalas and incorporated chanting, meditating, and
ritualized hand movements. As it spread among the populace, its priests came
to function like shamans, performing divination rituals and offering believers
talismans and special rites as prayers for practical benefits as well, such as good
health and material success. By the Momoyama period, their success at pros-
elytizing resulted in their temples accumulating huge tracts of arable land, and
consequently great wealth, which their militant monks vigorously defended.1
Nobunaga also attacked the powerful, wealthy, fortress-like Osaka head temple,
Honganji, of the Jōdo Shin sect (the True Pure Land sect; Jōdo Shinshū), com-
monly known today simply as the “Shin” sect. This sect was a particularly militant
denomination whose leaders refused to surrender autonomy to a secular leader.
It was one of the largest denominations of the Pure Land sects, founded in the
Kamakura period (1185–1336), that proselytized most heavily to commoners. The
basic tenet of the Pure Land sects espouses an easy path to salvation, especially
attractive to the masses of commoners in premodern Japan who, though literate
in native Japanese, could not read Buddhist texts, which were written in Chinese.
Believers could attain rebirth after death in the Western Pure Land Paradise, pre-
sided over by the buddha Amida, the Buddha of Light, who resides in the Western
Paradise (Skt. Amitābha), through pure faith in him, as demonstrated in simple
chanting of his name (reciting the nenbutsu).
By Nobunaga’s time the Shin sect had attracted the largest numbers of follow-
ers of any Buddhist denomination, and Nobunaga’s successor, Toyotomi Hide
yoshi, saw the benefit in placating its supporters, so he relocated its headquarters
temple, Honganji, to Kyoto, in large part to better oversee it. In contrast, his
usurper, Tokugawa Ieyasu, recognized that the Shin sect’s power could threaten
his authority, so he divided it into two branches, both remaining headquartered
in Kyoto. The Ōtani school (Shinshū Ōtani ha) head temple is Higashi (East)
Honganji, and the Honganji school (Shinshū Honganji ha) is at nearby Nishi
(West) Honganji. More will be said about these temples in chapter 7.
18 | buddhism in the arts of early modern japa n

Although the two Zen sects (Rinzai and Sōtō), also established in the Ka-
makura period, had long been patronized by the wealthy and elite warriors and
courtiers, they managed to evade the wrath of Nobunaga because they did not
train their monks as warriors or seek to expand their landholdings. Also, the
great Rinzai sect’s monasteries in Kyoto were deeply respected because they had
long served as centers of learning about China, considered the most cultured
civilization in premodern Japan. For that reason, these temples continued to be
supported by the warrior leaders through the Tokugawa period, although an-
tagonism with them and one of the emperors over selection of their clerical lead-
ers (traditionally, the emperor awarded prelates this position) led the Tokugawa
shoguns to seek ways to curtail their power (discussed below and in chapter 2,
in connection with the formation of a new Zen lineage, Ōbaku).
Nobunaga also funded construction of some temples of another Pure Land
sect, Jōdo (Jōdo shū), which he situated near his Azuchi Castle in Kyoto. He used
them to help make the site the center of Japanese society in all arenas — political,
economic, and spiritual (McMullin 1984, 222–223). Finally, Nobunaga began a
process, later expanded upon by the Tokugawa shogunal government (bakufu;
lit. “tent government,” rule by a military authority), of exerting power over reli-
gious institutions by establishing an Office of Temple and Shrine Administra-
tors (Jisha Bugyō) (McMullin 1984, 225). His policies, though extreme, culmi-
nated in a course of action that earlier shoguns of the prior Muromachi period
had begun but whose weakness prevented implementation on such a grand scale
(McMullin 1984, 234).
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, an intelligent and ambitious warrior of humble birth
who had previously served as one of Nobunaga’s generals, became the second
authoritative military general of the Momoyama era after Nobunaga’s assassi-
nation. He also sought to diminish the power of the Buddhist institutions, but
while he did engage some militant temple monks in battle, he is known more
for his reconstruction of Buddhist institutions, especially those destroyed by
Nobunaga, such as Honganji, than for their destruction. He also ordered the
relocation of many Kyoto temples to consolidated districts so as to better moni-
tor the actions of their clergy (Hickman 1996, 39).
Representative of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s attitude towards Buddhism is his
construction of a giant Great Buddha (Daibutsu) statue, commissioned in 1586
for enshrinement in a new Great Buddha Hall at Hōkōji, a Tendai sect temple
he founded in Kyoto. The creation of giant-sized buddha images was tied to
continental beliefs and sutras that expounded the salvific powers of large images
of buddhas (Konno 2003, 115–120). The hall housing this Great Buddha was the
largest premodern Japanese structure ever built at 45m high × 81m long × 50m
wide (Berry 1982, 196–198). The original statue no longer survives, but a small
(50:1) scale model done in the 1660s in preparation for a restoration (completed
Institutional Buddhism under Warrior Rule | 19

in 1664) suggests its appearance at that time. The statue represented the cosmic
buddha Birushana (Skt. Vairocana), the same buddha enshrined in in 752, dur-
ing the Nara period (710–794), by Emperor Shōmu at the Great Buddha Hall
at Tōdaiji in that emperor’s new capital city of Nara. Unlike the earlier image,
made of bronze, Hideyoshi’s original statue was wood, coated with lacquer and
polychrome. When initially completed in 1596, its 24-meter height put it several
meters above the Tōdaiji Great Buddha (Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan 1997, 68). Its
maker was Kōshō (1534–1621), a busshi (professional maker of Buddhist statues)
who headed the Seventh Avenue Atelier (Shichijō bussho) of Kyoto. This atelier
had been formed in the twelfth century to serve elite aristocratic patrons. Over
the centuries it garnered a reputation as the best Buddhist image-making work-
shop in Kyoto and consequently continued to receive commissions from elite
warriors and courtiers for images they donated to the nation’s most important
temples through the seventeenth century.
In order to weaken any potential opposition groups, Hideyoshi commanded
all the nation’s domain lords over whom he ruled to support the temple and
statue construction project by having them and all their vassals contribute sam-
urai swords (which were melted down for use as nails and other metalwork),
money, many thousands of commoner workers, and construction materials.
Yet soon after completion an earthquake destroyed the statue and the building
that housed it. Supporters of Hideyoshi’s son and successor, Toyotomi Hideyori
(1593–1615), soon commissioned a new Great Buddha and a hall to house it, as
well as a pagoda, lecture hall, and covered corridors. This time the statue was to
be bronze, but during the casting process in 1602, when the project was nearing
completion, the statue and the buildings were accidentally destroyed in a fire.
Again, Toyotomi loyalists had the statue re-created sometime between 1609 and
1616 (Watsky 2004, 216–219).
Ruined once more by a natural disaster in 1622, the Great Buddha was recon-
structed one final time, again in wood, in 1664. Genshin, a sculptor of Kōshō’s
lineage, has recently been identified as the sculptor in charge of this effort, as
well as the maker of a maquette (fig. 1.1), which is all that survives to suggest its
appearance today. Descriptions of the statue and its inner structure at the time
of its rebuilding in the 1660s closely match the model, which hinges open to
reveal its inner support structure, a complex wooden lattice framework (fig. 1.2)
(Chō 1998; Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan 1997, 68–69). This last construction stood
until 1789, when it was hit by lightning.
Hideyoshi intended for the statue to symbolize his power over the nation’s
political and religious spheres, as had Emperor Shōmu’s statue. Significantly, the
earlier statue and its building actually lay in ruins at the time Hideyoshi com-
missioned his Great Buddha. It was restored only in the late seventeenth century
(see chap. 5). The two rulers who conceived these statues had very different ideas

1.1. Genshin (active mid-
seventeenth century). Scale
model for the Great Buddha
statue at Hōkōji, Kyoto (front
view of exterior), 1660s. Gilt
wood. Height: 35.4 cm. Tokyo
National Museum. Photograph:
TNM Image Archives.
about the relationship between political authority and the religion. The earlier
statue represented the unification of Buddhism and the state and served to pro-
tect the nation through the efficacious power of Buddhism in a system known
as chingo kokka bukkyō (Buddhism for the protection and preservation of the
nation).2 The power of Buddhism to protect the nation had been recognized by
political leaders before Shōmu, but the system achieved full flowering under his
reign through construction of the national monument of Tōdaiji as well as his
establishment of regional temples (kokubunj).
Hideyoshi’s monument, however, was created for another reason and marks a
major shift in focus for sponsorship of temples by political leaders. He intended
the temple to honor the spirit of his deceased mother and other ancestors, influ-
enced by the growing importance of Chinese Confucian values, which stressed
filial piety (reverence of one’s ancestors). Soon after Hideyoshi’s death, the tem-
ple took on yet another purpose — to serve as the affiliate prayer hall for a newly
constructed Shinto shrine mausoleum constructed adjacent to it, the Toyokuni
or Hōkoku (Wealth of the Nation) Shrine, in which Hideyoshi was interred by
his supporters and apotheosized as a Shinto deity. His supporters undertook
this venture in a short-lived attempt to secure perpetuation of his lineage by
equating his importance, and that of his family, with that of the emperors, ac-
knowledged descendants of Shinto kami (Watsky 2004, 204–206).

1.2. Genshin (active mid-seventeenth century). Scale model for the Great Buddha statue at Hōkōji,
Kyoto (hinged open from the back), 1660s. Gilt wood. Height: 35.4 cm. Tokyo National Museum.
Photograph: TNM Image Archives.
Although Tokugawa Ieyasu demolished this shrine shortly after taking power,
he demonstrated his Buddhist-based compassion for the deceased Toyotomi
family members to whom the Hōkōji was dedicated by sparing the temple. In
similar spirit, Ieyasu also provided funds to establish the nunnery of Kōdaiji
in Kyoto, where Hideyoshi’s wife, Kita no Mandokoro (1548–1624), took up
residence as a nun after her husband’s death. By Ieyasu’s order, the Toyotomi
mortuary temple of Hōkōji came under the direct authority of the nearby Ten-
dai temple of Myōhōin, a monzeki (type of temple whose abbot or prelate was
a member of the imperial family; further discussed in chap. 2). Myōhōin had
actually had some association with Hōkōji from its inception; at the time the
first Great Buddha was erected, Hideyoshi had a Sutra Hall at Myōhōin built
expressly for recitation of prayers to his deceased parents. The Tokugawa ba-
kufu also provided funding for the Hōkōji Great Buddha reconstruction of 1664,
but indirectly through Tōfukumon’in (1607–1678), a shogun’s daughter who had
married the emperor Gomizunoo (1596–1680; r. 1611–1629), whose imperial fam-
ily oversaw Myōhōin. Ultimately, the motivation for this 1664 reconstruction
is similar to that which drove the Tokugawa bakufu to sponsor other national
temple rebuilding projects discussed below. It served as a dual symbol: supreme

Tokugawa hegemony — over Buddhist institutions, the imperial family, and the
dispossessed Toyotomi — and concurrently as a public-relations effort demon-
strating compassion towards conquered foes.
Tokugawa Bakufu Regulations for Buddhist Institutions

The different stimuli for establishing Buddhist institutions during the eighth and
sixteenth centuries exemplify the profoundly dissimilar outlooks towards sov-
ereignty by Japan’s ancient imperial and early modern warrior rulers. Emerging
from the same milieu as his immediate forerunners, Tokugawa Ieyasu shared
Nobunaga and Hideyoshi’s views of Buddhism. However, Ieyasu took further
steps than his predecessors to harness the power of Buddhist institutions to help
implement his political agenda. To accomplish this, he and his immediate succes-
sors brought Buddhist institutions under Tokugawa domination in a series of far-
reaching judicial policies. His high regard for Buddhism is evident in his consider-
ation of the advisers he chose to help him draft these laws: two trusted Buddhist
monks, the Zen abbot Ishin Sūden (1569–1632) of Nanzenji and Nankōbō Tenkai
(1536–1643), a Tendai priest from the Tendai sect’s headquarters at Enryakuji at
Mount Hiei (Hieizan).3 Sūden advised the shogunate on religious, diplomatic, and
political matters, earning a reputation as a ruthless authoritarian.
Tenkai first met Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1589, long before the latter became sho-
gun. By 1613, Tenaki had become so important to Ieyasu that the shogun ap-
pointed him the head priest of Kitain, the Tendai sect’s Tokugawa family mortu-
ary temple in the castle town of Kawagoe near Edo, the Tokugawa seat of power.
They initially intended this temple to rival and serve as eastern Japan’s equiva-
lent of the powerful Tendai sect headquarters at Mount Hiei, north of Kyoto.
Later, the third shogun decided it was too far from Edo and erected another
temple, Kan’eiji, instead (see below). Tenkai also became head abbot of the small
Tendai temple of Rinnōji at Mount Nikkō, in the mountains northeast of Edo,
where he presided over that temple’s subsequent restoration and rise in prestige
as part of a newly planned Buddhist-Shinto mausoleum complex dedicated at
first to the deified spirit of Tokugawa Ieyasu (the Nikkō Tōshōgū) and, later, to
other Tokugawa shoguns (discussed further below).
The edicts that the bakufu drafted with the aid of these influential advisers
were first aimed at specific, troublesome temples and sects, then expanded to in-
clude temples of all denominations. Among the many regulations, some forbade
the creation of new temples, controlled construction at existing institutions by
regulating the physical appearance of temple structures, regulated the conduct
of monks, and stipulated that all temples adhere to a strictly regulated, hierar-
chical temple organization scheme known as the “main temple-branch temple”
system (honzan matsuji) (Lu 1974, 214–215; and Nosco 1996, 145). One of the

most far-reaching regulations required all citizens to register with a local temple
as part of a household temple registration system (terauke shūmon). The bakufu
abhorred the proselytizing efforts of Western Christian missionaries, whom they
considered threats to their hegemony. Requiring citizens to belong to local Bud-
dhist temples assured the government that the populace had not abandoned
Buddhism in favor of Christianity. This edict also created a way of taking a na-
tional census and enforcing payment of taxes (Nosco 1996, 146). It also resulted
in vast increases to the number of temples throughout Japan during the Edo
period and the repair of structures at existing sites, many of which, at first, the
bakufu oversaw directly and funded with its unprecedented wealth, much of it
obtained from confiscated landholdings of the Toyotomi family.4
The bakufu also used these edicts to limit the power of the imperial family.
Among laws that determined promotions within clerical rank, one curtailed
imperial power over Buddhist institutions by restricting emperors from grant-
ing the “purple robe,” or highest rank, to Buddhist clerics, a duty previously
understood as belonging in the domain of the imperial court. This promulga-
tion caused such wrath in Emperor Gomizunoo that he abdicated in protest.5
Although the government had issued most of its laws governing temples dur-
ing the seventeenth century, the bakufu continued to disseminate new ones
throughout the Edo period. Among the last was a mid-nineteenth-century edict
that confiscated temple landholdings, forbade Buddhist ceremonies at the im-
perial court, and curtailed the hereditary appointment of high priests’ offices
(McMullin 1984, 248, and 399, n. 55).
Tokugawa Family Support of Religious Establishments

While the Tokugawa shoguns did initiate large-scale temple projects during
their tenure, they constructed none with the same altruistic intent as Emperor
Shōmu. Most of their efforts, and all those discussed below, took place during
the tenure of the first five shoguns (through 1709). Their most impressive reli-
gious edifices were personal in nature, majestic Shinto mausolea (reibyō) that
were modeled after Hideyoshi’s Hōkoku shrine and were closely affiliated with
adjacent Tokugawa family Buddhist temples.
In premodern times, Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines were not the wholly
separate religious institutions that most are today. They functioned as comple-
mentary components of a complex, hybrid Shinto-Buddhist belief system known
as honji suijaku (origin and manifestation) that emerged in the Heian period.
This ideology joined worship of Buddhist deities (the honji, or original gods)
with that of Shinto kami, which were considered the manifestations (suijaku) of
these Buddhist deities. This fusion of the two religions served the various spiri-

tual needs of worshipers and cleverly alleviated a sense of competition between
them for followers, although it secured a higher status for Buddhism.
Tenkai has been credited as the person most responsible for helping to legiti-
mize the Tokugawa hegemony by declaring Ieyasu a Shinto deity and confer-
ring upon him the name Tōshō dainagon (Great Avatar Illuminating the East).
In particular, he recognized this deified Ieyasu to be a reincarnation of the sun
goddess Amaterasu, whom the imperial family claimed as its direct ancestor,
and a manifestation of the buddha Yakushi (Skt. Bhaisajyaguru), the supreme
Buddha of Healing.6 Tenkai carefully plotted this shogunal veneration to ema-
nate from Nikkō, approximately as far from Edo as the imperial Grand Shrine of
Ise was from Kyoto, to legitimize the Tokugawas as national rulers, hoping the
site would overshadow Ise in ritual importance (Ooms 1985, 183).
Although Ieyasu planned his apotheosis together with Tenkai just before he
died and Tenkai ceremoniously interred him as a deity at Nikkō in 1617, it was
not until the reign of the third shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu (1603–1651; r. 1622–
1651), between 1634 and 1636, that Tenkai was able to realize a most ambitious
project — construction of a grand monument to Ieyasu at Nikkō, the Tōshōgū
shrine. This shrine was located adjacent to the main buildings at Rinnōji, most of
whose surviving buildings date to the 1640s and 1650s. These buildings include
the 1647 Main Hall, also known as the Hall of the Three Buddhas (Sanbutsudō),
for three massive statues that crowd the interior, only one of which is technically
a buddha.7 The monumental, dignified appearance of the building embodies
the weight of authority the Tokugawa aimed to project to worshipers (fig. 1.3).
The building’s present location, however, dates to 1879.8 The Nikkō Tōshōgū
and Rinnōji construction projects and the Shinto mausoleum that Iemitsu also
ordered constructed to deify his father, the second shogun Tokugawa Hidetada
(1579–1632; r. 1605–1622), underscore the importance the Tokugawa placed on
creating a religious basis for the legitimacy of their authority.9 Beyond the gran-
deur of the monuments themselves, the Tokugawa used these places to hold reli-
gious rituals that reinforced their assertion of legitimacy. During Iemitsu’s reign,
these and other construction projects, the increased allocations for rituals, and
unanticipated losses and expenses due to natural disasters accounted for his
government’s expenditures reaching an unprecedented peak and contributed to
the bankrupting of the bakufu treasury several decades later.10
Rituals continued to play a central role in shogunal life and in fact increased
during the reign of Iemitsu’s son and successor, Tokugawa Ietsuna (1639–1680;
r. 1651–1680), who became the fourth Tokugawa shogun at the tender age of ten.
His advisers must have felt these ceremonies would assure the public that this
youth possessed the mandate to rule. The grandest rituals, consequently, were
those honoring Tokugawa ancestors at Nikkō. Their vast scope and astronomi-

1.3. Main Hall, Rinnōji, Nikkō, 1647. Photograph by author.
cal cost can be understood when considering that a short time later, between
1688 and 1696, a major part of the bakufu’s budget was expended on temple and
shrine repair, with over 62 percent of that amount designated for Nikkō (Bodart-
Bailey 2006, 186).
Among these expenses at Nikkō was upkeep for Iemitsu’s mausoleum, the
Taiyūin Reibyō on a site adjacent to the Nikkō Tōshōgū, which was completed
in 1653, shortly after Ietsuna was appointed shogun. Representative of the gran-
deur of these rituals is one held at Taiyū’in on the important Buddhist memorial
occasion of the twenty-first anniversary of Iemitsu’s death in 1671. The cen-
terpiece of this ceremony was a newly dedicated statue of the historical bud-
dha Shaka (Skt. Śākyamuni) carved by Kōjō, the twenty-fifth-generation head
of the Seventh Avenue Atelier of Kyoto.11 Shaka presided because the kami that
Iemitsu had become upon deification after death was deemed a manifestation
of this Buddhist deity. A record of this event for posterity was created soon
after in the form of a set of three large hanging scrolls (plate 1). The central
scroll, illustrated in plate 1, shows the main ceremony with the statue of Shaka
on an elaborate altar at the front of the ceremonial space in the main shrine at
Taiyūin.12 It gives some idea of the grandeur of this event, which lasted many
days. In 1655, the bakufu had ordered Rinnōji to become a monzeki. Conse-
quently, as a means of publicly demonstrating the legitimacy of Tokugawa rule,
the prince who served as Rinnōji’s ceremonial abbot was seated on a dais to the

right of the statue, while those from three important imperial Kyoto temples
sat on the opposite side. They presided over an audience of monks, nobles, and
high-ranking samurai. The lower half of the painting portrays ancient imperial
court music (gagaku) and dance (bugaku), originally imported from China and
Korea around the eighth century and an integral part of all state functions and
religious ceremonies, both Buddhist and Shinto, ever since.
The fifth shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, under whose supervision the final
phase of Tokugawa-supported temple building occurred, is a much derided fig-
ure, known by detractors as the “Dog Shogun” because one of his Laws of Com-
passion forbade the killing of wild dogs.13 Unlike other shoguns-to-be, whose
youthful education emphasized training in the martial arts under the tutelage of
male mentors, he grew up immersed in books under the guidance of his mother,
Keishōin (1627–1705), because, as the fourth son of Tokugawa Iemitsu, he was
never expected to become a shogun. Born the daughter of a Kyoto greengrocer,
Keishōin was adopted at a young age into the Honjō family of courtiers, where
her mother was a servant. Keishōin profoundly influenced her son’s attitudes to-
wards his subjects after he assumed the title of shogun. She encouraged him to
pursue Confucian studies, so he grew to prefer painting and calligraphy to mar-
tial arts (Bodart-Bailey 2006, 17, 215). She was also a fervent devotee of Shingon
Buddhism and ingrained Buddhist values in her son as well. Because she was a
commoner by birth Tsunayoshi felt sympathy for the plight of commoners, an
attitude not shared by prior shoguns (Bodart-Bailey 2006, 17–36).
When Tsunayoshi became shogun, he methodically began to implement radi-
cal and often unpopular policies that reflected his religious and philosophical
values and made his sovereignty a turning point in Edo-period history. His rule
coincided with the era known as Genroku (1688–1704), still celebrated as the
time when Japanese culture reached an apogee in the arts, intellectual schol-
arship, commerce, and material extravagance, especially among urban com-
moners. The government, though, was then entering into a prolonged period of
financial hardship, which Tsunayoshi unsuccessfully sought to mitigate.
Under his directives, for the first time all citizens, including commoners, were
encouraged to learn both Buddhism and Confucian values. Tsunayoshi pro-
moted both ideologies because he believed “both were essential to his policy
of producing a less violent and better-educated society” (Bodart-Bailey 2006,
215). He taught Confucian values to his warrior vassals to transform them into
Confucian bureaucrats with loyalties to the state rather than to their own power
bases and taught them Buddhism because it stressed compassion and nonvio-
lence. Influenced by the teachings of Chinese Confucian scholars then living in
self-imposed exile in Japan, Tsunayoshi came to believe that educating common
people also bettered society, and he emphasized adherence to the Confucian
tenet of filial piety, as well as Buddhism (Bodart-Bailey 2006, 215–224). Com-

1.4. Bronze lantern at Hōryūji,
Nara, 1694. Photograph by author.
moner temples that elucidate the influence of his precepts will be discussed in
chapter 3.
To help instill Buddhist values in the populace at large, Tsunayoshi autho-
rized the construction and repair of buildings at many famous old temple com-
pounds frequented by commoners.14 To publicly proclaim his role as benefac-
tor of the projects, he often placed dedicatory monuments prominently within
these temples’ grounds. One of these is a bronze lantern he had erected in 1694
in the main precincts of Hōryūji in Nara (fig. 1.4) to commemorate his role in
the restoration of the temple’s famed seventh-century pagoda and to acknowl-
edge display of Hōryūji’s treasures at a temple in the city of Edo at that time
(Kasumi Kaikan 2000, 91).
That the temple held a public display of its treasures for viewers who actu-
ally had to pay to see them (this practice, known as degaichō, will be discussed
further in chapter 3) is a significant point because it demonstrates one of Tsu-
nayoshi’s most important initiatives: getting sources other than the bakufu trea-
sury to pay for major temple reconstruction at nationally important institutions.
Knowing that the bakufu could not afford to fund this and other badly needed
reconstruction projects, he began allowing temples to raise their own money.
He also required daimyo to use their own increasingly scarce funds for his tem-

ple and shrine projects, especially those that protected the Tokugawa clan or
served as symbols of Tokugawa authority in the spiritual realm (Bodart-Bailey
2006, 208–210). Hōryūji had been founded with imperial family patronage, so
Tsunayoshi’s placement of a bronze lantern in the center of its main compound
visually connected the imperial family with that of the Tokugawa house. His
lantern drew attention to this connection through an inscription identifying
its donors and by incorporating easily recognizable symbols: crests of both the
families of the shogun (trefoil leaf) and that of his mother’s premarital adopted
family of Kyoto, the courtier house of Honjō (three rows of interconnected dia-
monds), who were distant relatives of the imperial family.
The shogun’s mother herself also sponsored many temple-rebuilding proj-
ects with money she obtained from her son. One of these is Yoshiminedera, in
the western Arashiyama suburbs of Kyoto. This temple is a Shingon-sect affili-
ate and is temple number twenty on the Saikoku Junrei (west country’s thirty-
three-temple pilgrimage circuit). The circuit was in use by the tenth century
by pilgrims seeking spiritual merit from veneration of one of Buddhism’s most
beloved deities, the bodhisattva Kannon. The number thirty-three corresponds
with the number of Kannon’s manifestations described in chapter twenty-five of
the Lotus Sutra, which the Tendai sect revered most highly and which has been
the text most commonly read in Japan since Buddhism’s introduction there. In
easy-to-understand language, the sutra espouses the ability of everyone to attain
enlightenment instantaneously through pure belief.15 Known as the compas-
sionate bodhisattva, Kannon has always been the most widely worshiped deity
not only in Japan, but also throughout East Asia, and is prominently featured in
over eighty of Buddhism’s sacred texts.
Yoshiminedera is one of the most beautiful temples on this pilgrimage route,
which became popular among commoner laity in the seventeenth century (pil-
grimage sites are discussed more fully in chapter 4). Its buildings sit nestled on
a hillside in the mountains west of Kyoto, surrounded by flowering trees and
bushes in spring and radiant foliage in autumn. Fires consumed the temple’s
buildings in the late medieval period, but during the seventeenth century the
compound was restored. Its tahōtō pagoda, a distinctive circular tower with a
square roof that symbolizes the “five elements” in the Japanese Buddhist uni-
verse (earth, water, fire, wind, and sky), was reconstructed first in 1621 (fig. 1.5).
Adjacent to the pagoda stands the temple’s most famous feature, a remarkable,
ancient, dragon-shaped pine tree whose boughs stretch laterally 65 feet in two
directions. This tree is said to have been planted by Keishōin herself. She had a
special fondness for the temple from her youth, when she visited it often with her
adopted parents. She donated funds for the tree, the temple’s bronze bell, copies
of Buddhist sutras, and various worship halls between about 1685 and 1705, as
prayers to Kannon to protect her son during his reign as shogun. Virtually all of

1.5. View of the Dragon Pine Tree and Tahōtō Pagoda at Yoshiminedera, Kyoto. Pagoda dedicated
in 1621. Photograph by author.
the major buildings at the temple today date to this era of reconstruction. Both
Keishōin and Tsunayoshi also dedicated over twelve hundred personal objects
to the temple during their lifetimes, and a mausoleum containing Keishōin’s
hair was constructed shortly after her death.
Donated objects include a simple devotional painting of the bodhisattva Kan-
non by Tsunayoshi himself, a charming, elegantly brushed scroll that testifies
to his artistic talent (fig. 1.6). Standard painting dictionaries list his teacher as
Kano Yasunobu (1613–1685), one of the highest-ranking professional painters of
the Kano school, who were the official painters to the bakufu (A. Sawada 1987,
428). Yasunobu was the younger brother and painting pupil of Kano Tan’yū
(1602–1674), the brilliant head of the main branch of this school. This hereditary
lineage of artists had been founded in the Muromachi period and under Tan’yū’s
leadership in the seventeenth century grew so powerful with shogunal support
that they established branch ateliers throughout the country to serve regional
daimyo and teach aspiring local artists officially sanctioned styles.
Tsunayoshi’s painting shows his mastery of this style, with its combination
of fine wire-line brushwork, dark, angular outlines, and ink washes. These
features reveal the Kano school indebtedness to ink-painting traditions of
China, introduced to Japan in the Muromachi period, which the Kano masters
adopted and perpetuated. Tsunayoshi’s painting is unusual, however, because it
appears to represent a nonstandard form of the bodhisattva Kannon. Normally,

1.6. The fifth shogun, Tokugawa
Tsunayoshi (1646–1709). Kannon
Bodhisattva, late sixteenth or early
seventeenth century. Hanging scroll;
ink and colors on paper, 215 × 60.5 cm.
Yoshiminedera, Kyoto Prefecture.
artists strove to follow iconographic models because correct representation of

the deities assured the efficacy of the replica. In addition to the thirty-three
standard forms of Kannon mentioned in the Lotus Sutra, the Shingon sect re-
vered seven other Tantric forms, distinguished by their multiple limbs or heads.
Tsunayoshi’s figure has four arms, identifying it as an esoteric form, which is
logical since the temple for which he painted it is Shingon. But which particular
manifestation of Kannon he represented is less clear. He probably was depicting
Juntei (Skt. Cundī) Kannon, an incarnation with many arms, usually eighteen,
though occasionally fewer (see plate 26 for a more standard representation),
because this form of the bodhisattva represents her as a mother goddess, a fit-
ting manifestation of the deity to donate to a temple so closely associated with
his own mother.

1.7. Main Hall at Kiyomizudera, Kyoto, 1633. Photograph by author.
In addition to erecting temples that had personal associations with their fam-
ily, beginning with the second shogun and peaking during the rule of the third,
the bakufu had allocated huge sums to over one hundred temple and shrine
reconstruction projects in Kyoto and elsewhere, especially for religious insti-
tutions that had served as sect headquarters or as important pilgrimage sites,
including many associated with the deposed Toyotomi family. From the time
of Ieyasu, such projects constituted an important component of broad-ranging
bakufu policies for simultaneously controlling Buddhism and creating splendid
monuments as symbols of Tokugawa authority.16 This massive effort to refurbish
the nation’s religious monuments actually continued through the rule of the fifth
shogun, after which time the bakufu coffers had run dry. While it lasted, these
efforts resulted in the construction of many majestic buildings at Japan’s most
famous temples, many of which still stand today and greatly color our perception
of the material culture of premodern Japanese Buddhist institutions. Among
these is the dramatic, elevated Main Hall of Kiyomizudera in Kyoto (fig. 1.7), a
temple affiliated with the Hossō (Ch. Faxiang) or “Consciousness Only” (Yushiki
shū) sect. This sect, one of the two oldest and the most influential of the six old
Nara-based Japanese Buddhist sects, emphasizes intense studies of particular
texts to discover the true nature of reality, as distinguished from the outward
appearance of worldly things. Reconstructed in 1633, Kiyomizudera remains one
of the city’s great scenic attractions as well as a popular pilgrimage site.17

Shogunate-Sponsored Temples in Seventeenth-Century Edo
Concurrent with their reconstruction of temples elsewhere in the country,

the early Tokugawa shoguns also erected temples in and around their home
base in the Kanto District of eastern Japan, centered in present-day Tokyo. The
Tokugawa clan acquired this land in 1590 when Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered his
general, Tokugawa Ieyasu, to administer the region, far from his ancestral power
base, in an unsuccessful effort to prevent a threat to his power. At the time
Ieyasu took charge, the area held only scattered settlements and marshland,
though it had been a bustling castle town during the fifteenth century. Ieyasu
quickly began restoring and expanding Edo, building canals and reclaiming
land, especially after assuming national leadership in 1603, the year he made Edo
the administrative capital of the country. Ieyasu and his advisers planned the
city with an imposing castle at the center of a vast spiral, surrounded by distinct
sectors for commerce, religious institutions, entertainment, and separate resi-
dential neighborhoods for the various social classes of its citizenry.
They designed the city to best serve the needs of its most important residents:
the shogun and thousands of his personal vassals and bakufu administrators;
Tokugawa family members; daimyo from throughout the realm, who numbered
around 240 and who, from the reign of the third shogun, the bakufu required to
reside within the city for part of each year; and numerous daimyo retainers and
family members (families were required to live in Edo continuously, as hostages,
to guarantee daimyo allegiance to Tokugawa rule). To provide services for these
samurai, numerous commoners of the artisan and merchant classes (chōnin, or
urban commoners), their families, and other service personnel such as enter-
tainers and geisha were encouraged to make the city their home.
Edo grew rapidly, covering about 63 square kilometers by 1670 and nearly 80
square kilometers by the mid-nineteenth century, with a population estimated
at between 800,000 and 1.3 million people by the early eighteenth century.18 Be-
cause of their high status, the districts designated for the samurai covered much
larger land areas of the city than those for the commoners, whose residences
and shops occupied much more densely packed, less desirable terrain. Unfor-
tunately, not much of the old city survives, having been wiped out by repeated
fires, earthquakes, typhoons, and bombings during World War II. Still, enough
structures, Edo-period paintings and prints, and written records survive to sug-
gest its premodern appearance.
Influenced by advice from his spiritual mentor, Tenkai, Ieyasu embraced Bud-
dhism’s promise of offering protective powers to political rulers and their capi-
tal cities. So in addition to designing the city for practicality and convenience,
from the beginning he included Buddhist institutions. In 1598, Ieyasu relocated
a small, preexisting Jōdo-sect temple, Zōjōji, to its present site, then the south-

west sector of the city near the gateway to the Tōkaidō, the main highway that
connected the imperial capital of Kyoto to Edo. He elevated the temple’s status
by designating it his family’s bodaiji (mortuary temple), a place for honoring
the souls of deceased ancestors, although he stipulated that his own remains be
interred at Nikkō, as already mentioned.
Around the same time, the monks of another ancient local temple, Sensōji,
popularly known as the Asakusa Kannon temple, after the name of the district
in which it was situated, suggested that their temple’s location in the northeast
quadrant and the power of its central icon could also offer protection to the re-
gime (Hur 2000, 1–3). Ieyasu agreed and allotted it a stipend to conduct prayer
rituals for protection of his family and their success as rulers. Sensōji, a Tendai-
sect affiliate, is the oldest temple of the region, said to have been founded by two
brothers in 628 who discovered a small golden statue of the bodhisattva Kannon
while fishing and erected a temple at that spot. Over the centuries, many legends
told of the miraculous powers of this icon, so Ieyasu’s selection of this temple to
protect his family must have emerged from his belief in its efficacy.
Both Zōjōji and Sensōji also helped ensure the city’s prosperity by contain-
ing any bad karma that might emanate from the defilement of neighborhoods
in their vicinity: red-light entertainment zones, the residential district for out-
casts, and the shogun’s execution ground (Hur 2000, 103). From the viewpoint
of Western religious practices, which require allegiance to a single faith, this
custom of invoking the pious assistance of temples associated with two different
Buddhist sects may seem strange. Yet from the Japanese Buddhist perspective,
it simply increased the chances for spiritual benefits by allowing for divine aid
from diverse sources.
Ieyasu and his Buddhist advisers carefully considered the placement of these
temples in relation to the city as a whole because of the common belief in the
protective powers of religious institutions to ward off the potential bad effects
emanating from unlucky directions. This practice, though ostensibly Buddhist,
stems from earlier influences on Buddhism of Chinese Daoism (Taoism), a set
of beliefs and practices that emerged around the same time in China as Con-
fucianism.19 The Daoist worldview (based on the concept of the Dao, or “the
Way”) envisions the universe as an infinite void from which all matter appeared,
variously possessed of complementary yin (female) and yang (male) forces of
energy (Ch. qi; Jp. chi), which governed the five elements (wood, metal, fire,
water, and earth). It evolved into a complex, formal, ritual-oriented religion with
many sectarian divisions featuring supernatural deities and spirit mediums who
serve as mediators between humans and the unseen divine powers of the Daoist
universe. Daoism engendered the creation of practices to assure personal pro-
tection and benefits, including health, longevity, and even immortality. Some-
times Daoist practitioners utilized geomancy (Ch. fengshui) to protect places

endangered by their proximity to evil forces.20 Daoists created hagiographies for
historical figures, deities, and immortals who gained supernatural powers and
immortality by engaging in Daoist ritual procedures. Daoism entered Japan as
early as the seventh century through multifarious routes, and its emphasis on
ritual recitation, divination, and ritual use of talismans became incorporated
into Shinto, Buddhism, and imperial court rites.21
Following Daoist guidelines, for example, planners for Kyoto back in the late
eighth century carefully sited the few temples allowed to be built in the vicinity
of the new capital city at its four corners, so as to surround it with a protective
barrier. The northeast was guarded by the Tendai headquarters of Enryakuji
atop Mount Hiei (the most unlucky direction). The temple protecting the north-
west was Kuramadera, and Tōji (eastern temple), the Shingon headquarters, and
Saiji (western temple) protected the southeast and southwest directions, respec-
tively. Ieyasu envisioned his city as Japan’s eastern capital in an effort to equate
his new city with the old imperial capital of Kyoto, known then simply as Mi-
yako (The Capital). Thus he intentionally located temples in spiritually strategic
locations to mirror the placement of temples in Kyoto. Zōjōji retained its affilia-
tion with the shogunal family throughout the Edo period, but in 1625, Sensōji’s
status was usurped by bakufu construction of Kan’eiji, a new, grander Tendai
temple complex. After that time (as discussed in chapter 3), Sensōji prospered
as a type of new urban temple intimately tied to the life of Edo’s townspeople.
These two bakufu temples, Zōjōji and Kan’eiji, continued to function as both
personal and national symbols of Tokugawa hegemony for the remainder of
the Edo period, and both became repositories for the gravesites of most of the
Tokugawa shoguns.
When Ieyasu designated Zōjōji as the official mortuary temple for his clan,
he also made it the main temple of the Jōdo sect in the whole of eastern Japan,
naming it the sect’s Great Headquarters (Dai Honzan). With this moniker, he
challenged the supremacy of the much older Jōdo-sect head temple of Chion’in
in Kyoto, which was thereafter renamed the sect’s General Headquarters (Sō
Honzan) (Kojiro 1986, 43). The bakufu also created Edo-based administrative
head temples for other sects as well as regional liaison headquarter temples, cre-
ating an administrative pyramid structure from which they could better oversee
and control all Buddhist institutions (Williams 2000, 49–60).
In its heyday, Zōjōji covered 85,000 square meters (21 acres) and included
forty-eight different structures. As a head temple, it served as a training monas-
tery for priests. It also became known as one of the great sites of the capital city,
a popular stop for visitors and pilgrims due to its proximity to the main highway
into the city. Most of the temple’s buildings were completed during the reign
of the third shogun, Iemitsu, one of his many large construction projects that
helped bankrupt the shogunal treasury. The only original structure remaining

today at the compound is the temple’s ornate, two-story, Chinese-style main
Salvation Gate (Sangedatsu mon) dedicated in 1621, the first year of Iemitsu’s
rule (H. Watanabe 2001, 28). All other buildings were lost to air raids in 1945.
The appearance of these lost buildings is preserved in a set of folding screens
commissioned in the mid-seventeenth century by supporters of Iemitsu.22 In the
detail from the screens seen in figure 1.8, the shogun is depicted, albeit hidden
within a palanquin in front of Zōjōji’s main gate, accompanied by a long official
retinue en route to pay respects at the elaborate Taitokuin Reibyō mausoleum
complex dedicated to Iemitsu’s father, Hidetada, located to the left of Zōjōji.
Iemitsu was also responsible for replacing Sensōji as a Tokugawa family tem-
ple with Kan’eiji, founded in 1625, whose grand appearance competed with that
of Zōjōji.23 Iemitsu planned Kan’eiji in consultation with the distinguished Bud-
dhist teacher Tenkai, who left his post at Rinnōji at Nikkō for this purpose. Its
name was derived from the Kan’ei era (1624–1644), the imperial reign era (nengō)
in which it was constructed. The shogun erected Kan’eiji to create a new power
center for Tendai Buddhism in eastern Japan that would rival the Tendai com-
plex at Mount Hiei, northeast of Kyoto — something the small, popular, older
Sensōji could not do. Like Zōjōji, Kan’eiji included an associated Shinto shrine
complex, the Ueno Tōshōgū Reibyō, a mortuary shrine to Iemitsu’s grandfather,
Ieyasu. Also, to make Kan’eiji equal in status to Zōjōj, the bakufu demoted their
somewhat remote family temple of Kitain in nearby Kawagoe and designated
this new institution, in the heart of Edo, as the head temple for the Tendai sect
in eastern Japan. To show support for Iemitsu, numerous daimyo were required
to donate funds for construction of many of its buildings, with most completed
by 1639, although the temple’s main hall was finished decades later, in 1697 (H.
Watanabe 2001, 30).
Kan’eiji sits northeast of the castle on the hilly grounds of what is today Ueno
Park, a site chosen using the same principles of Chinese geomancy that had led
the shogunate to accept Sensōji’s location as protection for Edo Castle from
this unlucky direction, but Tenkai and Iemitsu had a grander scheme in mind.
Because Kan’eiji lay in the same directional proximity to the castle, as did En-
ryakuji on Mount Hiei to Kyoto’s imperial palace, they adapted the name of that
famous religious center for the new temple’s site, calling it Tōeizan (Mount Hiei
of the East) in an attempt to equate the city of Edo with that of Kyoto and the
power of the Tokugawa shoguns with that of the emperors. Tenkai reinforced
this comparison and the implied appropriation of Tokugawa authority over
Buddhism by naming some of the individual buildings at Kan’eiji after famous
religious sites in and around the imperial capital (Smith and Poster 1986, pl. 11
commentary).
Additionally, the Tokugawa sought to demonstrate their authority over not
only the religious and imperial domains, but also the Toyotomi military rulers

1.8. Anonymous painter of the Kano school. Zōjōji, from Views of Edo (Edo zu byōbu), mid-
seventeenth century. Detail of the left screen in a pair of six-panel screens; ink, colors, and gold
on paper. National Museum of Japanese History, Sakura, Chiba.
they had displaced. Thus one of the buildings at Kan’eiji was a replica of Chiku-
bushima, a site closely identified with Toyotomi patronage, an island sanctuary
dedicated to the Buddhist deity Benzaiten (Skt. Sarasvatī) in Lake Biwa. They re-
created this potent symbol of political power adjacent to Kan’eiji on an artificial
island in Shinobazu Pond (Watsky 2004, 269–272).
Few of Kan’eiji’s early buildings survive. One that does is the single-story,
red-lacquered Kiyomizu Hall, founded in 1631 and moved to its present site in
1694. The building is named after its more famous namesake of Kyoto, Kiyo-
mizudera (see fig. 1.7 above), whose restoration Iemitsu also had ordered. Tenkai

had enshrined within the hall a statue of the bodhisattva Kannon, obtained
from Kyoto’s Kiyomizudera. The temple remains popular to this day, especially
among women praying for success in child rearing.
Kan’eiji’s five-story pagoda, dedicated in 1631, also survives, although the pres-
ent structure is a slightly later replacement because the original burned down
shortly after completion. Funds for the original construction came from an im-
portant daimyo and shogunal adviser, Doi Toshikatsu (1573–1644), who also
funded the existing replacement, consecrated in 1639. Originally, the pagoda
belonged to the Tōshōgū Shrine part of the complex, but in the Meiji period,
when the new imperial government ordered Shinto shrines and Buddhist tem-
ples to become completely separate religious institutions, it came under the ju-
risdiction of Kan’eiji. The interior originally contained statues created by Kōyū,
the twenty-second master carver of Kyoto’s Seventh Avenue Atelier, who was
the son of Kōshō, who sculpted Hideyoshi’s original Great Buddha (Sakai-shi
Hakubutsukan 1997, 97). Scholars believe the existing statues of the interior date
from this 1639 reconstruction and attribute them to Kōon (d. 1682), the twenty-
third master sculptor of Kyoto’s Seventh Avenue Atelier, who succeeded to this
title in 1631 (Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan 1997, 13–14, 97). One of these statues is
illustrated here (fig. 1.9). There are four statues in all, each corresponding to a
cardinal direction. Not always the same, in this case these directional buddhas
are: Shaka (north), Yakushi (east), the future buddha Miroku (Skt. Maitreya;
south), and Amida (west). These small, elegant, gilt-wood statues are consid-
ered today among the very best surviving examples of Edo-period Buddhist
sculptures. Their graceful proportions and delicate modeling closely resemble
fine Buddhist imagery of the Kamakura period, which enjoyed a resurgence in
popularity during the seventeenth century, no doubt because sculptors of the
time had a chance to study the older pieces during the many temple restora-
tion projects then underway. In 1998, the Tokyo National Museum completed
extensive repairs to these images, restoring the original brilliance of their gold
leaf and painted surfaces. They are now on long-term loan to that museum.
In addition to temples built for the personal benefit of the Tokugawa clan,
the shoguns donated land and offered funds for construction or restoration of
many other Edo-area temples of various sectarian denominations so that the
commoner population of the city could have places to worship. By the mid-
seventeenth century, hundreds of these religious establishments could be found
in Edo. But in 1657, the last year of the Meireki era (1655–1657), a terrible fire
obliterated around 60 percent of the city, including most of Edo Castle, and
killed around 100,000 people. Some 350 temples and shrines were destroyed in
the blaze (H. Watanabe 2001, 25). This event precipitated much reorganization
of the urban area to reduce building and population density, reducing the likeli-
hood of future horrific calamities. Many residential quarters for daimyo and

1.9. Attributed to
Kōon (d. 1682). Amida
Buddha; one of the
four buddhas from
the pagoda at Kan’eiji,
Tokyo, ca. 1639.
Wood with lacquer,
gold foil, and crystal
eyes. Height: 38.3 cm.
Now owned by the
Tokyo Metropolitan
Construction Bureau
(Tōkyō-tō Kensetsu
Kyoku). Photograph
courtesy of the Sakai
City Museum.
townspeople, the large Yoshiwara red-light district, and religious institutions

were relocated to new neighborhoods at the city’s periphery.
Among the temples founded soon after the fire in the city’s far western
outskirts (now Setagaya Ward) was a Jōdo-sect temple, Jōshinji (formal name
Kuhonzan Yuizainenbutsu’in Jōshinji). The fourth shogun, Tokugawa Ietsuna,
donated land for this temple in 1678 at the behest of the founding priest, Ka
seki Shōnin (1617–1694), on the site of the ruins of Okuzawa Castle, one of the
strongholds of the Hōjō clan, the vanquished warriors whose domain Hideyoshi
had reassigned to Tokugawa Ieyasu.24 From its inception, the temple served as
an important regional training monastery for Jōdo-sect monks under the juris-
diction of Zōjōji.
A story passed down by the temple indicates that Kaseki, as a young man of
eighteen, made a vow to carve on his own nine statues representing nine mani-
festations of the buddha Amida (Kuhon Butsu). After these statues, the temple
has come to be popularly known simply as “Kuhon Butsu.” These buddhas pre-
side over nine levels of the Pure Land Paradise, where the souls of believers are
reborn according to their state of purity at the time of death and their level of

1.10. Kaseki Shōnin (1617–1694). Three of the nine Amida Buddhas at Kuhon Butsu Jōshinji, Tokyo,
1667. Wood with gilt and polychrome. Height: approx. 276 cm. Photograph by author.
understanding of the Buddha’s teachings. Traditional accounts state that Kaseki

completed them all by age fifty-one (1667) (fig. 1.10). The temple also credits him
with carving the central statue (Shaka) enshrined in its main hall of worship
(completed in 1698, four years after his death).
No records survive to indicate how or under whose tutelage Kaseki studied
Buddhist statue making, and only scant, anecdotal information exists about his
life. He apparently grew up in Musashi (the old name for the Kantō District),
where he was first initiated into the priesthood at the Jōdo temple of Shimousa
Daiganji. While there, a passage he read in the Net of Brahma Sutra (Bonmōkyō)
describing nine statues of the buddha Amida inspired him to create his set.
Later, he moved to Edo, where he resided at the Jōdo temple of Reiganji in Fu-
kagawa, one of the newly designated temple districts in the eastern part of the
city. At that time, he began saving three coins (sen) every day until 1664, when
he finally accumulated enough money to pay for materials to make the first
statue. By 1667, with the help of his disciple, Kaoku Shōnin, he finally achieved
his wish of completing the nine statues, each approximately three meters in
height — a standard size, known in Japanese as jōroku, for monumental-sized
Buddhist images. The multiple woodblock construction Kaseki used to fashion
his statues betrays the training of a professional Buddhist image carver, but
since many priests of that time studied painting and sculpture as part of their
monastic training, the anecdote has merit.25

1.11. Halls of the Three Buddhas (San Butsudō), Kuhon Butsu Jōshinji, Tokyo, 1698. Photograph
by author.
Kaseki died before buildings to house the statues could be completed. His
disciple Kaoku, who became the temple’s second abbot, enshrined them in three
buildings known as the Halls of the Three Buddhas (Sanbutsudō), dedicated in
1698 (fig. 1.11). These halls present unique visualizations of Amida’s paradises.
Each contains three massive Amida Buddha statues, each depicted with a differ-
ent mudra (prescribed hand gestures) that identifies over which of the nine lev-
els of the Pure Land Paradise they preside. Major restoration of these buildings
took place in 1983, at which time the roofs were changed to copper. Regardless of
the identity of the maker, these majestic statues and their remarkable buildings
confirm the enduring popularity of belief in the Pure Land that began during
the Heian period, when many such sets were apparently commissioned. Only
one other set survives today, from the late eleventh or early twelfth century, en-
shrined in a single long hall at the temple of Jōrūriji in the outskirts of Nara.26
Throughout the Edo period, Jōshinji added new buildings to its grounds, and,
like many other religious institutions in need of funds for these endeavors and
for the upkeep of the temple in general, it sought distinctive means to garner
popular support. One way it did this was to host a colorful pageant celebrating
the welcome to the Pure Land (omen kaburi) once every three years, on August
16. One source credits Kaoku, the second abbot, with its initiation (Tamamuro
1992, 376). This festival, designated an intangible cultural property by the city
of Tokyo, reenacts the dying moments of Pure Land devotees, who chant the

name of the Buddha (nenbutsu) as they enter the Pure Land Paradise. During
the festival, participants cross a bridge from the main, west-facing, hall, which
symbolizes the material world, to the Halls of the Three Buddhas, representing
Amida’s Pure Land Paradise.27
The last decade of the seventeenth century, when Jōshinji’s Halls of the Three
Buddhas and its Main Mall were constructed, coincided with the reign of the
fifth shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, who contributed to a building boom in Edo
by using increasingly scarce bakufu funds on temple construction in the city as
a way of promoting Buddhism among the populace there. Temples sponsored
by him include the Shingon temple of Chisokuin, where his mother’s favorite
monk, Ryōken (1611–1687), resided and which was located conveniently close to
the castle. Although Tsunayoshi sponsored a grand rebuilding of this temple
in 1695 (renaming it Gojiin), it was not rebuilt after a devastating fire in 1717
(Shivley 1970, 105).
A more important temple whose construction Tsunayoshi authorized and
that has survived to this day is the Shingon temple Gokokuji. Tsunayoshi
founded it on behalf of his mother in 1681, designating it the headquarters for
the Buzan school of the Shingon sect in eastern Japan. Ryōken became its first
abbot. The hipped and gabled Main Hall, dedicated to Nyōirin Kannon (Skt.
Cintāmani cakra Avalokiteśvara), one popular incarnation of the bodhisattva
Kannon, enshrines Keishōin’s favorite statue of the deity. The building survives
from the time of its original completion in 1697. Despite the temple’s grand scale,
because Tsunayoshi gave the project high priority, construction of the entire
complex took a mere six months.
The original temple compound is included in the most famous of many illus-
trated woodblock printed gazetteers published in the Edo period, the Illustrated
Guide to Famous Places of Edo (Edo meisho zue), published between 1834 and
1836 by a ward representative of the city, Saitō Gesshin (1804–1878) (fig. 1.12).
He benefited from extensive research undertaken by his father and grandfather.
Hasegawa Settan (1778–1843), an artist who specialized in this genre, designed
the book’s illustrations.28 Even after Tsunayoshi’s death, this temple retained its
importance and was accorded special privileges. However, like other temples,
its survival became dependent upon new funding sources as bakufu support
dwindled in the eighteenth century. In 1730, it became the first temple in Edo to
receive permission from the shogunate to hold public lotteries in order to raise
money for its upkeep. Like other temples of Edo that sought to attract numer-
ous visitors, it too eventually succumbed to the need to erect religious-themed
amusement areas within its precincts and constructed a mini-pilgrimage route
replicating the thirty-three temples on the Saikoku Kannon circuit and a spa-
cious garden featuring a miniature replica of a holy destination — Mount Fuji
(Fujisan).29 But since the early Meiji period, the temple has thrived with elite

1.12. Hasegawa Settan (1778–1843). Overview of Gokokuji from the Illustrated Guide to Famous
Places of Edo (Edo meisho zue), 1834–1836. Woodblock-printed book in ink on paper, each sheet
28.9 × 21.2 cm. Collection of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken),
Kyoto. Photograph by author.
support. From 1873, it has served as the mortuary temple for the Japanese impe-
rial family.
By the end of Tsunayoshi’s reign, the government’s financial trouble had
worsened considerably, exacerbated by a series of calamitous natural disasters.
First, a terrible earthquake, the strongest ever recorded, devastated Edo in 1703.
That was followed by a tsunami several days later. As a result of the quake and
subsequent fires, Edo Castle, the Tokugawa shogun’s strategic headquarters, was
heavily damaged and around three hundred thousand people died. Then, in
1707, Mount Fuji erupted (Bodart-Bailey 2006, 255–266). These disasters pre-
cipitated an already dire financial plight, so temples were more or less left to

their own devices from this time on, hence the appearance of Kuhon Butsu’s
festival and Gokokuji’s simulation of pilgrimage sites. Other temples devised
equally creative means to raise money for their upkeep and restoration, as will
be discussed in the following chapters.
The Buddhist temples and related icons introduced in this chapter high-
light the grave importance these early modern political leaders placed on the
patronage of such structures. Their motivations stemmed mainly from dual
impulses: the temples served as potent public, spiritual symbols that proclaimed
the warriors’ authority over the nation’s religious sphere, and, simultaneously,
they functioned as institutions designed for assuring the success and prosper-
ity of the Tokugawa family in their role as rulers of Japan into the future. Yet
the zealous establishment of temples of diverse sects by these rulers, especially
the fifth shogun, also reveals a genuine concern for promoting Buddhism to
encourage peaceful coexistence among all Japanese citizens. Concurrent with
these efforts, other elite members of Japanese society — the imperial family and
the daimyo — were also supporting temple-building projects, in the case of the
latter sometimes by order of the shogun, but often due to sincerity of their faith.
Chapter 2 addresses their considerable efforts.

Chapter Two
Buddhist Temples for the Elites
the many temples introduced in this chapter dispute the widespread as-
sertion that elite supporters of Buddhism in the Edo period contributed little to
the propagation of the faith. Instead, they reveal the stalwart devotion to Bud-
dhism by the elites — aristocrats and high-ranking samurai — whose status and
financial resources enabled them to create significant Buddhist architectural
monuments throughout the country. The temples surveyed reveal various mo-
tivations for temple founding, including political expediency, personal religious
devotion, honoring of deceased family members, and the persuasive powers of
illustrious priests.
Temples for the Nobility

As well as directly sponsoring the construction of temples throughout the sev-
enteenth century, the bakufu took on responsibility for sustaining the numer-
ous temples associated with the imperial family and the nobility. Ever since the
first Minamoto shogun had usurped power from the emperor in the thirteenth
century, aristocratic standards of living had become dependent upon both the
goodwill and the affluence of the successive generations of shoguns and their
advisers. Yet even during periods of deprivation and well into the Edo period,
their patronage of Buddhist institutions persevered. Funding for temples of the
nobility reached a high point during the middle and late seventeenth century
as a result of the generosity and affluence of the shoguns. The shoguns did
this to demonstrate to the Japanese public that they respected the undeniable
prestige of court but also that it was only because of their beneficence that the

court could survive. Nevertheless, the Tokugawa reinforced their legitimacy by
intermarrying with the imperial family, arranging a marriage between Emperor
Gomizunoo and Tōfukumon’in, daughter of the second shogun, Hidetada.
Because of Tōfukumon’in’s connections, her husband Gomizunoo was more
successful than previous emperors in obtaining funding for their varied and
erudite cultural pursuits, which included the patronage of temples of several
different sects (Lillehoj 1996a, 1996b). Gomizunoo’s sponsorship of temples
stemmed from two different impulses. He devoutly believed in the faith, and
his studies encompassed the teachings of diverse sects including Shingon, Ten-
dai, Rinzai Zen, and Jōdo. He even sought religious instruction from newly ar-
rived emigrant Chinese Chan monks who founded the Ōbaku Zen sect in Japan
(discussed later in this chapter). He also desired a sustained livelihood for his
siblings and thirty-three children. Thus he encouraged or required them to
enter imperially founded temples as abbots, abbesses, or prelates, following a
tradition that dates back to the Heian period and that had become common-
place since the nobles became greatly impoverished in the late Muromachi era
(Butler 2002, 36). These monzeki (temples where male clerics of imperial family
descent resided) and ama monzeki (imperial nunneries or convents) prolifer-
ated during the early Edo period, although their numbers then remain unclear,
because many vanished or endured relocation in later centuries.1 The devotional
art these imperial clerics created will be discussed in chapter 6.
While most of Gomizunoo’s relatives who entered the priesthood resided in
temples in or near Kyoto, in 1655 the bakufu appointed Prince Shuchō Hōshin’nō,
Gomizunoo’s third son, to reside in Edo at Kan’eiji and serve jointly as monzeki
abbot for the two highest-ranking official bakufu Tendai temples in eastern
Japan — Kan’eiji in Edo and Rinnōji in Nikkō. Like other symbolic acts intended
to highlight their legitimacy and status, the Tokugawa required this residency
as a way of projecting the image of imperial endorsement for the deification of
the shogunate founders and also to have an imperial prince readily available
to replace an uncooperative emperor (Shivley 1970, 104). Unlike other monzeki
temples of Kyoto and Nara, where imperial family members even now serve as
head priests, the monzeki system at these temples ended with the defeat of the
Tokugawa in 1868.2
Significant building projects accomplished under the auspices of Gomizunoo
and Tōfukumon’in included the restoration of the main buildings at two Shin-
gon imperial temples, the monzeki of Ninnaji and the mortuary temple (bodaiji)
of Sennyūji in Kyoto, both of which had been heavily damaged by civil wars and
fires in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The restoration of
Ninnaji was largely Tōfukumon’in’s personal project. She ordered construction
of a new five-story pagoda, completed in 1644, and the relocation and adapta-
tion of the Hall for State Ceremonies (Shishinden), originally erected in 1613

2.1. Main Hall, Ninnaji, Kyoto. Erected as the Hall for State Ceremonies (Shishinden) at the Imperial
Palace in 1613; modified for use as temple Main Hall in 1637. Photograph by author.
at the imperial palace, for use as the temple’s Main Hall in 1637 (fig. 2.1). The
lattice-wood, horizontally hinged shutters, a typical feature of ancient aristo-
cratic architecture, betrays the original secular use of this graceful and stately
building.
Sennyūji had been the mortuary temple for many emperors since the thir-
teenth century and was used by the imperial family for religious retreats and
funerary and memorial services. Its resurgence came to fruition not only be-
cause of its importance as a resting ground for the souls of past imperial family
members, but also because Gomizunoo and his immediate family admired its
learned seventeenth-century abbot, Joshū Chōrō (1594–1647) (Lillehoj 1996a, 61).
The temple’s new Relic Hall (Shariden; completed 1642) was another adaptive
reuse of a building from the imperial palace. The Main Hall was the last build-
ing in this restoration project to be completed, in 1669.
The following year, the fourth shogun, Ietsuna, commissioned the head of
the Kyoto Kano painting school, Kano Einō (1631–1697), to produce a pictorial
record of the newly rebuilt compound, which Einō completed in 1671.3 This
painting is unusual within the artist’s repertoire because Einō simply created
a record of the appearance of a contemporary temple compound, rather than
depicting buildings within a scroll that tells the story of the founding or history
of an ancient temple or shrine or uses the buildings as a backdrop for a festival
at such a place, which was his more usual practice (fig. 2.2).4 Einō portrayed
Buddhist Temples for the Elites | 47

2.2. Painting by Kano Einō (1631–1697); title inscribed by Kōsen Shōton (1633–1695). Pictorial Record
of the Eastern Mountains (Higashiyama ki). Painting: 1671; inscription: 1670. Handscroll; ink and
light colors on paper, total length: 35.1 cm. Sennyūji, Kyoto.
the buildings in the conventionalized manner he used for his narrative paint-
ings, looking down on the scene from a bird’s-eye view and showing the temple
entrance to the right, at the beginning of the scroll. This perspective is differ-
ent from the way temple and shrine buildings are depicted in popular maplike
pictures of sacred precincts (fig. 2.3) and related drawings that are meant to be
hung on a wall and viewed all at once. Such pictures depict the arrangement of
the buildings with the gate to the complex at the bottom of the picture and the
buildings lined up in a row above that.5 From right to left Einō has painted the
temple gate, followed by the large Main Hall, the Relic Hall, and, within a walled
compound to the left, the palatial, interconnected buildings that constituted the
abbot’s quarters and official chambers for visiting imperial dignitaries.
Kōsen Shōton (Ch. Kao Chuan Xing Tong; 1633–1695), an eminent emigrant
Chinese Zen monk of the Ōbaku Zen sect (he arrived in Japan in 1661 and be-
came the fifth abbot of the sect in 1692) wrote a memoir he titled Record of the
Eastern Mountains (Higashiyama ki) on the first day of the eleventh month of
the year Kanbun 10 (1670) describing a trip he made to the temple that was later
attached to the handscroll depicted in fig. 2.2 (translation below) as its title and
colophon. His commentary describes his impressions of a visit he made to the
temple earlier that year on the twenty-third day of the fourth month, when he
was warmly received by the temple’s eighty-third imperial abbot, Tenkei Shōshū
(d. 1700). Kōsen must have written his commentary as thanks for the hospital-
ity he received. But it originally had nothing to do with the painting, which,
according to the artist’s inscription, was completed only in the third month of
1671, the year following Kōsen’s visit. Tenkei probably had the title for Kōsen’s
commentary, as well as the text itself, appended to the painting when it was

mounted, most likely because Tenkei recognized that praise from an esteemed
Ōbaku monk would serve as a fine record for posterity of the cooperative spirit
that prevailed between the court and bakufu at that time (Kasumi Kaikan 2000,
88). It is also possible, though, that Tenkei asked Kōsen to pen the title especially
for the painting after Einō completed it (Ōtsuki 2006).
Kōsen’s visit to Sennyūji was preceded by those of other Ōbaku dignitaries,
namely its founder and first abbot, Ingen Ryūki (Ch. Yinyuan Longqi; 1592–1673),
and second abbot, Mokuan Shōtō (Ch. Muan Xingtao; 1611–1684).6 Ingen visited
prior to construction of his sect’s headquarters at Manpukuji, south of Kyoto,
probably because of curiosity about the temple’s historical ties to China and to
show respect to the emperor, whose support he needed to establish his sect in
Japan. His successor, Mokuan, probably visited for similar reasons.
Kōsen’s title and inscription reads,
Record of [a Journey to] the Eastern Mountains

Four kurosha7 from our isolated huts of Mount Ōbaku are the mountains known as
Higashiyama [Eastern Mountains]. They are located at the eastern edge of the impe-
rial capital [Kyoto]. Their height approaches the heavens and they protect [the capital
city] from the easterly direction. Their forests are lush and verdant, magnificent to
behold. The area is filled with the spirits of emperors. In this place, a great temple has
been constructed. On the left side of the monastery is a divine spring welling up from
cracks in the rocks. People constructed a pavilion to surround it with a moss-covered
stone enclosure. The spring water is cool, so deep and verdant that the water reflects
whiskers and eyebrows. Even during a drought, the spring never dries up. Most likely,
springs like Dragon Lake [Ch. Longhu] and Tiger Running [Ch. Hupao] at Hangzhou

2.3. Manpukuji Temple Precincts, 1692. Hanging scroll; ink and light colors on paper, 101 × 99.6 cm.
Bunkaden, Manpukuji, Uji.
[in China] do not surpass this one. The temple is named Sennyūji [spring surges up]
after this divine spring. Long ago, to teach the Buddhist Law, Kōbō Daishi established
this temple and subsequently the imperial family supported it. Indeed, its purpose
is to protect the people and bless the country. Also, to serve as mortuary temple for
many generations of imperial family members. Up to now, 444 monks belonging
to the imperial family have resided here to offer prayers for their ancestors. Only
imperial family members are able to serve as monks here. I first visited this place
three years ago [in 1668], to worship the [sacred relic of the] tooth of Buddha, and to
meet the temple’s great abbot, Keikō.8 At that time, the shogun had just completed

restoration of the monastery but he had not yet rebuilt its worship halls. After that,
many times I wanted to visit, but had no opportunity. On the twenty-third day of
the fourth lunar month in the summer of this year [1670], together with my monk-
brothers, I had occasion to travel by litter to the temple Hōon’in for a vegetarian
meal. Therefore, I could extend the journey to visit Sennyūji once more. When I
first entered the gate I beheld painted pillars and sculpted tiles. Then observed the
towering roofs and soaring halls, all so large and interconnected. These halls appear
resplendent and magnificent, as if a heavenly palace of the Buddha has descended to
the earth. The monks who accompanied me commented that without the virtuous,
pious emperor and the powerful shogun, this [magnificent] project could never have
been accomplished. And I said “That is true.” Shortly later we entered the Buddha
Hall where three sacred Buddhist statues are enshrined and we worshiped the golden
images. The ceiling of this hall contains a painted dragon, extraordinary in appear-
ance. An image of the bodhisattva Kannon is painted on the rear wall of the hall.
It reaches about one zhang in height.9 The bodhisattva sits on the bank of the sea.
With eyes like stars, and a face like the moon, that exudes solemnity. The little boy,
Zenzai Dōji [Sudhana], looks up and worships Kannon from beneath the riverbank.
This painting is by Hōin Tany’ū.10 After viewing the painting, we entered the abbot’s
chamber and conferred with the abbot, Master Tenkei. At that time, the master had
just received the purple robe of the abbot’s position. We drank tea with him, and
discussed our feelings after a long period of separation. It was a joyful occasion.
After drinking tea, Master Tenkei took us up into the rear hall to view a painting of
the Sixteen Rakan by the great artist Chanyue.11 Some of the Rakan sit on rocks in
a relaxed position; some sit under trees with legs crossed in lotus posture; some are
seated in meditation; some hold a pagoda; some lean on a staff and smile; and some
lower their heads to read a sutra. Their appearance is strange and unconventional.
However, their impressive manner and virtuous appearance makes them seem alive.
They are indeed rare treasures. After reverently viewing the paintings for a while
I returned along the long corridor to the great chamber of the abbot. Hanging on
the walls were portraits of the great [Chinese] Buddhist masters of the Lu [Jp. Ritsu]
sect, Dao Xuan [596–667] and Lingzhi Yuanzhao [1048–1116], and the founder of the
Shingon sect in Japan, Kōbō Daishi. I praised how Master Tenkei’s moral appearance
and virtuous career resembles that of these honorable masters. He is a great leader of
the country. Is it not true that these paintings capture the essence of the masters they
portray? Alongside the portraits are three large hanging scrolls of ink bamboo by
Great Master Dong.12 Their elegant appearance is delightful to behold. Master Ten-
kei showed us calligraphy by Kōbō Daishi. His silver hook strokes and iron wire lines
are not inferior to those by Zhong and Wang.13 They resemble family heirlooms.
Then I walked with Abbot Tenkei, looking around the whole temple complex. The
scale and layout of this monastery are majestic and splendid. The roof tiles resemble
jade and piles of gold. It’s as if I am drunk on the beauty of flowers and bamboo. Now-

adays, people are too busy with their work. This journey has been totally different
from my last trip here. At that time, I visited the subtemple of Unryū’in. Then, the
Retired Emperor [Gomizunoo] announced an edict, which commanded ten monks
to transcribe the Lotus Sutra in the proper manner, to aid the [spirit of the] previous
emperor in his journey towards the Buddhist paradise in the afterlife. Also for this
purpose, a platform for performing a Buddhist ritual was erected. Pure water was
sprinkled and flowers scattered. So many endless streams of people came from the
four directions to participate in this virtuous endeavor that they filled the road. All
expressed joyous feelings for the Retired Emperor. Their selfless acts [of devotion]
greatly increased their own spiritual merit. They firmly believed that the Retired
Emperor possesses a Buddha Mind and his past actions prove their assertions. Fi-
nally, we returned to the chamber of the abbot, talking at leisure and partaking of
vegetarian food. At that time, a light fragrant breeze swept my face and I heard the
gentle, harmonic singing of birds. Golden crows from the heavenly banks alighted
upon slender willows and wandered around the hall. I told my monk-brothers: “No
sea is big enough to contain a fish large enough to swallow a boat except a broad
sea and nothing can lift up a bird big enough to reach heaven unless it is the violent
wind. So if a large temple in a legendary mountain lacks a virtuous master and if a
virtuous master is without a great temple at the renowned mountain, then the people
cannot be contented. Now, this temple possesses both these things. So the imperial
kingdom and Buddhist Law will last for a thousand and ten thousand years without
any unexpected tragedies. Isn’t this deserving of a great celebration and praise for
the country?” After I returned home, I recorded this.14
Elite Support for Emigrant Chinese Ōbaku Zen Monks

Shogunal and imperial family sponsorship were essential to the successful
transmission of the Ōbaku Zen lineage to Japan in the mid-seventeenth century.
Ōbaku was formed when a group of Chan (Jp. Zen) monks of the Chinese Linji
(Jp. Rinzai) sect from the temple Wanfusi on Mount Huangbo (Huangboshan)
in south China’s Fujian Province fled to Japan to escape tumultuous conditions
in China. They left because they sided with the overthrown, native Chinese
Ming emperor and could not bear to live in their country, overrun by the foreign
Manchu barbarians who established the Qing dynasty in 1644. Although their
religious beliefs derived from the same basic faith as that of the Japanese Rinzai
Zen sect practiced in Japan, they followed significantly different teachings, for
the sect’s practices evolved separately over the centuries in the two countries.
Ōbaku’s eclectic and syncretic teachings incorporated Pure Land beliefs, al-
though these were originally ideologically quite different from Chan. They also
fused common elements of Confucianism, as expounded by the Ming-dynasty
scholar Wang Yangming (1472–1529), Daoism, and Zen Buddhism, which all

emphasized introspective self-cultivation in reclusion and the upholding of
moral values. These were, in short, the ideals of the Chinese literati, China’s
free-thinking intellectuals, many of whom were themselves Ōbaku monks or
lay followers of the sect.
Ōbaku had a remarkably broad appeal in Japan. Not only did it convert large
numbers of followers, but its influence extended to other sects as well. It also
stimulated artistic creativity among makers of Japanese Buddhist devotional
imagery who worked for temples unaffiliated with their sect. Ōbaku’s broadly
humanistic approach to religious teachings also encouraged widespread inter-
est in other aspects of Chinese culture beyond the religious sector, first among
intellectuals and artists seeking deeper understanding of China at a time when
overseas travel by Japanese citizens was forbidden by the bakufu. From the time
of the fifth shogun, Tsunayoshi, interest in Ōbaku intensified, even reaching
commoners, as part of that shogun’s mandate to teach the masses both Bud-
dhism and Confucianism. Tsunayoshi’s close political and Confucian-scholar
advisers, Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu (1658–1714) and Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728), intro-
duced the shogun to Ōbaku teachings. This resulted in a shogunal invitation
to one important Chinese Ōbaku prelate, Yuehfeng Daozhang (Jp. Eppō Dōshō,
1655–1734), to participate in intellectual debates Tsunayoshi hosted at Edo Castle
(Bodart-Bailey 2006, 241). However, by the late Edo period, Ōbaku influence
began to wane, perhaps due to its increasing assimilation into Japanese society
(Baroni 2000, 203).
The Ōbaku monks first settled in Nagasaki, which, until Yokohama became
a treaty port in 1859, was the only city where foreigners could legally reside.
The Ōbaku monk Itsunen (Ch. Yiran, 1601–1668), also a talented painter, ar-
rived first, in 1644, to serve as abbot of Kōfukuji, a Chinese mortuary temple
for resident Chinese traders. He convinced Ingen, then abbot of Wanfusi, to
emigrate. Ingen arrived in Nagasaki in 1654, accompanied by twenty monks and
ten artisans and helpers. Because Ingen was the highest-ranking Chinese Chan
monk to come to Japan in centuries, he was warmly welcomed by the Rinzai
establishment.
Ryōkei Shōsen (1602–1670), a Rinzai monk at the powerful temple of Myōshinji
in Kyoto, played a pivotal role in the sect’s acceptance in Japan. Ingen so im-
pressed Ryōkei that the latter converted to Ōbaku, founding his own temple,
Fumonji, in Osaka. Ryōkei successfully petitioned the fourth shogun, Ietsuna,
to meet Ingen in Edo. Ingen then had an audience with the shogun in 1658. He
was so well received that the following year Ietsuna granted him permission to
establish his own temple in Uji, south of Kyoto. In addition to Tokugawa en-
dorsement, Ōbaku enjoyed the favor of Emperor Gomizunoo. The sect would
not have been so quickly welcomed nor become so thoroughly entrenched in
Japan without this imperial backing. The emperor remained influential among

the high-ranking monks at Kyoto’s powerful Rinzai Zen temples. Ryōkei was
actually Emperor Gomizunoo’s Zen teacher and must have introduced the em-
peror to Ōbaku teachings. Because of the emperor’s exalted status, decorum did
not permit Gomizunoo to meet Ōbaku monks in person (because they were not
Japanese), but he studied and maintained relations with them through written
correspondence. That Ingen and his followers somehow managed to secure sup-
port from these two opposing factions, the shogunate and the imperial family, is
testament to their diplomatic skills. Which of these two groups deserves more
credit for the growth of Ōbaku on Japanese soil remains a point of debate among
contemporary scholars.15
Ingen’s new temple was built on land donated by the shogun, who also pro-
vided him with an annual stipend for its perpetuation. He also funded some
building materials (including teakwood imported from Thailand), supplied car-
penters, and agreed to allow Chinese monks to continue emigrating from China
to train at Ōbaku monasteries and to serve as abbot (this practice continued
until the Chinese-born twenty-first abbot died in 1784) (Baroni 2000, 181–182).
Yet the bakufu did not own the land it bequeathed; it merely exerted its author-
ity that ownership be transferred to the Ōbaku monks. The dispossessed own-
ers were one of the noble families, the Konoe, at whose residence Gomizunoo’s
mother resided and willingly relocated to allow temple construction to begin
(Baroni 2000, 191–192).
Following the Chinese custom of naming the sites of temples after moun-
tains, Ingen named his temple’s site Mount Ōbaku (Ōbakusan; the Japanese
pronunciation of Huangboshan, the mountain upon which his home temple
sat), and the temple itself Manpukuji (the Japanese pronunciation of his Chinese
home temple, Wanfusi). Construction of the compound began in 1661. The of-
ficial dedication occurred in 1663, but building continued until 1693. As seen in
the sketch of the compound depicted in figure 2.3 above, dated 1692, just before
the complex was completed, the main buildings at Manpukuji extend asym-
metrically along a central axis leading from west to east. First encountered is the
Setting-Free Pond (Hōjōchi), followed by the Mountain Gate (Sanmon). After
passing through it, one comes to the Hall of Heavenly Kings (Tennōden), fol-
lowed by the Main Buddha Hall (at Ōbaku temples this is known as the Shakya-
muni Treasure Hall [Daiyūhōden]) and the lecture or Dharma Hall (Hōdō). The
Chinese artisans who accompanied Ingen from China and oversaw construc-
tion designed the buildings in Chinese Ming-period temple style.
At the time Ingen journeyed to Japan, three Buddhist temples existed in Na-
gasaki (Kōfukuji, est. 1621; Fukusaiji, est. 1628; and Sōfukuji, est. 1629), each for
the use of residents from different regions of China, although Japanese citizens
could also pray at these institutions. These came under Ōbaku jurisdiction only
after the establishment of Manpukuji. Their close resemblance to Manpukuji is

2.4. Main Hall, Sōfukuji, Nagasaki, 1646. Photograph by author.
exemplified by Sōfukuji’s Main Hall (Daiyūhōden), completed in 1646 (fig. 2.4).

Its upward-curving tile roofs, bright red painted exterior surfaces, roof orna-
ment of double-onion shape surmounted by a flame, and wooden tablets carved
with the gates’ or buildings’ names set above or flanking the doorway are all fea-
tures commonly found in late Ming south Chinese Chan Buddhist temples. Like
those at all Ōbaku temples, a prominent emigrant Chinese monk penned the
template for this tablet. Here, the calligrapher was Sengai Shōan (1636–1705), a
monk who arrived in Japan in 1657.16 Significantly, Manpukuji’s structures were
left unpainted, perhaps in deference to the large numbers of existing Japanese
Buddhist temples in its immediate vicinity.
As the Ōbaku headquarters, Manpukuji originally served as the sole site at
which ordination of the sect’s monks, nuns, and lay followers could take place.
But in 1670, Manpukuji’s second abbot, Mokuan, established a new ordination
site at Zuishōji, an Ōbaku branch temple in Edo, which served as the sect’s head-
quarters in eastern Japan. Although the complex initially contained a number
of interconnected buildings similar to Manpukuji in layout but smaller in scale,
they did not last long; in fact, the temple compound had to be reconstructed
twice within a century and a half after its establishment due to earthquakes
and fires. But by the Meiji era, the condition of the complex had deteriorated so
much that few buildings remained. Today, all but the beautifully restored Main
Hall (fig. 2.5), whose present form dates to an early nineteenth-century rebuild-
ing (Bunka era, 1804–1818), have vanished. The building’s pristine condition

2.5. Main Hall (Daiyūhōden), Zuishōji, Tokyo, 1670. Photograph by author.
resulted in its complete refurbishment in 1987. From the outside, this building
clearly resembles, on a smaller scale, Manpukuji’s Main Hall, although unlike
that building, its makers were Japanese, rather than Chinese, carpenters. Typi-
cal characteristics of the Ōbaku building style are evident here. These include
manji patterns on the railings,17 curved and carved stone column bases, round
windows, and elegant carvings of peaches in inset panels on the main doorway.
The large, raised sand courtyard in front of the building is a unique feature of
Ōbaku Main Halls. Today it stands within the surrounding temple courtyard as
a small oasis of tranquility within Tokyo’s bustling urban center.
Like Kan’eiji and Zōjōji, which functioned as eastern Japan’s Tendai- and Jōdo-
sect headquarters respectively, Zuishōji gave Ōbaku an important presence in
the political capital. It was strategically located within a district dominated by
large samurai mansions, easily accessible to those high-ranking samurai whose
conversion to their faith the sect sought. Because its compound was smaller than
Manpukuji’s, the Main Hall at Zuishōji functioned as both a Main Hall, where
worship services took place, and Lecture Hall (Hattō), which was a separate
building at Manpukuji (fig. 2.6). To accommodate this need, carpenters changed
the function of the interior space along the side walls flanking the central altar
from that seen at both Manpukuji’s and Sōfukuji’s Main Halls. At those temples,
a raised wooden platform served as an altar upon which were placed statues
of the Eighteen Rakan, who were especially revered at Ōbaku temples (see fig.

2.6. Interior of Main Hall (Daiyūhōden), Zuishōji, Tokyo. Originally constructed in 1671; replaced
with a new building in the Bunka era (1804–1818); last restored in 1987. Photograph by author.
4.3). Here, the side walls became an appropriately respectful elevated, tatami-
matted seating area for daimyo and other prominent samurai who came to hear
lectures. Still, the temple sought to serve Edo’s broader populace as well, and its
grounds were spacious enough for Mokuan to hold an unusually large public
ordination ritual at Zuishōji in 1674, during which three thousand participants,
both samurai and commoners, were inducted into the monastic order and five
thousand other followers obtained Buddhist names (Baroni 2000, 59).
While Zuishōji may have been the first Ōbaku institution in Edo and its sect
headquarters, it was soon overshadowed by another one. In 1695, Tokugawa
Tsunayoshi granted Ōbaku permission to establish Ten’onzan Gohyaku Rakanji,
popularly known as Gohyaku Rakanji (the Temple of the Five Hundred Rakan),
after a set of statues of the Five Hundred Rakan carved by the founding priest
Shōun Genkei (1648–1710) (fig. 2.7).18 Tsunayoshi allotted this temple land in the
rural eastern part of the city. Successive shoguns continued their support, and
the temple continued to expand in the eighteenth century. By the end of that
century, despite its lack of parishioners (founded as a official land-grant temple
of the shogunate, it had no congregation), commoners frequently visited Rakanji
to admire its famous statues, set in a building that magically seemed to trans-
port them to the site of the buddha Shaka’s sermonizing in India long ago and
allow them to climb its now lost towering Spiral Hall (discussed further below)
and gawk at its collection of strange, foreign treasures.

2.7. Shōun Genkei (1648–1710). Group of the Five Hundred Rakan from the Gohyaku Rakanji, Tokyo,
completed between 1691 and 1695 (or 1700). Lacquered and gilt wood; approximate height of each:
85 cm.
Rakan veneration became especially popular in Japan during the Edo period
as a result of Ōbaku influence (see chap. 4). Shōun had learned to carve Buddhist
statuary during his youth in Kyoto as the son of a busshi. At age twenty-three, he
joined the Ōbaku priesthood at Zuiryūji, an Osaka temple headed by Tetsugen
Dōkō (1630–1682), a prominent Japan-born disciple of Mokuan.19 After initial
study under Tetsugen, Shōun left for a tour of Kyushu Buddhist temples that
lasted seven or eight years. He paid his way and expressed his devotion to his
faith by sculpting Buddhist statues as he went. He continued carving statues
throughout his life, although until recently only his Gohyaku Rakanji set was
known.20 One temple he visited in northern Kyushu, Rakanji in the scenic moun-
tains of Yabake, possessed stone statues of the Five Hundred Rakan that were
said to have been installed in a mountainside cave in the fourteenth century by
an emigrant Chinese monk. These so impressed Shōun that he vowed to make

a set himself.21 Upon returning to Tetsugen’s Osaka temple after his sojourn, he
told his master of his plan, and Tetsugen urged him to pursue it. In 1687, Shōun
moved to Edo and at first sat every day on a street corner by the Kannon Hall
of Sensōji Temple in Asakusa, begging passersby to help fund his quest to carve
the first set of statues of the Five Hundred Rakan for the city of Edo.
Tetsugyū Dōki (1628–1712), second abbot at Ōbaku’s headquarters of Zuishōji,
funded the first of this set in 1691; Egoku Dōmyō (1632–1721), Zuishōji’s third
head priest, funded the second one.22 In 1692, a group of wealthy merchants
banded together to pay for many more and to help set up a proper workshop
for their production; the project’s momentum continued, and Shōun had fifty
subsidized and completed by 1693. At that point, Tetsugyū requested that the
shogun grant land for a temple where the statues could be properly venerated.
The next year the shogun’s mother, Keishōin, decided to support this cause and
funded ten more. She also agreed to pay for the gilding and painting of them all.
Daimyo and commoners joined the fray, as did the next head priest of Zuishōji,
Jitsuden Dōkin (1627–1704), who sponsored one hundred more.
Finally, in 1695, Shōun received a grant of land for his temple from Tsunayoshi
and requested that Kōsen, recently appointed as Ōbaku head abbot, officiate at
the eye-opening ceremony for the statues thus far completed. The first large-
scale public ceremony at the temple the following year must have been a splen-
did occasion. It took place over a ten-day period, with one thousand monks in
attendance. Whether or not Shōun completed all the statues by then is unclear;
one source indicates that he did, but another notes that he labored until 1700.23
In any case, the set included a few statues in addition to the Rakan — 536 in all.
Among these were the buddha Shaka and his attendant bodhisattvas Fugen (Skt.
Samantabhadra) and Monju (Skt. Mañjuśrī), Daruma, founder of Zen, and the
ten great disciples of the buddha Shaka (Shaka Jūdai Deshi).
Shōun is credited in most documents as the sole sculptor of the statues. How-
ever, according to the current head priest of the temple, Rev. Saitō Kōdō, the
temple’s official record of the donations for each statue, including the date do-
nated and the donor’s name, states that seven were completed after Shōun died.
Most likely, despite his obvious proficiency in the craft, he had the help of ap-
prentices. Reverend Saitō notes that one document suggests that Shōun sculpted
only the most important, expressive parts of the statues himself — the heads and
hands — and left the rest to assistants, especially as the pace of manufacture
picked up after the project was established.
Unfortunately, neither the temple nor its statues have survived well the vicis-
situdes of time. The temple was destroyed and relocated twice since its inception;
its present location dates to 1908. Although it celebrates its Ōbaku origins, it no
longer remains affiliated with that sect, nor with any other. During the Meiji
period, many of the statues sustained serious damage, and some 200 were de-

stroyed. Only 305 remain at the temple today, in various states of preservation. A
few also reside in public and private collections both within and outside Japan.24
With the permission of the shogunate and support from local daimyo, the
Ōbaku monks ardently proselytized their faith throughout the country. The
first official listing of Ōbaku temples in 1745 included 1,043 temples located in
51 of Japan’s 66 provinces (Baroni 2000, 187). One provincial Ōbaku temple
founded by a daimyo will be discussed below.
Daimyo Patronage of Buddhist Institutions

The Tokugawa shogunate divided the nation into semi-autonomous domains
beholden to their central authority, each ruled by hereditary families of daimyo.
These domains numbered approximately 240 and varied greatly in size and
wealth. The most trusted daimyo, blood relatives of the Tokugawa, oversaw the
largest domains, closest to the center of the country or in strategic locations.
Other allies were also well rewarded. Few large domains were granted to daimyo
who had initially opposed the Tokugawa. Most of this group with large land-
holdings resided in provincial backwaters or were particularly adept at negotiat-
ing the complex web of political allegiances, often through intermarriage with
more powerful and trusted families, in a bid to retain their positions. Early in
their administrative tenures, most daimyo established clan temples and sup-
ported construction and renovation of Buddhist temples in their domains, to
both accord with bakufu directives on religious institutions and to demonstrate
empathy for their subjects’ spiritual well-being. Many daimyo castle towns de-
veloped thriving temple districts.25 Because wooden temples often succumbed
to fires and earthquakes, and because rampant temple destruction occurred
from the end of the Edo era and into the beginning of the Meiji period, many of
these temples and their records have not survived, challenging accurate under-
standing of their histories.
Examining the spread of Buddhist sects and the appearance of temples that
daimyo erected within their respective domains facilitates understanding of the
degree of political autonomy daimyo had within those domains.26 Following
bakufu precepts, daimyo restricted only certain militant Buddhist sects. Ap-
proved Buddhist sects and some nationally famous individual temples operated
branches or oversaw national networks of traveling lay pilgrim guides and itin-
erant priests, though with uneven geographic distribution. It seems that while
the Tokugawa bakufu strictly regulated the operation of religious institutions
and the general appearance of temple structures, the daimyo took charge of
their own religious worship and, to a certain extent, that of the citizens living
within their domains. The central government also did not regulate the detailed

appearance of individual temples, so, as the examples presented below will show,
some interesting regional variations resulted.
The Maeda clan, centered in Kanazawa in Ishikawa Prefecture (formerly
Kaga Province), was the wealthiest of all the daimyo. Like Tokugawa Ieyasu,
the Maeda clan founder Toshiie (1538–1599) had been a trusted general under
both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, but initially he opposed Ieyasu’s bid for hege-
mony. To show his solidarity, his two sons were married to Tokugawa daughters.
His younger son, the third Maeda daimyo, Toshitsune (1593–1658), oversaw an
ambitious renewal of his castle town that included construction of a temple
district.27 Toshitsune also sought to demonstrate his beneficence to common-
ers by restoring old temples elsewhere in his domain. The most important of
these was Natadera, a temple on the rocky slopes of Mount Haku (Hakusan, or
White Mountain), one of Japan’s three most sacred peaks. Under Toshitsune,
the temple, whose sectarian affiliation had previously varied in accordance
with the preferences of the monks who resided there, first became associated
with the Shingon sect, with which it has continued to be aligned to the pres-
ent (Natadera now functions as one of the regional headquarters for Shingon’s
Kōyasan branch).28 Toshitsune’s motivation for rebuilding this temple may
also have been tied to his quest to raise his prestige above other, more trusted
daimyo. He had arranged for his daughter to marry an imperial prince, Hachijō
Toshitada (1619–1662), uncle and close adviser to Emperor Gomizunoo.29 To
publicly announce this relationship, Toshitada included in his restoration a hall
for veneration of Emperor Gomizunoo.
A temple where Natadera now stands had been established in 717 by Taichō,
a type of early Buddhist ascetic practitioner or holy person (hijiri), later known
as yamabushi (lit. “those who lie down in the mountains”), who ventured into
the mountains to commune with the divinities who resided there. These deities
bestowed upon such holy persons shamanistic powers to heal the living, foretell
fortunes, and cast protective spells. By the Muromachi period, the practices of
these hijiri had coalesced into a belief system known as Shugendō, loosely affili-
ated with either the Shingon or Tendai esoteric sects, which synthesized Bud-
dhism rituals and beliefs with shamanistic folk religious practices drawn from
Japanese Shinto and Chinese Daoism.30
Taichō named the temple Iwayadera (Stone Room Temple) and established a
shrine for veneration of the mountain’s resident female Shinto kami, Kuzuryū
Gongen (the Nine-Headed Dragon divinity), who in honji suijaku ideology was
actually the native manifestation of a Buddhist deity, the Eleven-Headed Kan-
non Bodhisattva.
Emperor Kazan (r. 985–987) journeyed to Iwayadera in 986 and became con-
vinced that he could feel the spiritual presence there of all thirty-three mani-

2.8. Three-story
pagoda at Natadera,
Ishikawa Prefecture,
1642. Photograph
by author.
festations of Kannon, so he restored the temple and added gardens simulating a

Pure Land Paradise presided over by Kannon rather than by the buddha Amida,
in one interpretation of Pure Land beliefs. To underscore association with the
then newly popular Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage circuit, Kazan renamed the
temple “Natadera,” after the names of mountains where the first and last tem-
ples of that route were located.31 Emperor Kazan’s revelation that all thirty-three
forms of Kannon could be found in a single site proved a convenient means
for pilgrims to traverse that longer route by substitution and still obtain the
same spiritual benefit. Natadera and other temples with mini-pilgrimage routes
became extremely popular in the early modern period, as did pilgrimages in
general (further discussed in chap. 4).32 Maeda Toshitsune’s rebuilding project,
completed in 1642, restored the garden and replaced the damaged structures,
including a three-story pagoda (fig. 2.8). The delicate, decorative relief carvings

of peonies and karashishi (Chinese lion dogs) on the exterior walls of the pagoda
reflect the expert workmanship of the local builders. Similar designs grace the
sides of the other buildings.
Another former foe of the Tokugawa was the Mōri clan, which ruled a rela-
tively wealthy domain from Hagi, Yamaguchi Prefecture, at the western end
of Honshu nearest Korea. Affluence allowed them the resources to patronize
the arts and to pursue scholarly studies in Chinese Confucianism and related
intellectual philosophies such as Ōbaku Zen. The third Chōshū daimyo, Mōri
Yoshinari (d. 1694), was converted to Ōbaku by Egoku Dōmyō, abbot of Edo’s
Zuishōji, who came to Hagi at Yoshinari’s request to found the Ōbaku temple
of Tōkōji there in 1691 (Tamamuro 1992, 650–651).
The temple’s existing Main Hall was completed in 1698 by order of Yoshi-
nari’s successor, with major repairs undertaken in 1806. At the time of Tōkōji’s
founding, the Rinzai temple of Daishōin, a mortuary temple for the Mōri fam-
ily daimyo, already existed. Because of Yoshinari’s commitment to Ōbaku, his
burial took place at Tōkōji. Upon the death of Yoshinari’s successor, a plan was
devised to perpetuate both institutions as official clan mortuary temples: odd-
numbered clan heads (numbers 3–11) were thereafter buried at Tōkōji, while
even-numbered daimyo (number 2–12) were interred at Daishōin (fig. 2.9). The
burial site at Tōkōji lies behind the temple within an area demarcated by Shinto
torii gateways, inspired by the burial practices of the shoguns at the Shinto
shrines adjacent to Buddhist temples in Edo and Nikkō. The temple is famous
today for five hundred stone lanterns that Mōri family retainers offered to the
spirits of their lords.
Another very different type of warrior clan mortuary temple, Hōnenji (for-
mally known as Busshōzan Hōnenji), survives on Shikoku Island in Takamatsu
City, Kagawa Prefecture (formerly Sanuki Province). It was founded by a power-
ful, well-connected daimyo, Matsudaira Yorishige (1622–1695), one of Tokugawa
Ieyasu’s many grandchildren, to serve as his family’s mortuary temple.33 Yori
shige established Hōnenji in 1668 on the site of an old Jōdo-sect temple that
had fallen into disrepair during the middle ages. In accordance with bakufu
policies forbidding the establishment of new temples, he simply resurrected the
old temple and bestowed upon it the new name of Hōnenji. This tactic became
a common method of circumventing this shogunal mandate and accounts for
the frequent renaming and shifting sectarian affiliations of many temples dur-
ing the Edo period.
Yorishige conceived of a unique design for the temple, which led worshipers
along a path that replicated the Pure Land vision of life after death. Most of the
original buildings and their devotional imagery, completed soon after the found-
ing of the temple in 1668, remain intact. After entering the first gate, a hall dedi-
cated to the bodhisattva Jizō (Skt. Kstigarbha) welcomes devotees, as he would

2.9. Cemetery at Tōkōji, Hagi, Yamaguchi Prefecture; gravestones date from the seventeenth
through the mid-nineteenth century. Photograph by author.
the newly deceased. This is followed by a large, long, eleven-bay-wide building

dedicated to the Ten Kings of Hell (Jūōdō), judges who determine one’s station in
the afterlife (fig. 2.10). From here, visitors follow a tree-lined path adjacent to two
ponds, metaphorically the nigabyakudō (white path between two rivers). This
white path refers to a seventh-century Chinese Buddhist Pure Land parable that
describes how a traveler encountered two rivers that blocked his journey, one of
fire to the south and the other of pounding waves to the north. His only route lay
along a small white path between them, which at first he feared to traverse. As
he pondered whether to attempt the path a band of robbers came at him from
the east, so he decided to head west. Thereupon he heard voices from the west
beckoning him to cross with the admonishment that his faith would guide him
to the safety of the Western Paradise of the buddha Amida. Unfortunately, the
north pond no longer survives.
The path continues through a series of gates: the Black Gate (Kuromon), the
Guardian Gate (Niōmon), the Paradise or Nirvana Gate (Nehanmon), and the
gate to the Main Hall. If visitors chose to enter the Guardian Gate they followed
a stone path to yet another gate before a worship hall dedicated to the Four
Heavenly Kings, guardians of the four corners of the Buddhist universe. Beyond
that, worshipers climbed a steep set of stone stairs, then passed underneath the
Hall of the Two Buddhas (Nisondō), a structure of unusual design that requires
visitors to walk directly beneath finely carved gilt wood, life-size statues of the

2.10. Ten Kings of Hell Hall (Jūōdō), Busshōzan Hōnenji, Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture, second
half of the seventeenth century. Photograph by author.
buddhas Amida (fig. 2.11) and Shaka. After that, visitors pass through a gate
housing the bell tower, then finally up another flight of stone steps to reach
the Hall Welcoming Believers to the Pure Land Paradise (Raigōdō). Inside this
building, large-scale gilt wood and polychrome statues of the buddha Amida
and his host of twenty-five bodhisattvas appear to be flying down out of the
heavens to greet the souls of dying believers. Beyond and to one side a small,
inconspicuous gate leads to the hill where the graveyard for successive genera-
tions of the daimyo of this branch of the Matsudaira clan lay, with Yorishige’s
tombstone at the summit.
Back at the Guardian Gate, if worshipers chose an alternate path through
the Paradise Gate, they came upon the most unusual structure in this temple
compound: the Hall of the Three Buddhas (Sanbutsudō), dedicated to Shaka,
Miroku, and Amida. This hall is alternately (and more generally) known as the
Paradise or Nirvana Hall (Nehandō), constructed especially for use during the
most important and universally observed of the myriad Buddhist rites, the Nir-
vana ceremony (Jp. Nehane). This ritual takes place annually at all major Bud-
dhist temples on the fifteenth day of the second lunar month, commemorating
the death of the mortal buddha Shaka (Nehan) and celebrating his rebirth into
a state of eternal enlightenment (fig. 2.12). In Japan, the focus of this ceremony
is usually a painting, based on textual sources, that portrays the Buddha lying
on his side surrounded by devout followers, both monks and laity; a host of Bud-

2.11. Statue of the Amida
Buddha inside the Hall
of the Two Buddhas
(Nisondō), Busshōzan
Hōnenji, Takamatsu,
Kagawa Prefecture,
second half of the
seventeenth century.
Gilt wood with crystal
eyes. Height: 70.5 cm.
Photograph by author.
dhist deities, including princely robed bodhisattvas; guardian figures; myriad

creatures from the animal kingdom; and Shaka’s previously deceased mother
and her attendants floating in the clouds above (as seen in fig. 5.6). As depicted
in figure 2.12, though, a magnificent and unique life-size panorama of fifty-two
statues recreates the Nehan scene, and the three buddhas look down from the
Buddhist heavens on the event.
An inscription on the bases of the statues of the three buddhas records the
name of a busshi from Kyoto, Fujiwara Shigetsugu (dates unknown) as their
maker, as well as the year 1673 (Ōtsuki 1985, 314–315). Based on stylistic discrep-
ancies with the rest of the set, scholars believe different sculptors from Kyoto
carved the other statues in the Nehan group. Although none of them contains
inscriptions, stylistic evidence suggests a completion date around this same time
and that their makers were sculptors of Kyoto’s Seventh Avenue Atelier, then
headed by Kōyū (active ca. 1670–1694; this was not the same person as the pre-
vious master of this atelier, whose name was pronounced the same, but which
had a different second character) (Kuno 1994, 260–261; Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan
1997, 101–102).

2.12. Overview of the statues re-creating the death of the Buddha, in the Hall of the Three Buddhas
(Sanbutsudō); alternate name: Paradise or Nirvana Hall (Nenbutsudō) at Busshōzan Hōnenji,
Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture. Three buddhas at rear by Fujiwara Shigetsugu (dates unknown),
1673; the remainder of the group by unidentified Kyoto sculptors, third quarter of the seventeenth
century. Photograph by author.
At the far northernmost end of Japan’s main island of Honshu, the Tsugaru
clan resided in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture (formerly Mutsu Province). The
clan supported Tokugawa Ieyasu only after 1600, and after unification Ieyasu
granted them modest-size landholdings. The clan belonged to the Sōtō Zen
faith, and early in the seventeenth century the daimyo authorized the relocation
of thirty-three Sōtō Zen temples to a new temple district close to their newly
built castle.
The family also patronized temples of the Shingon sect, although this associ-
ation has become somewhat obscured for reasons described below. The Shingon
temple of Saishōin, associated with the Tsugaru family as early as 1532, was relo-
cated to the vicinity of the castle in the early sixteenth century (Tamamuro 1992,
282). Its present location, however, dates from the beginning of the Meiji period,
when edicts separating Buddhism and Shinto forced it to move and displace an-
other Shingon temple, Daienji, which was then renamed Saishōin. The most fa-
mous structure at the present Saishōin site today is a towering 31.2-meter-high,
five-story pagoda (the tallest in northern Japan) erected originally for Daienji by
the third Tsugaru daimyo, Nobuyoshi, to honor the spirits of the clan’s retainers
who had died during battles to unify the nation (fig. 2.13). Its dedication took
place in 1667 after a construction period of ten years. The famous twentieth-

2.13. Kawase Hasui
(1883–1957). Pagoda
at Saishōin in Snow,
Hirosaki, from the
series Collection of
Landscape Views
of Japan — Eastern
Japan Set, 1936.
Woodblock print
in ink and color on
paper, 36.3 × 24.9
cm. Los Angeles
County Museum of
Art, gift of Mr. and
Mrs. Felix Juda.
century printmaker Kawase Hasui (1883–1957) included a print of this pagoda,

with its new name, in his series of prints of famous temples of Japan.
Hyakutakuhaiji (alternately known by its slightly shorter name of Hyakutakuji)
is another important Shingon temple of Tsugaru that was lost during the Meiji
restoration (Tamamuro 1992, 714–715). It was originally a branch of Saishōin on
the outskirts of Hirosaki at the base of the dormant and sacred towering volca-
nic Mount Iwaki (also known as Tsugaru’s Mount Fuji). The temple functioned
as the Buddhist counterpart to Iwakisan Jinja, the Shinto shrine of that moun-
tain. The shrine has been a Shinto holy place from as early as the eighth century,
but the present buildings date to 1694, when the Tsugaru daimyo had the shrine
reconstructed to emulate the shrines erected by the Tokugawa shoguns.34
Many of the Hyakutakuji buildings at Iwakisan Jinja still stand, though now

2.14. Main Gate at Iwaki Jinja (formerly Hyakutakuhaiji), Mount Iwaki, Hirosaki, Aomori
Prefecture, 1628. Photograph by author.
they function as shrine worship halls, administrative offices, and the like (fig.
2.14). The temple’s main gate, a rōmon-type structure (with little or no second-
floor space and a single, usually hip-and-gable roof) was constructed by the
daimyo in 1628. The stone steps leading to the main triple-door entrance and
the adjacent railing were also carved at the time of the gate’s construction. The
railing features an unusual pair of Chinese lion-dog guardians literally crawling
up the sides of the pillars closest to the entryway (fig. 2.15), an indication of the
vibrant creativity of local stone sculptors. At the time of its demise, the temple’s
more movable wood sculpture was removed from the shrine precincts. Some
has been preserved at the clan’s Sōtō Zen mortuary temple of Chōshōji, located
in the temple district near the castle, including 109 images from a set of statues
of the Five Hundred Rakan, which once adorned the interior of the main gate’s
balcony floor.35
By the end of the Edo period, lacking funding, neither the bakufu nor the
daimyo could support temples they founded and patronized. But patronage
of these temples continued as these institutions embraced commoner devo-
tees, who helped pay for new structures for their own use. Perhaps the most
unusual type of building designed for commoners at these daimyo-sponsored

2.15. Lion-dog (Kara
shishi) guardians
from the railing of
the main gate at
Iwaki Jinja, Mount
Iwaki, Hirosaki,
Aomori Prefecture,
1628. Stone. Height:
approx. 35 cm. Photo
graph by author.
temples was the Sazaedō, literally “Spiral Shell Hall,” sometimes called Spiral
or Turbo Hall in English. It featured a novel double-helix-shaped spiral stair-
case or ramped walkway that allowed separation of up-and-down traffic. An
imported British drawing of this sort of staircase from a book dated 1670 by
the mathematical lexicographer Joseph Moxon (1627–1700) provided the model
through more widely circulated drawings copied by Western-influenced Akita
Ranga school samurai painters active in northern Japan (Johnson 2005, pl. 38,
39). The inventor of the double-spiral staircase, however, was Leonardo Da Vinci
(1452–1519), who designed a famous grand staircase in this form for the Chateau
de Chambord in France (begun in 1519, completed in 1547).
The most famous and earliest recorded building of this type, datable to the
1780s, once stood at Gohyaku Rakanji in Edo.36 Its design simulated the experi-
ence of traversing a pilgrimage route or climbing a sacred mountain for devotees
who could not afford to travel far from home. The interior corridor was filled
with niches of buddhas or bodhisattvas, usually various forms of Kannon, re-
creating stops along a pilgrimage route (fig. 2.16). One rare example of a Spiral
Hall remains in Hirosaki, known popularly as the Rokkadō (Six-Sided Hall), al-
though it has an eight-sided roof.37 It was erected in 1839 under the administra-
tion of Chōshōji, the daimyo clan’s mortuary temple (but paid for by a wealthy

2.16. Spiral Hall
(Sazaedō), Hirosaki,
Aomori Prefecture,
1839. Photograph
by author.
local merchant), as a site for the performance of memorial rites for the tens of
thousands of peasants who died in a famine then.
The temples presented in this chapter indicate the importance that both
the imperial family and regional daimyo placed on rebuilding the country’s re-
ligious institutions after long periods of warfare. They display a wide range of
architectural types and precinct layouts, reflective of the creativity of temple
founders and builders in diverse regions. They also reveal nationwide linkages in
networks of religious institutions and patronage circles as professional Buddhist
image-makers and craftspeople traversed the country contributing to various
temple-building projects throughout Japan. Significantly, most of these projects

took place in the seventeenth century. After that time, many daimyo houses
had become too poor to undertake large-scale building projects. Consequently,
some of their Buddhist institutions sought funding from another source — the
swelling ranks of commoners, who also supported temples of their own, as
chapter 3 will show.

Chapter Three
Temples for Commoners
tokugawa poliCies assured that adherents to government-approved Bud-

dhist sects increased, but because citizens could join temples of their choice,
not all sects grew equally. The various Pure Land and Sōtō Zen sects most
successfully promoted the abilities of their clerics and sacred deities to help
improve the quality of peoples’ lives and thereby prospered the most, a situation
that prevails even today (Reader and Tanabe 1998; Williams 2000, 2005). By the
early eighteenth century, the Sōtō sect had more branch temples throughout
the country than any other, although the Pure Land sects had larger numbers
of actual supporters (Williams 2005, 2). Successful proselytizing efforts aimed
at commoners nationwide by monks from these and other popular sects such as
Tendai, Shingon, Nichiren (founded by the zealous monk Nichiren [1222–1282],
who promoted veneration of the Lotus Sutra), and Rinzai Zen, whose supporters
had once consisted primarily of the privileged classes, resulted in commoners
becoming Buddhism’s most numerous followers during the Edo period (Kaba-
noff 1999).
In many instances, commoners frequented and donated money to temples
that the shogunate, the daimyo, or even aristocrats had founded or also heavily
funded. As described in previous chapters, this occurred, for example, when
the bakufu agreed to fund a portion of a temple-rebuilding effort or when elite
support rebuilt a popular pilgrimage temple that relied on funding from masses
of pilgrims for routine upkeep. But as the Edo period progressed, commoner
support increasingly replaced funding from the upper classes. This trend began
during the reign of the fifth shogun, Tsunayoshi, in the late seventeenth and

early eighteenth centuries, when the bakufu and many daimyo became finan-
cially insolvent.
However, widespread destruction of Edo-period temples and treasures as a
result of natural disasters, the suppression of Buddhism at the end of the Edo
and beginning of the Meiji periods, devastation during World War II, and more
recent efforts to reconstruct the more ancient appearance of temple compounds
challenges our understanding the scope of commoner commitment to Bud-
dhism at this time. Also, much of the religious practice of commoners encom-
passed quasi-religious activities — participation in festivals, pilgrimages, and
sightseeing tours to famous temples, often to view secret, efficacious deities
in carnival-like displays — that are often held up as evidence of their religious
ambivalence. This chapter will show otherwise — that many of these activities
constituted new ways in which commoners expressed their faith in the power
of Buddhist deities. It surveys the visual evidence for commoner patronage of
temples. Some owed their sustenance to local parishioners, while others, espe-
cially head temples of major sects and trans-sectarian pilgrimage sites, attracted
masses of visitors from throughout the nation.
Community-Supported Local Temples

Tokugawa edicts forced the construction of vast numbers of temples, encom-
passing every town and hamlet.1 Small parish temples (dankadera or dannadera)
derived their income from local communities rather than from visiting pilgrims,
grants of land from the central government, or benevolent affluent patrons. The
government mandated that individuals could patronize the particular temples
only where they formally registered to meet their various religious needs, such
as funeral and memorial rites and other annual Buddhist services (Hardacre
2002, 40). Although these temples belonged to various sects, regulations dic-
tated a certain uniformity in the appearance of their buildings. Larger com-
pounds contained entrance gates, central worship halls, subsidiary prayer halls,
and adjacent cemeteries for repositories of ancestors’ souls (Williams 2000, 259;
2005, 23–24). While some families residing in larger communities could freely
choose their sectarian or temple affiliation, many could not, for often only one
temple existed in small villages, or social obligations required commoners to
patronize the chosen sect of the family’s samurai overlord (Marcure 1985, 43).
The unkind vicissitudes of time and general disregard by preservationists have
resulted in few of these buildings surviving to the present.
One rare extant temple of this type is Sōnenji in Gokayama Ainokura Village
in Toyama Prefecture (fig. 3.1). In 1995, the UNESCO World Heritage Commis-
sion designated this hamlet of twenty old houses and two nearby villages with

3.1. Exterior view of the Main Hall at Sōnenji, Gokayama Ainokura village, Toyama Prefecture, ca.
early nineteenth century. Photograph by author.
similar architectural structures, World Heritage Sites. They preserve what is

called gasshō zukuri (the phrase refers to buildings with tall, steep roofs resem-
bling hands folded in prayer), a unique form of premodern Japanese farmhouse-
style vernacular architecture associated with this snowy region of Japan. Most
of these designated structures date from the late Edo or early Meiji periods (early
nineteenth century to early twentieth century), although some may date from
as early as the seventeenth century. Sōnenji is constructed in this style, but its
hip-and-gable roof and front porch distinguish it from the nearby farmhouses.
Sōnenji was established in the mid-sixteenth century and was originally affili-
ated with the Shingon sect, but by the Edo period it had become affiliated with
the Jōdo Shin sect. Temple records list fifteen households in the mid-seven-
teenth century, but by the early nineteenth century member households num-
bered forty-two.2 Today, the village has thirty households with ninety residents.
Village life in this close-knit community still revolves around the temple, located
in the hamlet’s center, and the residents are among the most devout Buddhists
in all of Japan. As of 2003, the owner of the largest local restaurant that caters
to the growing number of tourists who come to see the UNESCO-designated
village refused to serve any meat or fish dishes because of his strong Buddhist
beliefs.
Temples for Commoners | 75

Pilgrimage Sites
In addition to patronizing local temples, the populace prayed at a variety of

other temples. They journeyed to many on religious pilgrimage, one of the de-
fining characteristics of early modern Japanese religious practice and one whose
popularity continues into the present, now encompassing hundreds of separate
pilgrim sites and circuits throughout Japan. Pilgrimage met personal spiritual
needs, but its associated places and temples also contributed to the emergence
of a new sense of communitas as they attracted visitors from throughout the
nation and as geographically dispersed sites became linked together in a single
pilgrimage circuit (Foard 1982, 246-247; Toby 2001, 229). Reflecting this impor-
tance, pilgrimage in Japan has become the focus of much recent scholarship.3
The attraction of pilgrimage sites derived largely from widely circulated sto-
ries about extraordinary deeds performed by temples and their icons or miracles
that occurred because of the divine presence of a deceased, beloved religious
personage. Pilgrims ventured to particularly renowned individual temples, vari-
ous sacred mountains such as Fuji, or the imperial Shinto shrine at Ise. But
most religious travelers did not journey only to these single site destinations;
rather, they turned their pilgrimages into multistop tours to various places near
their main destination. They also followed meandering routes to sets of related
temples. For many pilgrims, their journeys became the highlights of their lives,
adventures undertaken as much for the temporary respite from their mundane
day-to-day existence as for the religious experience they offered.
The act of embarking on a spiritual quest to holy sites is a universal mode of
religious worship, associated with Buddhism from its inception and practiced in
Japan as early as the seventh century on a limited basis by ascetic hijiri pilgrims.
By the Heian period, these wandering ascetics encouraged devout nobility to
embark on pilgrimages to deepen their faith and gain spiritual merit for their
efforts. Indeed, despite the ardors of pilgrimage journeys, then, pilgrimage had
become an important expression of religious devotion among courtiers. They
instigated the formation of the first well-defined circuit, the thirty-three temple
Saikoku Kannon route, and the circuit to the syncretic honji suijaku Shinto-
Buddhist sacred mountains of Kumano in southern Wakayama Prefecture,
thought to be the earthly abode of the bodhisattva Kannon and residence of
Shinto kami (this site is further discussed in chap. 4 with regard to the Kumano
Heart Visualization and Ten Worlds Mandala paintings).
By the thirteenth century, a cult devoted to the Shingon sect founder Kūkai,
reincarnated as a protective deity, emerged and stimulated the creation of the
second most popular pilgrimage circuit, the eighty-eight temple Shikoku henro
(Shikoku Island pilgrimage), on the distant backwater of Shikoku Island, far
from Japan’s centers of geopolitical power.4 These were ostensibly places that

Kūkai himself had visited. Representative of the long history of the trans-sec-
tarian nature of religious worship in Japan, in neither the Saikoku nor Shikoku
route do all the temples belong to the same sect; rather, it was veneration of a
common deity or saintly person that united them, and from early on important
and influential monks of various sects traversed them. Because many of the
illustrious pilgrim-monks belonged to Pure Land denominations, beliefs pro-
moted by those sects became closely associated with these pilgrimages (Reader
2005, 110).
Only from the fifteenth century did commoners participate more regularly
in these excursions, although the great time and expense these required limited
their participation. To spread the spiritual benefit reaped from the journey to
entire communities, village members formed associations (kō) to send desig-
nated individuals on the group’s behalf. Monks at pilgrimage sites also stimu-
lated interest in pilgrimage by producing devotional and didactic imagery to at-
tract visitors. These early images of pilgrimage sites depict both famous Shinto
shrines and Buddhist temples and are generally known as temple and shrine
mandalas (sankei mandara), one type of cosmic, diagrammatic mandala picture
that Japanese religious artists created. In this case, they depicted both the sites
and the pilgrims to help viewers visualize the divine power emanating from
these places and to encourage both imaginary and actual visitation. Mendicant
monks carried these paintings throughout the country for use as visual props
in painting recitation sermons (etoki).
Hundreds of these largely anonymous paintings survive from the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. They represent famous temples along the Saikoku
route or other popular pilgrimage destinations (Shibuya Kuritsu Shōtō Bijut-
sukan 1993; Osaka Shiritsu Bijutsukan 1987a). Typical of these paintings is one
portraying temple number 20 on the Saikoku Kannon route, Yoshiminedera,
which was restored in the late seventeenth century with funding from Keishōin,
mother of the fifth Tokugawa shogun. As shown in plate 2, the painting por-
trays the temple complex prior to its restoration, as it appeared in the medi-
eval era. Like this example, temple and shrine mandalas typically follow a fixed
manner of portraying the sacred complex as the center of the cosmos with a
mountain behind the buildings and the sun and the moon hovering above in a
cloud-filled sky. The composition focuses on the most important structure of
the compound — here, Kannon Hall, located slightly left of center in the paint-
ing. But this Buddhist building, as well as other temple structures, is shown
surrounded by numerous smaller Shinto worship halls dedicated to a variety of
Shinto deities. These are seen in the painting’s foreground and all along the left
side. They underscore the interconnectedness of Shinto and Buddhist worship
in premodern times.
The anonymous artist of this painting has paid careful attention to the de-

tails, which are rendered in a disarmingly charming manner, with all elements
defined in thick, bright color. The painting delineates the bustling atmosphere
of the site filled with people from various walks of life: peasants in tall hats
and white pilgrims’ cloaks, musicians with instruments strapped to their backs,
shrine priests in white, formally attired nobility praying at the shrines, Bud-
dhist clerics in gray monks’ robes, samurai with shaved heads and swords at
their waists, and itinerant pilgrims with white robes under black capes, leggings,
walking staffs, and broad-rimmed headgear.
Around the time these pictures were being produced, pilgrimage, as both rec-
reation and religious quest, began to boom. In the seventeenth century, the first
broad distribution of woodblock-printed, illustrated armchair handbooks and
handy pocket-sized guides provided travelers with detailed logistical and factual
information about routes and destinations. These whetted people’s appetites
for journeying and probably contributed to the sharp decline in production of
temple and shrine mandalas by the end of that century. These books and other
amenities for travelers reflected a growing commodification of the practice that
included traveler accommodations, teahouses, transportation services, tourist
guides, and souvenirs (Reader 2005, 115–131). Perhaps the most significant factor
in facilitating increased travel at that time was increased safety and mainte-
nance of the roads under the structured authority of the Tokugawa bakufu.5 As
already noted, some early Tokugawa shoguns had financed reconstruction of
many important pilgrimage temples, helping to encourage the practice by mak-
ing the destinations more attractive to visitors. By the mid-eighteenth century,
pilgrimage sites and other famous temples came to be included in woodblock-
printed, illustrated guidebooks (meisho zue) of distinct regions of Japan as well
as in single-sheet maps that showed the layout of individual temples and whole
pilgrimage routes.6 Such prints inspired artists working in the ukiyoe tradition
in the nineteenth century to copy their forms, but in the larger, more decorative
format of brightly colored, single-sheet woodblock prints. The earliest ukiyoe
(pictures of the floating world) were designed for the fashion-conscious urban
dwellers who patronized the ukiyo (the floating world; a euphemism for urban
red-light, entertainment districts). Their appearance coincided with the rise of
sophisticated urban commoner culture in the Genroku era of the late seven-
teenth and early eighteenth centuries. At first its paintings, single-sheet prints,
and illustrated books portrayed mainly famous Kabuki actors, illustrations of
popular Kabuki plays, and the most beautiful women of the day. By the early
nineteenth century, ukiyoe artists had broadened their range of subject matter
to encompass famous places throughout the country, reflecting the booming
interest in tourism at the time that often revolved around journeys to famous,
old temples.
Among the most widely distributed group of ukiyoe religious prints is a large

3.2. Utagawa Toyokuni III
(Kunisada; 1786–1864) and
Andō Hiroshige II (1826–
1869). Yoshiminedera, from
the Miraculous Stories about
the Bodhisattva Kannon
(Kannon reigenki), produced
between 1856 and 1865. Wood
block print in ink and colors
on paper, vertical ōban size,
approx. 38 × 25 cm. Gene
Zema Collection. Photograph
courtesy of Carolyn Staley
Fine Japanese Prints.
set, The Miraculous Stories about the Bodhisattva Kannon (Kannon reigenki),
produced between 1856 and 1865. It features the three major pilgrimage routes
devoted to the bodhisattva Kannon in 105 single-sheet prints: the Saikoku, Chi-
chibu (central Japan, with 34 sites), and Bandō (eastern Japan, near Edo, with 33
sites).7 The prints were designed by the famous ukiyoe artists Utagawa Toyokuni
III (aka Kunisada, 1786–1864) and Andō Hiroshige II (1826–1869). The set met
the needs of potential or armchair travelers by providing the most basic and
anecdotal information on the temple represented, along with a view of the main
buildings in a rectangular cartouche at the top of the print and a description and
illustration of an important event associated with the temple in the main frame
below8 (fig. 3.2). The temple illustrated here also represents Yoshiminedera,
but in a much more simplified form than in the temple and shrine mandala
painting discussed above. The main section describes the life of the temple’s
eleventh-century founder, Gensan, who was abandoned in the forest by his
mother shortly after his birth and, after spending three days alone unharmed by

3.3. Main Hall at Zenkōji, Nagano City, 1707. Photograph by author.
birds and beasts, was found and ultimately reared by a woodsman, as shown in
fig. 3.2.
Many of the worship halls at these Edo-period pilgrimage sites were specially
designed to accommodate large numbers of pilgrims. Such considerations ac-
counted for the grand size of the verandas and interior public sanctuaries at
many popular sites, such as Kiyomizudera in Kyoto (see fig. 1.7), temple 16 on the
Saikoku Kannon circuit. Perhaps the most impressive pilgrimage temple hall of
all is that at Zenkōji in Nagano City, Nagano Prefecture (fig. 3.3). Zenkōji has long
been a cult center for a nationwide network of temples located in nearly every
province of premodern Japan for worship of the temple’s secret icon, Amida,
and his attendant bodhisattvas. In recognition of its importance, Ieyasu granted
the temple extensive landholdings to help it generate income from agriculture
yields, but because of subsequent fires, which destroyed many of its structures, it
needed to raise more revenue for rebuilding than those lands could produce. In
1643, Tenkai, head priest at Kan’eiji in Edo, helped by making Zenkōji his temple’s
affiliate, guaranteeing high levels of support. Still, funding was insufficient.
Construction of the present Main Hall, erected to replace an earlier incarna-
tion lost to fire, was a mammoth undertaking of enormous expense that took
many years of fund-raising. These efforts began in 1692, but progress was marred
by complications including infighting among the monks and nuns belonging

to the temple’s various subtemples and poor administration of the temple’s fi-
nances, which resulted in the loss of some of the funds raised (McCallum 1994,
168–173). Because of their passionate belief in the power of Buddhism to placate
the population, the fifth shogun, Tsunayoshi, and his mother, Keishōin, helped
fund this project, and the shogun required other high-ranking samurai to do-
nate money as well. The temple also engaged in a popular fund-raising practice
among religious institutions, holding public exhibitions (kaichō; lit. “opening
the curtain”) of its hidden icon (hibutsu), entry to which required an admis-
sion fee. In this case, the main icon was never displayed; what traveled instead
was its stand-in (maedachi), a replica of its famous Amida triad. The maedachi
stands in front of the shuttered shrine where the original resides, and can it-
self be viewed only on special occasions.9 This maedachi and other replicas of
Zenkōji’s famous statue that are enshrined on altars of its branch temples are
themselves believed to be endowed with the divine abilities of the deity they rep-
resent through ritual sanctification (Reader 1991, 144–145). Such empowerment
of replicas has a long history in Japanese Buddhism (and continues today) as a
common means of widely disseminating the sacred power of a deity to devotees
unable to visit a temple at which some famous statue is enshrined, or because
the original statue is too sacred or fragile to be displayed.
Because of Zenkōji’s remote location, in 1694 the temple decided to hold ex-
hibitions of its treasures in Japan’s three most populous and important urban
centers — Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo. But, as required by law, temple administra-
tors had to first petition the government for permission to do so.10 Helping the
cause in Kyoto was one of Edo’s celebrated Kabuki actors, Ichikawa Danjūrō I
(1660–1704), who then happened to be performing in the city. Danjūrō himself
was a devoted Buddhist who often used his plays to promote religious piety and
the efficacious power of Buddhist deities. In this case, he starred in a newly writ-
ten play about Zenkōji’s Amida, who resurrected a slain hero in the guise of a
devout Zenkōji priest; the priest then used Amida’s divine power to overthrow
an unjust ruler. In a mutually beneficial manner, the play boosted the fame and
incomes of both the actor and the temple (Kominz 1997, 53)
Finally completed in 1707, Zenkōji’s towering Main Hall became, and re-
mains, the largest thatched-roof building in Japan. It contains an outer, middle,
and inner sanctuary, used as prayer halls for worshipers, as well as an off-limits
sanctum sanctorum that houses the main icon no one ever sees. Central to
the visitor experience is a powerful participatory activity designed to simulate
death, suffering that comes afterward in the underworld, and then ultimately
salvation in the buddha Amida’s Western Paradise. Deep inside the Main Hall
worshipers descend stairs underneath the sanctum sanctorum into a pitch-black
tunnel (kaidan meguri), where they grope their way through a passage hoping to
touch a key (located in the wall directly beneath the temple’s sacred icon) that

will grant them entrance into Amida’s Paradise after death. Although serious in
intent, many visitors simultaneously considered this a thrilling, enjoyable activ-
ity. Consequently, many contemporary temples have picked up on the idea and
have created similar passageways under their sanctuaries to attract visitors, as
will be discussed in chapter 9.
Not all pilgrimage temples relied on large worship halls. Some, especially
at mountains sacred to Shugendō, which commingled diverse religious tradi-
tions and where veneration of multiple deities took place, consisted of numer-
ous smaller sanctuaries, sometimes in caves or in the open. By the Edo period,
the sacredness of these mountain sites was already well established. Although
many had fallen into disrepair during the turbulent late medieval era, financial
support from daimyo and nobility helped with the revival of many during the
seventeenth century, when they began to attract greater numbers of pilgrims,
both serious Shūgendō yamabushi and more casual lay pilgrims. These temples
offered travelers a chance to see splendid scenery and engage in monastic ac-
tivities, including takigyō, a waterfall purification and meditative rite in which
participants plunge into the waters of a frigid mountain waterfall. The popular
appeal of this ritual is evident from its appearance in an ukiyoe print by Utagawa
Kuniyoshi (1797–1861), the Roben Waterfall at Ōyama, circa 1850 (plate 3).11 Pil-
grims who visited Mount Fuji often stopped at Mount Ō (Ōyama; Big Moun-
tain) and also at nearby Yakuōin on Mount Takaō (Takaōsan), a large Shingon-
Shugendō temple outside Tokyo most celebrated today for its brilliantly colored
autumn foliage (Hardacre 2002, 105–109). During the Edo period, Yakuōin
served as an officially designated prayer temple for the Tokugawa family’s Kii
branch (who administered the present-day Wakayama Prefecture) (Vesey 2004).
It was also open to the general public, who made pilgrimages to the mountain
for ascetic retreats as well as for worship of its various deities, the most popular
of whom was Izuna Gongen, a protective mountain-dwelling spirit of a type
known as tengu, with wings and long noses or beaks, but otherwise in human
form. Yamabushi have a special fondness for tengu, believing that their ascetic
deprivations will transform them into these immortal creatures (Fister 1985).
Yakuōin’s Izuna Gongen Hall is a good example of a Shinto shrine building at
a Buddhist-Shugendō pilgrimage site mountain-temple complex (fig. 3.4). First
constructed in 1729, then damaged and repaired in 1753 and again in the 1960s,
it is a brightly painted structure that has somehow survived despite the high
incidence of mountain fires. Befitting the temple’s status of association with
a Tokugawa clan, the same lineage of carvers who created the Nikkō Tōshōgū
shrine crafted its intricate and deeply cut relief sculptures. Although the tem-
ple possessed lands worth seventy-five koku and collected money from branch
temples, this patronage proved insufficient for its funding as the Edo period pro-
gressed, and it turned to other commercial activities, including the holding of

3.4. Izuna Gongen Hall at Yakuōin, Mount Takao, Saitama Prefecture, first constructed in 1729; re-
paired in 1753 and again in the 1960s. Photograph by author.
public exhibitions of its treasures, some in Edo, for additional income. At these
events, it capitalized on the temple’s association with the powerful Tokugawa
family by displaying some treasures the clan donated to the temple as a means
of attracting greater numbers of paying customers.
Popular Temples in and around Edo

Soon after Tokugawa Ieyasu founded Edo, construction of hundreds of temples,
founded either with shogunate sponsorship or daimyo support, commenced.
Most allowed free access to commoners. Temples welcomed the public to litur-
gical services held according to a regular schedule throughout the year and also
encouraged private devotions before icons of popular deities at other times.12 As
the nation’s capital, Edo possessed the largest and densest concentration of com-
moners in the nation. Although these temples served this population’s spiritual
needs, they also became intertwined with city life in other ways. Some of these
temples grew famous and came to attract visitors from afar as well.
The rapid expansion of the city in its first century sometimes necessitated
relocation of newly built temples, at first to accommodate new influxes of citi-
zens and then in response to reconfigurations of the city’s dwelling zones after
the disastrous Meireki-era fire of 1657. Unfortunately, many of Edo’s temples no
longer survive, but information on their history, attractions, appearance, and

activities that took place under their jurisdiction can be gleaned from copiously
illustrated accounts in Saitō Gesshin’s massive twenty-volume tome, Illustrated
Guide to Famous Places of Edo.
The most famous temple in Tokyo today is Sensōji. As described in chapter 1,
it first became important in city life when the Tokugawa family authorized it to
serve as its prayer temple early in the Edo period. Although the early Tokugawa
shoguns patronized the temple, it never lacked for popular support. As the Edo
period progressed and funding from the Tokugawa waned, the temple turned
to its popular base of support for assuring its financial solvency and refashioned
itself as a center for both the religious and secular life of urban commoners.
The numerous shops within its precincts came to attract as many patrons as its
prayer halls. It generated income through the sale of amulets and by sponsoring
popular amusements, including, on occasion, prostitution.
Most buildings at Sensōji did not survive World War II; nearly all date to
a 1957 reconstruction.13 Yet because of its preeminence in Edo life, artists at
the time frequently represented it in paintings and woodblock prints. Among
the early representations of this temple is the screen depicted in plate 4, which
reveals its appearance in the first half of the Edo period, perhaps on the cusp
of its ascendancy as a place of popular pilgrimage and diversion. Unlike later
pictures of the temple compound, the view of the buildings is not hampered
by crowds. Clearly the artist intended the temple itself to be the focus rather
than its popular amusements or throngs of visitors, as was common in later
representations.
The practice of displaying secret icons and other temple treasures to the
public — but only those who paid an admission fee — became widespread during
the Edo period (Kornicki 1994; Ambros 2004). The practice was known as early
as the ninth century in China and had also taken place in Japan from the Ka-
makura period (Ambros 2004, 2–3). By viewing in person sacred images, often
kept hidden from sight, visitors could establish a spiritual connection with the
deities they represented. It was widely believed that deities inhabited their iconic
images during these occasions and that by viewing the icon with their own eyes
they would be blessed by the deities’ divine powers .14 By the Edo period, though,
such viewings had become moneymaking ventures for temples, especially in
Edo, where huge crowds guaranteed generous profits. The viewings enabled
temples to raise money for expensive reconstruction and general upkeep and
were also sometimes held to offer divine benevolence and alleviate suffering
after particularly horrific disasters. To attract the desired crowds, temples con-
currently set up carnival-like performances and exhibitions of exotic curiosi-
ties (misemono) within their grounds. Owing to government restrictions, these
exhibitions could take place only once every thirty-three years for a duration of
about sixty days. Sensōji held thirty-two kaichō during the Edo period, the first

in 1654. It also held twenty-seven displays of other temples’ treasures (degaichō;
lit. “external openings of the curtain”).
Although these degaichō took place in many large cities in Japan, Edo hosted
the largest share by virtue of the potential for profits offered by its sizable popu-
lation. Temples located far from Edo formed alliances with local host temples,
often famous places themselves, which earned a percentage of the income.
Hōryūji’s degaichō in Edo in 1694 has already been noted in chapter 1. Some-
times the provincial temples initiated these affiliations, and sometimes local
temples needing cash instigated the contact with famous temples in distant
provinces. Ekōin was one temple where degaichō were held quite often — in fact,
more than any other Edo temple. In 1692, it hosted one that featured the mae-
dachi of Zenkōji’s famous Amida triad, when that temple sought to raise money
for construction of its new Main Hall.15
Ekōin’s popularity must have stemmed from its image as the quintessential
commoner temple. It belongs to the Jōdo sect and was founded by shogunate
order as an official state-sponsored burial site for the unidentified 108,000 vic-
tims not survived by family members during the 1657 fire. In 1675, these des-
titute people and others who died later from various causes, who also had no
family members to mourn them, were interred in a common grave, and a bronze
statue of the buddha Amida was cast and erected on the spot to protect their
souls (fig. 3.5). Regrettably, a fire destroyed that statue in 1703, but in 1705, the
bakufu ordered one of their most important, officially employed bronze cast-
ers, Ōta Rokuemon (aka the sixth-generation Kama or Kamaroku), to create a
replacement. The expertise of the maker is evident upon close inspection, which
reveals over ten separately cast pieces joined together afterwards.16 Because they
are impervious to the elements, bronze statues are normally placed outdoors
in temple courtyards or cemeteries or alongside roads, where they offer divine
protection to deceased persons or travelers. This statue served such a purpose
until construction of the temple’s modern Main Hall in 1970, when it was placed
upon the altar of the new building as the temple’s principal object of worship.
Throughout the Edo period, Ekōin remained a mortuary temple for destitute
citizens, including criminals. More recently, it has become a cemetery for lost
pets, whose souls are interred in a huge, common burial mound. Because of its
association with ordinary citizens, it became a popular pilgrimage destination
and gathering place for commoners in Edo. Its fame among the needy increased
in the mid-nineteenth century because of the interment there of “Rat Boy,” a
Robin Hood-like popular hero who helped the poor. Consequently, the temple
is popularly known as the Shrine of the Rat Boy. During the eighteenth century,
Ekōin, located in the popular entertainment district near the Ryōgoku Bridge,
became associated with sumo wrestlers, who held tournaments in its precincts
and buried their topknots at the temple when they retired, a practice that con-

3.5. Ōta Rokuemon
(active late sev-
enteenth to early
eighteenth century).
Amida Buddha at
Ekōin, Tokyo, 1705.
Cast bronze. Height:
282 cm. Photograph
courtesy of the Rittō
City History Museum,
Shiga Prefecture.
tinues today. The first sumo tournament took place there in 1768 to help the
temple raise money for its upkeep, and the tournaments continued there until
construction of the nearby National Sumo Stadium in 1909.
Another popular place for degaichō in Edo was a now-defunct temple, Eitaiji, a
Shingon-sect affiliate located in the Fukagawa District, which housed the largest
concentration of religious institutions east of the Sumida River that divided Edo.
One of the most nationally celebrated sacred images displayed on numerous oc-
casions at Eitaiji was the statue of Fudō Myōō (Skt. Acalanātha; Ch. Budong Fo),
one of the five Buddhist Wisdom Kings (Skt. Vidyārāja; Jp. Myōō), enshrined as
the central icon at Naritasan Shinshōji, a famous Shingon temple located in the
countryside 43 miles (70 kilometers) outside Edo.17 At the time, traveling this
distance took two days and one night by foot and boat from the city — not a trip
everyone could undertake (Kominz 1997, 37). In 1703, the statue was brought to
Edo for the first time so that all the residents of the city could venerate it. Eitaiji
erected a new building to house the guest icon, Fukagawa Fudō Hall. Keishōin,
the fifth shogun’s mother, helped finance this event. As thanks for her efforts,

the temple allowed a subsequent private showing for her at Edo Castle of the
treasures displayed at Eitaiji. Her high status precluded her attendance at places
frequented by commoners (Shinshōji 1968, 495). Degaichō of Naritasan’s Fūdō
at this temple took place fifteen times, until the temple’s destruction in 1898,
testifying to the continued popular appeal of Shinshōji’s icon into the Meiji pe-
riod, even during a time of great Buddhist persecution. Realizing the strength
of Shinshōji’s devotees, Meiji authorities placated them by allowing worship of
the deity with a new Shinto name of Ugokazu no mikoto (Unmoving kami)
(Ketelaar 1990, 75). The ukiyoe printmaker Utagawa Hiroshige III (1842–1894)
has depicted one of these Meiji degaichō in his print Fukagawa Fudōson, dated
1885 (plate 5). It captures a fleeting moment in Japan’s past, when the nation
teetered between tradition and modernity. Although gathering for a traditional
religious occasion, everyone seems to be carrying modern, Western-style um-
brellas, and the approach to the temple is lined with gas street lights. Women
and some men wear traditional kimono, but some of the men appear in top hats
and formal Western suits.
Naritasan Shinshōji was founded in 940 by imperial order in response to a
miraculous occurrence. A rebellion by a local warrior required the then-reigning
emperor to dispatch troops to eastern Japan. He also ordered a priest to travel
to the area together with a sacred icon of Fudō Myōō, borrowed from the Fire
Offering Hall (Gomadō) at the Kyoto temple of Jingōji. This statue was believed
to have miraculous powers because Shingon’s founder, Kōbō Daishi, was said to
have carved it for Jingōji on the occasion of a rebellion. Kōbō Daishi reputedly
used the statue as a focus for his pleas to the deity Fudō in a Shingon fire ritual
(goma) to successfully stop the rebellion. The duty of the priest who traveled
east with imperial troops in 940 was to perform this same fire ritual, again im-
ploring Fudō to render his divine intervention and restore peace. On the last day
of the three-week ritual, troops succeeded in quelling the rebellion. However,
when the priest attempted to lift the statue to return it to Jingōji, it had inex-
plicably grown too heavy to move, and an oracle declared that Fudō wished the
statue to remain there forever to aid the locals. Thereupon the emperor ordered
a temple constructed on the spot to house it and named it Shinshōji (Temple of
the Newly Won Victory) (Shinshōji 1968, 14–15; Reader 1991, 143–144). Although
the temple maintains that the image enshrined in its Main Hall today is the
same one described in this legend, art historians disagree, dating the statue to
the second half of the thirteenth century.18 Visitors to the temple can see it only
on special occasions; its more recently made maedachi is always on view, placed
in front of the closed reliquary that houses the sacred statue.19
Although of great antiquity, because of its remote, provincial location,
Shinshōji remained a humble institution until the Edo period, when Tokugawa
Ieyasu moved his capital to the area.20 According to temple records, Ieyasu gave

support to the temple because its abbot had converted him to Buddhism. In
a show of support for Ieyasu, his closest supporters, the Tokugawa collateral
families, followed his example and patronized the temple as well. Concurrently,
Ieyasu required the Sakura daimyo, within whose domain the temple lay, to
oversee its upkeep.21 Ieyasu may have sought the divine protection of Shinshōji’s
main deity for several practical reasons. First, because it was situated north-
east of Edo, he may have likened the site with the Tendai-sect headquarters of
Enryakuji atop Mount Hiei, northeast of Kyoto. Enryakuji had been founded
to protect Kyoto from the unlucky northeast direction, and perhaps he hoped
Shinshōji could protect Edo in the same way (Shinshōji 1968, 494). Also, military
and political success accounted for Shinshōji’s founding, an auspicious associa-
tion for Ieyasu’s aspiring hegemony.
Although Ieyasu was said to patronize the temple, it was not until the reign of
the fourth shogun, Tokugawa Ietsuna, that the shogunate embarked on a build-
ing project there: the reconstruction of the Main Hall in 1655. This small, fairly
conventional building, now a hall for venerating the buddha Yakushi and used
as a calligraphy school classroom, remains standing today along the main road
of Narita City leading to the temple. However, other building projects spon-
sored by the military elite never materialized due to increasing financial strain
on the bakufu treasury and the waning fortunes of the daimyo. Consequently,
the temple’s first age of fluorescence, in the early eighteenth century, was fueled
instead by massive funding from ordinary citizens.
Spearheading this initiative was the wildly successful and affluent Kabuki
actor Ichikawa Danjūrō I. Danjūrō was born into the Horikoshi merchant fam-
ily of Edo, although the family had once been samurai.22 Devotion to the valiant
traits of this samurai heritage is apparent in his choice of heroic characters and
their noble deeds. Danjūrō’s success stemmed from his invention of a rough and
masculine style of movement (aragoto), especially his imitation of the ferocious
stances of the virtuous and powerful Buddhist deities he revered. Sometimes he
played the role of Fudō Myōō so forcefully that viewers imagined the deity had
come to life before their eyes (Kominz 1997, 81). Danjūrō kept a diary in which
he recorded his deep feelings for Buddhism. In it, he claimed that he owed this
talent to Fudō himself, who had taught him in a dream the secret of his pen-
etrating glare.23
Danjūrō became associated with Shinshōji because of familial ties to the area.
His devotion to the temple grew stronger after the safe birth of his first child in
1688. During his wife’s pregnancy, he had prayed to the temple’s icon of Fudō
Myōō. As thanks to Shinshōji’s Fudō, he began writing and starring in Kabuki
plays with themes featuring the god’s miraculous powers. He also had his son,
Kuzō (Ichikawa Danjūrō II, 1688–1758), whom he considered “Fudō’s gift,” play
the part of the deity Fudō Myōō (in the fifth month of 1697) in the play in which

3.6. Unsigned; attrib-
uted to Torii Kiyonobu
(1664–1729). Page from the
book The Origin of the
Soga Warrior (Tsuwamono
Kongen Soga) showing
Ichikawa Kuzō as Fudō
Myōō and Ichikawa
Danjūrō I as the warrior
Gorō, 1697. Woodblock-
printed book in ink on
paper, 22.5 × 15.5 cm.
The Library of the Tokyo
National University of
Fine Arts and Music.
Kuzō made his stage debut, The Origin of the Soga Warrior (Tsuwamono Kongen
Soga). During the run of the play, audience members responded to the presence
of Fudō onstage in an unprecedented manner, with prayers and offerings as if
the theater were a temple hall (Kominz 1997, 69.) An unidentified artist of the
Torii school of ukiyoe printmakers (possibly Torii Kiyonobu, 1664–1729) created
a scene-by-scene illustrated record of this production that depicts a critical scene
in which young Kuzō, as Fudō, stops a fight between two warriors (fig. 3.6).
Several years later, in 1703, Danjūrō authored and starred in another play
about Shinshōji’s Fudō, The Avatars of the Fudō of Narita Temple (Naritasan
Bunjin Fudō), which opened at the same time the sacred image was having its
Edo debut at Eitaiji. As already mentioned, although Keishōin may have helped
finance this event, it was most likely Danjūrō — together with the temple’s new
and energetic abbot, Shōhan Shōnin (d. 1724), who took over temple adminis-
tration in 1700 — who made it a success because the play gave the deity and its
temple great publicity (Kominz 1997, 92–93). This sort of celebrity promotion of
degaichō became a common occurrence at these events.

In spite of his public acclaim, Danjūrō remained a humble, devout Buddhist
throughout his life who openly proclaimed that he owed his success to his
prayers and devotion to specific deities with whom he felt personal attachment,
especially Fudō Myōō, but also others (Kominz 1997, 61). Such pronouncements
inspired his admirers to become fervent devotees of Buddhism in general and of
Shinshōji’s Fudō in particular. Because so many of them embarked on pilgrim-
ages to Naritasan Shinshōji, sometimes under his leadership, and supported
the temple by attending its degaichō in Edo, the temple became quite wealthy.
Danjūrō’s descendants helped this effort by promoting the temple and its deity
among their fans throughout the Edo period.24 These admirers often banded
together in groups of confraternities — lay religious organizations (kō) that were
composed of merchants or tradespeople of Edo, including geisha, fishmongers,
woodworkers, firemen, and Kabuki actors (Shinshōji 1968, 273).
Owing to the consistency of its popular patronage, this temple constructed
some of the finest early modern temple architecture in Japan, most of which
remains standing today. The first phase of the grand refurbishing of the temple
began with the completion of a new Main Hall and bell tower in 1701, a three-
story pagoda in 1712 (fig. 3.7), and a Sutra Hall in 1722. The pagoda, bell tower,
and Sutra Hall underwent repairs in 1981 to restore their original appearance,
with brilliantly polychromed exterior surfaces and elaborate relief carving simi-
lar to that on the buildings at the Nikkō Tōshōgū shrine and other temples and
shrines in close proximity to Edo — for example, Yakuōin (see fig. 3.4 above).25
This style of carving on exteriors of buildings had been applied first to Mo-
moyama-period religious structures for the military elite, who used it to portray
politically correct, Confucian, and Daoist themes that expressed rulers’ desires
for the longevity of their reign and progeny and the wisdom of their methods
of governance. These designs offered examples of meritorious deeds by ancient
Chinese Confucian sages worthy of emulation.
By the early eighteenth century, just around the time Tokugawa Tsunayoshi
officially sanctioned the teaching of Confucianism to all citizens, this imagery
began to appear on new temple buildings for commoners’ use.26 Shinshōji’s pa-
goda actually includes some of the same Daoist and Confucian figural subjects
as at Nikkō, which, of course, are not traditional to Shingon temples. Unpainted
relief carvings of the Sixteen Rakan appear on the pagoda’s sides as well. The
appearance of these subjects from different religious traditions reveals both the
conflation of such traditions and the pervasive influence of Chinese learning.
Furthermore, the inclusion of Rakan, a subject more commonly found at Zen
temples, at an important and popular Shingon temple reflects the explosive
growth in popularity of Rakan during the eighteenth century (further discussed
in chap. 4).
Another building erected around this time, the Sutra Hall, exemplifies a pop-

3.7. Three-story
pagoda at Naritasan
Shinshōji, Narita,
Chiba Prefecture,
1712. Photograph by
author.
ular means of attracting the interest of devotees. It housed a complete collection

of all known Buddhist scriptures, the tripitaka, in a huge revolving bookcase in
its central chamber. This feature was especially popular at Edo-period temples
frequented by commoners and remains so today. Visitors enjoyed the participa-
tory experience of setting the spinning bookshelf in motion in the belief that the
turning motion could transfer all the wisdom contained in the myriad volumes
to the visitors themselves.27
By the early nineteenth century, numerous commoners regularly visited
Shinshōji to pray to Fudō Myōō for protection against fires and epidemics and
also because its relative proximity to the city made for an easy and enjoyable
several-day excursion. The temple was most crowded, as expected, on the des-
ignated kaichō viewing dates, twenty-three during the early modern era.28 Visi-

3.8. Main Gate (Niōmon) at Naritasan Shinshinōji, Narita, Chiba Prefecture, 1830. Photograph
by author.
tors donated numerous offerings to the temple, including some votive paint-
ings commissioned from famous artists of Edo.29 In response to this escalating
popularity in the nineteenth century, the temple commenced a second major
building phase.
In 1830, Shinshōji’s Main Gate (Niōmon), famous for its giant lantern, was
rebuilt with funding from members of the local fishmarket association, whose
name the lantern bears and which remains responsible for its periodic replace-
ment (fig. 3.8). It, too, contains carvings of Confucian sages on its walls. After
first being restored in 1768, the 1701 Main Hall was replaced by a new, larger
structure in a more up-to-date style, dedicated in 1858 (fig. 3.9). Funding for this
1858 project came from donations from over ten thousand worshipers, an effort
coordinated by the local Sakura daimyo. The exterior has extensive wooden
relief carving on the walls and doors of themes not traditionally seen at Shingon
temples, but which were especially popular in the late Edo period: the Confu-
cian Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety and the Five Hundred Rakan. Rakan,
as exemplars of Buddhist morality, were considered the Buddhist equivalent of
Confucian sages, accounting for the pairing of these subjects here. These images
were carved over a ten-year period by an artisan named Matsumoto Ryōzan.
Ryōzan’s Rakan were based on sketches by an Edo-based Kano-school painter

3.9. Hall for Worship of the Buddha Shaka (Shakadō) at Naritasan Shinshōji, Narita, Chiba Pre
fecture, 1858. Photograph by author.
of the day, Kano Kazunobu (1816–1863), who also created the ceiling painting
for this new building. Kazunobu was, at the same time, engaged in the magnum
opus project of his career, a monumental set of one hundred scrolls of the Five
Hundred Rakan for the Tokugawa family temple of Zōjōji (see plate 7).30
When the 1858 hall was built, the older Main Hall was actually moved to a
location behind the new one, turning it into a Kōmyōdō, a hall dedicated to the
buddha Dainichi (Skt. Mahāvairocana, the esoteric form of Birushana, the Bud-
dha of Cosmic Life), and its form was modified.31 Later, prior to construction
of the current Main Hall in 1968, the temple relocated both of these buildings
to their present sites at the complex. At that time, the 1858 Main Hall became a
Hall for Veneration of the Buddha Shaka (Shakadō).
The final construction of this mid-nineteenth-century building boom was the
votive Tablet Hall (Gakudō) (fig. 3.10), an open-air structure dedicated in 1861
where large-scale votive tablets (ema) presented to the temple by devotees would
be displayed. The Kabuki actor Ichikawa Danjūrō VII (1791–1859) funded the
construction costs of this building. Danjūrō VII was famous for his extravagant
lifestyle, which annoyed the authorities so much that they banished him from
Edo for ten years, beginning in 1842 (Kominz 1997, 105–106). During this period,
he resided and acted in Osaka, where Kabuki was also extremely popular, and
managed to amass even more wealth. His lavish donation of this building to the
temple at the end of his life was probably stimulated by deep remorse for the

3.10. Votive Tablet Hall (Gakudō) at Naritasan Shinshōji, Narita, Chiba Prefecture, 1861. Photograph
by author.
untimely death of his eldest son and heir, Ichikawa Danjurō VIII (1823–1854),
with whom he had a strained relationship and who committed suicide in Osaka
after being summoned there to perform with his father.
This chapter has introduced a diverse group of temples, from small,

thatched-roof cottages to those of monumental proportions; from provincial
temples for local villagers and ascetic practitioners to those visited by teeming
masses of urban dwellers; and from the resplendent structures of ancient, na-
tionally famous pilgrimage centers to those that had been newly established in
the Edo period or substantially expanded then. The modesty of some temples
stemmed from the limited resources of their parishioners, but many others
openly emulated the architectural styles of temples for elite samurai, indicating
the astonishing wealth of donations that temples were capable of collecting and
the prestige that such emulation conferred upon commoner patrons.
When considering the diversity of these temples alongside the plethora of
Buddhist architectural types designed for exclusive use by the imperial family
and elite samurai of the era, the complexity and richness of early modern Bud-
dhist sites and ritual practices becomes apparent. Many of these sites of worship
served both samurai and commoner devotees, who mingled during ritual ser-
vices and lectures by eminent monks. Many temples also featured elements of

various sectarian traditions, although each belonged to a particular sect. These
characteristics suggest the multiplicity of Buddhist beliefs then current and the
changing nature of social interactions between people of different social classes.
They also hint at the complexity to be found in the production of early modern
Buddhist devotional, didactic, and ritual imagery, which forms the focus of the
remainder of part I.

Chapter Four
Depictions of Popular Deities
and Spiritual Concerns
by the early modern period, Buddhism had developed into a complex and
diverse belief system with numerous sects and subsects, each with its own doc-
trines, sect-specific rituals, and identifiable imagery. Yet the shared concerns
of devotees for safety and material success in this world and fears about the
unknown afterlife concurrently encouraged a syncretic practice of the faith that
crossed sectarian divisions. Following earlier trends, many rites were universally
observed, the most popular deities were widely venerated, and teachings es-
poused by particular sects often came to be incorporated into others. Prolonged
peace and more stable social conditions helped fuel a burgeoning growth in the
nation’s commoner population, especially in cities. For the first time in Japanese
history, commoner lay Buddhist practitioners began making and commission-
ing large numbers of Buddhist images, many of which were quite grand, and be-
came responsible for the construction of monumental temple-building projects.
Previously, they lacked the education and affluence to create a substantial body
of Buddhist material culture of their own. But a new law decreeing that temples
could collect donations, also enacted by the fifth shogun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi,
made this more feasible (Bodart-Bailey 2006, 208–209). This flowering of urban
commoner culture as a driving force for the increased production of the arts of
the Edo period, both secular and religious, is widely acknowledged.1
Although religious syncretism had long been an important facet of Buddhist
practice in Japan, it became even more pronounced during the Edo period, in
part due to the influence of Tsunayoshi, who encouraged commoners to learn
about Confucianism and especially its reverence for ancestors (Bodart-Bailey

2006, 223–224). This resulted in increased emphasis on funerary rites at Bud-
dhist temples and new support for commoner temples by the shogunate and
daimyo. Previously, the elites did not much concern themselves with the spiri-
tual needs of the lower classes.
The rapid increase in the production of printed books in the Genroku era
by and for commoners also contributed to an increase in syncretic religious
practices. The appearance of these books reflects the rise in education levels
and literacy among commoners of the time. The first mass printing of wood-
block books in the seventeenth century, many about Buddhism, fostered in-
creased devotion to that faith as such books facilitated the spread of information
about miraculous deeds performed by deities and their icons located at famous
temples. Traveling lay emissaries of temples and mendicant clerics also spread
knowledge of their temples and efficacious images, often using pictures as props
during sermons.
As commoners became devoted to Buddhism, imagery associated with the
faith by and for them came to appear everywhere — scattered about temple
grounds or along roadways, in private homes and shops, and on small amu-
lets that devotees carried with them. Private sponsorship of icons and votive
plaques erected in public places also proliferated. Some production of Edo-
period Buddhist images resulted from great acts of an individual’s self-sacrifice
over long periods of time; in other cases production was undertaken as a com-
mercial business venture. All these images were created concurrently with the
continued production of materials by and for elite worshipers. The wide body
of didactic, devotional, and liturgical imagery created in response to the faith’s
increasingly syncretic beliefs by and for its varied devotees forms the focus of
this chapter, which emphasizes imagery of widely worshiped deities and imagi-
native visualizations of personal prayers and the afterlife.
Newly Popular Trans-Sectarian Deities:

Jizō, the Rakan, and the Seven Gods of Good Fortune
Cultlike devotion to particular persona has always been a part of Buddhist wor-
ship in Japan. Worshipers self-select personal saviors from among the Buddhist,
Shinto, Confucian, and Daoist pantheon, based on personal attraction to leg-
ends asserting the effectiveness of these figures’ miraculous powers, often as
channeled through the medium of renowned images that represented them (as
in the case of Naritasan Shinshōji’s Fudō Myōō). While many persona popular
from earlier centuries, such as Kannon and Fudō, were worshiped separately
and remained favorites during the Edo period, devotion to others, particularly
the bodhisattva Jizō and the Rakan, which are discussed below, seemed to grow
more suddenly at the time, and their popularity remains strong into the pres-
Depictions of Popular Deities and Spiritual Concerns | 97

ent. This contrasts sharply with the fleeting devotion accorded to some other
figures from the Buddhist pantheon (including various mountain goblins, or
tengu, already mentioned in connection with Yakuōin atop Mount Takao) that
have become known as “faddish deities” (hayari gami).2 Yet among these newly
popular, fashionable deities of the Edo period, one group, the Seven Gods of
Good Fortune, a powerful new configuration of divine guardians assembled
from various faiths, is discussed below because they stand out from the others
due to their enduring appeal.
Jizō first entered Japanese Buddhism in conjunction with esoteric Buddhist
beliefs in the eighth century. He is depicted modestly, as an ascetic monk rather
than a bejeweled, transcendent bodhisattva, which may account for his early
enthusiastic reception among laity in Japan. In the Heian period, he became a
national protector, but soon individuals began worshiping him for more per-
sonal reasons. Sūtras imported from China and apocryphal miracle tales about
Jizō intertwined his identity with that of the Ten Kings (who judged the fate of
the recently deceased), which begat the belief that Jizō could straddle the worlds
of the living and the dead and save souls trapped in hell (Dykstra 1978, 183).
He also came to be considered, like Kannon, capable of transporting believers
to Amida’s Pure Land Paradise (Dykstra 1978, 184–185, 188). Both sutras and
miracle tales about Jizō echoed those for Kannon in their descriptions of Jizō’s
powers as savior, guardian, and healer and his ability to assist with worldly and
otherworldly needs; they also presented him, like Kannon, in manifold mani-
festations (LaFleur 1992, 48–49).
Between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, both Kannon and Jizō were
worshiped through confraternities of dedicated devotees. During the Edo pe-
riod, noncanonical tales of Jizō’s powers multiplied. Woodblock books that dis-
seminated these persuasive stories helped facilitate his worship, and secular
travel journals by popular writers enticingly described journeys to Jizō pilgrim-
age centers (Miyazaki and Williams 2001, 417). Accordingly, worship of Jizō
spread among commoners, and from the eighteenth century certain sites grew
into popular cult centers. Some highlighted Jizō’s power as healer and others
his powers of salvation. As savior of young children and fetuses, his image fre-
quently took the form of naively carved stone images or simple piles of stones
that symbolized his presence, personalized with offerings of clothing.3 Devotees
left offerings, a practice that continues today (see fig. 10.2). Large, more finely
carved statues of Jizō proliferated as well. Because of the expense involved, these
images required the efforts of numerous donors for their creation.
A Jōdo monk named Shingan (1647–1706) made one of the most unusual of
these large-scale images for Daienji, a temple he headed in Kanazawa, the Maeda
daimyo’s castle town. Shingan was a well-educated samurai who had learned the
traditional arts befitting his status, including painting, in his youth. As a priest,

he put his talent to use producing pictures of Buddhist icons for parishioners in
exchange for donations to fund his temple.4 In this way, he was able to construct
a storehouse (kura)-style Main Hall and erect within it, in 1700, a giant, 4-meter-
tall, brightly painted statue of Jizō that he made himself (plate 6).
The statue honored destitute deceased persons of Kanazawa whose bones
Shingan found scattered around the city. He incorporated these bones into the
statue, crushing them to a powder and then mixing them with clay to form the
statue’s face, neck, and hands. His idea of sanctifying fragments of the human
body as objects of veneration dates back to the earliest days of Buddhism in
India, when the Buddha’s remains were considered potent sacred relics that were
dispersed soon after his death and deposited in reliquaries such as stupas, pa-
godas, and small, portable containers.5 In this case, by joining the bones of de-
ceased persons with the body of an image of a Buddhist deity, Shingan intended
to help them achieve salvation. He carved the remainder of the figure in wood
and painted the whole surface to appear lifelike. Remarkably, the original colors
remain intact. Names of donors appear inscribed on the statue’s robes, and the
wall surrounding the statue contains 1,333 tiny Buddha statues.
Early Tokugawa rulers had set a precedent for establishing temples and erect-
ing large icons to facilitate salvation of the poor, as at Ekōin in Edo. Shingan’s
efforts represent initiation of this custom by the clergy. By the late Edo pe-
riod, devout laity had also become involved in the practice. Yokoyama Take, a
commoner from Edo, was responsible for the dedication of a mammoth bronze
statue of Jizō atop Mount Kōya as savior of her parents and the approximately
ten thousand others who had died in an earthquake and subsequent tsunami
that leveled about half of the commoners’ section of Edo in 1855 (fig. 4.1). Ac-
cording to a plaque adjacent to the statue, it was consecrated soon after the trag-
edy in 1860, but the donor continued to solicit donations for thirty more years to
pay for the cost of the image. This meant Take was still collecting money for it
well into the Meiji period, during the height of Buddhism’s persecution early in
that era, reflecting the resolute support of the faith by commoners at this time
of social transition. Take’s statue, named Otake Jizō after her, was installed on a
small hill overlooking the Women’s Worship Hall (Nyōnindō) at the perimeter
of Mount Kōya’s temple complex, the farthest point into the complex where
women in premodern times were permitted. Today the statue serves not only
as a memorial to those who died in the Edo earthquake, but also, as the plaque
by the statue indicates, as an object of the prayers of people seeking success in
studies, a happy marriage, safe childbirth, and the salvation of deceased unborn
children.
Some public monuments portraying Jizō were intended for the benefit of the
living rather than the dead. Most common are groupings of six statues of Jizō set
in a row, symbolizing his ability to enter the six states of existence and transport

4.1. Otake Jizō at Mount
Kōya, ca. 1860. Cast bronze.
Height: approx. 2 m.
the faithful from a perpetual, torturous existence in the lower, demonic realms
to salvation in heaven after death (his association with these six realms is sym-
bolized by the presence of six rings on the monk’s staff he always carries). People
prayed to these statues for their own and their loved ones’ deliverance to the
upper realms after they died and also for Jizō to grant their wishes for material
benefits in this world. In the city of Edo, commoners likened these six realms to
the six major thoroughfares that led into the city. Those who frequented these
routes contributed money towards the creation of six bronze statues of Jizō, one
each to be placed within the grounds of temples situated at the starting points
of the roads. The statues were completed between 1708 and circa 1720. Five of
the original six remain. In all, over 75,000 persons contributed to this endeavor.
Their names can still be seen engraved on the pedestals and lower portions of
the statues6 (fig. 4.2). The imposing 2-meter tall Jizō at the start of the famed
Tōkaidō Highway was completed first in 1708 and sits bareheaded (he lost his
hat in a nineteenth-century storm) in the small courtyard of the Shingon temple
of Honsenji in Shinagawa Ward.

4.2. Jizō Bodhisattva at
Honsenji, Tokyo, 1708.
Cast bronze. Height: 2 m.
Rakan (alt Jp. name Arakan; Ch. Luohan; Skt. Arhat), literally “Worthy Ones,”
are devout monks who gained enlightenment after hearing the teachings of the
buddha Shaka in India. In art they appear either as devout ascetic monks or as
eccentric old men. Groupings of Sixteen Rakan (Jūroku Rakan) and Five Hun-
dred Rakan (Gohyaku Rakan) and a related assemblage, laity known as the Ten
Great Disciples of the Buddha Shaka (Shaka Jūdai Deshi) originated in Indian
canonical texts. By the tenth century, Chinese cults had also invented another
grouping of eighteen (Jūhachi Rakan).7
In China and Japan, Rakan function in the Buddhist pantheon as upholders
of the Buddhist Law, preserving the teachings of the Buddha until the reappear-
ance, sometime in the distant future, of the future buddha Miroku. Through
their exemplary conduct, they serve as models of morality, and their existence
“helps worshippers collapse the temporal distance between the present world
and the time and presence of the Buddha” (Levine 2005, 99). Chinese texts de-
scribe their predilection for living as recluses in the forests, anonymously social-
izing with the faithful and dazzling devotees with miraculous deeds their per-

fected state allowed them to perform, such as taming a dragon, flying through
the sky, or shooting golden rays from their palms (Murray 1994, 140; Kent 1995,
9–26). These traits led Chinese writers to liken them to Daoist immortals and
Confucian sages, which texts described similarly.
The Japanese began portraying Rakan in the eighth century, and by the Heian
and Kamakura periods they had gained a cult following among aristocrats and
warriors. Yet it was in the Edo era that their devotion, and images of them, in-
creased exponentially in direct proportion to the era’s explosive growth in its
commoner population and that group’s newfound knowledge of Confucianism
in the late seventeenth century. Commoners’ understanding of the basic tenets
of Confucian morality and filial piety led them to regard Rakan as paragons of
Confucian-like piety, because the virtuous Rakan closely resembled Confucian
sages.
The Japanese created their earliest images of Rakan in connection with repre-
sentations of episodes from the Lotus Sutra, which featured them prominently
(M. Watanabe 2000, 34). The Lotus Sutra describes only the standard collec-
tive of five hundred (Watson 1993, 149–150). However, following other Buddhist
scriptures, which were conflated with the Lotus Sutra pictorially, many medieval
representations of Rakan showed them as a group of sixteen, often with obvious
references to this sutra. This grouping remained in favor throughout the Edo
period, frequently in conservative environments, such as within second-floor
chambers of the main gates (sanmon) of Zen-sect temples. One of these gates,
at the Rinzai-sect Zen temple of Eigenji in the mountains of Eigenji-chō, Kan-
zaki-gun, of Shiga Prefecture (fig. 4.3) possesses well-preserved statues dating
to 1802, the year the gate was last reconstructed. The temple had been founded
in 1361 by courtiers and from its inception had been an important Zen training
monastery. Emperor Gomizunoo and his consort Tōfukumon’in financed its
revival in the seventeenth century, encouraging other elite patrons of Buddhism,
and even the Ōbaku patriarch Ingen, to visit there. Although no documents
survive that identify the makers, their deeply carved, well-designed appearance
indicates that they were made at an elite Kyoto workshop.
Although the origin of the custom of placing sixteen Rakan in Zen temple
gateways remains obscure, it was compulsory by the fifteenth century, perhaps
in response to an order from a shogun who based his demand on a Chinese
precedent for placing Rakan, either in sets of sixteen or eighteen, in temple gates
to protect the precincts (De Visser 1923, 162; Faure 1991, 267; and 1996, 90).
According to Zen Notes on Objects in the World (Zenrin shōkisen) of 1741, an
influential manual of Zen-sect practices by Mujaku Dōchū (1653–1745), a pow-
erful Rinzai abbot, by then all main gates at Rinzai temples contained Rakan,
often along with a central image of a transcendent, crowned Shaka Buddha
(Hōkan Shaka) flanked by two devout followers who had lived in India during

4.3. Shaka, Zenzai Dōji, Gakkai Chōja, and the Sixteen Rakan, inside the second-story chamber of
the Main Gate (Sanmon) at Eigenji, Shiga Prefecture, 1802. Wood with polychrome, gilt, and inset
crystal eyes. Height of individual Rakan: approx. 70 cm. Photograph by author.
his lifetime, Gakkai Chōja (Skt. Somachattra) and the child bodhisattva Zenzai
Dōji (Skt. Sudhana), as at the Eigenji gate.8 These latter figures must have been
selected to officiate over the assembly of Rakan alongside Shaka because they,
like the Rakan themselves, exemplify the Zen path to enlightenment attainable
by lay practitioners with the aid of noble teachers.
During the Muromachi period, Chinese Linxi-sect Chan monks who came to
Japan and their Japanese Rinzai-sect followers also helped expand appreciation
in Japan for Rakan in general and the assemblage of the Five Hundred Rakan in
particular. As already mentioned in chapter 2, one early emigrant Chinese Chan
monk had sculpted a stone set at a temple named Rakanji in Kyushu. Mean-
while, in Kyoto, where the Zen sect headquarters were located, Ikkyū Sōjun
(1394–1481), the eccentric and influential abbot of the Rinzai Zen temple of Dai-
tokuji, wrote poems about the Five Hundred Rakan. Later, Edo-period popular
stories about Ikkyū abounded, some of which featured comments attributed to
him on the Five Hundred Rakan, leading to their increased popularization at
that time.9 Ikkyū’s temple, Daitokuji, had also come into the possession of an im-
portant set of Chinese paintings of the group (Levine 2005, 287–296). Another
powerful Kyoto Rinzai temple, Tōfukuji, set up an important workshop to copy
these and other imported Chinese Buddhist paintings under the direction of the
monk-painter Minchō (1352–1431). As the Five Hundred Rakan gained popular-
ity in Japan, temples began to erect special halls for their veneration.

By the late seventeenth century, following popular Chinese tales, it was widely
believed that Rakan dwelt anonymously among the living and resembled actual
people. The fashionable author Iharu Saikaku helped to spread these myths in a
story he published in 1686, Life of an Amorous Woman (Kōshoku ichidai onna).10
It culminated with a visit by the courtesan-heroine, in her old age, to the Five
Hundred Rakan Hall at the Kyoto Tendai temple of Daiunji. Peering closely
at each Rakan statue, she remarked with astonishment that “every single one
reminded me of some man with whom in the past I had been intimate” (Iharu
1963, 206). The novel closes with her confessing her sins and begging for salva-
tion before the images, praying that though she lived an impure life, her heart
might be pure enough for her to attain salvation after death (Iharu 1963, 208).
Such fascination with Rakan led to the spread of their devotional cult among
commoners. That it emerged at the same time the Ōbaku monks emigrated to
Japan was not mere coincidence. The Japanese highly respected the dignified,
learned Ōbaku monks, whom they admired for their moral fortitude in coura-
geously coming to a foreign land because of their political convictions. They
considered the Ōbaku monks living embodiments of the Chinese sages and
immortals they read about in Confucian and Daoist texts. Ōbaku monks popu-
lated their temples with sculptural and painted images of Rakan, who resembled
and possessed qualities similar to these legendary Chinese figures.
The prevalence of Rakan imagery in Ōbaku temples reflected the religious
tenor of the late Ming period, in which both Buddhism and Confucianism had
developed into syncretic ideologies with shared value systems holding high re-
gard for ethical behavior. Unstable social conditions and the changing nature
of Buddhist devotees in late Ming China, dominated by a mushrooming of the
ranks of lay Buddhist supporters of the gentry class, may account for this fas-
cination with them.11 These new Buddhist followers seem to have encouraged
portrayals of heroic individuals like Rakan rather than transcendent deities. Par-
allel social developments in Japan led to similar tendencies in religious practices
there as well.
In Japan, two famous sets of sculptures of Rakan in Ōbaku temples encour-
aged replication of their imagery there and identification of the cult with the
Ōbaku lineage. The first set, wooden carvings of Eighteen Rakan prominently
installed along two raised platforms on either side of and perpendicular to the
main altar within Manpukuji’s Main Hall, were carved by a Chinese emigrant
sculptor, Han Dōsei (Ch. Fan Daosheng, 1635–1670), who died tragically young,
and were dedicated in 1664 (figs. 4.4, 4.5).12 His finely carved figures exude an
air of nervous tension unknown in prior Japanese sculpture.
The second sculptured set that helped popularize Rakan in Japan was the
group of five hundred that Shōun Genkei carved for Gohyaku Rakanji in Edo

4.4. Han Dōsei (Ch. Fan Daosheng, 1635–1670). Group of Rakan from a set of eighteen, installed in
the Main Hall (Daiyūhōden) at Manpukuji, Uji, 1664. Wood with polychrome and gold. Height of
each: approx. 135 cm.
4.5. Han Dōsei (Ch. Fan

Daosheng, 1635–1670). The
Rakan Subinda from a set
of eighteen, installed in the
Main Hall (Daiyūhōden) at
Manpukuji, Uji, 1664. Wood
with polychrome and gold,
height 132.3 cm.

(see fig. 2.7). Stylistically, his figures are indebted to the Manpukuji set (A. Satō
1991, 190). Genkei’s sculptures captivated the public because of his dedication to
such a large project and because of the arresting intensity of his images, which,
like Saikaku’s popular story, were said to resemble real people. Because Shōun’s
statues were created for a temple in the prosperous, trendsetting metropolis of
Edo, soon after completion they became the most famous group and helped
propel Rakan to new heights of popularity, which continues to the present.
Most of these sets were not carved in wood, as at Gohyaku Rakanji, but in
stone and placed in temple courtyards, although one emulated the fourteenth-
century Kyushu cave temple of Rakanji and scattered stone statues of Rakan
in mountainside grottos.13 Similar in conception to stone Jizō images, they are
characterized by a charming naiveté that instantly endears them to viewers.
Unlike the many stone Jizō statues, however, Rakan appear more individualized.
The placement of these statues outdoors marks an important turning point in
the practice of Buddhism in Japan. Previously, for the most part, individuals
prayed before statues located inside worship halls, but in the eighteenth century,
offering prayers to statues located in open-air temple courtyards grew popular.
This development gradually led to changes in the layouts of temple compounds
that, for the first time, needed to accommodate large numbers of worshipers as
well as statuary.
One of the earliest of these stone sets is located in the small temple court-
yard at the Tendai temple of Daienji in the Meguro District of Edo, where five
hundred stone Rakan surround a statue of Shaka (fig. 4.6). The group was com-
pleted during the Tenmei era (1781–1789) by anonymous carvers, most likely the
temple’s monks, as penance for the temple’s accidental negligence in causing
one of Edo’s most horrific disasters, a fire in 1772 that started at the temple and
spread to engulf and destroy one-third of the city and kill about four thousand
of its inhabitants (Kuno 1994, 230). Most of these statues are high-relief stele, all
neatly aligned in evenly tiered rows, interspersed occasionally with randomly
placed, large, free-standing figures. On careful scrutiny each possesses a dis-
tinct, amiable countenance.
Similar in sentiment but grander in scale, befitting the status of the tem-
ple at which they reside, are five hundred free-standing stone Rakan at Kitain,
Kawagoe, the Tokugawa family temple once overseen by Tenkai (fig. 4.7). In the
mid-eighteenth century, it had become the mortuary temple for the Matsudaira
daimyo clan. A priest there named Shijō carved these images as a personal act of
devotion over a forty-three-year period, between 1782 and 1825. The set actually
includes approximately 540 images: Shaka, his attendant bodhisattvas Fugen
and Monju, the Ten Great Disciples of Shaka, Sixteen Rakan, Five Hundred
Rakan, the buddha Amida, Jizō, and a few other figures. Some Rakan are seated,
others standing; some are conceived in groupings and carved from a single

4.6. Shaka and the Five Hundred Rakan at Daienji, Tokyo, Edo period, Tenmei era (1781–1789).
Stone. Height of Shaka: 144.5 cm; height of Rakan: 30.5 to 33.2 cm. Photograph by author.
stone, but all are unique and, like the example from the set illustrated in figure
4.7, are among the most instantly engaging of the innumerable stone statues of
this type that survive in Japan (Nihon Sekibutsu Kyōkai 1999, 116).
Amateur and professional painters of both elite and commoner status also
created distinctive interpretations of the Five Hundred Rakan.14 One of the
most celebrated sets is by Kano Kazunobu (alt. Isshin, 1816–1863), a minor Kano
school painter from Edo. He completed his set late in his life, between 1854 and
1863, and they are considered his masterpiece.15 They consist of one hundred
scrolls with five Rakan per scroll. He painted them for Zōjōji, the Tokugawa-
sponsored Jōdo sect headquarters in Edo. Typical of high-ranking professional
painters, he must have followed an older model for the compositions, but he
created a visually disturbing, original interpretation of the subject through his
seamless melding of diverse artistic traditions, as evident in the twenty-third
painting from the set, depicted in plate 7. It features Rakan saving sinners from
one of the Buddhist hells, a subject found in earlier Chinese and Japanese ver-
sions of Five Hundred Rakan pictures, although the earlier examples did not
place as much emphasis on the graphic portrayal of the sinners.16 Kazunobu
created a picture more powerful than any sermon, a wholly believable narrative
carefully delineated in chilling detail. At left, naked people plunge headfirst into
the Buddhist hell of ice, where a ghoul stabs them with a pitchfork. As a Rakan
melts the ice from an orb emitting a laser-like heat ray, the ice catches fire and

4.7. Priest Shijō (active late
eighteenth to early nineteenth
century). Rakan from a set of
five hundred at Kitain, Kawagoe,
Saitama Prefecture; set sculpted
between 1782 and 1825. Stone.
Height of individual Rakan: be-
tween 60 and 70 cm, exclusive
of stone bases of about 1 meter
in height. Photograph by author.
lost souls emerge bleeding into an icy pool of water. From there, they scramble
up the cavern’s walls to grasp a scepter by which another Rakan and his helper
will pull them to salvation.
As a result of the newfound popularity of the Five Hundred Rakan theme,
even some traditional Rinzai-sect temples abandoned the requirement of in-
stalling the Sixteen Rakan in their gates and placed images there of the five
hundred instead (fig. 4.8). One of the most compelling representations of these
is the second-floor gate of the Rinzai temple Kenchōji in Kamakura. Takahashi
Hōun (1824?/1810–1850/1858?),17 a professional Buddhist sculptor of Edo who
also worked as a netsuke carver, together with his disciple, Takamura Tōun
(1826–1879), carved in wood the prototype for the set. A professional bronze
caster completed the project using molds prepared by the sculptors between
1830 and 1856.18 Funding came from a private donor, Iseya Kakichirō, a wealthy
rice trader from Edo. Hōun’s aptitude for netsuke carving is clearly evident in
these figures, which are small (approximately 30 centimeters each) by Buddhist
sculpture standards, and, like netsuke, each figure possesses great individuality.
They serve as precursors of both the naturalistic-style crafts in vogue through-
out the Meiji period (Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2003b, 239) and the large-
scale sculptures by artists then striving to transform Buddhist sculpture carving

4.8. Takahashi Hōun (1824?/1810–1850/1858?) and Takamura Tōun (1826–1879). In situ view of the
statues Shaka and the Five Hundred Rakan inside the second-story chamber of the Main Gate
(Sanmon) at Kenchōji, Kamakura, 1830–1856. Cast bronze. Height of each Rakan: approx. 30 cm.
Photograph courtesy of the Nihon Keizai Shinbun.
into a fine art. In fact, Takamura Tōun’s pupil, Takamura Kōun (discussed in
chaps. 7 and 8), helped lead this transition.
The Seven Gods of Good Fortune (Jp. Shichifukujin) are undoubtedly the
most familiar group of deities in Japanese popular religion today, made up of an
eclectic mix of figures from Buddhism, Shinto folklore, and popular Chinese
Daoism.19 Buddhist figures in the group include Benzaiten, the goddess of love
and music, who carries a zither; Bishamonten, the Buddhist guardian of the
north and protector against enemies and disasters, who wears a suit of armor
and carries a small pagoda; Daikokuten, a god of prosperity who sits atop bales
of rice and grasps a mallet for beating out riches (Daikokuten is also some-
times considered an incarnation of a Shinto deity and as such functions as a
household kitchen god); and Hotei, a jolly, fat, legendary Zen monk considered
also an incarnation of the future buddha Miroku, who personifies kindness and
good fortune and carries a bag of riches. The lone Shinto deity in the group is
Ebisu, a god of good fortune generally and specifically a guardian of fishermen
and granter of prosperity to merchants. He clutches a fishing pole and large sea

bream, a good-luck emblem. Gods of Chinese Daoist origin are Fukurokuju, a
grantor of longevity, who appears as an old man with an elongated, bald head
holding a walking staff and is sometimes accompanied by cranes and tortoises,
which are Daoist symbols of longevity; and Jurōjin, also a god of longevity and
similarly portrayed as an old man with a high, bare head, though, unlike Fuku-
rokuju, he is short of stature and sometimes accompanied by a deer. Some folk
beliefs identify these two gods as different incarnations of the same deity, so oc-
casionally Jurōjin or Fukurokuju’s position is filled by another deity, Kichijōten
(Skt. Śrīmahādevī), the Buddhist sister-deity to Benzaiten, and who bestows
beauty, good fortune, and wealth.
Although each possesses separate identities and diverse origins, belief in their
ability to bestow good fortune unites them. The earliest references to some
abbreviated assemblage of two, three, or even five of these deities date to late
fifteenth-century texts about popular narrative tales (otogi zōshi) and comic Nō
plays (kyōgen) and also mention lost paintings of them.20 Probably only in the
second half of the seventeenth century did the conception of a set of seven dei-
ties of good fortune coalesce. But even then, the set had not become universally
standardized.
In 1690, Gizan (1648–1717), a Jōdo-sect monk from Kyoto, well respected as a
scholar of Buddhist history, published the first edition of the authoritative guide
to Buddhist deities and implements, Illustrated Compendium of Buddhist Images
(Butsuzō zui).21 Ever since its publication, Butsuzō zui has served as an authority
for aspiring Buddhist painters, sculptors, craftsmakers, and the lay public who
needed to know the correct iconography and appearance of the pantheon of
Buddhist deities, sect patriarchs, and Buddhist accoutrements. Significantly, this
first edition does not include the familiar grouping of the Seven Gods of Good
Fortune, but the term is used as a page title that lists the seven as Benzaiten,
Bishamonten, Daikoku, Fukurokuju, Hotei, Ebisu, and Shōjō (fig. 4.9). On that
page, only Fukurokuju, Hotei, Ebisu, and the nonstandard member of the group,
Shōjō, a sea-dwelling, red-haired, and perennially jovial monkey-faced figure
from Japanese mythology, are pictured.22 Bishamonten, Benzaiten, and six dif-
ferent forms of Daikokuten are found in the preceding pages of the book, and
Jūrōjin is found not at all. Yet in the book’s revised edition, the Enlarged Edition
Encompassing Various Sects of the Illustrated Compendium of Buddhist Images
(Zōho shoshū butsuzō zui), published in 1783, the new illustrator, Tosa Hidenobu
(alt. Kino Shūshin; active late eighteenth century), includes a single illustration
showing the codified set of seven (fig. 4.10).23 The presence of the Seven Gods
in the revised edition indicates that by 1783 the assemblage had become part of
mainstream Buddhism.
While the specific membership in the group originated in Japan, the personi-
fication of good fortune has its origins in Chinese folk religion. Since the Tang

4.9. Text by Gizan (1648–1717);
illustrations by an unidentified art-
ist. Fukurokuju, Ebisu, Hotei, and
Other Minor Buddhist Deities, from
vol. 2 of the Illustrated Compen
dium of Buddhist Images (Butsuzō
zui), 1690. Single page from a four-
volume woodblock-printed book in
ink on paper, 19 × 14.2 cm. Tokyo
Metropolitan Central Library.
4.10. Tosa Hidenobu (alt. Kino Shūshin; active late eighteenth century). The Seven Gods of
Good Fortune, from vol. 4 of the Enlarged Edition Encompassing Various Sects of the Illustrated
Compendium of Buddhist Images (Zōho shoshū butsuzō zui). Meiji-period (1868–1912) reprint (pub-
lished in Tokyo) of the standard 1783 edition. University of Kansas Library. Photograph by author.

dynasty, paper pictures decorated with propitious imagery, both auspicious
symbols and gods, regularly adorned the walls and doorways of homes. The
Japanese appropriated Jurōjin and Fukurokuju directly from this Chinese folk
tradition. Because of the fragile nature of these prints and the way some were
used (burned after rituals ended), most surviving examples date to no earlier
than the seventeenth century, when woodblock printing became widespread.
We know that the Japanese had access to these New Year’s pictures because one
group, now in the British Museum, had been purchased there around 1692 by
the German physician Engelbert Kaempfer (1651–1716).24
Why seven gods? Some twentieth-century sources credit the priest Tenkai,
Ieyasu’s adviser, with concocting the grouping for the edification of the third
shogun, Tokugawa Iemitsu. These sources explain that Tenkai identified the
individual gods with seven virtues (longevity, fortune, popularity, candor, ami-
ability, dignity, and magnanimity) that kings impart to their subjects if they
follow the teachings of the Sutra of the Benevolent Kings (Ninnō kyō). How-
ever, Tenkai’s known writings and Rinnōji temple records make no mention of
the Seven Gods.25 Other scholars suggest that the numerical grouping of seven
auspicious deities may have been conceived earlier, during the late Muromachi
period, as an adaptation of a Chinese literati painting theme showing an as-
sembly of seven virtuous and illustrious recluses known as the Seven Sages of
the Bamboo Grove (Kida 1976, 81–83). By Tenkai’s day, most of the deities in the
group had become associated with specific virtues, but representations of them
together probably did not take place until well after his death in 1643.
Scholars cannot definitively state which Japanese artist created the first rep-
resentation of the Seven Gods, although they agree that many from the group
were popular in the repertoire of artists beginning from the sixteenth century,
especially among those trained in Kano school ateliers.26 Surviving pictorial
imagery of the Seven Gods together dates only from the late seventeenth cen-
tury, first in the repertoire of artists attached to the shogunate and court. An
example by Kano Yasunobu is considered the earliest extant pictorial example
of the theme, though his brother Tan’yū probably portrayed them together first
(fig. 4.11).27 The official rank used by Yasunobu in his signature (Hōgen) helps
date the painting to between 1662, when Yasunobu received this honorary title,
and his death in 1685 (Yasumura 1990, 64). The artist has placed the figures in
an outdoor setting, beneath a pine tree, dressed in the attire of the upper classes
and engaged in a lively drinking party in which participants play musical instru-
ments, dance, and sing. The composition so resembles that used by academic
Ming dynasty painters in their portrayal of the Eight Daoist Immortals that
such pictures, known to have been imported to Japan in the Edo period, must
be considered their prototype.28 Such paintings preceded more humorous repre-
sentations of these deities in imagery for commoners. Other disciples of Tan’yū

4.11. Kano Yasunobu (1613–1685). The Seven Gods of Good Fortune. Hanging scroll; ink and colors
on silk, 139 × 97.4 cm. The University Art Museum, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and
Music.

4.12. Andō Hiroshige
(1797–1858). The Seven
Gods of Good Fortune
in Their Treasure Ship.
Two vertically connected
ōban-format woodblock
prints; ink and colors on
paper, approx. 76 × 25 cm.
Kanagawa Prefectural
History Museum.
painted this Seven Gods theme as well, in similar compositions, sometimes

surrounded by adoring Chinese children.29
By the eighteenth century, urban merchants had developed a special fondness
for these deities, who promised assistance with their ambitions. Ukiyoe art-
ists, patronized by these merchants, frequently represented the Seven Gods in
both paintings and prints, often sailing into port aboard a “treasure ship” with
a dragon prow and billowing sail, a descendant of a boat that carried felicitous
deities as described in the Muromachi period (fig. 4.12). One example by Andō
Hiroshige (1797–1858) combines two single-sheet prints vertically in a single
composition. His version, by the way, includes Kichijōten and omits Fukuroku-
jin, as was sometimes the case. People hung these pictures on pillars or walls

4.13. Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1768). The Seven Gods of Good Fortune. Hanging scroll; ink and colors on
paper, 57.8 × 89.4 cm. The Gitter-Yelen Collection, New Orleans.
in their homes or shops, especially during the New Year’s season as talismans,
foci of their prayers for good fortune in the year to come.30 The Seven Gods of
Good Fortune, either together in smaller groupings or singly, also appeared with
great frequency among subjects represented in netsuke, small toggles carried
by urban middle-class townsmen, for whom they became symbols of status and
wealth.
The Zen master Hakuin Ekaku (1685–1768), the most influential Rinzai Zen
teacher of the Edo period and also renowned as a painter and calligrapher, fre-
quently painted the Seven Gods of Good Fortune (fig. 4.13). His Zen teachings
incorporated moral values associated with Confucianism using parables created
with familiar imagery such as this (he is discussed further in chapter 6). Here, he
took artistic license and modified the familiar group of the Seven Gods, replac-
ing Bishamonten with Shōki (Ch. Zhong Kui), a mythical Chinese demon quel-
ler and arbiter of Buddhist hells. As here, Shōki is always shown as an imposing,
bearded figure wearing the robes of a Chinese scholar official. Hakuin probably
thought to include Shōki in the group because by then he had also come to be
considered a household protector, and people hung pictures of him in homes,
especially during the Boys’ Day festival season in the fifth month.31 The paint-
ing’s Confucian-toned inscription counsels that piety to one’s lord and parents
will bring the favors of the Seven Gods (Kobayashi et al. 2002, 290, pl. 124).

Graphic Images of the Afterlife
The appearance of Shōki in Hakuin’s painting underscores the syncretic nature

of various Edo-period religious beliefs, here linking these lucky gods with the
most pervasive of all Buddhist metaphysical conceptions, belief in rebirth after
death in one of Ten Worlds (Jikkai) that constitute the entirety of the Buddhist
universe. These include the six realms (rokudō) of heaven, humankind, mali-
cious demi-gods (ashura), animals, hungry ghosts, and hells. Pious individuals
can also transcend rebirth in the five realms below heaven and enter four other
transcendental worlds appropriate to their particular state of devoutness: as
Rakan, as self-enlightened buddhas who live in seclusion (Skt. pratyekabuddhas;
Jp. byakushibutsu), as bodhisattvas, and as fully realized buddhas. People are
reborn into one of these worlds depending upon their accrual of spiritual merit
in past and present lives, with the amount of merit allotted determined by the
sincerity of their faith and adherence to the Buddhist precepts and by memorial
rites performed on their behalf after they die.
Imagery of these worlds is among the most prevalent in all of Buddhist ico-
nography, and Edo representations of it abounded. Its increasing specificity en-
capsulated and recorded in visual form the social turmoil that escalated as the
era progressed. Clerics trained as artists and lay painting specialists created both
paintings and woodblock prints of these subjects for both commoner and elite
devotees of Buddhism, with specific imagery and artistic styles varying with the
different sectarian traditions, the uses for which the images were intended, and
the aesthetic preferences of particular audiences.32 Although the most revered
deities within the Buddhist pantheon differed from sect to sect, by the Edo pe-
riod, because of the overwhelming success of the Pure Land creeds in attracting
followers, their compelling visualization of heaven had come to exert great influ-
ence over the way other sects conceived and portrayed the afterlife.33
One of the most popular types of Ten Worlds pictures is known as the Ku-
mano Heart Visualization and Ten Worlds Mandala (Kumano kanjin jikkai man-
dala); a representative example is illustrated in plate 8. The Kumano Ten Worlds
pictures portray a sacred diagram of the Buddhist universe as described in the
Flower Garland Sutra (Skt. Avatamsaka; Ch. Huayen; Jp. Kegon), influenced by
Pure Land beliefs, that describes the bodhisattvas in great detail (Kaminishi
2006, 139–140). It seems to have been devised in the late sixteenth century for
use by nuns, mainly from the Kumano region, who are generally described as
“Kumano bikuni.” They used these pictures during painting recitations (etoki)
about the joys and sorrows of the Buddhist universe that they gave to women
of all classes in society as they traveled the country, proselytizing and fund-
raising for their home institution.34 The painting illustrated in plate 8 forms a
mate with a temple and shrine mandala that shows the sacred precincts of the

Nachi Waterfall, one of the three Kumano shrines that constitute the Shinto-
Buddhist religious complex from which most of these nuns came.35 Nuns
showed their audiences the Nachi Falls painting to help them visualize making a
pilgrimage to this distant place that welcomed women, unlike some other Bud-
dhist mountain complexes (chief among them Mount Kōya), where they would
have been forbidden due to their impure state (Kaminishi 2006, 161–162).
Together, these pictures vividly illustrate the complex interweaving of Bud-
dhist-Shinto (honji suijaku) beliefs in premodern Japan prior to the forced sepa-
ration of Buddhism and Shinto in the Meiji period. Specifically, they show the
hybrid belief system that developed in the Kumano Mountains of southern
Wakayama Prefecture, a site holy to the syncretic ascetics known as yamabushi
and today designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Moerman 2005). As early
as the tenth century, Buddhist temples and nunneries began to be established
here to offer the protection of that powerful faith to the Shinto deities of these
mountains.
These paintings lack signatures, and few records exist that describe their
makers, but it appears that the nuns painted these images themselves.36 The
style is charming but far from simplistic, with the complex iconography care-
fully represented. Stylistically they relate to temple and shrine mandalas (see
plate 2). Like those pictures, these feature the sun and moon in the upper cor-
ners and figures, landscape elements, and buildings defined with flat, brightly
colored, outlined forms. But they also feature a unique composition, dominated
by a half circle with a person moving through time from birth to old age beneath
it. This unusual motif has suggested to the scholar Ikumi Kaminishi a link with
pictures of Christian themes that represent the “Ages of Man,” imported into
Japan beginning in the late sixteenth century (Kaminishi 2006, 146–155).
The Kumano Heart Visualization Mandalas depict the various realms of ex-
istence all clearly distinguished by the presence of Shinto torii gateways. The
buddha Amida and a small retinue in the center of the picture emerge from
heaven to save the living. Directly below this group floats the Chinese character
for heart, a symbol of Amida’s compassion, elements common to other types of
Ten World Mandala pictures.37 Below that, monks surround an altar laden with
sacred offerings. On either side of this altar, the half circle, within the frame of
two Shinto torii gateways, portrays a person following the wheel of life men-
tioned above, from birth (on the right) to old age. Underneath this, the picture
details the various worlds below humankind, emphasizing sorrows and tortures
in hells specially designated for women and children and prominently featuring
the bodhisattva Kannon in the esoteric guise of Nyōirin Kannon, and Jizō travel-
ing there to save these poor souls.38 Since Jizō is one of the few deities who could
traverse these six realms in order to save all sentient beings, the Kumano Ten
Worlds pictures feature him performing beneficent acts in the various realms.

Among the many scenes in these mandalas familiar to female devotees were
the red waters of the blood-pool hell in the lower right corner, described in the
Blood Pool Sutra (Ketsubonkyō), which expounded on the doctrine of salvation
for women, recitation of which could counter the effects of women’s polluting
menstrual blood. Women who have been saved sit serenely atop lotus leaves
that float above the blood pool, within which others flounder. Because of the
power of this religious message and its imagery, other types of didactic paintings
for women featured these blood pools, and certain places in Japan, where red-
colored hot springs percolated, attracted large numbers of women pilgrims.39
Another type of afterlife picture eschewed depiction of salvation and focused
exclusively on the terrifying realm of the Ten Kings populated by the newly dead
and various demons. According to Chinese-invented sutras of the ninth and
tenth centuries, this realm was divided into ten levels, each presided over by a
different king to whom the living performed funerary rites on set occasions for
three years after a loved one’s death (Weidner 1994, 277). The Ten Kings pro-
nounced judgment over the eventual disposition of the souls of the dead, either
sentencing them to perpetual suffering in one of the hells or to eternal salvation.
In Japan, various sects performed the Ten Kings rituals, during which pictures
of the Ten Kings and the Six Realms would be displayed.40 Rites were also made
before statues of the Ten Kings in halls dedicated to them, such as at Hōnenji
in Takamatsu (see fig. 2.10). Temples would also display paintings of these kings
during sermons, especially during New Year’s rituals, and during the annual
summer Festival for the Dead (Obon).
Japanese artists created the first pictorial representations of the Ten Kings
and detailed, graphic imagery of the afterlife associated with them during the
late twelfth century, based on imported Chinese models. They quickly natural-
ized these models, including recognizably Japanese people and scenery, to make
the frightening scenes more lifelike and inspirational to their audience. In the
Edo period, in accordance with prevailing artistic traditions, artists rendered
these scenes with greater graphic detail than ever before. Generally, Japanese
paintings depicting the Ten Kings of Hell portrayed each king separately on a
single scroll or featured the supreme king, Enma, surrounded by oni (goblins)
carrying out his evil whims. Although pictures of the Ten Kings are often as-
sociated with commoner beliefs in the Edo period, pictorial imagery indicates
that the theme remained popular among all citizens.41 Prominent artists in the
employ of the wealthy and elite also created many versions of this subject, in-
cluding Scenes from Hell by Kano Tōhaku (1772–1821), the fifth-generation head
of an important Edo-based Kano school atelier, Surugadai (plate 9). Oni glare
out at the viewer as they go about their evil deeds, while victims and monks
wail in vain.
Oni, Shōki’s evil nemeses, include a variety of demons, with some originat-

ing in Shinto myths and others deriving from noncanonical Buddhist legends.
They possess supernatural attributes: horns, fangs, or a ferocious expression
and sometimes clawed hands and feet (Wolfgram 1985). Buddhist oni originally
served Enma, the chief of the Kings of Hell, as creatures who carried out his
harsh judgments. By the Edo period, oni were also portrayed humorously, tor-
menting Shōki or usurping his job. Artists created such heterodox imagery of
iconic Buddhist subjects in response to the Edo-period public’s preferences for
drama, humor, and satire in art. Concurrently, the identities of the various oni
merged and the creature also became known as a protective deity.42 As a guard-
ian, oni were one type among many popular Buddhist subjects featured on im-
agery that devotees used to entreat Buddhist deities to answer their prayers.
Devotional Imagery to Activate Divine Assistance

Edo-period Buddhist followers often beseeched deities that they believed could
help them overcome potentially difficult or life-threatening events through rit-
ual acts that activated the deities’ spiritual powers. Sometimes they deposited
offerings at temples associated with these deities or touched or augmented sa-
cred images. They also displayed or carried talismans imprinted with images of
deities as their surrogates.
One widely practiced devotional act featuring imagery, which persists today, is
the dedication to both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples of ema (lit. “painted
horses”), wooden votive tablets that often contain inscribed messages to the
resident deity of the shrine or temple at which the ema was deposited.43 The
word ema is derived from the earliest of these tablets, which were painted with
designs of horses, divine beasts ridden by the gods. Because of this association
they came to be considered messengers between the human and divine realm.
The earliest ema date to the eighth century. By the Edo period, ema were deco-
rated with painted, appliqué, or low-relief sculpture of a wide range of subjects,
including historical figures, deities, narrative tales, portraits of Kabuki actors,
famous places, ships, and even particular body parts (such as breasts, which
women offered to assure a plentiful supply of milk for breastfeeding their ba-
bies). Inscriptions on ema are personal, ranging from wishes for safety during
travel, recovery from illness, or safe childbirth to thanks for the deity’s interven-
tion in averting death and disaster.
Few ema predating the Edo period survive because they often incur damage
from exposure to the elements. The traditional location for depositing them
has always been outside, under the roof of an open-air Votive Tablet Hall (see
fig. 3.10) or attached to exterior walls of buildings, fenceposts, or tree branches.
By the Edo period, donations of ema to religious institutions had become an
established custom that not only demonstrated devoutness, but also helped to

4.14. Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861). Fire Brigade, 1833. Votive tablet (ema). Painted wood,
143 × 250 cm. Reikōkan, Naritasan Shinshōji, Narita, Chiba Prefecture.
elevate the donor’s status among peers. Consequently, rich merchants, actors,
courtesans, warriors, and even groups of commoner coworkers pooling their
money donated ema to temples and shrines, sometimes commissioning famous
artists to create them.
Many popular pilgrimage sites and prosperous temples with famous resident
icons, such as Zenkōji and Naritasan Shinshōji, have accumulated large col-
lections of these materials. One large ema owned by Naritasan Shinshōji by a
famous ukiyoe print designer, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, depicts an Edo fire brigade
in great detail (fig. 4.14). A group of firefighters dedicated it to the temple in 1833
as a prayer for their physical safety during the perils of their vocation. Individual
commoners of more humble means generally offered smaller size ema created
by anonymous makers at specialized workshops or sometimes decorated by
their own hands. One anonymous, undated ema by workshop professionals,
probably dating from the Meiji period, represents Japanese traders in a small
boat greeting the arrival of a European trading ship. They probably offered it to
the gods as a plea for safe interaction with foreign traders (fig. 4.15).
Sometimes worshipers felt that touching or depositing an offering at an icon
was most effective, which led to certain icons becoming associated with specific
ritual practices. The most famous statues of this type represent Jizō, adorned
with bibs and caps as memorials to deceased children. But Jizō also has long
been regarded as one who rescues possessions as well, and in that role as the
String-Bound (Shibarare) Jizō, since the Edo period devotees have been tying
strings around the body of certain statues to attract the deity’s attention. One
of the most famous of these, completely encased by strings, resides at the Edo
Sōtō Zen-sect temple of Rinsenji (fig. 4.16). The statue had been erected in 1602

4.15. European Sailing Ship, nineteenth century. Votive tablet (ema). Painted wood, 54.8 × 76 cm.
Collection of Lynn S. Gibor, USA. Photograph by author.
by a samurai to memorialize and pray for the repose of the souls of his parents,
and not until after his death did local residents begin tying strings around it to
beg for its help in finding their lost items. Legend about its success engendered
its fame, so the practice has lived on.
Another Sōtō temple in Edo where interactive devotional acts that began in
the Edo period persist is Kōganji, famous as a center for faith healing, a benefit
that Sōtō particularly promoted to attract followers. Kōganji became associated
with faith healing soon after the temple’s founding in 1596 (its present location
dates to 1892), and sustained belief in the curative powers of its resident icons
perpetuates its popularity into the present. Long lines of people regularly wait
to wash a stone statue of Kannon in its courtyard (fig. 4.17). A parishioner dedi-
cated the statue soon after the 1657 Meireki-era fire in memory of his wife, who
died in that conflagration. Legends relate that devotees who wiped it with their
hands or a cloth or poured water on it noticed that if they touched the specific
location on the statue that corresponded to a point on their own body that was
injured or the cause of an illness, they would miraculously recover. As a result,
the statue acquired the nickname “Kannon for Washing” (Arai Kannon). After
four centuries, the statue’s features had been rubbed away, so with funds from a
devotee, the temple commissioned a contemporary stone carver to replicate the
image. They then substituted the newly made one for the original, which they
consecrated with an eye-opening ceremony in 1999, and now keep the original
secreted away (Kuruma 2000, 32). This is much like the practice of making rep-

4.16. String-Bound (Shibarare) Jizō
at Rinsenji, Tokyo, 1602. Stone
wrapped with strings. Height:
195 cm. Photograph by author.
licas for secret statues, such as Zenkōji’s Kannon, which still retain the power of
the original they reproduce.
Kōganji is equally famous for the curative powers of its central, secret icon,
representing Jizō in his guise as prolonger of life (Enmei Jizō). Like many tem-
ples, Kōganji raised money by selling talismans imprinted with the image of
its icon, which are still sold by the temple today (fig. 4.18). Ever since the Heian
period, devout Japanese Buddhists had followed directives in Buddhist texts to
replicate sacred images on talismans. By the mid-seventeenth century the po-
tency of talismans was so widely accepted that they even influenced the appear-
ance of paper currency circulated by secular authorities, for whom association
with divine powers assured their money’s acceptance (Thomsen 2002, 93). The
miraculous abilities of Kōganji’s Jizō, through its talisman, are well documented
in Edo-period texts. The earliest record, from 1716, describes an account of a
woman who ingested a needle while sewing and was inexplicably cured by eat-
ing a Jizō talisman. Hence the image at Kōganji came to be known popularly
as Splinter-Removing Jizō (Togenuki Jizō).44 Priests at the temple created these
talismans using woodblock prints that, because of their effectiveness, came to
be copied and distributed widely, sometimes by other sects.

4.17. Yatsuyanagi Naoki (active late
twentieth century). Stone image of
the bodhisattva Kannon at Kōganji,
Tokyo, replica by Yatsuyanagi com-
pleted in 1999, a copy of the original
statue of ca. 1657. Stone. Height: ca.
Kōganji is but one of many temples that sold talismans for both the benefit
of the devotee and its own financial gain. Small, independent shops near popu-
lar religious spots also reaped the rewards of their proximity to a holy place
by making talismans to sell to the public. Additionally, devotees who had no
opportunity to visit temples and shrines associated with efficacious talismans
could obtain them from traveling secular representatives of those places or from
mendicant clerics.
Not all talismans were associated with specific temples, icons, and belief
systems. This is the case with ōtsue, small woodblock prints and sketches of
popular religious subjects. Private shops in Ōtsu, a small town near Kyoto along
the Tōkaidō Highway, began making ōtsue in the seventeenth century.45 Shops
selling them to passersby are featured in a woodblock print of Ōtsu by the uki-
yoe print designer Andō Hiroshige (1797–1858) around 1852 in his popular series
Fifty Three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (fig. 4.19). One of the favorite ōtsue sub-
jects, an oni in the guise of a begging and chanting monk (Oni no nenbutsu — an
oni repeating a mantra, the name of the buddha Amida), appears prominently
within Hiroshige’s print. This image reflects the oni’s newfound positive identity
within the Buddhist pantheon. Within the repertoire of ōtsue, the text written

4.18. Talisman of the
Splinter-Removing
(Togenuki) Jizō at
Kōganji, Tokyo, illus-
trated together with
its paper wrapper, pur-
chased at the temple in
2004. Wood with wood-
block-printed design
in black ink and paper
wrapper; talisman:
4.5 × 2.5 cm. Private
collection, USA.
4.19. Andō Hiroshige (1797–1858). Station Number 54, Ōtsu, from the series Fifty Three Stations of
the Tōkaidō Road (Reisho edition), ca. 1852. Woodblock print in ink and colors on paper, horizontal
ōban format, 22.9 × 35.9 cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase:
Nelson Trust, 32-143/261. Photograph by Jamison Miller.
on pictures of oni suggests that their meaning varied. Sometimes inscriptions

imply that they satirically represented the predatory practices of mendicant
monks and the superficial appearance of goodness, while in other cases they
relate that oni possessed protective powers against wickedness and an ability to
stop babies from crying at night.46
These differing interpretations suggest the capability of the recipients to

4.20. Anonymous ōtsue
artist. Monkey, Catfish,
and Gourd, eighteenth
century. Ink and color
on paper, 62.3 × 21.8 cm.
Former collection of
Yanagi Sōetsu. Japan Folk
Crafts Museum (Nihon
Mingeikan), Tokyo.
adapt the imagery to their own circumstances and beliefs. In this way some
ōtsue became associated with the moralistic philosophy of Shingaku (trans-
lated as “the School of the Mind” or “Heart Learning”), one school of syncretic
spiritual teaching popular among educated urban merchants that combined
Shinto, Buddhist, and Confucian ideals of self-reflection, intuitive understand-
ing, honesty, filial piety, and diligence. It must be no coincidence that Shingaku’s
founder, Ishida Baigan (1685–1744), developed his philosophy after Tokugawa
Tsunayoshi’s pronouncements to teach some of these very values to common-
ers.47 Shingaku followers probably did not dictate the subjects for ōtsue, but sug-
gested their interpretation through inscriptions. One oft-repeated subject linked
to Shingaku portrayed a monkey, catfish, and gourd, sometimes, as in figure
4.20, including a sake cup. The subject is based on a famous, oft-illustrated Zen

kōan (a question or parable that students of Zen contemplate, under the guid-
ance of a master, to reach intuitive insights), “How can one catch a catfish with
a gourd?” To a Zen follower, the gourd represents the state of enlightenment,
which is empty of all things of this world. Hence catching a catfish, or gaining
any material benefit, from the attainment of wisdom is self-contradictory. To
followers of Shingaku, the parable offered a moral lesson on the superficiality of
greed. Here, the phrase reads, “If, like a monkey’s silly wisdom, you try to catch
a slippery catfish with an empty gourd, when can you catch a real catfish?”48
In folk belief this subject also carried a less abstract meaning as a talisman for
protection against drowning (Welch 1994, 75).
Imagery of Buddhist deities and beliefs introduced in this chapter illus-

trates some of Edo-period Buddhism’s most defining characteristics, includ-
ing its syncretic nature and the increasing prevalence of privately produced
devotional imagery for the benefit of commoners. It also shows the centrality
of Buddhist imagery to ritual acts performed by followers in order to assist in
both their attainment of salvation and their opportunity to live a good life in
their present existence. The imagery expresses strong emotional bonds between
devotees and their faith, emotions that range from horror and fear to joy and
hopefulness, from pious reverence to humor and satire. The admission of the
quasi-religious, noncanonical figures of oni and the Seven Gods of Good For-
tune to the pantheon of Buddhist gods and the caricature-like, humane portray-
als of Rakan reveal the emergence of yet another significant characteristic of
later Japanese Buddhism — its increasing informality and fusion with popular,
secular culture.

Chapter Five
Professional Icon-Makers
patronage of temples increased during the Edo period in accordance with

steady population growth. The populace patronized these temples and pur-
chased religious imagery not only because the government dictated their alle-
giance to Buddhist institutions, but also because of the successful proselytizing
efforts of clerics that encouraged them to look to the faith for assistance in al-
leviating their worldly troubles and as a means of assuaging their fears about life
after death. These factors helped create opportunities for individuals and groups
of professional artists to engage in the business of icon making for temples.
Some Buddhist image-makers specialized in production of religious arts, while
for others, especially painters, Buddhist imagery made up only a fraction of their
repertoire. Some worked in guildlike studios in existence for centuries; oth-
ers joined newly founded workshops or worked independently. The Illustrated
Compendium of Buddhist Images (see figs. 4.9, 4.10), first published in 1690 and
revised and reprinted many times since, played a crucial role in disseminating
information for proper iconographic representation of Buddhist deities and cre-
ating a uniform model for diverse artists.
The identity of these numerous makers all too often remains a mystery,
since their names and studio affiliations appear infrequently in inscriptions on
imagery. The best records exist for specialists in Buddhist image making who
were trained in important old studios of Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara. Reflecting the
changing patterns of wealth distribution, in the early Edo period they worked
mainly for elite samurai, but by the era’s end many of their patrons were wealthy
merchants. Sometimes they received commissions from daimyo in far-flung
regions, and often they worked on projects at temples of great historical and na-

tional importance. Because these image-makers set national standards for qual-
ity and style and because they trained local practitioners, this chapter focuses
primarily on them. But it also addresses the production of Buddhist icons by
secular professional painters. Sometimes these artists created devotional imag-
ery for temples, but often their patrons requested Buddhist imagery for display
in secular environments. Secular artists of earlier periods had also sometimes
included Buddhist imagery within their oeuvre, but from this time forward such
imagery became more frequent, reflective of the increasing convergence of the
secular and sacred realms, which led the new legions of patrons, many of them
sophisticated urban commoners, to request such imagery from the artists they
patronized.
Specialists in Buddhist Sculpture and

Painting: Busshi and Ebusshi
Lay artisans known as busshi created most Buddhist sculpture prior to the Edo
period. Since the eighth century, they worked for the court and powerful tem-
ples, first in Nara, then in Kyoto. In the Heian period, busshi became freelance
artists who operated family-run workshops comprising specialists in bronze
casting, wood carvings of particular body parts, decoration, and crafting statu-
ary accoutrements. Most had ties to particular temples and secular patrons.1
During the late Heian and early Kamakura periods, the most talented and in-
fluential lineages emerged from the Kyoto workshop of Jōchō (d. 1057). Foremost
among these was the Seventh Avenue Atelier and its offshoots. Esteem for this
atelier remained high among elite patrons well into the seventeenth century,
and records of their activities during the Edo period still survive.2 The Seventh
Avenue Atelier was responsible for major projects, including Hideyoshi’s Great
Buddha in Kyoto (see fig. 1.1) and sculptures at Rinnōji in Nikkō and Kan’eiji in
Edo (see fig. 1.9). Despite the high caliber of these and other surviving images,
modern scholars believe that by the Muromachi era, sculptures by busshi of this
and other orthodox lineages began to show signs of “stylistic fatigue” (McCal-
lum 1996, 126). Scholars hold similar opinions about their Edo-period workshop
imagery as well. Such critiques date to the early Meiji period.3
By the late seventeenth century, Kyoto busshi workshops had multiplied, and
the Seventh Avenue Atelier no longer received all the best commissions. Most
continued the inherited styles of their predecessors, though they on occasion
derived inspiration from direct contact with much older pieces during restora-
tion projects. As a result, their works varied considerably in style and quality,
sometimes emulating specific old styles directly and sometimes synthesizing
various artistic traditions. The Kan’eiji pagoda statues are good examples of
the former tendency, closely resembling Kamakura-period images. In contrast,

5.1. Kiyomizu (or Shimizu)
Ryūkei (d. 1732) in collabo-
ration with Hōzan Tankai
(1629–1716). Fudō Myōō,
1696. Carved wood with
polychrome and crystal eyes.
Height: 55.4 cm. Gyokusenji,
Osaka. Photograph courtesy
of the Sakai City Museum.
some busshi, such as Shōun Genkei (see fig. 2.7) and those who worked at Man-
pukuji in the seventeenth century, absorbed elements of Ming-style sculpture
as practiced in Japan by Han Dōsei.4
One sculptor who created an original style, Kiyomizu (or Shimizu) Ryūkei
I (d. 1732), did so in collaboration with a prominent monk from Osaka, Hōzan
Tankai (1629–1716).5 Their joint effort had, until recently, gone unnoticed be-
cause Tankai signed these statues, leading scholars to believe he carved them
as an act of devotion. However, new evidence suggests that Tankai sketched a
design for them and signed his name to mark his supervision of their enshrine-
ment. Tankai especially revered Fudō Myōō, and various temples in the Osaka
region, where his home temple of Hōzanji was located, own statues of this deity
that bear his inscription (fig. 5.1). This example characterizes the style the two
men perfected and comes from such a temple.6 It exudes instant appeal with its
animated facial expression and taut, breath-infused posture.
Professional Icon-Makers | 129

5.2. Unidentified sculp-
tor from a workshop at
Horikawa Hirokoji, Kyoto.
Jizō Bodhisattva, 1724.
Gilt wood. Height: 50.5
cm. Hōonjin, Hirosaki,
Aomori Prefecture.
Photograph courtesy of
Sudō Hirotoshi.
Many Kyoto and Nara busshi, such as Shōun Genkei, who trained in old busshi
ateliers, relocated to the thriving merchant city of Osaka and to the Tokyo region,
where many newly founded temples required imagery.7 Because of the prestige
of their workshops, many also accepted temporary commissions from provin-
cial daimyo. Such important Kyoto workshop commissions have already been
discussed in relation to the imagery at Hōnenji in Takamatsu (see figs. 2.11, 2.12).
Records at temples and inscriptions on statues in the northern Japanese Tsugaru
domain in Hirosaki indicate their presence in this distant outpost as well. One
of these Hirosaki temples, the Tendai temple Hōonji, possesses a finely sculpted
gilt-wood statue of the bodhisattva Jizō dated to 1724 and signed by a Kyoto
busshi (fig. 5.2).8 The gentle face, elegant proportions, and voluminous, flowing
drapery refute stereotypes of the decline in quality of statues from this century.
Both Kyoto- and Osaka-based busshi took part in the largest Buddhist temple-
building project of the eighteenth century, the rebuilding of the Great Buddha
Hall (Daibutsuden) at Tōdaiji in Nara, and the simultaneous repair and replace-

ment of its damaged interior statues, which lasted until the project was aban-
doned in 1799.9 This momentous project was begun by the temple’s abbot, Kōkei
(1648–1705). Like the rebuilding of Naritasan Shinshōji, which began around the
same time, a charismatic priest provided the initiative and relied on commoner
support for subsidy because of bakufu impoverishment. Kōkei began soliciting
funds in 1684. The repair of the bronze Great Buddha was completed by 1692,
and by 1708 the hall had been rebuilt.10 Only then did work begin on recreating
the subsidiary statues for the building’s vast interior, all carved in wood. This
project included a pair of 7-meter-tall images of bodhisattvas flanking the Great
Buddha. Carving these gigantic icons had begun around 1726, under the joint
direction of Kyoto busshi Yamamoto Junkei (dates unknown) and Osaka busshi
Tsubai Minbu Kenkei (dates unknown).11 The Nyōirin Kannon Bodhisattva was
completed first, around 1738, and the Kokuzō (Skt. Ākaśa garbha) “Boundless
Wisdom” Bodhisattva was finished in 1752 (fig. 5.3). Both Junkei and Kenkei died
before completing the Kokuzō. Their followers, Hatta Ryōkei (1683–1763), dis-
ciple of Junkei, and Tsubai Minbu Inkei (dates unknown), disciple of Kenkei,
took over and are credited as its carvers. The statue impresses viewers with its
massive size. But the flattened planes of the face and the evenly spaced drapery
folds that cascade over the statue’s knees with regimented precision reveal the
inherent difficulty of carving monumental sculpture, resulting in an image that
lacks expressiveness.
In the late Edo period, many Kyoto busshi derived income from restoration
projects like that at Tōdaiji. One of the most active early nineteenth-century
sculptors, and one whose activities and family pedigree are better known than
most, was Tanaka Kōkyō (alt. Uchikurasuke; active first half of the nineteenth
century).12 He was the eldest son of a prominent Osaka-born Maruyama-school
painter, Mori Tessan (1775–1841), and his daughter married another Maruyama-
school painter, Maruyama Ōzui (1766–1829), eldest son of the school’s illustri-
ous founder, Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795) (Chō 1999, 102). Nevertheless, Kōkyō
joined the orthodox Tanaka busshi lineage, active in Kyoto since the latter half
of the seventeenth century. Although few records of Kōkyō’s patrons survive, his
familial connections with wealthy art aficionados must have helped his work-
shop secure commissions. His work included repair of seventeenth-century
statues at Hōnenji in Takamatsu (see figs. 2.11, 2.12) and a memorial portrait of
another famous Kyoto painter, Kishi Ganku (1739–1838).13
Kōkyō’s most important project was for the Shingon headquarters of Tōji,
where he created replacement statues for four of the five Great Wisdom Bud-
dhas14 (fig. 5.4). These statues form part of a group of twenty-one life-size sculp-
tures on the altar of the temple’s Lecture Hall, installed in 839 and arranged in a
mandala formation as conceived by Kōbō Daishi. They are among the most im-
portant esoteric Buddhist icons in all of Japan. Kōkyō must have been a highly

5.3. Hatta Ryōkei
(1683–1763) and Tsubai
Minbu Inkei (n.d.). The
Bodhisattva Kokuzō
in the Great Buddha
Hall (Daibutsuden)
at Tōdaiji, Nara, 1752.
Wood with poly-
chrome, gilt, and inlaid
crystal eyes. Height:
710 cm. Photograph:
Ueda Eisuke, courtesy
of Suzuki Yoshihiro,
Nara National
Museum.
respected sculptor to be the recipient of this commission. His statues, which he

signed and dated, were installed in 1834 for a grand memorial service for Kōbō
Daishi on the one-thousand-year anniversary of his death. In comparison with
the statue of Dainichi that Kōkyō’s statues surround, it is evident that he carved
the images in the style of his time. For example, the gilt-wood circular halos
(mandorla) behind the bodies of his figures are small and simple, with a single
band of solid cloud designs. In contrast, the mandorla for the Dainichi is much
larger, with intricate pierced designs. Also, the lotus-petal thrones upon which
the buddhas sit display similar variations. Finally, the depth of the carving and
the drapery patterns that cascade over the knees of the figures on Kōkyō’s stat-
ues and the Dainichi reveal different artistic perspectives.
Outside formal busshi ateliers, beginning in the sixteenth century independent
groups of lay Buddhist “town sculptors” (machi busshi) formed their own work-
shops to compete with the prestigious orthodox ateliers (Washizuka 1997, 57).
Although they remain largely obscure, one representative early group, the Nara-
based Shukuin Busshi, has been the subject of recent scholarly study (Nara-ken

5.4. Tanaka Kōkyō (active first half of the nineteenth century). Four Wisdom Buddhas and the
Buddha Dainichi on the altar in the Lecture Hall at Tōji, Kyoto, 1834 (Four Wisdom Buddhas);
1496 (Dainichi). Gilt wood with inset crystal eyes. Wisdom Buddhas height range: 134.2 to 143.6 cm.
Dainichi height: 284 cm. Photograph: Benrido, Kyoto.
Kyōiku Iinkai 1998; Nara Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2005a). Their founder left
his family profession as a carpenter and worked under the direction of a self-
taught sculptor-priest. He and several generations of followers attracted a variety
of patrons, from elite nobles and samurai to priests and commoners. The style
associated with the Shukuin Busshi sculptors is distinguished by plain wood
surfaces and architectonic bi-symmetry, influenced by their prior profession as
temple carpenters. Characteristic of the way Japanese culture integrates new
traditions into its social order, machi busshi did not displace the orthodox busshi,

5.5. Small portable shrine
(zushi) with the bodhi
sattva Kannon, mid-
eighteenth century.
Lacquer on wood
with gilding, 15.8 × 6.9
× 3.8 cm. Santa Barbara
Museum of Art.
who continued to attract the patronage of those in power; rather, beginning in

the Edo period, they worked for new commoner patrons. One of their images,
representative of the taste of newly affluent merchants, is an elegant portable
shrine (zushi) for private devotions (fig. 5.5). The austere, graceful, plain wood
image of the bodhisattva Kannon that it houses has a painted wood mandorla
reminiscent of the Shukuin Busshi style and is embellished with a delicate ap-
plication of gold leaf. The shrine interior is completely lined with gold leaf and
augmented with a simple repeating basket-weave pattern.
Paralleling the establishment of busshi workshops in the eighth century, the
court also established ateliers of ebusshi, Buddhist icon-painting specialists. By
the Heian period, temples began to staff their own ebusshi workshops. Some
ebusshi were laity in the employ of temples; others were low-ranking monks.
These temple ebusshi workshops flourished through the Muromachi period,
but by the sixteenth century temples became impoverished and could no lon-
ger support them, so ateliers of secular professionals gradually took over these
commissions.15
Kimura Ryōtaku was the name used by successive headmasters of the most

prestigious lineage of independent professional Buddhist painters of the Edo
period, who worked in temples patronized by the shogunate, wealthy daimyo,
and the imperial court.16 Recent research has uncovered a record, dating to 1565,
revealing that the family descended from a painter of the Tosa school, an es-
teemed artistic lineage founded in the early Muromachi era that painted both
secular and religious-themed pictures for the emperor and other aristocratic
families.17 Tosa artists specialized in courtly themes in brightly colored, native
Japanese styles derived from one type of yamatoe (lit. “pictures of Yamato,” the
ancient hub of imperial power near Nara), that had first been devised at the
height of imperial power in the Heian period.
Inscriptions on painted surfaces of Buddhist sculptures indicate that paint-
ers using the name “Kimura” sometimes worked together with high-ranking
sculptors such as the Seventh Avenue Atelier on important shogunate-financed
temple restoration projects.18 They also worked independently of the sculptors
on major projects for the shogunate — for example, at Nikkō, where the name
Kimura Ryōtaku appears on a Buddhist wall painting at the Nikkō Tōshōgū
dated 1636 (Onishi 1970). Documents describing the religious images and their
makers at Nikkō reveal that Tenkai, head of Nikkō’s Rinnōji temple, personally
selected the artists who worked at the temple-shrine complex and instructed
them on their design. Tenkai stipulated that his Buddhist paintings should pos-
sess a deep and mysterious aura (jinbi) (Miyama 1996, 25). A large painting at
Rinnōji in Nikkō by Kimura Ryōtaku VI (active second half of the seventeenth
century), typifies this family style (plate 10). It portrays the buddha Shaka at-
tended by the bodhisattvas Fugen and Monju. Ryōtaku VI painted this scroll
in 1671 for display during the twenty-first anniversary memorial service for the
shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu at his Taiyūin mortuary in Nikkō. Typical of Edo-
period Buddhist paintings, the artist painted the mounting that surrounds the
central image to simulate a silk brocade border. The work is distinguished by
elegantly flowing brushwork, luminous colors, and refined application of cut-
gold leaf (kirikane).
Some Kimura-school artists who worked at Nikkō signed their given name as
“Tokuetsu,” which was sometimes used in conjunction with the names “Sakyō”
or “Tosa.” According to the 1685 edition of the Kyoto guidebook Kyoto Habu-
tae Silks (Kyōhabutae), artists using the name Sakyō constituted one branch of
this Kimura lineage, which, this book explains, had split into four branches by
that time.19 This same book notes that artists of a second Kimura branch used
the given name Tokuō.20 Sakon Sadatsuna (active 1640s–1680s), an exception-
ally talented artist whose identity has long been a mystery, has recently been
identified as belonging to this Tokuō branch based on two recently discovered
paintings by him that bear seals inscribed “Second generation Tokuō.”21 This
Kimura Tokuō branch worked mainly for important Kyoto Rinzai-sect temples,

particularly Myōshinji and Daitokuji, but their paintings are occasionally found
at Ōbaku temples also (Fukuoka-shi Bijutsukan, 2004, 46 and 54).
Sadatsuna painted portraits of Zen masters, including some Ōbaku monks,
and large, detailed pictures of Buddhist deities.22 His most well-documented
undertaking was the repair of wall paintings at the 1052 Phoenix Hall of the
Byōdōin in Uji in 1670, thoroughly investigated in a recent study by Prof. Aki-
yama Terukazu (Akiyama 1992, 3:17–22). Since the temple was even then con-
sidered a national treasure and the project received bakufu funding, his work on
this restoration signifies his high status as a painter.
One of Sadatsuna’s most intriguing paintings is a large scroll of the Death
of the Buddha Shaka (Nehan zu) with the unusual addition of three episodes
from Shaka’s life prominently featured above the main tableau where Shaka lies
prostrate (plate 11). These paintings normally depicted only the Buddha’s death,
though some included his mother in paradise above, as in Hōnenji’s sculpted
ensemble. Sadatsuna’s interpretation includes three episodes from the Buddha’s
life. On the left, the Buddha meditates under the bodhi tree prior to his enlight-
enment. The figures above him represent the army of ghouls belonging to Mara
(the Buddhist personification of evil), who attacked him in an unsuccessful ef-
fort to break his concentration (fig. 5.6). On the right, the Buddha preaches his
first sermon. Presiding in the center is the transcendent Shaka Buddha as he
appears after his death, on his throne attended by Fugen and Monju. Towering
behind these scenes is a literal representation of Vulture Peak, where the Buddha
frequently preached during his lifetime.23
While the Shaka Triad by Kimura Ryōtaku VI features a precise and pains-
taking rendering of details, in comparison to Sadatsuna’s Death of the Buddha
Shaka scroll, its appearance is positively staid. Sadatsuna’s colors and brush-
work glow with depth and intensity. His figures and animals exude lively, in-
dividual temperaments. Although his painting style emerges from his study of
the Kimura tradition, his natural talent shines through, and, in fact, his level of
aesthetic excellence could not be matched by any other Kimura ebusshi of the
Edo period.24
Buddhist Imagery in Official Painting Ateliers

During the Momoyama period, secular painters of the Kano, Unkoku, Kaihō,
and Hasegawa schools sometimes brushed Buddhist icons for their patrons —
powerful warriors and important Kyoto temples. These painting schools re-
mained active after the Tokugawa took control of the nation and continued to
produce Buddhist imagery closely resembling the work of their predecessors
(Fukuoka-shi Bijutsukan 2004). However, Tokugawa Ieyasu awarded the main
branch of the Kano school the highest rank among official painters (goyō eshi),

5.6. Detail. Sakon
Sadatsuna (active 1640s–
1680s). Mara’s Attack,
from Death of the Buddha
(Nehan zu). Hanging scroll;
ink, color, and gold on silk,
87 × 166 cm. Saint Louis
Art Museum. Purchase:
Anonymous gift.
which guaranteed them the most prestigious commissions because he recog-

nized “their proven success in creating powerful visual symbols for past shogu-
nal rulers” (Gerhart 2003, 14).
The Kano school continued to prosper during the middle years of the sev-
enteenth century due to the extraordinary talent of one member of the main
family, Kano Tan’yū. Tan’yū’s artistic gift and political acumen enabled him to
secure virtually all the important official shogunal painting commissions for
the duration of his career. Tan’yū’s skill was due in part to his incessant study
of paintings. This quest led him to seek out the emigrant Ōbaku monks who
possessed numerous Chinese paintings and who were themselves talented art-
ists. Tan’yū first became acquainted with Ōbaku Ingen during Ingen’s tempo-
rary residence prior to the founding of Manpukuji, between 1655 and 1661, at

the Osaka temple Fumonji, headed by Ingen’s supporter Ryōkei Shōsen (Baroni
2000, 48). It seems that in preparation for Ingen’s tenancy at Fumonji, Ryōkei
engaged Yasunobu, Tan’yū’s younger brother and pupil, to paint sliding doors for
the guesthouse where the eminent priest would reside.25 According to Ryōkei’s
surviving records, Tan’yū first met Ingen through an introduction by Yasunobu,
when the brothers visited Fumonji together in 1556 to pay respects to Ingen on
the occasion of an important Buddhist ceremony.26
Ingen maintained contact with Tan’yū after the establishment of Manpukuji
and in fact hired him to paint Buddhist imagery for that temple. One painting
Tan’yū produced for Manpukuji is a triptych of Shaka, Fugen, and Monju (plate
12), nearly identical to one by Ōbaku Itsunen, also owned by Manpukuji.27 Both
contain inscriptions by Ōbaku Ingen, although only the inscription on Itsunen’s
painting is dated (to 1665). The subtle shading of the robe and face is charac-
teristic of late Ming painting traditions that Itsunen helped introduce to Japan.
Tan’yū was the first Japanese artist to incorporate into his own work aspects of
this style, which came to influence many later Edo-period artists from diverse
artistic traditions (Graham 1991, 1992).
After Tan’yū’s death, the Kano school continued to produce paintings based
on models that Tan’yū and other elders of the school had codified. Their paint-
ings remained in demand among samurai, whose status required that they dis-
play the work of painters preferred by the shoguns. The Kano school managed to
perpetuate their identifiable manner in ateliers that taught diligence and repeti-
tion over originality. So successful and abundant were their ateliers at teaching
techniques of brushwork and color application using copybook models that they
opened branch workshops throughout Japan where aspiring artists studied as
apprentices. Some scholars have blamed this training method for stifling cre-
ativity, and indeed, until recently, scholars regarded artists affiliated with the
Kano school after the time of Tan’yū as generally uninspired, although many of
the best, most creative artists of the later Edo period began their studies in Kano
ateliers.28 However, the little-studied Buddhist paintings by later generations of
Kano artists, including Kano Kazunobu’s monumental set of the Five Hundred
Rakan for Zōjōji (see plate 7) and Kano Tōhaku’s Scenes from Hell (see plate 9)
reveal no lack of talent by artists in this genre.29
Because Buddhist icon painting required adherence to iconographic accuracy,
professional artists often relied on a corpus of well-known earlier works as their
models. One artist to whose works Edo-period painters frequently turned for
inspiration was the Tōfukuji monk Minchō, a prolific painter of colorful, large
Buddhist paintings who based his own paintings on Chinese prototypes. Among
his most frequently copied works, by artists from different painting lineages, is
a set of thirty-three paintings of thirty-three manifestations of the bodhisattva
Kannon that he painted for Tōfukuji. This theme is derived from chapter 25 of

the Lotus Sutra, which enumerates various dangers that befall people and the
thirty-three guises Kannon assumes to save them. Famous copies are known by
Kano Sansetsu (1589–1651), who faithfully reproduced two scrolls for Tōfukuji
in 1647; the Ōbaku painter Takuhō Dōshū (1652–1714), a one-time student of
Tan’yū whose copy dates to 1677; and Hara Zaichū (1750–1837), an independent
artist who worked for wealthy merchants and temples supported by them.30 All
these artists practiced in Kyoto, where they would have had access to Minchō’s
original paintings.
However, not all artists who emulated Minchō followed his compositions
closely. One original adaptation was created by Kakushū Genkō (aka Sumiyo-
shi Hironatsu, 1641–1730). This artist was the second son of Sumiyoshi Jokei
(1599–1670), a Tosa family artist who split from that lineage and took the new
surname of Sumiyoshi by imperial decree in 1662 and soon after began paint-
ing for the shogunate and their elite daimyo retainers who wanted pictures that
would demonstrate to viewers that they shared a heritage with the imperial
family. Jokei’s descendants continued to paint for the bakufu and also served as
official connoisseurs of old paintings, specializing in colorful, charming, Tosa-
style pictures of episodes from classics of Japanese literature and narrative scrolls
that touted the legitimacy of Tokugawa rule. With the exception of Kakushū,
they did not generally produce Buddhist imagery. Kakushū naturally studied
under his father, but as second son he could not inherit the main family line, so
he found employment as painter to the wealthy Maeda daimyo of Kanazawa.
While in service there, he fell ill with a serious ear infection, and after recover-
ing he retired from duty and became ordained as an Ōbaku monk. In 1688, he
accepted an offer from the Matsudaira daimyo Yorishige, founder of Hōnenji in
Takamastu, to become an official painter to the clan. For them he painted sub-
jects standard in the repertoire of Sumiyoshi artists: bird-and-flower and figure
paintings, but also Buddhist devotional imagery.
Kakushū completed his set of Kannon scrolls around 1692, several years be-
fore his patron Yorishige’s death31 (fig. 5.7). The scope of the project and its mas-
terful execution suggest it was done for Yorishige. The screens, now owned by
Hōnenji, came to the temple as a gift of the last, eleventh-generation Matsudaira
daimyo. Kakushū and his elite samurai patrons apparently had great fondness
for this subject, for several other sets by him, quite similar in appearance to
the one shown in figure 5.7, are known.32 Although unsigned, scholars do not
doubt its authenticity (the painting has been designated an Important Cultural
Property). The top portion of each scroll contains calligraphic inscriptions on
sheets of paper pasted in place, with passages from the Lotus Sutra that relate to
each scene. The calligrapher also did not sign his work, but the style suggests the
writer was Ōbaku Kōsen, who also inscribed Takuhō Dōshū’s version (Ōtsuki
1985, 318).

5.7. Kakushū Genkō (aka
Sumiyoshi Hironatsu, 1641–1730).
Kannon Bodhisattva Saving a
Man from Drowning, around
1692. From a set of forty scrolls
mounted on three pairs of six-
panel and one pair of two-panel
screens. Ink and colors on silk;
each panel: 144.1 × 55.6 cm.
Hōnenji, Takamatsu. Photograph
courtesy of Ōtsuki Mikio.

Like Minchō’s set, the one in Hōnenji portrays multiple images of Kannon
encircled by a halo in a heavenly realm, floating above landscape scenes peopled
with an entourage of Buddhist guardians and attendants. Kakushū’s pictures re-
veal his skill at capturing the viewer’s interest by populating each scene with mi-
nutely rendered narrative details in the fine brushwork of the Sumiyoshi school.
Although the subjects and figural groupings derive from the original, Kakushū
took extensive artistic license with the compositions and details, as seen in the
panel from the Hōnenji screens illustrated in figure 5.7.33 In this scene, a devo-
tee clasps his hands in prayer to Kannon as he jumps off a cliff to flee bandits.
His pleas are answered as a hand (with an all-seeing eye in the palm) emerges
from billowing waves to catch him. Kakushū’s set contains forty pictures: the
standard group of thirty-three that appear in Minchō’s scrolls, five additional
images of other manifestations of Kannon floating above landscapes, and at the
beginning and end of his series, large-scale, full-frontal images of Shaka and a
white-robed Kannon, respectively. His Kannon paintings testify that even for an
officially sponsored painter working within a strictly regulated and conservative
system, creative adaptation of a traditional Buddhist model was possible.
Buddhist Imagery by Independent Painters

Around the same time that the Shukuin Busshi sculptors began production of
Buddhist sculpture during the late Muromachi period, similar conditions in
the painting world created new opportunities for independent painters. Towns-
people in Japan’s newly developing urban centers patronized these artists, who
became known as “town painters” (machi eshi). They worked in Tosa-related na-
tive Japanese styles to create narrative scrolls, many with Buddhist themes, and
fans and screens of genre scenes. By the Edo period, an increased population of
commoners meant more clients for these artists, so their numbers multiplied. By
the late seventeenth century, their ranks also came to include some of the many
artists trained in Kano school ateliers who left to establish their own workshops
in Japan’s increasingly mercantile society. These independent artists flourished
nationally, creating both religious and secular paintings for commoners.
Among these artists, those who were ingenious, ambitious, and talented at-
tracted clients in Japan’s major cities, whose diverse residents variously appre-
ciated exciting, nostalgic, innovative, or simply beautiful art. Their personal
inclinations led them to develop unique visual styles that combined elements
from various traditions of the past (such as Kano and Tosa) with new influences
from abroad (both China and the West). Although much of these painters’ oeu-
vres encompassed the production of secular subjects, including contemporary
genre scenes and historical and literary themes, they also fulfilled commissions
for religious imagery, often upon the request of friends or regular patrons and

sometimes for more personal reasons, such as memorials to their own deceased
family members.
One of the most popular new painting styles, variously called nanga (south-
ern painting) or bunjinga (literati painting), appealed to artists and patrons who,
for various reasons, admired Chinese literati culture.34 Many of these artists
lived in the vicinity of Kyoto, a hotbed of fervor for Sinophile studies. Nanga was
as much an attitude as a style; its practitioners borrowed from assorted Chinese-
derived stylistic models. One prevailing influence came from Ōbaku Buddhist
painting, both in style, as perpetuated by Itsunen and his followers, and subject
matter, especially various incarnations of Kannon and the Rakan. Although
nanga painters are most famous for landscape and bird-and-flower themes,
most also painted Rakan. Interest in this theme stemmed from similar impulses
that caused the general proliferation of Rakan sculpture: admiration for them
as heroic models for moral conduct. Some nanga painters practiced their art
as amateurs, painting only for personal pleasure. Others worked as profession-
als. One of the professionals was Hine Taizan (1813–1869), whose energetically
brushed Sixteen Rakan, dated 1862, typifies the idiosyncratic and humorous
tone taken by nanga painters for this subject (plate 13).35 Taizan’s painting style
reveals his mastery of the spontaneous brushwork initiated by amateur Chinese
literati painters centuries earlier. But his polished composition and decorative
application of light colors reveal the hand of a professional artist.
Around the same time that nanga-style painting grew popular in Kyoto, Ma
ruyama Ōkyo started another new lineage. He fused diverse elements from tra-
ditional Japanese, Chinese, and Western brush techniques into a distinctive
personal style combining naturalism and stylization. His new Maruyama school
grew so popular among the urban middle classes that it begat competitor ate-
liers, including the Mori school (into which the busshi Tanaka Kōkyō was born).
Ōkyo taught the importance of sketching from life (shasei), but, owing to his
own early study in a Kano atelier, he also utilized that school’s training method
of copying from books and preparatory sketches (shitae) to create familiar rep-
resentations of traditional subjects. Artists influenced by Ōkyo are best known
for their lifelike images of the natural world, but some also produced religious
imagery for dedication to their own family temples or at the request of patrons
of various sectarian affiliations. Because paintings of Buddhist icons required
fidelity to models, the Maruyama school circulated copybooks for their artists
to use.
A recent five-volume publication on Maruyama school sketches reproduces
a large number of these, gathered together by one of Ōkyo’s little-known direct
disciples, Shimada (orig. Ki) Motonao (aka Randō, 1734–1819). This compilation
includes two volumes devoted to Buddhist icons compiled by Takai Sōgen, a
contemporary Buddhist sculptor (Takai 1997). The Buddhist volumes include

5.8. Unidentified artist of the
Maruyama school. Sketch of the
buddha Shaka, copying a Chinese
painting owned by Tōfukuji,
Kyoto, late eighteenth to mid-
nineteenth century. Ink and light
colors on paper, approx. 100 × 60
cm. Private collection, Fukuoka.
both freehand drawings and woodblock-printed images, some inscribed with

the names of the artists whose works were copied. One of the models illus-
trated is a famous Chinese triptych of Shaka, Fugen, and Monju, the original of
which is owned by Tōfukuji and dates to the thirteenth or fourteenth century.36
The sketch of the central image of Shaka shown in figure 5.8 replicates many
features of the original, including the Buddha’s pose, the dark, angular outlines
of his robe, its red color and floral pattern, and the Buddha’s placement atop a
rocky ledge on a mat of grasses. But unlike the original, the artist has added
Maruyama school–style volumetric shading to the face, neck, and arms and
drawn swirling waves (or perhaps clouds) beneath the promontory.
The Osaka-born Mori Sosen (1747–1821), Japan’s most famous painter of natu-
ralistically rendered monkeys, also copied this painting of Shaka in a triptych for

Saifukuji, his family temple in Osaka, in 1806.37 He probably based his picture
on the Maruyama school model or one similar to it. It is one of only three figure
paintings by him known to exist (Kimura 1975, 64; Kōno 1972, 10–11). One of the
others (plate 14) is a daring variation of the traditional Rinzai Zen theme of the
buddha Shaka emerging from the mountains (Shussan Shaka), displayed in Zen
temples during a ritual held on the eighth day of the twelfth month commemo-
rating Shaka’s enlightenment. It portrays the Buddha just prior to preaching his
first sermon confronting “the individual viewer even today with both the chal-
lenge and the potential of seeking a personal awakening to salvation” (Rogers
1983, 33). Such an image is fitting in Rinzai temples, where Shaka is admired as
a mortal man who was committed to solitary and strenuous self-sacrifice in
his quest for enlightenment, rather than as an abstract symbol of buddhahood
(Brinker 1973, 21). In the Edo period, increased veneration of Shaka as a heroic
figure parallels admiration for Rakan, who also walked among the living. Just
as with Rakan, admiration for Shaka in his persona as Shussan Shaka spread to
followers of sects other than Zen and encouraged new types of representations
of the theme, as in Sosen’s example.
Orthodox Zen images of this theme are generally austere ink paintings
showing Shaka as a gaunt ascetic. Sosen’s painting strays far from that model,
although the composition of his scroll was probably based on a Kano school
prototype.38 His Shaka looks more like a common beggar than a saint, with a
humorous aspect that may appear irreverent. By injecting such inferences into
his painting, Sosen shows he dared to break with the conventional and staid
Kano artists’ approach to the subject and appropriate influences from the Zen
painting tradition, which frequently poked fun at serious Buddhist themes. This
sort of painting became exceedingly popular in the late Edo period as the influ-
ence of Zen monk-artists spread to painters of other artistic traditions, both
professionals such as Sosen and amateur monk-painters affiliated with other
sects. As already mentioned in chapter 4, this sense of playfulness is a defining
characteristic of much of popular Edo-period art.
The obvious resemblance of Shaka’s face in Sosen’s painting to the portraits
of monkeys for which he was best known could not be mere accident, for the
monkey had a long history of spiritual association (Graham 1991, 278). His inser-
tion of humor was not blasphemous, nor did it nullify the dignity of the sacred
image. Cloaking the deity in the role of a common vagrant tinged with simian
features cleverly underscored one aspect of the message Sosen aimed to deliver
with this picture: the Buddhist belief that all sentient beings inherently possess
the Buddha nature.
Artists of the ukiyoe school injected similar sentiments into many of their
diverse representations of Buddhist subjects. These included formal icons and
multisheet series or single-sheet prints of temples, pilgrimage circuits, the lives

5.9. Hishikawa Moronobu (d. 1694). A Courtesan Depicted as the Bodhisattva Jizō, ca. 1681–1684.
Woodblock print in ink on paper, 25.7 × 38.2 cm. Tobacco and Salt Museum, Tokyo.
of famous Buddhist teachers, and illustrations for widely distributed versions of

Buddhist sutras and moralistic stories, the latter emblematic of the pervasive
influence of Confucianism in commoner culture.39 Some of these various types
of images have been discussed in previous chapters: Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s Roben
Waterfall at Ōyama (see plate 3), Utagawa Hiroshige III’s Fukagawa Fudōson
(see plate 5), and Andō Hiroshige’s Seven Gods of Good Fortune in Their Trea-
sure Ship (see fig. 4.12). These pictures capture the jovial spirit that characterized
much of popular Edo-period religious practice.
Sometimes, ukiyoe artists, especially in designs for more inexpensively pro-
duced prints intended for amusement rather than formal edification, repre-
sented Buddhist deities with more blatant satirical intent than that found in
Sosen’s Shussan Shaka. One picture of this type is by the early ukiyoe artist
Hishikawa Moronobu (d. 1694). Although he sometimes portrayed Buddhist
subjects with sincerity, of greater interest and originality are his more ironic
Buddhist images.40 One print of the bodhisattva Jizō seems at first to represent
the deity blessing a group of townspeople, although astute observers would have
recognized its hidden meaning (fig. 5.9). Jizō is represented as a courtesan in
disguise, strolling along in front of an admiring client and two young servants.
The figure’s attendants carry a smoking pipe and other tobacco paraphernalia,
popular among the urban dilettantes who frequented the pleasure quarters,

and the staff Jizō carries has a bundle of rope, used for lighting pipes, swinging
near its top.41 Moronobu’s audience would have taken great delight in discern-
ing the hidden meaning of these symbols, but they also would have recognized
in the picture the Buddhist message: that of the futility of fixating on the body,
especially that of beautiful women, whose remains, like those of all living things,
became repulsive in death.
Women entertainers, shamans, and others who played creative and fringe
roles in society were regarded as liminal figures, mediators between the world of
the living and the dead. Consequently, the public regarded them as “teachers of
impermanence, bodhisattvas in disguise” (Chin 1998, 309–310). The presence
of this duality, a clever parody and serious sermon, in a single ukiyoe picture
reflected the undercurrent of Buddhist values in this most materialistic sub-
culture of Edo Japan. Such prints would not have been intended as devotional
imagery for display in temples or family Buddhist altars, but rather enjoyed as
secular art, a sign of Buddhism’s penetration into the secular realm.
In contrast to ukiyoe artists, whose designs reflected the preoccupation of
their patrons for iconoclastic, modern interpretations of traditional themes,
other artists became enamored of Japanese art styles associated with courtier
culture of the Heian period, the yamatoe precursors to the Tosa and Sumiyoshi
school traditions.42 The Tokugawa encouraged this focus and in fact contributed
to broader circulation of knowledge about ancient art of this era, both secular
and religious, through sponsorship of methodical investigations of the holdings
of notable temples and shrines.43
One artist who caught this antiquarian fervor was Kikuchi Yōsai (1788–1878),
a native of Edo and son of a minor bakufu official (D. Satō 1993; Nerima Ku-
ritsu Bijutsukan 1999). At age eighteen he began to study painting in a Kano-
school atelier. But his fascination with historical subjects led him to embark on
a deeper, self-directed investigation of old paintings published between 1836 and
1868 in a ten-volume manual for history painters titled Ancient Wisdom and
Old Customs (Zenken kojitsu).44 His mature personal style intertwined elements
of the Kano, Tosa, and Maruyama schools, but his subjects remained histori-
cal. Although he frequently depicted grand events of both China and Japan, he
sometimes created Buddhist imagery, generally popular figures that reflected
Buddhist beliefs about the afterlife, such as Enma, king of the Buddhist Hells,
Rakan, and Jizō.
One of Yōsai’s most compelling Buddhist images conveyed the same core
meaning as Moronobu’s A Courtesan Depicted as the Bodhisattva Jizō — the
need to overcome attachment to the impermanent and polluted realm of the
living (plate 15). But he conceptualized it quite differently, basing his depiction
on a particular type of popular, ancient Buddhist narrative picture of the nine
stages of a decomposing corpse (kusōzu). From as early as the thirteenth cen-

tury, artists had illustrated this theme as a focus of meditation to aid devotees in
their renunciation of the flesh and attainment of salvation after death.45 Because
sutras of various sects mentioned the practice, it became widespread among
monks and devout laity, especially those that incorporated Pure Land beliefs
about the six realms of reincarnation, for whom such visualization became as-
sociated with the impure realm of human existence (Kanda 2005, 29). By the
Edo period, the diverse pictures of this theme suggest its broad appeal, particu-
larly among women. Yōsai’s inscription indicates that he painted it while living
near Kan’eiji in Edo for a Buddhist priest named Hyakujō, whose title indicates
affiliation with one of the esoteric sects. The priest probably hung it when pa-
rishioners, probably women, visited his temple to pray.46
Yōsai presents his version, veiled as a historical painting, in a modernized
version of the brightly colored interior scenes found in ancient yamatoe-style
paintings of courtly narrative tales popular among women. Yōsai conceived the
spatial recession, the naturalistically rendered physical features of figures, and
the buildings and landscape in the styles of his day. But the portrayal of the lady
in the lower portion of the scroll who is peering through a screen and wearing
a Shinto shrine priestess robe like the stiff, elegant garments of Heian-period
court ladies is derived from ancient yamatoe-style pictures. These priestesses
are liminal spirits who mediate with the dead (Chin 1998, 309–310). Here, she
gazes at a dead woman, probably her future self, in various stages of decay,
culminating in a gravestone in the upper left quadrant of the picture. Many
yamatoe pictures emphasized the beauty and poignancy of life through sea-
sonal images that reveal the passage of time. This picture, with its emphasis
on postdeath decomposition, recalls such subjects, though here the Buddhist
overtone is more overt.
Another artist who contributed to a revival of interest in the ancient yamatoe
style was Reizei Tamechika (1823–1864), who was born into and received his ini-
tial training in a Kano-school atelier. But he tired of the school’s rigidity and, like
Yōsai, turned to the yamatoe style, which he learned by assiduous study of old
scrolls of the twelfth through fourteenth centuries. He also studied with Ukita
Ikkei (1795–1859), an important artist who had perfected an archaic re-creation
of yamatoe, now known as fukko yamatoe (yamatoe revival). Fukko yamatoe
artists found patronage among aristocrats and other imperial supporters for
whom the style carried a politically charged message — glorification of Japan’s
imperial age through paintings of historical and Buddhist subjects in ancient
courtier styles. However, Tamechika’s attraction to fukko yamatoe stemmed
simply from his love of the style and its subject matter. At age twenty-eight
Tamechika was adopted into the Okada courtier clan, probably because of their
appreciation for his artistic vision. This adoption led to his probably reluctant
involvement in the political turmoil at the end of the Edo period that pitted sup-

porters of the Tokugawa shogunate against those who sought to replace it with
direct imperial rule. Still, imperial supporters did not possess exclusive rights
to appreciation of yamatoe-style pictures; his original Kano family painted for
the imperial palace, and Kano painters generally were adept at yamatoe-derived
Tosa styles, which even samurai patrons appreciated. Owing to his exceptional
talent and both courtier and Kano family connections, Tamechika painted for
elite patrons on both sides of the conflict.
Within his repertoire, Tamechika brushed a large number of Buddhist paint-
ings, mainly as commissions for a close friend born in the same year as him-
self, a Tendai monk called Gankai. Gankai was head priest of Kokawadera, near
Wakayama City, the third temple on the Saikoku Kannon pilgrimage circuit,
which courtiers had patronized for centuries. Of the numerous paintings Tame-
chika created for Gankai, two are now owned by the Okura Shūkōka Museum in
Tokyo (plates 16, 17).47 He brushed these paintings at Kokawadera in 1863, where
he had been exiled for his courtier status, shortly before his death. Ironically,
he was assassinated by an imperial loyalist who misunderstood that a visit he
made to the home of a rival faction supporter was to study the latter’s ancient
art collection and not to conspire about politics.
Plate 16 portrays The Descent of Amida Buddha over the Mountains (Yama-
goshi Amida zu) (Yamagoshi Amida), a traditional subject beloved by devotees
of Pure Land beliefs who used this painting to visualize Amida welcoming them
to his paradise after death. The style Tamechika used to represent the deities
in these paintings indicates that he and the Kimura Ryōtaku lineage shared
a similar yamatoe heritage (see plate 10). But unlike Kimura paintings, which
focus on the figures, Tamechika borrows equally from the yamatoe landscape
tradition. He devotes fully half the painting to a lyrical rendering of the roll-
ing hills of Japan’s countryside in spring, covered with flowering cherry trees, a
small herd of deer, and a tumbling waterfall. Such a painting would have been
much appreciated by Gankai’s courtier patrons, who could envision in it their
return after death to the glorious land of their ancestors.
Plate 17 represents a honji suijaku mandala showing concordant Shinto and
Buddhist deities (Butsuchōson katsudara amakami minbutsu da kōrin mandara)
in a unique configuration made to the specific instructions of Gankai. Buddhist
deities are lined up on the left, and their counterpart Shinto kami, many dressed
as courtiers, appear on the right. Both groups of figures face inward towards the
central section of the picture, which features a circular Buddhist tahōtō pagoda
with a square roof, a type found at esoteric Buddhist temples (e.g., see fig. 1.5),
and in one mandala formation associated with the Tendai sect’s honji suijaku
faith is inhabited by the buddha Dainichi.48 This buddha is often identified with
the sun because he sits at the center of the cosmos bestowing life to the four
quarters of the universe through a divine light that emanates from his being. In

Plate 10. Kimura
Ryōtaku VI (active
second half of the
seventeenth century).
The Buddha Shaka
and His Attendant
Bodhisattvas Fugen
and Monju (Shaka
sanshōzō), 1671.
Hanging scroll; ink,
color, and cut-gold
leaf (kirikane) on silk,
193 × 124 cm. Rinnōji,
Nikko.
Plate 11. Sakon Sadatsuna
(active 1640s–1680s). Death
of the Buddha (Nehan zu).
Hanging scroll; ink, color,
and gold on silk, 87 × 166
cm. Saint Louis Art
Museum. Purchase:
Anonymous gift.
Plate 12. Painting by Kano
Tan’yū (1602–1674), inscrip-
tion by Ingen Ryūki (Ch.
Yinyuan Longqi; 1592–1673).
The Buddha Shaka. Hanging
scroll; center of a triptych,
ink and colors on silk, 108.9
× 47.8 cm. Manpukuji, Uji.
Plate 13. Hine Taizan (1813–1869). Sixteen Rakan, 1862. Hanging scroll; ink and light colors
on satin, 143.5 × 79.4 cm. Lee Institute Permanent Collection, gift of Dr. and Mrs. Robert
Feinberg.
Plate 14. Mori Sosen
(1747–1821). The Bud‑
dha Shaka Descending
from the Mountain
(Shussan Shaka).
Hanging scroll; ink
and light colors on
paper, 106.7 × 55 cm.
The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, Kan-
sas City, Missouri.
Purchase: Nelson
Trust, 82-4.
Plate 15. Kikuchi Yōsai
(1788–1878). The Inevi‑
table Change. Hanging
scroll; ink, color, and gold
on silk, 116.5 × 53.7 cm.
Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston, William Sturgis
Bigelow Collection.
Plate 16. Reizei Tamechika (1823–1864). The Descent of Amida Buddha over the Moun‑
tains (Yamagoshi Amida zu), 1863. Hanging scroll; ink, colors, and gold on silk, 173.5 ×
90 cm. Okura Art Museum, Tokyo.
Plate 17. Reizei Tamechika (1823–1864). Mandala of Buddhist and Shinto Deities (Butsuchōson katsu‑
dara amakami minbutsu da kōrin mandara), 1863. Hanging scroll; ink, colors, and gold on silk,
149.6 × 91.2 cm. Okura Art Museum, Tokyo.
Plate 1. The Twenty-ﬁrst Memorial Service for Tokugawa Iemitsu at the Buddhist Hall of the Taiyūin
Mausoleum (Nikkōzan Midō Haiden zu), 1671. Rinnōji, Nikkō. Hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk,
121 × 85 cm.
Graham insert 01a 1 8/12/08 12:20:55 PM

Plate 2. Cosmic Diagram of Yoshiminedera Temple Precincts (Yoshiminedera sankei manadra), Momoyama
or early Edo period; late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. Hanging scroll; ink and colors on paper,
159.8 × 166.4 cm. Yoshiminedera, Kyoto Prefecture.

Plate 3. Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861). Roben Waterfall at Ōyama (Ōyama Roben no taki), ca. 1850.
Woodblock print triptych in ink and colors on paper, each sheet 36.2 × 76.5 cm. Fine Arts Museums
of San Francisco, gift of Katherine Ball, 1964.141.1300abc.

Plate 4. The Temple Compound at Asakusa Sensōji, ﬁrst half of the Edo period, early eighteenth century.
Single six-panel screen; ink and colors on paper, 137.5 × 338 cm. Tobacco and Salt Museum, Tokyo.

Plate 5. Utagawa Hiroshige III (1842–1894). Fukagawa Fudōson (Degaichō of Fudō Myōō on display at Eitaiji,
Edo), 1885. Woodblock print in ink and colors on paper, vertical ōban format, approx. 38 × 25 cm. Reikōkan,
Naritasan Shinshōji, Narita.

Plate 6. (Above) Shingan (1647–1706). Jizō
Bodhisattva at Daienji, Kanazawa, 1700.
Wood, crushed bones, polychrome, and
gold. Height: 4 m. Photograph by author.
Plate 7. (Right) Kano Kazunobu (1816–

1863). Rakan and the Buddhist Hell,
scroll number 23 from a set of One Hun-
dred Scrolls of the Five Hundred Rakan,
set completed between 1854 and 1863.
Hanging scroll; ink and colors on silk,
172.3 × 85.3 cm. Zōjōji, Tokyo.

Plate 8. Kumano Heart Visualization and Ten Worlds Mandala (Kumano kanjin jikkai mandala), eighteenth
or early nineteenth century. Hanging scroll; ink and colors on paper, 177 × 140 cm (approximate size). Private
collection, Japan. Photograph courtesy of Kurushima Hiroshi, National Museum of Japanese History.

Plate 9. Kano Tōhaku
(1772–1821). Scenes from
Hell, 1819. Hanging scroll;
× 87.7 cm. Clark Family
Collection on long-term
loan to the Lee Institute,
Hanford, California.

this unique mandala, instead of portraying Dainichi beneath the pagoda’s roof,
he is represented by the pagoda itself. On its side the artist has painted a golden
sun disk, a symbol of the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu, the supreme Shinto
deity who was a direct ancestor of the imperial family, which honji suijaku the-
ory equates with Dainichi. Thus in this picture, too, the aristocratic patrons of
this temple would find many familiar and comforting images.
The many groups and individuals introduced in this chapter owed their
success to the large numbers of Edo-period devotees of Buddhism. Although
they were all professional makers of religious imagery, great distinctions existed
between the ways sculptors and painters approached their craft. The sculptors
surveyed here, creating imagery for temples of national importance or for those
patronized by wealthy and elite consumers in Japan’s main cities, worked in
ateliers dedicated expressly to the production of religious images. This occurred
because workshop production facilitated the high level of specialized technical
skill and division of labor required for the making of these images. In contrast,
although some older workshops specializing in Buddhist painting continued
to flourish in the Edo period, many artists best known for secular subjects also
began to produce Buddhist imagery, sometimes intending their creations for
display in nonreligious settings. Although earlier artists had also occasionally
represented Buddhist subjects in secular art, characteristic of Edo-period aes-
thetic attitudes, artists injected a greater sense of humor in their portrayals,
indicating a deepening encroachment of secular values into religious life.
Also, sculptors generally made imagery for patrons of various sectarian affilia-
tions, only occasionally modifying their styles to meet the stylistic requirements
of temples of different sects and patronage circles, and the hand of individual
makers within these workshops would frequently be difficult to discern without
inscriptions or documentation. In contrast, the styles of professional Buddhist
painters, especially the independent artists working in the late Edo period, were
vastly more personal and more related to the distinct tastes of specific patrons
or social groups of clients, who in turn were attracted to particular artists who
shared their worldview and political beliefs. But like the sculptors, they, too,
generally worked for patrons of various sects, a factor that both reflected and
contributed to the syncretic nature of Buddhist practice at that time. Neverthe-
less, these artists represent only one group of Buddhist image-makers of the
early modern period. Chapter 6 introduces others whose involvement stemmed
from deeper personal engagement with the faith.

Chapter Six
Expressions of Faith
this Chapter surveys visual imagery by devout followers of Buddhism dur-

ing the early modern period. The makers of these images came from all sectors
of society and lived in both urban and rural locales. None sold these objects
for personal gain. Some trained in studios of professional, secular artists while
others were entirely self-taught. Their motivations also varied widely according
to personal inclinations and professional needs. Those from affluent families
often participated in devotional practices that required great effort over long
periods of time; their wealth allowed them the freedom to do so. Their images
were prayers for amassing karmic merit in the afterlife for deceased loved ones
or were intended to assist temples in furthering the spread of Buddhism more
widely. Mendicant monks and others affiliated with temples used imagery they
created to propagate Buddhism or distributed it to serve as foci for believers’
prayers. The quantity, quality, and variety of these visual expressions of faith
eloquently testify to Buddhism’s ability to inspire artistic creativity among de-
vout professional and amateur artists throughout the era.
Only a few of the clerics and devout laity introduced in this chapter grew
famous for their imagery during their lifetimes. Of those who did, writers of
their day admired them for their piety and for offering inspiration to believers,
but except for the few acknowledged as professional artists, their visual imagery
was not considered art. Appreciation for the artistic qualities of their creations
began only during the twentieth century. For the most part, their imagery re-
mains marginalized from that which constitutes the orthodox canon of Japa-
nese art history. This is especially true for art by the more self-effacing, reclusive

of these individuals, such as imperial nuns and daimyo wives, and imagery by
itinerant clerics for lowly commoners of outlying villages.
Imagery by Imperial Clerics and Elite Samurai

The education of Japan’s upper classes and wealthy commoners always included
calligraphy and, usually, its sister art of brush painting. Most men learned the
academic Kano manner, taught at official domain academies and in privately
run studios throughout Japan. The shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, for example,
brushed pictures of Kannon (see fig. 1.6) for Yoshiminedera in this style, as did
the Kanazawa monk Shingan (whose sculpture of Jizō was discussed in chap.
4; see plate 6). Imperial family members often took the tonsure for financial or
political expediency, but for many the motivation stemmed from a sincerity of
faith and led them to spend their days creating devotional imagery. The ton-
sured close relatives of Emperor Gomizunoo produced some of the finest and
most unusual of these images. Often they studied with his distinguished Bud-
dhist teachers and important artists whom he patronized.
One of Gomizunoo’s grandsons, Tenjin Hoshin’nō (1664–1690), became the
fifty-sixth abbot and the second imperial abbot at the Tendai (monzeki) temple
of Rinnōji in Nikkō in 1680.1 Records indicate his interest in Buddhism and
scholarly pursuits from his youth. He became adept in the professional Bud-
dhist painting style of the Kimura lineage (see plate 10), whose artists brushed
the icons for his temple. His Thousand-Armed Kannon (plate 18), completed
in 1689, displays his mastery of meticulous techniques for applying ink, colors,
and cut-gold leaf (kirikane) to both the deity and its surrounding hand-painted
mounting. Befitting his status, Hoshin’nō learned both the art of calligraphy and
painting in his youth; Rinnōji owns other examples of his artistic aptitude.2
Eight of Gomizunoo’s thirteen daughters and thirteen of his granddaugh-
ters became nuns (Fister 2003, 17). The impressive quantity and quality of the
devotional imagery these women created resulted in large part from their ob-
servance of the tenets of the Lotus Sutra. Women most frequently copied this
sutra because one section of it describes Kannon delivering a sermon to women,
stating that in exchange for their devout belief he would liberate them from
suffering in their next lives. The sutra advised that spiritual merit could accrue
from copying its text and creating devotional images based on it. Consequently,
devotion to Kannon and the abundant production of Kannon images were espe-
cially popular among women (Fister 2003, 18). In some of Kannon’s thirty-three
forms described in the Lotus Sutra, based on Chinese prototypes and derived
from newly invented later Chinese forms of the deity, s/he appears as a woman.
As expected, these manifestations found particular favor among women prac-
titioners of Buddhism, for whom they were primarily invented.
Expressions of Faith | 151

The religious art of imperial nuns has been the subject of investigation by
the scholar Patricia Fister in an ongoing series of books and articles.3 Her stud-
ies reveal that these nuns demonstrated their piety in extraordinary ways. For
example, Daitsū Bunchi (1619–1697), Emperor Gomizunoo’s eldest child, created
large numbers of devotional imagery in various conventional media, including
embroidery and painting. But she also utilized unorthodox materials, which she
incorporated into elegant reliquaries: characters from sacred sutras “written”
with her father’s discarded fingernail clippings and sacred characters written in
ink on small pieces of her own mutilated skin.4 Another of these nuns, Ryōnen
Gensō (1646–1711), a lady-in-waiting to Empress Tōfukumon’in and a gifted poet
and calligrapher, burned her face to disfigure it when the master of the Ōbaku
temple she wanted to enter refused her admittance on the grounds that her
beauty would distract the monks.5
One of the most prolific of these nuns was Shōzan Gen’yō (1634–1727), another
daughter of Emperor Gomizunoo. She became an Ōbaku nun upon her father’s
death under the guidance of Ryōkei, her father’s Zen teacher. Her complete de-
votion to Kannon and to the Lotus Sutra inspired her to create large numbers of
images of this deity as a prayer for her father’s salvation. Accounts by celebrated
Ōbaku monks of her day lauded her efforts and reported that she brushed 1,000
paintings and fashioned 3,330 tiny statues of Kannon (Fister 2001, 2003). These
statues and paintings, they noted, she gave away freely to people from all levels
of society, despite the fact that she lived a sequestered existence in a nunnery
(Fister 2001, 87–90). She seems to have been self-taught as a sculptor and used a
mold (a technique she may have learned from Ōbaku monks) to create her im-
ages with dried, powdered leaves from the aromatic and sacred shikimi plant,
long used as incense for Japanese Buddhist ceremonies (Fister 2001, 79–80).
Gen’yō’s paintings reveal her unusual (for a woman) study of Kano school
painting. In fact, befitting her high status, she was instructed by prominent
Kano artists Yasunobu (see fig. 4.11) and Takuhō Dōshū. Typical of Gen’yō’s
paintings is her White-Robed Kannon (fig. 6.1), done in the classic Kano style for
Buddhist imagery perfected by Tan’yū (see plate 12) in its combination of dark,
fluid, and angular brushwork, dramatic application of ink washes, and sensi-
tively defined, serene facial expression. This painting, now in the public Ikeda
City Historical Museum, was probably originally owned by the daimyo Aoki
Shigekane of the Asada domain, also a follower of Ōbaku (Fister 2003, 41).
High-ranking aristocratic and samurai women’s educations included train-
ing in calligraphy and sewing because of their practical necessity and because
such skills reflected a person’s character and etiquette. Because of their station
in society, these women generally had abundant leisure time to create elegant
personal devotional objects in these familiar media. Tōfukumon’in, Emperor
Gomizunoo’s wife and a devout Buddhist, often commissioned sculptors of the

6.1. Shōzan Gen’yō
(1634–1727). White-
Robed Kannon.
Hanging scroll; ink
and light color on
silk, 126.2 × 68.2 cm.
Ikeda City Historical
Museum.
finest studios in Kyoto to craft personal reliquaries for her.6 She also made de-
votional imagery herself, including the example in plate 19 of an unusual form of
Kannon as the wife of Master Ma (Jp. Merōfu; Ch. Malangfu), closely related to
another feminine form, Kannon with a fish basket (Ch. Yulan; Jp. Gyoran). This
object, the central image in a wooden shrine (zushi), is actually not a sculpture
or painting but a fabric-wrapped paper collage (oshie), a traditional craft made by

upper-class Japanese women and a medium that Tōfukumon’in often used for
the depiction of secular subjects, primarily immortal poets.7 Kannon, as a beau-
tiful young woman, appears deep in thought, reading a scroll with hair tied up in
the fashion of a proper Japanese lady and dressed in a secular robe rather than
the garb of a conventional bodhisattva. As Fister has uncovered, this one closely
resembles others made by women in the circle of Emperor Gomizunoo and was
modeled loosely after a late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century Chinese paint-
ing long known in Japan (Fister 2005, 591–592; and n.d.). Tofukumon’in seems
to have been the first to create the figural type, which her daughter, Empress
Meishō (1624–1696), and Shōzan Gen’yō emulated. Tofukumon’in donated this
image, apparently her first and most important version of the subject, to a Rinzai
Zen temple she and her husband patronized, Eigenji, in Shiga Prefecture. Temple
records indicate she incorporated into it a lock of her own hair, a self-sacrificing,
meritorious deed popular among women devotees.8
Sometimes these women copied sutras into beautifully crafted scrolls and
books that professional artisans made for them out of paper embedded with
gold flecks, decorated with cut-gold line dividers and delicate gold drawings of
sacred flowers. One fine example of this type is a set of thirty-three small folding
books of the complete Lotus Sutra by Jishōin (1619–1700), wife of the third Hiro-
shima daimyo, Asano Mitsuakira (fig. 6.2). Jishōin had an impeccable pedigree
as the second daughter of the wealthy third Maeda daimyo, Toshitsune (who
had restored Natadera; see fig. 2.8), and his wife Tentoku’in, who was the second
daughter of the second shogun, Tokugawa Hidetada. Jishōin copied the Lotus
Sutra many times throughout her life, donating her efforts to various temples.9 A
group of these, including that shown in fig. 6.2, is today owned by the Nichiren
sect affiliate temple of Kokuzenji in Hiroshima, which became, on her behalf,
her daimyo clan’s mortuary temple in 1656.10 However, temple records make
no mention of the date for when these materials came into its possession. As a
daimyo wife, Jishōin was required to live in Edo, so these texts were probably
donated to the temple in her memory after her death.11 The first page of each
volume contains charming colored pictures she had brushed, in the figure, two
Celestial Beings (Skt. Apsara; Jp. Hiten), dancers, and musicians (one plays sa-
cred music on a flute, the other on a drum) who float about the heavens. The
quality of the decorated paper suggests that the book itself had been produced
in her father’s domain of Kaga in Kanazawa, famous for such fine crafts using
gold. Other sutra copies by her at Kokuzenji are contained in specially made
gold-decorated lacquer boxes in Kaga style.
Unlike the devotional efforts of daimyo wives like Jishōin who created imag-
ery in the privacy of their homes, some elite lay believers produced more pub-
licly acclaimed devotional imagery. One of the most celebrated of these efforts
was by Katō Nobukiyo (1734–1810), a samurai official of the Tokugawa shogunate

6.2. Jishōin (1619–1700).
Celestial Beings (Hiten).
Page from a folding book
including the text of the
Lotus Sutra; ink, colors,
and gold on paper, approx.
20 × 12 cm. Kokuzenji,
Hiroshima. Photograph
by author.
in Edo. His zealousness led him to sequester himself from family and friends
for five years, from 1788 to 1792, during which time he created a remarkable
set of five hundred Rakan in fifty paintings of ten Rakan each, and a scroll of
Shaka, Fugen, and Monju, all of which he dedicated to the Edo temple Ryūkōji
(plate 20).12
Nobukiyo followed the composition and figure style of a famous set of Five
Hundred Rakan paintings by Minchō in Tōfukuji, Kyoto.13 His accomplished
manner of painting betrays familiarity with Kano school painting, which he
must have studied in his youth.14 However, despite the superficial adherence of
Nobukiyo’s paintings to Minchō’s model, they differ from it in two important
ways: Nobukiyo’s colors are more lightly applied and transparent, softening the
overall effect, and, more significantly, as seen in figure 6.3, he fashioned every
line, shape, and colored area with minute characters from the Lotus Sutra. This
pairing of the Lotus Sutra with the Five Hundred Rakan is a wonderful example

6.3. Detail. Katō Nobukiyo (1734–1810). Heads of Two Rakan, from Ten Rakan Examining a Painting
of White-Robed Kannon, one scroll from a set of fifty paintings portraying the Five Hundred Rakan,
the buddha Shaka, and his attendant bodhisattvas Fugen and Monju, set completed between 1788
and 1792. Hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on paper, 130.3 × 57.7 cm. Mary and Jackson Burke
Foundation. Photograph: Carl Nardiello.
of the trans-sectarian nature of Japanese religious practice. The Lotus Sutra is

closely associated with both the Tendai and Nichiren sects, which especially
revere its teachings, while the Five Hundred Rakan, though mentioned in the
Lotus Sutra, became more widely venerated in Japan as a result of their impor-
tance within the Zen sects.
Creating Buddhist imagery using characters from sutras dates back to at
least the twelfth century. An under-drawing for a painting of this type by Kano
Tan’yū also survives, indicating that artists trained in Kano ateliers were famil-
iar with the practice. So it must have been a known form of devotional practice
in Nobukiyo’s day for which artists trained in Kano establishments created im-
agery.15 But the large scale of Nobukiyo’s set is unprecedented. Documents of
Nobukiyo’s day indicate that the prominent Zen priest of Shōkokuji in Kyoto,
Daiten Kenjō (1719–1801), friend of Ike Taiga and Itō Jakuchū (discussed below),
praised Nobukiyo for his efforts (Asaoka 1983, 1174). Even after completing this
monumental task, Nobukiyo continued with his devotional practice: two similar
scrolls have recently been found in temple collections.16 Pious deeds like his and
those of other monks attached to elite samurai-sponsored temples, such as Shijō
at Kitain in Kawagoe (see fig. 4.7) and the official painter Kano Kazunobu (see

plate 7), inspired religious belief in the broader population during the turbulent
late Edo period.
Art by Clerics for Commoner Devotees

Prior discussion of temples and popular religious beliefs has already introduced
some devout clerics who created their own religious imagery: for example, Kas-
eki Shōnin of Kuhon Butsu Jōshinji in Edo (see fig. 1.10); Shōun Genkei, the
Ōbaku monk who sculpted statues of the Five Hundred Rakan for his temple
in Edo (see fig. 2.7); and Shingan, of Daienji in Kanazawa, who was so moved by
the plight of the numerous unidentified and forgotten deceased that he created a
statue of Jizō using their crushed bones (see plate 6). Other clerics, whose names
have been forgotten, distributed to worshipers woodblock-printed amulets they
crafted themselves (see fig. 4.18), made sacred mandalas of their precincts (see
plate 2), or, as in the case of the Kumano nuns, brushed pictures to augment
their teachings (see plate 8).
Both the quantity and variety of the sacred imagery produced by clerics min-
istering to commoners far outnumbered that by the relatively small number of
imperial clerics. Even the Rinzai Zen sect, previously patronized by wealthy and
powerful elite samurai and aristocrats, began to reach out to commoners and to
followers of other sects. The Rinzai master most responsible for this shift, and
one whose influence has persevered into the modern era, was Hakuin Ekaku
(1685–1768).17 Hakuin’s home temple lay in a small village at the foot of Mount
Fuji in eastern Japan. Nevertheless, he studied with Zen masters associated with
Kyoto’s great monasteries who instilled in him an awareness of the importance
of the study of literature and calligraphy to Zen training. During his formative
years, Hakuin traveled widely, preaching to people from all sectors of society
and tailoring his sermons to his audience. Consequently, his teachings appealed
just as much to rural peasants as to sophisticated and learned urbanites. One
of his intellectual acquaintances from Kyoto was the nanga painter Ike Taiga
(discussed below), who in 1758 contributed the cover, title, and epilogue to a
five-volume compilation of Hakuin’s writings (Takeuchi 1983, 161).
Hakuin was a prolific painter in his later years, well known for his works in a
style now known as Zenga (Zen painting). He began to create his characteristic,
vibrant painting and calligraphy only in his sixties, after realizing that such
efforts could convey his ideas about religion in ways that his sermons could
not. His pictures and calligraphic scrolls blended Buddhist and Confucian ide-
ologies. Their themes encouraged compassion and adherence to moral values,
sometimes to inspire devotees to lead a good life so as to be reborn in paradise
after death — a concept not usually associated with Zen, whose followers believe
in enlightenment in this world, but rather with the Pure Land sects. Simultane-

ously, some devotees used his scrolls as talismans, like ōtsue, to ensure that they
could overcome difficulties in this lifetime.
Hakuin often portrayed traditional Zen themes such as Daruma (Skt. Bodhi
dharma), the founder of Zen, or compassionate deities, especially Kannon. But
he also brushed figures associated with other popular Buddhist traditions and
with folk beliefs. In all cases, his imagery displays his originality, knowledge of
sophisticated cultural traditions, and sense of humor, as seen in his Seven Gods
of Good Fortune (see fig. 4.13). In this painting he portrays this motley group as
actors performing a classical Nō play (a theatrical form for elite audiences) titled
Shōki, featuring this king of the underworld (Pollard and Stevens 2006, 45).
In terms of pictorial style, as typified by his Seven Gods of Good Fortune,
Hakuin used a deceptively simple, bold, self-taught manner that delighted his
commoner audience. Scholars suggest he borrowed this style from obscure am-
ateur painters. Yet his sophisticated calligraphic style shows his incorporation of
elements associated with a prestigious lineage of courtier calligraphers (Rosen-
field 1999, 3:21). Despite the undeniable power of Hakuin’s paintings and his
importance as a great Zen master, he was not a professional artist who painted
for the elite of Japanese society. That fact must account for the glaring omission
of his art from designation by the Japanese government as Important Cultural
Properties, and for the fact that few of his images are owned by national mu-
seums (Yamashita 2003a, 213). His work has been far more appreciated in the
West, however, and this is beginning to affect the way the Japanese perceive him
(Yamashita et al. 2000).
Hakuin’s artistic influence extended to Buddhist masters unaffiliated with
the Rinzai sect, who adopted the Zen-style imagery that he popularized. One of
these non-Zen religious teachers who created Zenga was Jiun Onkō (1718–1804),
a Shingon monk famous as a calligrapher and painter and as a Buddhist re-
former.18 As influential Buddhist teachers and prolific writers, both Hakuin and
Jiun are well researched by religious studies scholars, and yet surprisingly, until
recent examination by art historians, the importance these clerics attached to
calligraphic scrolls and paintings as vehicles for transmission of their teachings,
especially among the common people, has remained overlooked.
Born into the family of a masterless samurai (rōnin) in Osaka, Jiun’s early
study steeped him in samurai values of Confucianism and also, because of the
particular interests of his parents, in Shinto and Shingon Buddhism. His early
studies of these diverse philosophies inspired his conception of a new syncretic
religious creed, the True Doctrine of Discipline (Shōbōritsu), which incorpo-
rated aspects of all three traditions. By the time of his death, Jiun’s school of
Buddhism had attracted a large following, with twenty-eight temples, several
hundred clerics, and ten thousand lay followers in the Osaka and Kyoto areas
(Rosenfield 1999, 3:40). Like Hakuin’s calligraphy and painting, Jiun’s date mainly

6.4. Jiun Onkō
(1718–1804). Daruma.
Hanging scroll; ink on
paper, 123.4 × 55.4 cm.
Collection of Sylvan
Barnet and William
Burto, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
from his later years, after he retired in 1776, and they owe more to Zen than to
Shingon (Addiss 1989, 157). More famous as a calligrapher than painter, Jiun
composed many of his paintings with the same kinds of brushstrokes used for
calligraphy. Many portray Daruma seated with his back to the viewer during
nine years spent deep in meditation before the wall of a cave while attempt-
ing to attain enlightenment. Jiun frequently formed this image with minimalist
verve (fig. 6.4). Here he creates the image with only three bold brushstrokes in
his characteristic ragged-edged, dry-brush style. Above the figure hover two
large characters, “Don’t Know” ( fushiki). This phrase refers to words uttered
during a famous conversation between Daruma, just prior to embarking on this
long period of meditation, and a sixth-century Chinese emperor who wanted to

know who was this person (Daruma) who sat before him. In response, Daruma
cryptically and enigmatically replied, “Don’t know.”19
Late in the Edo period, paintings by another Shingon-trained monk, Wada
Gozan (aka Gesshin, 1800–1870), showed that even within the orthodox Shingon
hierarchy new artistic styles and a tendency towards syncretism proliferated.
Gozan formally studied painting under the tutelage of the Maruyama-school
painter Mori Tessan and became a Shingon monk at the late age of forty-one,
soon after the deaths of both his wife and father.20 In 1854, he became abbot of
Jinkōin, a small Shingon temple in Kyoto. He offered his temple as sanctuary to
artists and political activists loyal to the emperor, including Reizei Tamechika
(see plates 16 and 17) and Ōtagaki Rengetsu (1791–1875), a celebrated, multital-
ented Kyoto artist — waka poet, painter, calligrapher, and potter — who took
vows as a Shingon nun while in residence at Jinkōin during the final ten years
of her life.21
Gozan was a talented, eclectic painter capable of working in different styles,
depending on the intended use and recipient of his paintings. For temple teach-
ings requiring hieratic imagery, he occasionally created polished and dignified
paintings incorporating the Maruyama school emphasis on naturalism, evident
in his Mandala of the Sutra of Radiant Victorious Kings (Skt. Suvarnaprabhāsa
sūtra; Jp. Dai konkōmyō saishōō kyō) (fig. 6.5).22 Ever since Emperor Shōmu had
copies of this sutra distributed to state-supported monasteries in 741 it has been
closely associated with the imperial court and in fact was the focus of a series of
annual lectures held at the imperial palace for five days in the fifth month.23 So
it is not too surprising that Gozan, an imperial loyalist, chose to paint, and prob-
ably lecture on, this sutra. For more personal and informal paintings he reverted
to the more popular ōtsue or Zenga styles. Records indicate that he brushed a
picture of White-Robed Kannon daily as an act of devotion, probably giving
these to parishioners in exchange for donations. One example of this latter type,
the White-Robed Kannon Hovering over Farmers Toiling in a Field (fig. 6.6) was
likely given by Gozan to a local farmer as a prayer for safe harvest.
Not all monk-artists were important teachers or heads of their own temples.
Some who served the spiritual needs of villagers in remote provinces were itin-
erant priests affiliated with the mountain-climbing Shugendō sects. They cre-
ated visual imagery as amateur practitioners, and this imagery reflected the
needs of the rural populace and their own very different temperaments and
artistic inclinations. These monks continued to follow ancient, secret ascetic
precepts that both they and the villagers they met believed empowered them to
commune with divinity. One of their vows stipulated that they create multiple
representations of Buddhist deities, which they learned to do largely through
self-instruction rather than formal training. By the late Edo period, these monk-
artists regularly performed a host of rituals to help people through difficult

6.5. Wada Gozan (aka Gesshin, 1800–1870). 6.6. Wada Gozan (aka Gesshin
Mandala of the Sutra of Radiant Victorious 1800–1870). White-Robed Kan
Kings (Dai konkōmyō saishōō kyō). Hanging non Hovering over Farmers
scroll; ink, light colors, and gold on silk, ap- Toiling in a Field. Hanging
prox. 130 × 60 cm. Jinkōin, Kyoto, on long- scroll; ink on paper, approx.
term loan to the Kyoto National Museum. 80 × 35. cm. Yabumoto collec-
Photograph by author. tion, Amagasaki. Photograph
by author.
stages in their lives, guarantee abundant harvests, and exorcise demonic spirits.
They also presided over funerals and memorial services. The images they cre-
ated were the focus of these rites, became objects of worship at local temples, or
were used by their followers as protective talismans.
The most famous and among the earliest of these amateur monk-artists ac-
tive in the Edo period was Enkū Shōnin (1628–1695), nominally a Tendai cleric

6.7. Enkū (1628–1695). Two-Faced
Sukuna (Ryōmen Sukuna). Wood.
Height: 87.5 cm. Senkōji, Takayama.
who carved over one hundred thousand statues during his lifetime. Enkū’s style
is evident in his statue of the Two-Faced Sukuna, the legendary warrior-founder
of the mountainside Shingon-sect temple of Senkōji, outside Takayama (fig. 6.7).
This image, one of his most famous sculptures, was one of over sixty done late
in his life for this temple, with which he had a close relationship.
The appeal today of art by Enkū and other self-taught monk-artists working
apart from the busshi system of professional Buddhist sculptors is largely due to
Yanagi Sōetsu (alt. Muneyoshi, 1889–1961), a well-educated, Tokyo-born intel-
lectual who, together with several potter friends, founded the mingei (folkcraft)
movement to celebrate arts and crafts made by hand for the common people.
Soon after Yanagi began promoting Enkū in the 1950s, others started appreciat-
ing his seemingly primitive sculpture, often for its affinity with modernist art.24

Yanagi developed his appreciation for arts he defined as mingei by synthesiz-
ing Buddhist beliefs, particularly those associated with the Zen and Pure Land
sects, with Western discourses on mysticism, populism, and social activism that
were popular in Japanese intellectual circles in the early twentieth century. He
also incorporated aspects of the then fashionable British arts and crafts move-
ment, whose followers deplored the increase in industrialized mass-production
for crafts and idealized products made by hand.25 Yanagi believed mingei to
be imbued with a natural spirituality and that the makers’ sincere faith and
sensitivity to the natural materials from which they were made rendered them
superior to crafts and fine arts created by professional artists working on com-
mission for the wealthy and elite of society.
Yanagi revered Enkū, who, he asserted, created sculpture out of a deep sense of
religious commitment, shunned high-class styles, eschewed foreign influences,
and worked intuitively from the heart. Yanagi appreciated the handmade indi-
vidualism of Enkū’s carvings, with their rough chisel marks and lack of embel-
lishments using expensive materials. He felt these qualities indicated the monk’s
sincerity and selflessness, traits essential to attainment of enlightenment. Yet
these very qualities set Enkū’s work apart from other, generally anonymous arts
usually defined as mingei. As the scholar Donald McCallum has noted, mingei
“is invariably characterized by the strongest attachment to tradition. . . . [W]hile
it is true that Enkū had strong connections with the peasantry, it is not the case
that his sculpture is traditional or conservative” (1974a, 175). Enkū’s art is simply
too original. He carefully considered the aesthetic presence of his sculptures,
which are characterized by accentuation of the original blocklike form of the
wood he carved, asymmetry and abstraction in his subjects’ features and bodily
forms, and a surface self-consciously textured by hatchet strokes (McCallum
1974, 175–176). The hatchet-carving (natabori) technique he employed had first
been used by Buddhist sculptors of the late Heian period who worked in Japan’s
eastern provinces, near the regions Enkū traversed. Japanese scholars have just
recently acknowledged his revival of this ancient technique and for the first time
featured his art together with older works in this manner in a recent blockbuster
exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum (Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan
2006b, pl. 43–52).
Yanagi first became interested in self-taught religious sculptors like Enkū
through his discovery, in 1924, of the Shingon monk Mokujiki Myōman (alt.
Mokujiki Gyōdō or Gogyō, 1718–1810), who carved statues in a style related to
but distinctly different from that of Enkū. 26 In fact, Yanagi’s appreciation of
Mokujiki helped shape his early conceptualization of mingei theory. Prior to
his interest in Mokujiki, Yanagi had traveled to Korea to study the folkcraft
traditions there and to establish a museum of Korean folkcrafts, made possible
by the colonization of Korea by the Japanese Imperial Army. Recent scholar-

ship on Yanagi’s study of Mokujiki has revealed that his interest in this artist
stemmed from his desire to identify an indigenous Japanese artistic tradition
with no influences from continental Asia. He and others celebrated Mokujiki
as a means of advancing a budding interest in Japanese cultural nationalism,
further developed in the 1930s. In this, Yanagi’s definition of mingei as a na-
tive Japanese artistic tradition aligned neatly with and supported the Japanese
military’s imperialist and nationalist agendas.27
Mokujiki, from Yamanashi Prefecture in central Japan, became a Shingon
monk at age twenty-two. At age forty-five he accepted new vows and changed
his name to that by which he is known today. His stringent ascetic vows involved
fasting for long periods and allowed eating only wild plants, berries, nuts, and
barks of trees (lit. mokujiki). When he was fifty-six, he took another vow to be-
come a wandering pilgrim, and he tirelessly traversed the country for the next
thirty years offering assistance and inspiration to the peasants he encountered.
He and others like him became virtuous models for poor peasants, whose diet
was sometimes reduced to the same wild fare due to famines and pestilence
during the late Edo period.
Mokujiki began carving his distinctive and instantly appealing wooden im-
ages of Buddhist deities late in life, around age sixty, as offerings to temples he
had visited or founded along his way. Scholars estimate he produced around
three thousand images in all; if this number is correct, then he completed
around three hundred a year, or one every three days (Asahi Shinbunsha 1997,
166). Mokujiki seems to have been better educated and more interested in writ-
ing than the average itinerant monk. He kept a meticulous travel diary that
survives and provides illuminating insights into religious practices of his day,
outlining ten vows required of mokujiki practitioners (Yuji Ikeda 1999, 60–61).
He also brushed numerous scrolls of sacred deities and calligraphy, often com-
posed in Sanskrit, which monks of the Shingon sect had studied.28
In 1800, at age eighty-three, Mokujiki ended his wanderings and returned
to his native village. In response to pleas from the villagers there, he embarked
on a project to carve buddhas of the eighty-eight temples along the Shikoku
pilgrimage route and install them in a Shikoku Hall (Shikokudō) within his vil-
lage, thus allowing the people there to traverse the Shikoku pilgrimage circuit
without journeying from home, a practice that had become extremely popular
by that time. It took him nearly a year to complete all the statues. Unfortunately,
in 1919 the statues were sold off, and the whereabouts of nearly half remain un-
known today. In 1923 Yanagi Sōetsu began to study these statues and published
his research in 1925 (Yanagi 1925). He later acquired two statues from this group
for his Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Nihon Mingeikan) in Tokyo, which opened
in 1936, and at around the same time one artist whom he influenced, the pot-
ter Kawai Kanjirō (1890–1966), acquired another, a statue of the buddha Shaka

6.8. Mokujiki Myōman (1718–1810). Shaka,
1801. Wood. Height: 72 cm. Kawai Kanjirō
Memorial Hall, Kyoto.
(fig. 6.8).29 Although the rough, unpainted, and clearly identifiable carving style
that Mokujiki perfected is certainly related to that of Enkū, recent scholars have
noted that it also betrays awareness of sculptural styles of professional carv-
ers, especially that of the Chinese Ōbaku artist Han Dōsei and notably that
artist’s preference for elongated heads; large, exaggerated, snail-shell curls of
hair; prominent, rounded cheeks; and heavy-lidded, closed eyes (see fig. 4.5).
Mokujiki’s travels took him for one year to Nagasaki, where he had the oppor-
tunity to see Ōbaku sculptures at the city’s Chinese temples, and to Uji, where
Manpukuji is located (Rosenfield 1999, 3:64; Asahi Shinbunsha 1997, 167–168).
Another wandering Buddhist cleric, Yokoi Kinkoku (1761–1832), born in
a small town near Kyoto, created a very different kind of devotional imagery.
Kinkoku was an eccentric individual of varied talents, mostly self-taught as a
painter of both landscapes and figures. He often sold or bartered his paintings
in exchange for food and lodgings.30 As a youth, Kinkoku went to Edo to train at
Zōjōji for a career as a Jōdo sect priest to carry on his father’s profession, but the
temple eventually expelled him for debauchery. Later he returned to his training

and briefly headed a Jōdo temple near Kyoto. But at age forty-three, after fire de-
stroyed his temple, he decided to join the Shugendō sect, to which he remained
devoted for the rest of his life. As a Shugendō practitioner, Kinkoku embarked on
many pilgrimages to Japan’s sacred peaks to deepen his spiritual awareness and
as a guide for others. He eventually settled in a village near Nagoya, where his
bohemian manner held great appeal for the villagers, who believed his devotion
to Shugendō marked him as enlightened and possessing special curative powers.
Indeed, Kinkoku himself believed and promoted the idea that his landscapes,
such as that shown in figure 6.9, captured the spirit of the places he visited in
pictorial form so they could serve as protective amulets to keep his local parish-
ioners safe from harm (Fister 1988, 174). The popularity of Kinkoku’s paintings
is evident from the large body of his work that has survived. He painted in the
nanga style, which, by his day, had become popular nationwide among a broad
assortment of artists and art patrons, both professionals and, like himself, self-
taught amateurs. Kinkoku must have been attracted to this style because literati
lore promoted the idea that paintings in this manner captured the painter’s
inner spirit. Kinkoku’s gift was to make this Chinese literati painting tradition,
once closely associated with Sinophile intellectuals, accessible to the common
country folk in whose midst he lived.
Manifestations of Piety by Professional Artists

As seen in chapter 5, Buddhist imagery figured in the commercial repertoire
of many urban-based secular professional artists working for prosperous clien-
tele. Sometimes, though, they created Buddhist devotional imagery for personal
reasons using the artistic styles for which they had become known profession-
ally. In some cases these images closely resembled their work for paying clients;
in others, the complexity, scope, and subjects of their endeavors distinguished
these works as inspired devotional objects.
Hon’ami Kōetsu (1558–1637) helped to revive interest in the courtly culture of
the Heian period during the early seventeenth century through his art, which
featured celebrated courtly themes portrayed with the use of stunning, decora-
tive visual effects. The style he helped establish has come to be known as Rinpa
(“school of Kōrin,” one of the greatest masters of this tradition who was active
in the Genroku era). Kōetsu’s Kyoto-based family had, for several generations,
played an important role in the life of elite warriors as specialists in the craft of
polishing and evaluating sword blades. Kōetsu continued this family tradition
while he developed expertise in other cultivated pursuits like the chanoyu tea
ceremony and the stately Nō theater, whose libretti he enjoyed reading aloud
with a group of friends and also copying. His patrons and associates with mu-
tual interests included the first three Maeda daimyo, as well as several of their

6.9. Yokoi Kinkoku (1761–1832). Solitary Path through the Cold Mountains and
Myriad Trees, 1811. Hanging scroll; ink and light colors on paper, 159.4 × 83.7 cm.
The Gitter-Yelen Collection, New Orleans.

6.10. Calligraphy by Hon’ami Kōetsu (1558–1637); designs by Tawaraya Sōtatsu (d. ca. 1640). Poems
from the One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets (Hyakunin isshu), with designs of lotus blos-
soms. Handscroll fragment mounted as a hanging scroll; ink and gold on paper, 32.8 × 60.3 cm.
Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation. Photograph: Chris Burke.
retainers (Fischer et al. 2000, 15). He was also acquainted with and favored by
the first Tokugawa shogun, Ieyasu. Family records describe him as “a man of
many talents, devoted to his family, deeply religious, humble about his own
reputation, and content with the life of reclusion in the hills north of the capital”
(Fischer et al. 2000, 14).
Kōetsu first began setting up his northern Kyoto retreat in 1615, at a place tra-
ditionally known as Takagamine (Hawk Hill; the site is now the temple Kōetsuji).
It owed its existence to a land grant from Tokugawa Ieyasu, probably as thanks
for support that Kōetsu’s father had offered the shogun when Ieyasu was a child
(Fischer et al. 2000, 20). Kōetsu lived there with a number of other family mem-
bers, close friends, and artisan associates. Scholars have long believed that this
settlement of fifty-five households was an artists’ colony, but recent research
has uncovered evidence that it was more a community of devotees dedicated
to upholding the precepts of the rigorous teachings of the Hokke (Lotus) sect,
another name for the Nichiren sect, to which Kōetsu’s family had belonged
since the time of his great-grandfather.31 The importance Kōetsu attached to
construction of temple buildings at Takagimine has suggested to scholars that
he intended his community to serve as the Hokke sect’s idealized Land of Eter-
nal Buddhist Light, where followers could achieve happiness and salvation in
their lifetimes (Cranston 2000, 120–121). The calligraphic scrolls created during

Kōetsu’s Takagamine years bear this out, for they include many copies of Bud-
dhist texts written by the sect’s founder, Nichiren (1228–1282), which he copied
as expressions of personal devotion.
Of the many arts at which Kōetsu excelled, he is best known for his calligra-
phy, especially that which he created at Takagamine in collaboration with the
painter Tawaraya Sōtatsu (d. ca. 1640), co-founder of the Rinpa school. Together
they produced the now cut-up handscroll of Poems from the “One Hundred
Poems by One Hundred Poets” (Hyakunin isshu), largely Buddhist-infused rumi-
nations on the transience and beauty of life (fig. 6.10).32 This poetry compilation
may have originally been assembled by the courtier Fujiwara Teika (1162–1241)
while living in a retreat himself. Unlike other ancient courtly poetic anthologies
that enjoyed considerable fame continuously since their production, this one
seems to have grown popular only in the early seventeenth century, first among
elite samurai aficionados of chanoyu, which included Kōetsu, who in fact helped
produce the first woodblock-printed copy of the One Hundred Poems text.33
Sōtatsu painted the under-drawing of this elegant and lengthy scroll, composed
of paper dyed different colors, with a series of pictures in delicate gold and silver
ink. He portrayed the life cycle of Buddhism’s sacred plant, the lotus, probably
at the request of Kōetsu. Scholars have dated the scroll stylistically to the early
years of Kōetsu’s residency at Takagamine, perhaps soon after the death of his
mother in 1618, and they believe he intended it as a prayer for her salvation
(Murase 2000, 212).
Followers of the Rinpa tradition after Kōetsu generally displayed little interest
in the intense Buddhist devotion of their school’s founder and instead filled their
paintings with gorgeously decorative images of the natural world and romantic
themes from ancient courtly tales. When they occasionally did paint religious
subjects, they used a traditional figural style. This holds true even for the great
reviver of the tradition in Edo, Sakai Hōitsu (1761–1828), the wealthy second son
of a powerful daimyo family who became ordained as a Jōdo-sect monk at the
age of thirty-seven, though he apparently took the tonsure claiming ill health in
order to free himself from familial obligations.34
Kōetsu created his Buddhist-inspired devotional imagery for private, personal
reasons, in the seclusion of a religious community, a typically pious man’s re-
sponse to the turmoil at the beginning of the Edo period. By the mid-Edo era,
peace prevailed. In this more settled time another devout artist, Itō Jakuchū
(1716–1800), created magnificently eccentric sacred imagery designed for public
appreciation. Like Kōetsu, Jakuchū came from a wealthy Kyoto family. But in-
stead of serving and fraternizing with the samurai elite, Jakuchū’s family ran a
successful wholesale greengrocery business in Kyoto’s bustling Nishiki market.
Jakuchū, as eldest son, inherited the shop and ran it until retiring at age forty
to pursue his twin passions: painting and devotion to Zen Buddhism. He prob-

ably started painting in his twenties under a Kano master, but he also studied
and copied Chinese paintings at important Kyoto Zen monasteries. Like the
Maruyama school founder Ōkyo, he also had a predilection for painting ani-
mals, birds, and plants from direct observation. Jakuchū took priestly vows as a
Rinzai Zen monk in his thirties but continued to live in the secular world rather
than enter a monastic community. He proclaimed his faith in the signature with
which he signed many paintings, koji (lay Buddhist devotee). His conversion
may have been stimulated by friendship with Daiten Kenjō, the Zen abbot who
had praised Katō Nobukiyo’s paintings. Daiten became an important mentor
to Jakuchū and may have bestowed on the artist his Daoist-derived art name of
Jakuchū (“like a void”) (Hickman and Satō 1989, 19).
Although Jakuchū may have begun painting as an avocation, he eventually
attracted prominent patrons (including important temples and shrines), espe-
cially after word of his talent spread as a result of public displays of a large set of
Buddhist-inspired paintings he donated to Shōkokuji in 1765, perhaps at Daiten’s
urging. This set, widely regarded as his masterpiece, includes thirty large hang-
ing scrolls of the bird-and-flower genre meant to be displayed divided into two
groups, on either side of a triptych portraying the buddha Shaka, Monju, and
Fugen, which he also donated at that time.35 These amazingly decorative, playful
and joyous paintings, depicting all manner of animals and plants, celebrate the
diverse, wondrous life that comprises the world. The scroll from the set illus-
trated in plate 21 portrays fish swimming amid lotus flowers. This set has been
aptly nicknamed “The Colorful Realm of Living Beings” (Dōshoku saie).36 Late
twentieth-century scholars believe that by pairing them with a formal Buddhist
icon, Jakuchū intended to suggest that all life in the universe is touched by the
teachings of the buddha Shaka, who preaches from the center of the grouping
(Hickman and Satō 1989, 112).
Documents indicate that Jakuchū began painting these pictures about ten
years prior to his donation. Although the reason he decided to create and do-
nate the set to Shōkokuji remains unknown, scholars speculate that he wanted
the paintings to be used to entice observers to appreciate the Buddha’s teach-
ings during an annual public display as part of a Buddhist repentance ritual
on the seventeenth day of the sixth month of the year. They were first used in
this manner in 1769. The previous year, Higashi Honganji, the head temple of
one of the two main Jōdo Shin-sect denominations, borrowed the paintings for
a temporary public display, giving members of this other sect a chance to see
and appreciate them (Rosenfield 1999, 3:36; Hickman and Satō 1989, 57). That
Jakuchū painted them for a Zen temple, and that they were displayed at a dif-
ferent sect’s temple as well, reinforces the notion of Edo-period Buddhism as
syncretic and that temples of different sects could work together on the higher
goal of acquainting the public with Buddhist teachings. The set came into the

6.11. Itō Jakuchū (1716–1800). Three Rakan, from a large group of Buddhist deities, begun around
1776, completed in the 1790s. Stone. Height of each: approx. 70 cm. Sekihōji, Kyoto. Photograph
by author.
imperial household collection during the Meiji period as a gift from Shōkokuji
in exchange for funds to refurbish its then much-diminished precinct.
Completion of this set marked a turning point in Jakuchū’s life. His brother
had died just days prior to the donation and he studied Buddhism more in-
tensely after that, becoming a reclusive lay follower of Ōbaku Zen. In his six-
ties, he spent about six years producing another public project to promote Bud-
dhist values, the carving of a large group of stone statues of assorted Buddhist
deities in the hilly bamboo grove behind the southern Kyoto Ōbaku temple of
Sekihōji, where he retired and was later buried (fig. 6.11). The complex tableau
included the Five Hundred Rakan, scenes showing the birth and death of the
buddha Shaka, Amida Raigō, Shaka and his attendant bodhisattvas, Jizō, and
other famous Buddhist themes. Although Jakuchū’s name is associated with this
project, he did not carve the boulders himself but hired trained stone carvers
to do the work under his direction. Following established practice, he paid for
this project through soliciting of donations and offering paintings he brushed
in exchange — in this case, quick ink studies of plants and animals. As expected
of an eccentric, individualist artist, Jakuchū’s carvings differ considerably from
other famous stone carvings of large groups of Rakan and Buddhist deities done
around the same time (see figs. 4.6 and 4.7). His designs arose from the natural
shape of the stones, and their placement meandered about the hillside infor-
mally. An imaginative painting that he brushed of the site and a woodblock print

produced after his lifetime in 1885 (based on a drawing he made of the place)
show the grand scheme he had envisioned.37 Unfortunately, an earthquake de-
stroyed the original configuration in 1830 and the statues suffered further dam-
age in the Meiji era, when some were removed.38 The arrangement of the statues
at the temple today dates from after World War II.
Contemporaneous with Jakuchū and also a member of Daiten’s intellectual
circle was Ike Taiga (1723–1776), a central figure in the development of the nanga
painting movement.39 At age six Taiga first visited Manpukuji to entertain the
Ōbaku monks with his precocious ability in Chinese calligraphy (Takeuchi 1983,
148). By age fourteen, this one-time farmer’s son had become an enterprising
town painter who ran his own fan-painting shop in Kyoto to help support his
widowed mother. He also found time to study the Chinese philosophies of Con-
fucianism and Daoism, as well as Ōbaku Zen, all of which contributed to his
development as a painter in search of self-cultivation and spiritual expression
through his art. Many of Taiga’s most famous paintings represent landscapes,
both imaginary scenery of China and also Japan’s famous sacred peaks, to which
he frequently journeyed on pilgrimages and from which he took one of his often
used art names (“Pilgrim of the Three Peaks,” a reference to his pilgrimages to
the holy Mount Tate, Mount Haku, where Natadera was located, and Mount
Fuji) (Takeuchi 1992, 16). His patrons admired these paintings because they felt
the self-consciously amateurish and playful style he employed in them both
captured his lofty character and expressed the spiritual grandeur of the places
they depicted, much like the attitude of Kinkoku’s patrons (Takeuchi 1992, 126).
In fact, Taiga’s landscapes should be considered a precursor to the types of im-
agery Kinkoku created.
Besides landscapes, Taiga also brushed Buddhist figure paintings, often
modeling his forms on Chinese Buddhist ink paintings brought to Japan by the
Ōbaku monks. His most famous Buddhist commission is a celebrated set of slid-
ing doors ( fusuma) of the Five Hundred Rakan that he completed around 1772
for Manpukuji as part of a large temple renovation project commemorating the
one hundredth anniversary of the death of the founder, Ingen.40 But earlier in his
life, in his late twenties, he brushed a painting in similar style, Amida and Two
Bodhisattvas Welcoming the Soul of the Dead as a prayer for the salvation of his
mother shortly after her death (fig. 6.12).41 He took as artistic inspiration for this
painting the Chinese artist Chen Xian (Jp. Chin Ken; active 1634–1654), whose
paintings were owned by Manpukuji and other Ōbaku temples.42 Like Chen,
Taiga defines the clouds and figures with light, feathery brushstrokes and gives
the deities benevolent facial expressions. This formal Buddhist icon painting is
unique in his oeuvre, suggestive of its personal inspiration, although its brush
style is inseparable from his works done as commissions.
Production of sacred imagery inspired by faith extended to every level of Japa-

6.12. Ike Taiga (1723–1776). Amida
and Two Bodhisattvas Welcom
ing the Soul of the Dead, 1740s.
Hanging scroll; ink on paper,
72 × 31.8 cm. Kumita Collection,
Tokyo. Photograph by author.

nese society. Neither impoverishment nor high social status precluded creation
of powerfully moving imagery. The makers of these works lived during a time
in which it had become fashionable to place high value on individualistic visual
expression, one of the defining characteristics of Edo-period art in general. This
attitude helps explain the explosion of interest in Buddhist image production by
amateurs. So often did their work closely resemble the work of professional art-
ists that it became hard to differentiate the products of these two groups. At the
same time that amateurs were becoming technically proficient in professional
manners of art production, professionals excelled at spontaneously produced,
seemingly amateurish pictures. These factors contributed to the blurring of dis-
tinctions between amateur and professional artists, another characteristic of
Edo-period art that is evident in the imagery surveyed in this chapter.
Part I of this book has introduced a large range of material culture cre-
ated in service to Buddhism at a time when Japan’s mercantile economy driven
by commoners thrived, a time formerly defined as spiritually vacuous. In part
this stems from the fact that some of the icons made at the time wound up not
in formal places of worship, but in the intermediary zones between sacred and
profane environments — around the grounds of temple compounds, on altars
in private homes, or on walls of secular dwellings or places of business. Also, it
has been asserted that much of the Buddhist imagery was derivative of earlier,
more aesthetically significant creations. In reality, though, the spread of Bud-
dhist teachings has long depended upon artists adhering to iconographically
correct visual forms. Yet paradoxically, throughout history Buddhist art of dif-
ferent countries and time periods developed clearly identifiable characteristics,
reflective of the tenor of the times in which it was created and developments
within the faith itself. Such is the case with Buddhist architecture and art of
early modern Japan.
Buddhism’s visual culture of Edo-period Japan is distinguished by a sharing of
stylistic conventions and subject matter across sects and among image-makers
from varied social classes. They reflect the dominance at the time of syncretic
belief systems and the increasing breakdown of distinctions among social
classes. Yet within this shared continuum the varied and energetic productions
provide evidence that Buddhism inspired highly personal responses in those
who created its icons and patronized its institutions. Such developments pres-
age Buddhism’s varied imagery and structures designed for the performance of
religious practice in modern Japan, the focus of Part II.

Part II
Buddhist Imagery and Sacred Sites
in Modern Japan, 1868–2005

Ever since Westerners first freely roamed Japan during the Meiji period, they
have enjoyed visiting Buddhist temples and their gardens. Many came simply to
see the exotic land of Japan firsthand or to serve as missionaries, but some be-
came so entranced by Buddhism that they converted to the faith.1 Many also col-
lected Buddhist art for museums and private collections abroad, at first because
these objects could help foreigners visualize the faith, but gradually their interest
shifted to an appreciation for the aesthetic appeal of the objects. Invariably, they
visited the most famous, ancient temples in Kyoto and Nara and of course the
Great Buddha of Kamakura, as well as some sites and monuments no longer ex-
tant and now forgotten.
To many visitors, interest in Buddhist sites and images stemmed from their
attraction to Japan as a quaint, exotic land. They lamented the push towards
Westernization and modernization that, since the Meiji period, has been propel-
ling Japanese society into the forefront of the global economy. But where does
Buddhism fit into this scheme? And has it been able to survive as a living tradi-
tion with relevance to modern times? Statistics on the number of practicing Bud-
dhists in contemporary Japan vary considerably from 20 percent to 90 percent,
depending on the questions about the nature of people’s religious practices and
faith. Contemporary Japan is widely regarded as a secular nation, with Buddhist
institutions playing a marginal role, largely peripheral to people’s lives. But is this
really so? 2
I believe the striking and diverse examples of sacred imagery and sites of wor-
ship I have found, as well as the many powerfully moving images made as dem-
onstrations of faith by private individuals, both by professional artists and ama-
teur practitioners, belie detractors’ claims of Buddhism’s irrelevance to modern
Japan. Although these new Buddhist monuments and icons sometimes scarcely
resemble what came before, and although they may be displayed in nontradi-
tional spaces where they serve new functions, often as objects of aesthetic con-
templation, their inspiration derives from Buddhist values that have remained
consistent with those of the past. They reveal the ever-changing evolution of the
faith in tandem with transformations in Japanese society for which they serve as
both reflections and shapers of Buddhist thought and praxis.

Chapter Seven
Buddhist Institutions after an Era
of Persecution, 1868 – 1945
the leaders of the Meiji Restoration dealt a heavy blow to institutional Bud-
dhism by tying reassertion of imperial power to the emperor’s divine status
as heir to the Shinto deities who created Japan, making Shinto the country’s
national religion. Weeks after the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and continuing to
1872, the government enacted separation of Shinto and Buddhism (shinbutsu
bunri) edicts, which included provisions that forced temples to close or become
Shinto shrines, scattered lay follower networks, stripped temples of their role
as census keepers, and mandated retirement of thousands of Buddhist monks
and nuns, many of whom became Shinto priests.1 This derision of Buddhism
had actually developed gradually during the Edo period, but near the end of the
era opposition to the faith swelled among both the daimyo who led opposition
to the Tokugawa and many citizens in reaction to perceived materialism of its
institutions and critiques of the faith by staunch supporters of Shinto, who ar-
gued “that Buddhism was an alien and distorted creed, inimical to the interests
of Shinto, the domain, and the country” (Collcutt 1986, 148).
Although the Meiji government maintained that it did not intend to destroy
Buddhism but simply to extricate it from close association with Shinto, many
local authorities took the new regulations as a mandate to demolish Buddhist
temples (eighteen thousand by some estimates) under the slogan “destroy the
buddhas, abandon Shaka” (haibutsu kishaku). The incomplete census data from
the early Meiji period suggests that persecution of Buddhist institutions and
their clerics continued as late as 1876. Among these lost temples, many belonged

to the Rinzai sect, which was closely associated with the old Tokugawa regime.
Others, mainly affiliated with Tendai, Shingon, and Sōtō Zen, had few, if any, pa-
rishioners, did not regularly perform funerary rites, lacked head priests, or func-
tioned primarily as sites of prayers for personal benefits (Collcutt 1986, 161–163).
Although these efforts may have closed temples, they did not diminish religious
devotion. As noted by Emile Guimet (discussed in chap. 8), an astute foreign
visitor to Japan in 1876, “popular religion was one of the first things the progres-
sive innovators had hoped to destroy; but their efforts in fact resulted in a revival
of popular beliefs and forced the clergy to reorganize and perfect themselves.”2
This chapter addresses just this issue — the ways Buddhist institutions sought
to resurrect the faith in the aftermath of persecution, with particular reference
to the central role its temple buildings and sculpted icons played in this trans-
formation. The remarkable resurgence of Buddhism in the Meiji period marks
a profound turning point in the way the religion and its monuments have func-
tioned in Japanese society ever since.
Reconstruction and Restoration of Temple Compounds

Buddhism’s eventual resurrection came about through efforts of diverse groups,
including religious organizations, wealthy laity, and officials within various gov-
ernment agencies, each with distinct but sometimes overlapping agendas. Both
during and after this initial period of persecution, Buddhist institutions sought
innovative strategies for survival. The Jōdo Shin sect was at the forefront of
recognizing the necessity of forging ties with the newly established government.
Their leaders shrewdly aligned themselves with the Meiji government from the
beginning, lending it substantial funds for start-up expenses. They also spear-
headed establishment of the trans-sectarian Organization of United Buddhist
Sects (Soshū Dōtoku Kairen) in 1868, which promoted “the inseparability of the
Kingly Law and the Buddhist Law.” In addition, they and other sects participated
in the short-lived (1872–1877) Ministry of Rites to assist the government’s new
education mandate (Ketelaar 1990, 73 and 96–105).
These Shin Buddhist organizations also recognized that Buddhism needed
to encompass modern Western intellectual modes of scholarship in order to
survive. They embraced Western approaches to learning, arranging for several
members of their clergy to join Meiji bureaucrats on a fact-finding mission to
Europe and America from 1871 to 1873. Additionally, in 1876 Higashi Honganji
sent two monks to England to study Buddhism under Friedrich Max Müller
(1823–1900) at Oxford .3 Nishi Honganji also became the first of many Buddhist
organizations to found universities on the Western model. Other sects took
different approaches to modernization. For example, Rinzai for the first time
allowed laity to begin participating in clerical practices.4 Lay involvement with
178 | buddhist im agery a nd sacred sites in modern japa n

temples and religious propagation, as discussed in chapter 8, became a decisive
factor in the faith’s resurgence.
By 1889, Buddhists had gained sufficient influence that the newly drafted Meiji
Constitution included a “Freedom of Religion Clause.” But the pivotal moment
for Buddhism’s recovery came in 1893, when four Japanese Buddhist priests (of
the Shingon, Tendai, Shin, and Rinzai sects) and one Buddhist layman journeyed
to Chicago to participate in the seventeen-day forum of the World’s Parliament
of Religions, held in conjunction with the World’s Columbian Exhibition.5 Well
received in Chicago, they parlayed their newfound prestige into domestic sup-
port for Buddhism in both government circles and among the Japanese popu-
lace. As James Ketelaar has eloquently noted, they extolled the faith as “both
the true source and one of the few (if not the only) remaining bastions of Asian
culture. They further asserted that Eastern Buddhism, the most evolutionary
advanced of the various forms of Buddhism (and containing these various forms
within it), coupled with the materialistic wealth of (Japanese) technology, will
begin the next revolution in Asia” (1990, 167).
In part, this conviction in the supremacy of Japanese Buddhism grew out
of earlier Japanese and Western nondenominational research on the life of the
buddha Shaka as the faith’s founder. Beginning in the 1880s, these studies en-
couraged Japanese clerics to venture to India and other parts of South Asia
in search of early Buddhism. There, though they gained new ideas about the
practice of the faith, which led to their reemphasis on respect and veneration for
Shaka, they also found Buddhism threatened by Christian missionaries and the
Buddhist citizenry mired in ignorance and poverty. At first the clerics traveled
as private citizens, only occasionally armed with letters of introduction from
Japanese authorities. By the early twentieth century some Buddhist encounters
had become formal, authorized diplomatic exchanges that entailed gifting sa-
cred relics and icons to Japan and dispatching Japanese Buddhist missionaries
to India (Jaffe 2004a).
By the beginning of the Taishō period (1912–1926), enough Japanese Bud-
dhists had witnessed the deplorable conditions of the faith in India and other
parts of South Asia that Japanese Buddhist clerics and lay scholars grew con-
vinced of their responsibility to preserve and transmit knowledge of Buddhism
to the world. One of the most important of the scholars, Watanabe Kaigyoku
(1872–1933), “regarded Buddhism as something uniquely Japanese that could
help Japan achieve independence and prestige with respect to other nations . . .
[and that it] would aid in the ‘development’ of Asia.”6 To advance this aim and
overtake the lead in Buddhist scholarship that, until then, had been dominated
by European studies, Watanabe and others began publishing reams of Buddhist
texts, including the most complete collection of Buddhism’s sacred books, or
tripitaka, ever compiled. The text’s preface, written by Watanabe, explained
Buddhist Institutions after an Era of Persecution | 179

that they published these works to spread the gospel of Buddhism because “truly
it is the fountainhead of wisdom and virtue for humanity and the great treasury
of the world. . . . Yet apart from us, the Buddhist scholars of Japan, who can
clarify and spread its teachings?”7 With this statement, Watanabe articulated
the increasingly close relationship between Buddhism and the expansionist
policies of the imperial Japanese state, resituating the importance of Buddhism
to Japan’s national and cultural identity for the first time since the seventeenth
century. As will be discussed in chapter 8, these scholarly studies also had an-
other, unexpected effect: they influenced intellectuals to incorporate Buddhist
values into secular philosophies and the visual arts.
Buddhism’s reemergence in the Japanese cultural sphere was equally indebted
to restitution of its historical importance, which the government had itself
begun admitting decades earlier. In 1871, the central government first began
to pay attention to the plight of temples and their treasures. This interest was
stimulated by horror at the magnitude of their physical destruction and recogni-
tion that a new influx of Christian missionaries from abroad represented a dire
threat to the nation’s cultural identity and the new government’s moral author-
ity. The government responded by establishing a national museum to preserve
significant holdings of temples and shrines and authorizing a survey team to
search for suitable materials to fill it. It also issued an edict instructing religious
institutions to compile a list of their important material possessions and note
significant buildings at their complexes. Because of budget restrictions, only in
the 1880s did the government begin funding the repair of damaged ancient tem-
ple buildings, first by the authority of the Ministry of the Interior, but from 1888
under the oversight of a newly created agency within the Imperial Household
Ministry. 8 This agency also authorized another survey of temples and shrines
under the supervision of the newly appointed head of the reorganized national
museum, Kuki Ryūichi (1852–1931).
Kuki was an outspoken and influential promoter of Buddhism’s material cul-
ture. He had served in the Ministry of Education since its founding in 1871 and
in 1873 was posted to Europe for a year to assess the progress of Japanese then
studying abroad.9 While there, he observed that Western nations valued reli-
gious sites and their treasures as cultural patrimony and learned about modern,
Western studies of Buddhism, the latter perhaps by attending the First Inter-
national Congress of Orientalists in Paris in 1873, which included two sessions
specifically about Japanese religion (Conant 1984, 118–120). Upon his return,
Kuki aided the efforts of Buddhist organizations to rehabilitate the faith by
championing preservation of its temples as important symbols of Japan’s unique
cultural heritage.
Later, Kuki was among those instrumental in persuading the government to
enact, in 1897, two laws to safeguard its cultural properties at religious institu-

tions. One, the Law for Protection of Old Temples and Shrines (Koshaji hozon
hō), mandated protecting artistic treasures and buildings at religious institu-
tions and allocated funding for worthy projects. The second law for the first
time designated significant buildings and select arts (mostly religious sculptures
and paintings) at these institutions as National Treasures (Kokuhō).10 Arguing
for the inclusion of preservation, restoration, and ranking of significant build-
ings in these laws were members of the first generation of Japanese architects
trained in Western architecture and engineering techniques at the Imperial
University of Tokyo (now Tokyo University), especially Itō Chūta (discussed
below). Students there studied new techniques for building design, but they also
carried out the first systematic studies on ancient Japanese temple architecture
of Nara and Kyoto under the direction of master carpenter Kigo Kiyoyoshi (d.
1915), whom the university engaged to teach aspiring architects the fundamen-
tals of traditional Japanese architecture (Wendelken 1996, 30–32).
Thus for both religious and political reasons, by the late Meiji period and last-
ing through the mid-1930s renewed interest in Buddhism stimulated a building
boom at Buddhist institutions. Much of this was concentrated at venerable tem-
ple complexes in the Kyoto and Nara regions. But new construction took place
elsewhere as well, at important pilgrimage sites, at regional temples in the new
political capital of Tokyo, in the affluent port city of Kobe, with its large foreign
population, and in other urban centers as directed by influential clergy or laity.
Construction took the form of both the repair of damaged old buildings and the
erection of new structures to replace lost buildings. Sometimes restorations re-
created the aura of antiquity at traditional Japanese temple compounds, many of
whose standing structures had been last erected or significantly repaired by the
Tokugawa government in the seventeenth century. Occasionally, however, new
temple buildings were designed in modern, Western styles utilizing Western
construction techniques and materials.
The most ambitious and earliest of these major reconstruction projects took
place at the Ōtani Shin-sect headquarters of Higashi Honganji in Kyoto, neces-
sitated by a fire in 1864 that destroyed the core buildings of its compound: its
Main Hall (known as the Founder’s Hall, or Goeidō), that hall’s main gate, and a
large worship hall adjacent to it (the Amida Hall). The temple made rebuilding
the lost structures a high priority, for they served as the focal point of religious
devotion for the sect’s many adherents, who regularly came from afar to par-
ticipate in various annual religious observations. Because of its broad follow-
ing among commoners and its early support of the Meiji government, Higashi
Honganji’s Shin sect weathered the difficult early Meiji years better than others
and garnered enough popular support through massive solicitation efforts to
complete the rebuilding. Followers assisted with funding, procuring logs from
throughout the country and transporting them to Kyoto. Women devotees con-

7.1. Founder’s Hall (Goeidō), Higashi Honganji, Kyoto, 1895. Photograph by author.
tributed by cutting their long hair, which they plaited into ropes (kezuna) and
donated to the temple because conventional rope materials were found to be too
weak to haul the huge timbers for the buildings to the construction site.11 New
interior decoration included wall paintings by Kyoto’s most prominent painters
working in traditional Japanese styles then, broadly defined as Nihonga.12
Reconstruction of the complex’s Founder’s Hall commenced in 1879. Dedica-
tion for both it and the Amida Hall took place in 1895. When completed, the
two-tiered, hip-and-gable Founder’s Hall contained what still remains the largest
floor space of any wooden building in the world, measuring 76 meters wide by
58 meters in depth, with a height of 38 meters (fig. 7.1). This huge scale befits the
temple’s role as headquarters to the most popular of Japan’s many Buddhist sects
and stands as the grandest achievement of professional Japanese carpenters of
this time. Although the building was created entirely with traditional methods
and materials, designers incorporated some new technology in order to make
the building more fireproof, an acute problem in the past (the buildings had
burned four times in the Edo period alone). Taking advantage of a newly con-
structed canal that funneled water to Kyoto from Lake Biwa, a steel-pipe water
line was installed that led to the temple, designed in such a way that water could
be sprinkled over the high roof of Founder’s Hall without requiring pumps run
by electric power.13
Nevertheless, in this transition era before World War II, some architects
and builders took more drastic measures to assure the longevity of new temple

7.2. Great Buddha Hall (Daibutsuden), Tōdaiji, Nara, 1707, restored 1906–1913. Photograph by
author.
buildings. Just several years later, in 1915, planners of another Ōtani Shin-sect
Main Hall at one of the sect’s affiliate temples (betsuin) in Hakodate, Hokkaido,
abandoned traditional timber-framed structures entirely and designed the
building in reinforced concrete, though with traditional appearance and sur-
face details. This building represents an option that, throughout the succeed-
ing twentieth century, became increasingly favored for construction of temple
buildings because their modern, Western-trained architects and builders had
become wary of the hazards of timber-frame construction. Though wood is
sustainable, it succumbs easily to the ravages of fire, earthquakes, and deterio-
ration from biological causes. The imprecise engineering of traditional wooden
structures sometimes caused failure of key supporting members, often due to
the heavy weight of clay-tile roofs.14
Occasionally, late Meiji architects even incorporated new Western engineer-
ing techniques into the reconstruction of old temple buildings in order to stabi-
lize the structures and preserve their original appearance. They did this to pre-
serve the Great Buddha Hall at Tōdaiji, last rebuilt in 1707 (fig. 7.2).15 In Japan, the
practice of periodically repairing old buildings by partially or entirely disman-
tling them dates back to the ninth century.16 In the late Meiji period, restorers —
architects newly trained in Western engineering — adopted Western technol-
ogy to facilitate more long-lasting and effective solutions. But this approach was
short-lived. During the 1930s, rebuilding again utilized traditional techniques for
restoration projects whenever possible (further discussed in chap. 9).

So grievous was the condition of Tōdaiji’s Great Buddha Hall in the late nine-
teenth century that it is not an overstatement to remark that without major
repair at that time the building would not be standing today. Temple admin-
istrators had unsuccessfully petitioned the government for help with funding
repairs as early as 1892, pleading their case by noting how closely associated
with central political authority the temple had been from its inception. Only
after the 1897 laws were enacted did the government respond with assistance,
but the vast sum required necessitated supplemental funding from temple assets
and private supporters (Coaldrake 1996, 249). Reconstruction lasted from 1906
to 1913. The Ministry of the Interior oversaw reconstruction and engaged the
nation’s best Tokyo University architecture department graduates, including Itō
Chūta. Restoration consisted of the complete dismantling and reconstruction of
this mammoth structure, utilizing steel (imported from England) and concrete
to provide support to the roof, which leaked and was in imminent danger of
collapse. Architects hid these modifications from view under a suspended ceil-
ing. They adapted this nontraditional solution in large part because timbers of
suitably large size were simply not available in Japan (the building measures a
vast 49.1 meters high, 57.1 meters wide, and 50 meters deep). Also, no traditional
carpenters remained alive who possessed the necessary skills to undertake such
massive reconstruction. Still, wooden buildings by their nature require periodic
maintenance, and the building again underwent necessary restoration between
1973 and 1980.17
Because of an acute scarcity of large wood logs, when the Main Hall at Kyoto’s
Zen temple of Tōfukuji burned in 1881, its replacement, completed in 1934, was
rebuilt smaller than before, at a mere 25.5 meters high, 41.4 meters wide, and 33
meters deep (fig. 7.3). Still, it stands today as the largest wooden building erected
during the Shōwa period (1926–1989), and although its dimensions are smaller
than prior temple buildings, it possesses a stately interior space with remarkable
acoustic properties. The cypress wood used for the pillars had to be imported
from Taiwan, accessible because Japan had annexed the Chinese island in 1895
as part of its victory negotiations after the Sino-Japanese War. However, despite
a successful fund-raising campaign that lasted from 1908 to 1917 (as a new build-
ing project rather than a restoration, Tōfukuji’s building did not qualify for state
support and had to be privately funded), transportation costs for the timber
from Taiwan were so great that the temple could not have afforded it. However,
the government felt the reconstruction of this important Buddhist temple com-
pound was sufficiently worthy of its attention to arrange for the Japanese navy
to transport the lumber on its ships at no cost (Ōoka et al. 1977, 113). Taiwanese
cypress remains widely used in the construction of wooden buildings in Japan
today because of its continued scarcity and high cost in Japan.18
Construction of the structure took fifteen years, from 1917 to 1932; the build-

7.3. Main Hall (Butsuden or Hondō), Tōfukuji, Kyoto, 1934. Photograph by author.
ing was dedicated in 1934, after completion of the interior. Major funding came
from a wealthy Nichiren sect supporter in remembrance of the time when his
sect’s founder was being persecuted in the thirteenth century and Tōfukuji’s
founder gave him assistance. The architectural style replicated was not that of
the preceding Edo period, but one that bore a closer resemblance to the style of
architecture of the temple’s oldest standing buildings, especially the neighbor-
ing Main Gate, which dates from the Muromachi era (late fourteenth to early
fifteenth century) (Ōoka et al. 1977, 93, 112–114).
Although the vast majority of the many new temple buildings erected before
World War II followed the timber styles of preexisting older structures in their
environs, occasional deviations from this model began appearing in the late
Meiji period in the form of strikingly modern, Western-style buildings.19 The
most impressive building of this type is the 1934 Tsukiji Honganji in Tokyo de-
signed by Itō Chūta (1867–1954) (fig. 7.4).20 This building replaced an Edo-period
wood-frame structure destroyed by the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923. The
temple functions as the Honganji Shin sect’s headquarters in eastern Japan. Its
location in the middle of Tokyo gave it great prominence, so the decision to re-
construct this temple in modern rather than traditional form was an important
one, reflecting the image of Buddhism that this powerful and wealthy Shin sect

7.4. Itō Chūta (1867–1954). Main Hall of Tsukiji Honganji, Tokyo, 1934. Photograph by author.
wished to project to the world. As Richard Jaffe notes, this temple and other
buildings like it constructed around that time helped create a new transnational
identity for Buddhism through their creation of “pan-Asian spaces in Japan that
recalled Buddhism’s past and evoked its future” (2006, 270).
The decision to hire Itō as architect came about because his writings and
previous designs of other temple buildings, including some for the Honganji
sect, demonstrated a shared set of values with the sect, which placed high regard
on spreading their forward-looking Buddhist ideology abroad. They required a
positivist, modern, and cosmopolitan image for their temples, just the sort of
architecture Itō designed. Itō’s philosophy on architecture had evolved from
broad-ranging studies that started with research on historic Japanese temples
during his student days at Tokyo University. There, he began work on a ground-
breaking study of Hōryūji eventually published in 1898 (Kikuchi 2004, 94–95).
Itō traveled to mainland Asia between 1903 and 1905 to study its various na-
tions’ diverse forms of architecture. After he returned, he began to design build-
ings in what he described as “a new national style for Japan that would reflect its
broader cultural origins in Asia” (Wendelken 2000, 821). His trip had convinced
him that Japanese architecture culminated the achievements of Asian architec-
ture, which he viewed as emerging from the same roots as Western architecture.
He described these ideas in his magnum opus, “Evolution Theory of Architec-
ture,” published in 1909. His thesis built upon ideas about the uniqueness of

Eastern culture and the dominance of Japan in relation to other nations of tōyō
(the East) by Kuki Ryūichi and his associates, Okakura Tenshin (aka Kakuzō,
1862–1913) and the Bostonian Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908), and Social Darwin-
ism, which he applied to architecture.21
The architectural style Itō used for Tsukiji Honganji is one he helped per-
fect — Japan’s first modern architectural style known as the shrine and temple
style (shajiyō) because of its outward resemblance to traditional religious build-
ings. It synthesized Western and Eastern aesthetics using the latest Western
technology and materials — masonry construction, concrete, and stained glass
— instead of traditional Japanese timber-frame construction. It had pews inside
for worshipers so they did not need to remove their shoes before entering the
building, as well as a pipe organ.22 Precedents for a similar hybrid East-West
architectural style existed in the “Indo-Saracenic” style found in India that
blended Hindu, Muslim, and Western features. Early Western-trained Japanese
architects had become familiar with adaptations of this style in Japan through
the teachings and buildings of Josiah Conder (1852–1920).23 Application of the
shrine and temple style for a Buddhist worship hall underscored the impression
of the religion as modern and cosmopolitan, yet tied to its Asian roots. The
Honganji Shin sect had used a variation of it earlier on a missionary temple
in Hawai‘i completed in 1918.24 The Tsukiji Honganji stands as Itō’s most am-
bitious temple building. It opened in 1934, the same year that Tōfukuji’s new
wooden Main Hall was completed. Their diametrically opposed architectural
styles illuminate the complex and sometimes conflicting attitudes about Bud-
dhism of their day: on the one hand, restored historic monuments of the faith
glorified Japan’s past cultural achievements; on the other hand, new buildings
such as Tsukiji Honganji served as a beacon for the nation’s grand plans for the
future.25
New Icons for Temples

At the beginning of the Meiji period, several factors contributed to imperiling
and then reconceptualizing the profession of Buddhist sculptors. First there was
persecution of Buddhism, which, as already discussed, nearly extinguished the
need for Buddhist sculptors. Second, as part of their push for modernization,
Japanese authorities sought to rethink the uses of traditional imagery and kindle
interest in Western forms of art. The Japanese first perceived this need after par-
ticipating in the Vienna World Exposition in 1873. At the time, judges deemed
their exhibited materials as industrial arts and handicrafts, not fine arts, which
was a more prestigious category, partially because Japan had no comparable ter-
minology for its arts, and its traditional media were not those used by fine artists
in the Western world. In reaction, the Japanese adapted Western nomenclature

to define its arts, coining words for “fine art” (bijutsu) and other specific types of
Western-based fine art such as “sculpture” (chōkoku), which supplemented the
traditional word used for sculpted icons (zō) that had more limited connotations
(D. Satō 1996, 51). Sculpture, according to the Western art establishment’s defi-
nition, did not include wood carving, the primary medium for Buddhist icons,
but instead was restricted to sculpture in stone, bronze, or plaster.
Following these Western categorizations, the Meiji government considered
busshi, who specialized in wood carving, as craftsmakers and not artists and
invited them to participate in the early domestic industrial exhibitions (naikoku
kangyō hakurankai) that encouraged changes in traditional handicraft indus-
tries to increase their potential as export products.26 These exhibitions changed
the way Buddhist sculptors perceived their craft, since innovation and techni-
cal virtuosity, rather than adherence to set iconographic programs, won them
awards and new, often secular and foreign, clients (Guth 2004a, 156).
Also, because it was a craft and not a fine art, instruction in the technical
production of wooden Buddhist sculpture was intentionally omitted from the
curriculum of the first government art school (Kōbu Bijutsu Gakkō), established
in 1876 by the Ministry of Public Works. Instead, students there studied West-
ern-style design principles and art techniques with European artists as their
teachers. They learned skills, such as new methods for bronze casting, needed
to compete successfully in international markets.27 Although this school was
short-lived (it closed in 1883 amid a resurgence of interest in traditional Japanese
arts), it set in motion the marginalization of Buddhist icon making from main-
stream fine art training and discourse that has continued largely unabated since.
So great has this schism become that the names of even the most prominent
modern carvers of Buddhist icons remain absent from the standard dictionary
of modern Japanese artists, except for those who studied at fine-arts schools
and had also made a name for themselves in juried competitions of secular art.28
Nevertheless, Buddhist icon making continued in response to strong popular
support for the faith. Sometimes these images incorporated nontraditional ma-
terials and techniques, reflecting innovative ways the clergy sought to connect
with their parishioners and other temple visitors and new modes of expressing
faith by the religion’s devout lay supporters.
During the Edo period, apart from the individual creations of self-taught, itin-
erant monks like Enkū and Mokujiki, ateliers of busshi had sprung up through-
out Japan to make Buddhist sculpture for temples and devotees’ home altars. But
in the turmoil of the early Meiji period, many of these regional studios vanished.
Training then became concentrated in Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka, home to the
oldest and most prestigious lineages of makers whose association with the old
temples of Kyoto and Nara stretched back over many generations.29 Many of the

new sculpture projects went to the prestigious Kyoto workshop of Tanaka Mon’a
(1820–1884) and his son, Tanaka Bunya (1844–1925).
Soon after the Higashi Honganji compound burned in 1864, the temple com-
missioned the Tanaka atelier to carve new icons for the second floor of the
Founder’s Hall Gate (Goeidōmon), the temple’s main gate through which devo-
tees pass en route to participation in services in the Founder’s Hall. The statues
were dedicated in 1879, decades before the gate itself was completed in 1911.30
Befitting the use of the gate as the main entrance to the sect’s headquarters, the
statues enshrined represent the buddha Shaka, his faithful disciple Anan (Skt.
Ānanda), one of the ten great disciples of the Buddha, and Miroku (fig. 7.5).31
They bring to life a passage in the Larger Sutra of Infinite Life (Skt. Sukhāvatī-
vyūha; Jp. Muryōju kyō), the most important doctrine of the Shin sect, in which
these three figures from the Buddhist pantheon teach that attainment of bud-
dhahood can be achieved through belief in the buddha Amida and his Pure
Land.32 Despite the fact that these are essentially secret images that few can see
since the gate’s second floor is normally closed to the public, they were carved
and finished with great care.33 All three statues possess serene facial expressions,
wear elegant flowing drapery, and stand or sit atop ornate, gilt lotus thrones
mounted on multitiered, intricately carved gilt-wood bases. The gilt-wood sur-
faces of the Shaka and Miroku capture the resplendence of Buddhist divinities,
while the rich detail of the polychrome textile patterns covering Anan’s monk’s
robe denote his important rank among the Buddha’s disciples. Based on these
rarely seen and largely forgotten images, it is evident that the finest busshi of the
time still possessed a high level of talent. After his father’s death, Tanaka Bunya
continued to produce statues for many important Kyoto temples reconstructed
in the late Meiji era.34
As a high-status workshop centered in Kyoto, the Tanaka atelier thrived be-
cause of long-standing ties with prominent temples in its vicinity, which could
still procure the funds necessary to pay for their time-consuming work. But for
most busshi, the Meiji Restoration caused disintegration of their traditional pa-
tronage networks, and new attitudes towards sculpture forced them to modify
their familiar working methods. Many participated in industrial expositions
to find clients, sometimes foreigners (see discussion of Emile Guimet and the
busshi Yamamoto Mosuke in chap. 8), and a few accepted invitations to join the
faculty of a new national institution for the training of artists, the Tokyo School
of Fine Arts (Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō).35 The government established this school
in 1887 (it opened for students in 1889) under the direction of Okakura Ten-
shin, assisted by his friend Ernest Fenollosa. They believed that Japan needed
to retain its identity in the face of the encroachment of Westernization. The
school’s approach encouraged students to create a modern form of Japanese

7.5. Tanaka Mon’a (1820–1884) and Tanaka Bunya (1844–1925). Shaka Flanked by Anan [left] and
Miroku [right] in the second-floor chamber of the Founder’s Hall Gate (Goeidōmon), Higashi
Honganji, Kyoto, 1879; installed after completion of gate reconstruction in 1911. Wood with gilt,
polychrome, and inset crystal eyes. Height of Shaka: 85.5 cm; height of Anan: 95 cm; height of
Miroku: 103 cm. Photograph by author.

art that would encompass the techniques and materials favored by traditional
artists. Central to their method of teaching was the copying of ancient artistic
masterpieces, both secular and religious paintings, as well as Buddhist sculp-
ture, as sources for their creation of art, both painting (Nihonga) and sculpture,
of greater originality. One of the busshi Okakura hired to instruct pupils in
the technique of wood sculpture was Takamura Kōun (1852–1934), a disciple of
Takamura Tōun (see fig. 4.8). Kōun had won a prize at the first Industrial Expo-
sition in 1877. Soon after, he began carving more modern, secular subjects, some
as models for pieces to be cast in bronze intended for the export market. He
later wrote in his memoirs that he was inspired to abandon his busshi practice
because he abhorred the decline in quality of late Edo-period Buddhist sculp-
ture, made quickly and in large quantities for profit by makers who considered
their products mere commodities (Miyama 1984, 192–193). Although Kōun had
already begun to transform himself into a modern artist by the time he joined
the school, he accepted the position reluctantly, aware of his lack of formal ar-
tistic training (Guth 2004a, 163).
Although Kōun is most famous for his secular sculptures, he continued to
carve traditional iconic imagery for Buddhist temples throughout his life.36
Some of his pupils followed this dual career path as well. Kōun worked together
with one of these disciples, Yonehara Unkai (1869–1925), on the production of
mammoth statues of Niō, Buddhist guardian figures (fig. 7.6), for the Niō Gate
(Niōmon) at the pilgrimage temple of Zenkōji (see fig. 3.3). The gate was erected
in 1918 to replace its Edo-period predecessor, which was destroyed in a fire in
1891. Like Kōun, Unkai had grown up immersed in the life of a traditional crafts-
man, initially training as a carver of sculptural ornamentation for temples. How-
ever, he aspired to become a busshi and became a student of Kōun. Like his
mentor, Unkai also sculpted individualistic interpretations of Buddhist imagery
and secular subjects that he entered in juried competitions. Unkai worked on
the Niō sculptures in residence at Zenkōji for four years (1915–1919) under Kōun’s
guidance (Kawakita 1989, 388). The jōroku (over 3 meters in height) statues tower
over visitors making their way to the temple’s Main Hall. Their dramatic poses
and bulging muscles display their artists’ familiarity with Kamakura-period
statues such as the magnificent guardians at the Great South Gate of the Great
Buddha Hall of Tōdaiji.37 Kōun had begun studying these old Buddhist sculp-
tures only after he entered the Tokyo School of Fine Arts at the encouragement
of Okakura and Fenollosa. Previously, as a young busshi working in Tokyo, he
had carved new images and repaired old ones without actually visiting Kyoto
and Nara temples (Guth 2004a, 163).
Kōun and his pupils possessed a rare ability to straddle the line between mod-
ern artist and traditional Buddhist sculptor, professions that are essentially at
cross purposes. Those who make Buddhist sculptures for orthodox institutions

7.6. Takamura Kōun
(1852–1934) and Yonehara
Unkai (1869–1925).
Buddhist Guardian (Niō),
one of a pair in the Main
Gate (Niōmon) at Zenkōji,
Nagano, 1918. Wood.
Height: approx. 3 m.
need to adhere to rigidly defined iconographic parameters, while modern artists

celebrate originality of conception. Consequently, sculpture professors at art
schools after the time of Kōun have tended to place greater emphasis on princi-
ples of modern art. From the beginning of the twentieth century students wish-
ing to pursue careers as busshi have had to apprentice at traditional workshops.
Acceptance into these workshops is essential for gaining access to patrons, both
Buddhist institutions and laity. They also teach techniques peculiar to the art
of Buddhist image making and instill pupils with respect for Buddhism and its
iconography.
Although carved-wood sculptures make up the vast majority of Buddhist icons
installed in temple worship halls even today, from the Meiji period sometimes
temples commissioned makers other than busshi to fabricate these images. Un-
doubtedly the most unusual of these nonstandard icons are the Buddhist statues
composed of cremated remains of devotees (okotsu butsu) at the Osaka Jōdo-
sect temple of Isshinji (fig. 7.7). Temple legend credits Hōnen Shonin (1133–1212),
the founder of the sect, with its establishment. In 1615, Tokugawa Ieyasu and
his troops camped at the temple compound while engaged in battle with the
Toyotomi forces, which occupied nearby Osaka Castle. After the Tokugawa vic-

tory, the newly established shogun patronized the temple, hence precipitating its
prominence and wealth. By the late Edo period Isshinji, situated near the fashion-
able entertainment district of the city, had become the preferred mortuary tem-
ple for local Kabuki actors. This fact must have accounted for the burial there in
1854 of Ichikawa Danjūrō VIII (1823–1854), a stupendously popular Kabuki actor
from Edo who tragically took his own life while visiting his father, who was then
banished from Edo. His burial there must have stimulated the popularity of Is-
shinji as a burial site among his hordes of fans, for, coinciding with his interment
there, large numbers of people began depositing funerary urns at the temple.38
Donations continued unabated throughout Buddhism’s darkest days in the
early Meiji period so that by the mid-1880s these urns numbered over fifty thou-
sand. For reasons that remain unclear due to destruction of temple records in
World War II, but perhaps as a practical solution to limitations of space, the
temple’s head priest hired artists to incorporate these remains into sacred stat-
ues of the buddha Amida while still treating them with reverence. The priest
Shingan from Daienji in Kanazawa had done something similar with a statue
of Jizō that contained the crushed bones of deceased persons (see plate 6). But
unlike Shingan, the Isshinji priest intended this to be an ongoing plan, perhaps
to encourage continued support for his temple. To realize this goal, he engaged
the services of sculptors skilled in the Western sculpture techniques of plaster
and bronze casting who mixed the ashes with plant resin to create the Bud-
dha forms. The first of the current eleven okotsu butsu statues was consecrated
in 1887.
Regrettably, bombing during World War II totally destroyed the temple and
the six statues completed before then (the last prewar statue had been con-
secrated in 1938). After the war, production resumed and the first new statue
incorporated broken pieces of the first six, in addition to recently donated cre-
mated remains of devotees donated up to 1947, the year of its dedication. Since
then, four other statues have been enshrined, most recently in 1997. Each of
these postwar statues incorporates the ashes of about 220,000 persons, many
more than the earlier ones. Work on the twelfth statue commenced in early
2006. It is scheduled for dedication in 2007.
The temple commissioned Imamura Kyūbei, a ninth-generation Osaka
busshi, to create the first image, and his family has been responsible for these
images ever since. Kyūbei’s son, Imamura Teruhisa, a modern sculptor (not a
busshi), made the statues beginning in the 1920s, and in recent decades he has
been assisted by his son, Imamura Hajime (b. 1957), a well-known avant-garde
artist who will be solely responsible for the 2007 statue.39 Although made from
molds like plaster casts, each statue is unique, with different bodily proportions
and colors. A patina of age distinguishes the earlier surviving ones from those
more recently completed. In recent decades, the fame of these statues has led

7.7. Three generations of the Imamura Kyūbei family. Buddha statues made of cremated remains
(okotsu butsu), 1880s to the present. Cast plaster incorporating cremated human remains, poly-
chrome, and gilt. Height of each statue: approx. 120 cm. Isshinji, Osaka. Photo courtesy of Taka-
guchi Yashiyuki.
many devout Buddhists of diverse sects to donate their loved ones’ remains
here. This popularity has allowed the temple to prosper and to construct some
unusual worship halls and other buildings (discussed in chap. 9), and has also
led at least two other Jōdo-sect temples to emulate Isshinji’s practice of making
okotsu butsu in the years following World War II.40
Not long after Isshinji began making okotsu butsu, the Rinzai Zen-sect head-
quarters of Kenninji in Kyoto also installed some unusual icons in the second-
floor chamber of the gate leading to its Founder’s Hall (Kaisandō). Kenninji is
Kyoto’s oldest Zen temple, established in 1202 by the Rinzai-sect founder Eisai
(1141–1215). Following the custom of honoring important milestones, the temple
celebrated the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Eisai’s death by refurbishing
its structures and commissioning new imagery. Since the Edo period Kenninji
had been patronized by local potters who lived and worked in its vicinity. It
naturally turned to this group to join their celebration, requesting sixteen prom-
inent potters to sculpt one Rakan each, for a total of sixteen to be installed in

7.8. Kiyomizu potters of Kyoto. Six of sixteen Rakan in the rōmon gate of the Founder’s Hall
(Kaisandō), Kenninji, Kyoto, set completed between 1911 and 1922. Low-fired (raku) pottery
with overglaze enamels. Height of figures: between 34 and 42 cm. Daihonzan Kenninji, Kyoto.
the Founder’s Hall gate, a small, single-entrance, rōmon-type gate (fig. 7.8). The
sixteen Rakan, completed between 1911 and 1922, each bear the signature and
date of their makers.41 Although Kyoto potters at the time generally preferred
high-fired porcelain, for this project they used more easily modeled low-fired
Raku-like clay over which they applied glossy polychrome glazes. The images
are similar in size to the Five Hundred Rakan by Takahasi Hōun and Takamura
Tōun for Kenchōji (see fig. 4.8), and, as in that earlier set, these sixteen Rakan
resemble actual people, wise old men with distinctive personalities and physi-
ognomies, traits accentuated by the individual artistic styles of their different
makers.
In a sculptural tradition separate from images designed for worship halls,
many temples had begun installing bronze statues and memorials such as pa-
godas in their open-air courtyards during the Edo period. Individuals or groups
donated these monuments to assure the salvation of the souls of deceased rela-
tives or to protect the living; the temples reaped the benefit of increased income
in exchange. This practice continued into the Meiji era and thrives even today.
Generally, through the pre–World War II era, modest-sized imagery prevailed,
but one bronze Buddha, erected at the Kobe Tendai-sect temple of Nōfukuji,
reached gargantuan proportions and included a unique application of modern
technology42 (fig. 7.9). Unfortunately, this statue no longer survives, having been
melted down during World War II. Visitors to the temple today see a replica
instead, installed in 1991.43 Its creation reflects the prevailing interest at the time

7.9. Great Buddha of Kobe
(Hyōgō Daibutsu), 1891.
Cast bronze. Height: 8.5 m.
From Walter Weston,
Mountaineering and
Exploration in Japan in the
Japanese Alps (London:
John Murray, 1896), plate
opposite p. 3.
for monumental symbolic statuary, epitomized by the American Statue of Lib-

erty (completed in 1884, it opened in 1886) (Hashizume 1998, 24).
Up to the Meiji era, the exorbitant cost and technical difficulty of casting huge
Daibutsu bronze images limited their number to three: the 752 Birushana Bud-
dha at Tōdaiji’s Great Buddha Hall, the 1252 Amida at Kōtokuin in Kamakura,
and the circa 1660 Shaka at Kan’eiji in Edo.44 All these statues originally served
as central icons within worship halls. By the Meiji era, though, both the Ka-
makura and Kan’eiji statues had lost their buildings and sat in the open.45 Old
photos, postcards, and descriptions in foreign travel writings of the Meiji and
Taishō eras attest to the great popularity of these huge statues among tourists.
In 1891, after two years of construction, Nōfukuji erected a bronze Daibutsu
(later popularly known as the Hyōgō Daibutsu), a great feat at the time consider-
ing the impoverished state of most temples. The temple had originally intended

to erect a new Main Hall, but it installed this statue instead at the insistence of
a donor, a wealthy Kobe paper merchant named Nanjō Masahyōe. Ten abbots
of various Buddhist sects and a crowd of public citizens attended a seven-day
eye-opening ceremony marking its consecration (Kobe Shiyakusho 1971, 81–82).
Nōfukuji’s Buddha portrayed Birushana, the same Buddha that sat in the Great
Buddha Hall of Tōdaij in Nara, in what must have been a bid by the temple to
associate its new image with this most ancient and venerated symbol of Japan.
Soon after its completion in 1896, Walter Weston (1861–1940), an English An-
glican missionary then residing in Kobe, illustrated and wrote about it in the
opening section of his popular book on mountain climbing in Japan.
The features, it is true, wear the conventional expression typical of that absolute calm
and passionless condition, that Nirvana to which the devout Buddhist aspires. But
on the forehead, in place of the little boss of metal that stands for the sacred ‘“jewel
of the law,’ ” the artist has fixed an electric light! In some respects it is certainly a
speaking likeness, a parable in bronze, of the Japan of to-day, with all the novelties of
modern civilisation engrafted on the old-world ways and thoughts that have for so
many centuries characterized this most remarkable race. (1896, 3)46
Based on this description and its close proximity to the district in which its
large foreign population resided, the statue helped the temple become a popular
tourist destination.47 Nōfuku’s location must have influenced the donor’s deci-
sion to erect this modern-style Daibutsu amid this bustling, orderly, “quintes-
sential foreign settlement” (Finn 1995, 64). The electric light in the forehead of
this new Daibutsu reflected the city’s up-to-date urban atmosphere and an-
nounced the accordance of the religion with modern times. Its placement in
temple precincts, not within a building like the earlier Daibutsu statues, further
attested to its more modern function as a civic rather than wholly spiritual
monument, epitomizing the transformation at the time of Buddhist temples into
cultural heritage sites and popular tourist attractions. This statue also initiated
a trend for temples to erect Daibutsu that has escalated in recent decades, as will
be discussed in chapter 9.
This chapter has shown the prominent role Buddhist institutions assumed
in Japanese society after the faith’s initial period of persecution in the early
Meiji era. This renewal came about through efforts by two groups sometimes
working separately and sometimes together: devout Buddhists — both laity and
clergy — associated with its institutions, who sought to reconfigure the religion
as a philosophical creed in touch with modern life, and the Meiji state’s political
and higher-education leaders, who desired to craft a modern Japanese national
identity that included Buddhist ideals, its institutions, and imagery. Temples

reprised the role they played in the cultural life of the Edo period, when regional
guidebooks touted them as famous scenic destinations for pilgrims, but from
the Meiji period forward visitors included both Japanese citizens and visitors
from abroad. For the first time the government sanctioned this merging of cul-
tural tourism with religious practice. These new structures at Buddhist temple
complexes and the icons enshrined therein came to serve complementary needs
as places for organized Buddhist institutions to minister to their legions of fol-
lowers and as transnational symbols of Buddhism as a modern religion that
could enlighten the world.
Still, as addressed in chapter 8, this modernization of Buddhism could not
have been effected without the simultaneous efforts by other individuals —
nonsectarian practitioners and those who viewed Buddhism’s sacred imagery
as cultural assets — to elevate its imagery, both old and new, to consideration
as representative of the finest artistic creations of the nation. Only through this
transformation of Buddhism’s material culture into art could Buddhism’s inte-
gration into the modern world become fully realized.

Chapter Eight
From Icon to Art, 1868–1945
around the time the new Meiji leaders developed appreciation for ancient
Buddhist imagery and created national museums to preserve them, these arts
began to be purchased by private collectors, both Japanese and foreign. Simul-
taneously, artists associated with newly formed art schools turned away from
representation of Buddhist themes popular in the late Edo period and drew in-
spiration from these newly discovered treasures, as well as from new philosophi-
cal ideas about art and religion.1 Sometimes, they expressed their personal faith
in their art, creating these works for their own contemplation, but often they
showed them at public art exhibitions, both the newly conceived forum of juried
exhibitions and at international expositions in Europe and the United States.
This chapter addresses these critical developments, revealing how the conver-
sion of Buddhist imagery from icon into object of aesthetic contemplation con-
tributed to separating the faith from its institutional roots and led to Buddhism
becoming an integral component of modern Japan’s secular culture.
Early Collectors of Japanese Buddhist Art

For various reasons, institutions and private individuals, both Japanese and for-
eign, started collecting Buddhist imagery during the 1870s. Their quest was
aided by opportunities created when temples sold their treasures due to finan-
cial straits and when temple transformations into Shinto shrines necessitated
disposal of orthodox Buddhist imagery considered inappropriate for display in
Shinto’s sacred halls. One of the earliest Japanese nationals to display Buddhist
icons in a secular space was Makimura Masanao (1834–1896), the vice minister

of Kyoto from 1871, who placed a once-secret image in his prefectural office.
While his motivation for doing so remains unclear, it seems unrelated to be-
lief in Buddhism. As part of his zealous campaign for modernization, which
included promotion of meat consumption and wearing Western dress, he insti-
gated the closure of many Kyoto temples and the destruction of numerous stone
Buddhist images, which he ordered used as building materials.2
Imagery removed from Buddhist temples also included icons representing
quasi-Buddhist subsidiary divinities associated with popular syncretic devo-
tional practices.3 This sanitization of Buddhism resulted in a loss of understand-
ing of the significance of these heterodox icons. Modern scholarly taxonomy
largely echoes this split between Buddhism and Shinto, dictating the study of
each tradition’s art separately. One iconographically unorthodox image is a
striking, well-carved, life-sized statue of a demonic oni shown in the guise of a
begging monk (fig. 8.1), like an ōtsue painting come to life. A Scandinavian col-
lector, probably interested more in its powerful presence than its status within
the Buddhist pantheon, purchased it in the late nineteenth century. Because
this statue so closely resembles the pose of Ōtsue oni nenbutsu pictures (see fig.
4.19), it likely dates to the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, when that
imagery first became popular, and came from a temple in the Ōtsu region in
the vicinity of their manufacture.4 However, because of the multiple meanings
attached to this deity, its exact function in a Buddhist hall remains unclear.
The Meiji government also began collecting ancient Buddhist art as part of its
effort to preserve monuments embodying the nation’s cultural heritage. In 1871
it established a national museum, which opened in 1872 within the halls of the
old Tokugawa clan’s family Confucian shrine in Tokyo, the Yushima Seidō. Ma-
terials for display were gathered by a team headed by the museum’s first director,
Machida Hisanari (1838–1897), that surveyed and occasionally appropriated the
holdings of temples and shrines.5 Machida’s team did not consider the objects
examined art but rather historic treasures, prefiguring the shift in the percep-
tion of Buddhist imagery from icon to art. Machida, however, was himself a
devout Buddhist (Guth 1993, 106). In accordance with this new attitude, the gov-
ernment in 1877 sponsored the first public exhibition of Buddhist imagery. More
than 1,000 objects from Nara temples were shown in the cloisters surrounding
the Great Buddha Hall at Tōdaiji. It also led to the “gifting” of 319 objects from
Japan’s most ancient temple of Hōryūji to the Imperial Household Collection in
1878 in exchange for funds to restore the temple. In 1882 these Hōryūji treasures
were transferred to the national museum when it relocated to a new building
within Ueno Park in Tokyo, its present site (Guth 1993, 109).
Government agencies continued to carry out periodic surveys of temples and
shrine treasures for the remainder of the century. In 1884, by order of Kuki
Ryūichi, one of the most important of these inspection tours commenced, fo-

8.1. Demon [Oni] in the Guise of a Begging Monk (Oni Nenbutsu), late seventeenth or early
eighteenth century. Wood with traces of paint and gesso. Height: 181 cm. Sydney L. Moss,
Ltd. Photo courtesy of Paul Moss.

cusing on Nara-area religious institutions. Kuki had a new aim in mind — to
find artifacts that demonstrated an ideal, universal aesthetic. His interest in the
aesthetic qualities of these materials must have been prompted by his European
sojourns. There he saw art exhibitions at museums and Japanese religious imag-
ery on display in the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1878, on loan from promi-
nent European collectors, including his acquaintance Emile Guimet (discussed
below). Under Kuki’s direction, Ernest Fenollosa and Okakura Tenshin, who
later spearheaded the development of the Japanese collection of the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston, accompanied Japanese officials on this survey, during which
Fenollosa made his famous discovery of the seventh-century statue of the Yume
dono Kannon at Hōryūji.6
In 1888 Kuki assumed directorship of the national museum, newly revamped
as an institution devoted to the arts and humanities. Previously it had been ad-
ministered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Finance, but under Kuki it came
under the auspices of the Ministry of the Imperial Palace and was renamed the
Tokyo Imperial Museum (and later the Tokyo National Museum). In the same
year, Kuki, Okakura, and others of their circle founded the monthly art journal
Kokka to disseminate information on Japanese art, including ancient Buddhist
sculpture and painting. Sculpture professor and busshi Takamura Kōun was
among those who wrote articles for the journal.7
Concurrently, Kuki initiated a broader survey of the nation’s religious institu-
tions to rank the artistic merits of their possessions, not completed until 1898.
Meanwhile, in 1895 the government established the Nara Imperial Museum
(now the Nara National Museum) in Nara, the heartland of ancient Buddhism
in Japan, as a focal point for the emerging study of the early history and Bud-
dhist art of that region (Rosenfield 1998b, 241). By the mid-1890s recognition
of the importance of Buddhist materials as art had stimulated such pervasive
interest in collecting that the government used the results of Kuki’s survey to
propagate the 1897 cultural properties laws. In addition to protecting buildings
at these religious institutions, these laws forbade the sale of the treasures they
possessed by designating them Important Cultural Properties and a more ex-
alted category, National Treasures.8
Kuki also collaborated with a Buddhist organization intent upon spreading
Buddhist philosophy and imparting appreciation for the aesthetic qualities of
early Buddhist art. In 1899 the first of a twenty-volume series, Shimbi Taikan (lit.
“Compendium of true beauty”), was published in a bilingual Japanese-English
edition, with the English title Selected Relics of Japanese Art. Its original pub-
lisher, the Japanese Association of the True Beauty of Buddhism (Nihon Bukkyō
Shimbi Kyōkai), had offices in Kyoto within a subtemple of Kenninji, the oldest
Zen temple in Kyoto. The materials published in the early volumes introduced
ancient Buddhist sculptures and paintings to both Japan and the Western world

and revealed the close alliance of Buddhist intellectuals and governmental or-
ganizations, evident in Kuki’s preface to the first volume.9
As part of his duties as museum director, Kuki chaired the juries that selected
art for display at international expositions, including the World’s Columbian
Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900. Kuki
and the Shimbi Kyōkai conceived of the Shimbi Taikan series in conjunction
with preparations for Japanese participation in the Paris exhibition, and indeed
many of the objects displayed there appear in Shimbi Taikan volumes. Ironi-
cally, by the time it opened Kuki had been ousted from his position as museum
director and a rival faction had taken charge of defining the nation’s cultural
heritage.10 By then, though, the canon of Buddhist art as we know it today had
been established, as is evident in the art selected for display in the 1910 Japan-
British Exhibition in London. Many of those pieces are familiar still.11 Ever since,
most collectors have striven to acquire examples of Japanese Buddhist painting
and carved-wood sculpture for temple altars of similar quality and dating, most
created for temples patronized by the elites of the seventh through fourteenth
centuries in the political capitals of Kyoto, Nara, and Kamakura.
Because a canon for Japanese art had not yet been defined when foreigners
began collecting Japanese Buddhist imagery in the 1870s and early 1880s, the
first foreign collectors were more open-minded, yet also ignorant, about their
acquisitions. Although many foreigners acquired works during travels to Japan,
stores selling Japanese art appeared as early as the 1860s in cosmopolitan cit-
ies such as Paris. Japanese dealers such as Hayashi Tadamasa (1853–1906) also
began setting up shop abroad. He first came to Paris to assist with preparations
for Japanese displays in the 1878 Exposition Universelle.12
Prior to Hayashi’s arrival in Paris, Henri (Enrico) Cernuschi (1821–1896), an
Italian émigré banker residing in Paris, collected a significant amount of Japa-
nese Buddhist art during a grand Asian tour undertaken between September
1871 and early 1873. He journeyed together with his friend, the French art critic
Théodore Duret (1838–1927).13 Cernuschi was fascinated by Buddhism and fre-
quently visited Buddhist sites. Upon arrival in Japan, he decided to specialize
in collecting Buddhist bronzes and set out to find spectacular examples, espe-
cially those of monumental proportions, as such large sculptures were then all
the rage in Europe. He found his collection centerpiece, a seated statue of the
buddha Amida, in the courtyard of Banryūji, a temple on the outskirts of Tokyo
that, like many at the time, had fallen into a state of disrepair (fig. 8.2). Although
the temple lay in ruins, it was still patronized by loyal parishioners, who upon
hearing of the impending removal of their icon petitioned Cernuschi, to no
avail, to stop the purchase (Chang 2002, 23).
Although large Edo-period bronze buddhas like this one constituted a type
of art omitted from the later designated canon, they remained popular among
From Icon to Art | 203

8.2. Amida Buddha,
originally from Banryūji,
Meguro District, Tokyo,
mid-eighteenth century.
Cast bronze. Height: 440
cm. Musée Cernuschi–
Musée des Arts de l’Asie
de la Ville de Paris.
Photograph: Michel
Maucuer.
Western aficionados of Japan well into the twentieth century. The Italian en-
graver Edoardo Chiossone (1833–1898), who came to Japan to design the nation’s
first postage stamps, also collected a number of these, now displayed in his
Genoa museum, but most were employed as ornaments in Japanese-style gar-
dens.14 Like other collectors of his time, Cernuschi’s interest in Buddhist arts
emerged from the perspective of colonialist chauvinism, “to illustrate a pantheon
of local gods,” and not because of personal faith (Chang 2002, 24). This changed
as some prominent later nineteenth-century collectors, especially a group of
famous Bostonians including Ernest Fenollosa, converted to Buddhism.15 Duret
helped stimulate this Western interest in Buddhism, its material culture, and
Cernuschi’s collection in particular in his 1874 book, Voyage en Asie, in which
he described the Banryūji Buddha as follows.

He is seated . . . on a lotus flower. . . . His features convey absolute calm, the absence
of passion and of desire, and the stamp of this type of ecstasy particular to Buddha,
who, detached from everything and freed from life, has achieved the dissolution
of his own feelings, even of his personality; that is to say, all that Buddhist meta-
physicians and theologians could conceive or dream, the artist has here realized in
bronze.16
The sculpture was also reproduced in the first important book on Japanese
art to be published in Europe in 1883, L’Art japonais by Louis Gonse (1846–
1921), whose English translation came out in 1891 (Gonse 1891). The Parisian
public’s first opportunity to see this Buddha and the rest of the collection came
when Cernuschi lent it to an exhibition at the Palais de L’Industrie from 1873 to
1874, held in conjunction with the First Congress of Orientalists. Afterwards,
he transferred it to his newly built mansion in central Paris, where it served as
backdrop to extravagant parties he hosted for the Parisian elite. Upon his death
in 1896, Cernuschi bequeathed his home and its contents to the city of Paris, and
it opened in 1898 as a public museum.
Another Parisian, Emile Guimet (1836–1918), assembled an even more exten-
sive collection of Japanese Buddhist art. He arrived in Japan in 1876 and stayed
for three months during one leg of a grand world tour. He departed for Asia after
attending the First Congress of Orientalists in 1873 and probably had read Max
Müller’s Introduction to the Science of Religion, published that same year. Before
his journey Guimet had also studied a German translation of an 1851 edition
of the Enlarged Edition Encompassing Various Sects of the Illustrated Compen-
dium of Buddhist Images (see fig. 4.10) to aid his understanding of the Buddhist
pantheon.17 This translation was made from a copy of the book that the Dutch
physician Philip Franz von Siebold (1786–1866) had brought back from his trip to
Japan in 1829. After arriving in Japan, Guimet promptly contacted Kuki Ryūichi,
whom he had previously met in Paris. Kuki’s connections opened many doors,
enabling Guimet to visit numerous important shrines and temples, attend ritual
services, and meet representatives of various religious organizations.
Guimet returned from his travels with some three hundred religious paint-
ings, six hundred statues of icons, and a thousand books that he offered to have
displayed at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1878 because the museum he
was constructing in his hometown of Lyons, where he intended to install them,
was not quite complete (its dedication took place the following year). This mu-
seum was short-lived however, for he transferred his collection and library to a
new museum he had built in Paris in 1889.18 Among the treasures prominently
displayed at the Exposition Universelle were small-scale reproductions of the
statues that made up the sculpted mandala on the altar of the Lecture Hall

8.3. Yamamoto Mosuke
(active 1840s–1870s).
Amida Buddha, ca.
1876. Painted and gilt
wood. Diameter: 57 cm;
height of figure: 70 cm;
total height (including
base and mandorla):
134 cm. Musee des
Arts Asiatiques–
Guimet, Paris, France.
Photograph: Réunion
des Musées Nationaux/
Art Resources,
New York.
at Tōji in Kyoto (see fig. 5.4). The Amida from the set is illustrated in figure
8.3. Guimet had commissioned these from a Kyoto Buddhist sculptor named
Yamamoto Mosuke (active 1840s–1870s).19 The fact that he commissioned these
replicas and that most of his Japanese Buddhist arts date to the Edo and Meiji
periods show his focus lay on their didactic importance and not their aesthetic
quality or historic value.
In their quest for important representations of figures in the Buddhist pan-
theon, sometimes these collectors became prey to unscrupulous dealers. In 1999
conservators at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City first under-
took technical analysis of a sculpture that had entered its collection in 1932 (fig.
8.4). The dealer from whom it was purchased claimed it came from the Gohyaku
Rakanji in Edo (see fig. 2.7) and had identified it as the important figure of the
Zen patriarch Daruma. The provenance was plausible because the Nelson statue
closely resembled others known to have been removed from the temple in the
late nineteenth century. Identification of this statue as Daruma was based on

8.4. Shōun Genkei
(1648–1710). Rakan,
formerly identified as
Daruma, carved between
1691 and 1695 (or 1700)
for Gohyaku Rakanji
in Tokyo, but modified
by an unknown carver
in the early twentieth
century. Wood with
polychrome, gilt, and
crystal eyes (added in
the early twentieth
century). Height: 87
cm. The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, Kansas
City, Missouri. Purchase:
Nelson Trust, 32-75.
the statue’s appearance: it possessed Daruma’s characteristic wide-eyed gaze

and head covering. However, X-rays revealed that modern, machine-made nails
held both the crystal eyes and cowl in place and that this head covering, while
compositionally indistinguishable from the body, inexplicably covered perfectly
formed ears.
In 2001 I visited the temple and confirmed that the set’s original Daruma
remained in situ and that none of the statues possessed crystal eyes. Apparently
the Nelson statue was modified by a dealer catering to the foreign market in the
early twentieth century. The temple and its statues had sustained significant
damage during the anti-Buddhist fervor of the early Meiji period, and disparate
body parts from broken images were strewn about. When temple priests pieced
them back together around the time of relocation in 1908, some heads ended
up on the wrong bodies and other figures remained incomplete and were ap-
parently discarded. Such chaos accounts for the availability of the spare cowl
that must have been added to the Nelson’s Rakan at the time. After recutting

the face to insert crystal eyes, the dealer was able to transform the image into
Daruma.
Such deception was not an isolated instance.20 Further exemplifying this situ-
ation is a story recounted by one of Fenollosa’s admirers, Charles Lang Freer
(1854–1919), the American industrialist collector who bequeathed his mag-
nificent collection to the Smithsonian Institution. Freer first visited Japan in
1895. During his second excursion in 1907, his fame preceded him. Collectors
and dealers treated him with great courtesy. On one occasion, acquaintances
took him to a rundown, ancient temple where the priests offered him all their
treasures. After two days of studying the art and nearly buying most of it, he
deduced that all the monks were actually dealers in disguise. When he later
told this tale to friends, Freer bemoaned that between his first trip and this sec-
ond one, rampant Westernization and thirst for wealth and power had changed
Japan for the worse. Although he did not state his opinion on the authenticity
of the art he saw at this temple, undoubtedly some of it was bogus (Lawton and
Merrill 1993, 73–74).
As Okakura and Fenollosa helped generate appreciation for the new canon
of Japanese art, many Western collectors developed enthusiasm for authentic
examples of older Buddhist imagery. While many treasures did enter foreign
collections then, sometimes foreigners’ limited knowledge of the material re-
sulted in their acquisition of some highly sophisticated forgeries as well. This
situation is just as acute for painting as it is for sculpture, although in the former
case icons were not assembled from damaged old pieces but made anew. Even
Okakura and Fenollosa could not spot all these problem paintings. Their acqui-
sitions for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, contain many Buddhist paintings
actually made in the late nineteenth century but purchased as earlier works.21
However, Japanese painters did not always copy the styles of past masters
to intentionally deceive. Artists routinely copied famous old paintings as part
of their training, and the iconographic accuracy required of Buddhist paint-
ings encouraged emulation of the work of famous masters such as Minchō, as
previously discussed. Also, copies of religious paintings had long been made by
order of political leaders and temples to preserve pictures that served as invalu-
able records in cases when the original could be (or had been) lost to fire. In
addition, sometimes sect headquarters had copies of important works made for
distribution to their affiliate branches in the provinces to disseminate doctrine.
Yet when Buddhist persecution and impoverishment of temples in the Meiji pe-
riod left professional Buddhist painters unemployed, some turned to producing
forgeries for prosperous, unsuspecting foreign buyers.
Other potential forgers had studied at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, which
trained students to be proficient in copying ancient Buddhist imagery.22 The un-
canny verisimilitude of the copies by artists trained at this school exceeded those

of the past, for they copied not only the forms of the older works, but also used
old materials to replicate the antique, sometimes damaged appearance of the
originals. Some professors of this school and their students embarked on study
tours of images in Nara and Kyoto temples, during which time they created cop-
ies intended for display at the nearby Tokyo Imperial Museum, where Okakura
also served as head of the art section. These copies were necessitated because
temples did not then lend their possessions to museums, and the national mu-
seum needed Buddhist art to display for the edification of the general public. The
high quality of these copies makes them difficult to distinguish from the origi-
nals.23 Fenollosa and Okakura encouraged the production and display of these
copies in emulation of similar practices at European museums of the time.
The short step from copy to forgery is illustrated by a forgery made at this
time but originally purchased as a late twelfth-century painting. It represents a
deity identified as Kujaku Myōō (Skt. Mahāmayūrī), the Peacock King, although
it lacks some of that deity’s characteristic iconographic details (fig. 8.5). It most
closely resembles a thirteenth-century Kamakura (or Korean) painting of Kujaku
Myōō at Hōryūji, suggesting that its Meiji-period artist had studied Hōryūji’s
paintings.24 The original owner, John B. Trevor, was a friend of Freer and had
accompanied him on a trip to Japan, where this painting was purchased.25 It is a
beautiful, skillfully rendered image. But because of its problematic iconography,
it seems unlikely to have been by the hand of a Buddhist painting specialist,
who would have known that proper identification of deities in art was crucial
to activating the efficacy of the deity whose likeness was represented. Although
it appears to be very old, with evidence of multiple repairs at different times,
examination under ultraviolet light revealed that some areas of repainting and
repair that should fluoresce differently did not and that the paint at the ends of
the tail feathers had been rubbed off after painting, seemingly in an attempt to
make them appear aged. All these factors suggest that the painting was created
with the intent to deceive.
The extensive collecting and copying of ancient Buddhist icons in the late
Meiji period gave rise to the popular perception that these religious objects were
best appreciated as historic and artistic monuments. While helping to preserve
these treasures, the 1897 law for protection of objects in temple and shrine col-
lections hastened their transformation into aestheticized relics of a bygone age.
By the 1930s, so alien to the modern way of life had traditional Buddhist imagery
become that when the Kyoto Nihonga painter Nakajima Kiyoshi (1899–1989) en-
tered his picture, Old Paintings, depicting a woman in Western dress standing
disinterestedly before a glass museum case containing ancient Japanese esoteric
Buddhist paintings in a 1937 juried exhibition, it won a major prize (Menzies
1998, 120 [pl. 26]). But not all Buddhist paintings displayed in museums had lost
their religious potency. As the remainder of this chapter will show, secular art-

8.5. Kujaku Myōō, Meiji
period, late nineteenth
century. Hanging scroll;
× 85.7 cm. The Nelson-
Atkins Museum of Art,
Kansas City, Missouri.
Gift of Bronson Trevor
in memory of his father,
John. B. Trevor, 76-10/10.
ists were also creating a new type of Buddhist art for display in museums rather
than religious institutions, and these were appreciated by contemporary audi-
ences as much for their aesthetic qualities as for their spirituality.
New Buddhist Imagery for Aesthetic Appreciation

Concurrent with the rise of urban commoner culture in the Edo period, temples
became transformed into places of popular entertainment. Artists such as Hi-
shikawa Moronobu (see fig. 5.9) created Buddhist imagery for the amusement
and aesthetic appreciation of their audiences rather than as formal icons for
temples. After the social and economic upheaval of the Meiji Restoration, the
appeal of this type of painting remained strong, particularly among middle-
class, urban audiences whose daily lives continued as before. Not until later

in the Meiji period, with the establishment of the new art schools that trained
aspiring artists to simultaneously look back to the distant past and to the artistic
traditions of the West for inspiration, did artists begin to represent Buddhist
subjects differently. Because of the importance accorded to art in the Meiji pe-
riod, these images, displayed prominently in newly opened museums and at
well-attended juried exhibitions, possessed the power to influence public per-
ception, contributing to reshaping the image of Buddhism in modern Japan.
During the early and mid-Meiji era, before Edo-period values completely
faded from memory, the preeminent artist of popular Buddhist themes was
Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831–1889). He had trained prior to the Meiji Restoration first
with the ukiyoe artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861), whom he revered, and
then later with the Kano school atelier in Edo that Kano Tōhaku (see plate 9)
headed previously. Because of Kyōsai’s predilection for dissolute behavior and
passion for painting wild, sardonic pictures, he parted company with the con-
servative Kano school and set out on his own. Kyōsai’s Buddhist-themed pic-
tures, many brushed with wild abandon, captured the fancy of a public obsessed
with grotesque, violent imagery, often in representations of the Buddhist hells.
As already noted, these themes had steadily gained in popularity throughout
the Edo period, and they remained an important subject well into the Meiji in
part because of Kyōsai.
One of Kyōsai’s most popular renditions, repeated in numerous versions,
portrayed a lady known as the Hell Courtesan (Jigoku Dayu), so named from the
pattern of her kimono that depicted scenes from the Buddhist hells26 (fig. 8.6).
The subject derives from a story associated with the medieval-era Rinzai Zen
priest Ikkyū, who was legendary for his fondness for engaging both Buddhist
devotees and cynics, including a courtesan nicknamed Jigoku Dayu, in lively
dialogues on Buddhist philosophy. Kyōsai’s picture pairs her with Enma, judge
of the underworld, who decides the fate of the newly deceased by seeing their
sins in his infamous karma mirror. In Kyōsai’s paintings, Enma is himself shown
to have sinned; his mirror reveals his lust for Jigoku Dayu.
Although records indicate that Kyōsai responded to the whims of his public
in the Buddhist subjects he chose to represent, they also reflect his devout faith,
evident in the fact that he painted daily a picture of the bodhisattva Kannon.27
This may explain why pious Buddhist priests and laity commissioned his paint-
ings. Sometimes monks used them as visual props (etoki) during sermons. One
lay follower had Kyōsai brush a forty-page album in 1872, A Journey Around
Hell and Paradise (one page is illustrated here), to aid in the salvation of his
young daughter, who had died two years before (plate 22).28 At the time Kyōsai
completed this painting, persecution of Buddhism had just begun to abate,
and modernization efforts of the new Meiji politicians were getting underway.
Kyōsai responded by invoking the past but also inserting images of the new era

8.6. Kawanabe Kyōsai
(1831–1889). Enma,
King of Hell, Examining
a Painting of the Hell
Courtesan Jigoku Dayu.
Hanging scroll; ink and
colors on silk, 117.5 × 51.8
cm. Collection of Etsuko
and Joe Price. Photo-
graph courtesy of the
Los Angeles County
Museum of Art.

in the album. Many scenes, and indeed the style of his painting, derive from
traditional forms, but his representation of a steam engine (actual train service
was first begun in Japan later that year) that carries the deceased to paradise in
this triumphant scene illustrates the encroachment of modernity. These two ex-
amples of Kyōsai’s paintings show his gift for invoking an emotional response in
his viewers, causing them to reconsider preconceived notions about Buddhism.
Such originality, coupled with his dynamic, outgoing personality, helps explain
his popularity with foreign collectors as well.29
While Kyōsai was busy turning out art for patrons with interests in popular
Buddhist themes, reassessment of ancient Buddhist imagery as the nation’s ar-
tistic patrimony had begun. To help document the findings of the survey of 1872,
Machida Hisanari engaged Morikawa Toen (1820–1894), a self-taught sculptor
(not a professional busshi), to make copies of some of the newly discovered ma-
terials.30 Machida also mentored another aspiring sculptor, Takeuchi Hisakazu
(alt. Kyūichi, 1857–1916), who later became one of the most influential artists
and teachers of his generation. Hisakazu, a native of Edo and son of an ukiyoe
artist, had started his career specializing in ivory sculptures and netsuke, but
after a visit to Nara temples in 1880, he became so inspired by what he saw that
he turned to wood sculpture. Between 1882 and 1885 he lived in Nara, studying
and copying old sculptures at temples under the tutelage of Toen and helped
guide Fenollosa and Okakura to religious sites in the area during their fateful
survey in 1884. Hisakazu joined the faculty of the newly created Tokyo School
of Fine Arts at its inception, where, together with Takamura Kōun and another
ivory carver turned wood sculptor, Ishikawa Mitsuaki (alt. Kōmei; 1852–1913), he
taught students to carve original wood sculptures inspired by Buddhist sculp-
tures of the past.
Hisakazu and his colleagues also significantly contributed to Japan’s effort
to impress Western nations by creating sculptures for the World’s Columbian
Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. This exhibition marks an important juncture
in Japan’s efforts to define its cultural identity.31 Because Okakura served as a
member of the vast committee that selected objects for the fair, he arranged
for the inclusion of the art of his school’s faculty and for them to create interior
room decorations for the Japanese national building (Okakura 1893). Hisakazu’s
large, polychrome wood statue of Gigeiten (plate 23), the Buddhist goddess con-
sidered a patroness of the arts and who is now nearly forgotten, was placed at
the entrance to the Japanese art exhibition in the Palace of Fine Arts. Japan had
long petitioned to have some of its displays exhibited together with the fine arts
of other nations at these expositions, but this was the first time such permission
was granted, an honor accorded to no other non-Western nation. Japan was par-
ticularly pleased to have the work of its sculptors represented here rather than

with other handicrafts in the Manufactures and Liberal Arts building, where
wood carving normally would have been shown.
Although Hisakazu’s sculpture occupied a prominent place in the Japanese
fine art display, it failed to win any prizes for its artistic prowess, unlike Taka-
mura Kōun’s spectacularly naturalistic life-sized wooden carving of Aged Mon-
key, which did.32 Yet the independent-minded author of the English-language
descriptive catalogue of selections of art from various nations selected Gigeiten
as the lone Japanese sculpture (along with several paintings) to illustrate and
described it as follows.
On a pedestal in the East Court is a life-size statue in wood, very carefully painted,
multitudinous in detail, by Kyuichi [Hisakazu] Takeuchi, of Gigeiten, of a Buddhist
mythological personage, name not given, reproduced in our illustration. Here the out
landish art still appeals to us, we see in addition to the extraordinary technical skill
in rendering detail of the artist, a mysterious, uneasy life in his figure — not at all
that which we have been in the habit of meeting in mythological personages, but un-
doubtedly there, as may be seen very clearly by looking at the face in our illustration.
(Walton 1893, 88–90)
Hisakazu designed this statue for display at the fair on the advice of Okakura,
who was then intent on reviving appreciation for classical Buddhist sculpture.
But Hisakazu did not select the figure for its importance within the hierarchy
of Buddhist deities, for Gigeiten rarely appears in the visual arts. Rather, he took
as his model a rare image of the deity from the Nara temple of Akishinodera,
admired for the expressive qualities of its face, with mouth open as if in song.
Hisakazu’s statue actually bears little resemblance to the original. His is brightly
colored, wearing elaborately layered robes bound with flowing sashes. The more
simply attired original wears monastic robes traditionally worn by bodhisattva.33
He must have chosen this allegorical subject to appeal to foreign visitors with
little prior knowledge of Buddhism to help link Japan’s artistic traditions to that
of the West’s Greco-Roman past, many of whose gods also personified civiliza-
tion’s achievements. Still, the catalogue’s description of it as “mythological” and
“outlandish” reveals how alien and old-fashioned the subject seemed to a West-
ern audience steeped in the ideals of the Enlightenment, suggestive of why it
failed to win an award. Its failure to do so also explains its subsequent obscurity
and the tendency of modern Japanese sculptors after this time to avoid Buddhist
subjects in their quest for international recognition.34
Among the students to enroll in the sculpture program at the Tokyo School
of Fine Arts during its first year was Niiro Chūnosuke (1868–1954), of samu-
rai descent, from Kagoshima on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu. Chūnosuke
completed the course by 1892 but continued on as a special student, during
which time he garnered prizes for his work in school competitions. His gradu-

8.7. Niiro Chūnosuke (1868-
1954). Daruma Crossing the
Sea, 1894. Wood. Height
without base: 74.5 cm; height
with base: 110.6 cm. The
University Art Museum,
Tokyo National University
of Fine Arts and Music.
ation piece of 1894, Daruma Crossing the Sea (fig. 8.7) displays the qualities that
made his work much admired. It embodies the aims of the school, which sought
to resurrect the dynamism of ancient sculpture but simultaneously capture a
sense of modernity. Chūnosuke portrayed Daruma during a famous incident
from his life, miraculously crossing the Yangtze River to reach the north of
China while balanced on a tiny reed. Premodern Japanese artists had typically
represented this subject in painting rather than sculpture. By altering the me-
dium, Chūnosuke created an unexpected interpretation of a venerable theme,
endowing the patriarch with an unprecedented sense of corporality. Still, the
billowing robes, fleshy chest, and facial expression undoubtedly derive from the
artist’s close study of old sculptures of the Nara and Kamakura periods.
Chūnosuke became a professor at the school after he graduated, but when
political disputes resulted in Okakura’s dismissal in 1898, Chūnosuke left his

post to follow his mentor to a new private school Okakura founded, the Japan
Art Institute (Nihon Bijutsuin) (Conant et al. 1995, 102–103). In 1901 Chūnosuke
moved to Nara to head the Japan Art Institute’s newly established conservation
institution there. For the remainder of his life, Chūnosuke devoted himself to
the restoration of Buddhist sculptures at many important temples throughout
Japan, repairing over one thousand works in all. He also continued to create
copies of old Buddhist sculptures and occasionally carved original sculptures
of Buddhist themes as well, closely modeled on famous works of the past. Al-
though he trained as a modern sculptor, his approach to his art was more like
a busshi, who deemphasized self-expression. Consequently, only recently have
scholars begun to recognize his importance.35 Most often, modern artists in-
spired by Buddhism expressed their faith more personally and showed their art
in new, secular venues for artists.
Buddhism as Inspiration to Interwar Artists

Newly emerging philosophies in the interwar period, lasting from the end of
the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 to the beginning of World War II in 1940 and
centering on the intertwined nature of religion, spirituality, and art, profoundly
impacted the relationship of artists to Buddhism. These ideas stemmed from
the introduction of the ideas of European intellectuals, especially the Germans.
As antecedent, during the nineteenth century, various religious and philosophi-
cal movements had encouraged their followers to seek personal cultivation (J.
Sawada 2004). When fused with Western philosophies, this self-absorption led
intellectuals on deeper quests to “define the necessities of their own spiritual ex-
istence. A generation found itself asking where the uniqueness of an individual
might lie. Further, did that uniqueness constitute his or her freedom, and if so,
how could it be manifested, particularly in relation to a society that, officially at
least, seemed increasingly suspicious of individual choice?” (Rimer 1990, 4)
Intellectuals disseminated these ideas to the broader population through the
new mass media of journals and newspapers, as well as through art exhibitions
sponsored by newly formed associations of artists, created in rebellion against
the conservatism of official, government-sponsored shows. One of the most
important of these journals, Shirakaba (White birch), published between 1910
and 1923 under the auspices of the intellectual association of the same name,
included articles by many of the era’s young and idealistic humanists, who in-
troduced readers to the latest European philosophy and the history of its artistic
and literary traditions. The journal’s founders were a small group of affluent
graduates from Tokyo’s elite colleges, Gakushuin (Peer’s School) and Tokyo
University. One of its founders and chief editor, Yanagi Sōetsu, who later spear-
headed the mingei movement, encouraged a shift in its focus to appreciation of

Buddhist arts through articles equating sixth- to eighth-century Japanese Bud-
dhist art with the great tradition of European medieval religious art.36
Among the era’s most influential writers was the sculptor, poet, and art critic
Takamura Kōtarō (1883–1956), son of sculptor Takamura Kōun (see fig. 7.6),
whose most famous essay, penned in 1910 and titled “Green Sun” (Midori iro no
taiyō), counseled artists to experiment and imbue their works with individual-
ity in the spirit of Western artists.37 Western-trained trans-sectarian academic
scholars of Buddhism also greatly affected artists’ attitudes towards the religion.
These include D. T. Suzuki, who later taught about Zen at Columbia University
in New York and was the foremost early scholar of the Kyoto school of philoso-
phy founded by Suzuki’s friend Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945), professor at Kyoto
Imperial University (now Kyoto University) between 1913 and 1928. Nishida and
his immediate disciples made Kyoto the center for studies that fused Western
philosophical concepts about spiritual devotion, appreciation of nature, and
artistic creativity with non-sectarian Buddhist thought.38 Understandably, his
ideas influenced Yanagi Sōetsu’s conception of mingei theory (Kikuchi 2004,
6–7). Nishida’s ideas also helped free artists from regarding Buddhist images as
objects that served the didactic and liturgical needs of formal institutions and
led to their exploration of Buddhism as a philosophy capable of inspiring artistic
creativity as an outgrowth of spiritual explorations into the relationship of the
self with the universal state of nothingness.
Other intellectuals, writing soon after Buddhist monks began traveling to
South Asia in the early twentieth century, also developed an interest in explor-
ing Buddhism’s Indian roots and echoed those clerics’ claims of Buddhism’s
universal relevancy and preeminence in Japan. Among these scholars, Takada
Dōken (1858–1923), writing in 1904, emphasized the importance of the laity to
the faith from its beginning. He offered as exemplars of the past the Japanese
prince Shōtoku (574–622), regarded as the father of Japanese Buddhism, and
Yuima (Skt. Vimalakirti), a devout lay disciple of the Buddha in India, legend-
ary for wisdom that surpassed that of bodhisattvas and the Rakan. Okakura
and Fenollosa had previously encouraged Nihonga painters under their tute-
lage to portray Prince Shōtoku because of his significance in shaping Japanese
history and Shaka and his immediate followers for similar reasons, because of
their roles as humanistic teachers who had initiated the spread of Buddhism to
Japan.39 Dōken’s highlighting of these early Buddhist teachers and the general
interest at the time in understanding Buddhism as taught by the faith’s earthly
founder, Shaka, helps explain the frequent occurrence of these figures in mod-
ern Buddhist imagery.
By lauding Prince Shōtoku, intellectuals linked Pan-Asian Buddhism with
the rediscovery of their own nation’s Buddhist past that had begun in the early
Meiji era and culminated with the first cultural properties protection law in

1897. Soon after the law’s enactment, intellectuals who supported the restitution
of Buddhist sites as both spiritual and historic monuments began visiting Nara
temples and writing of their experiences. Characterizing their response, the
philosopher Watsuji Tetsurō (1889–1960), who traveled to Nara in 1917, argued
that “the Taishō ought to be an era like the Tempyō,” the cosmopolitan Nara
period at its height in the eighth century, when the Silk Route connected Japan
with the Asian continent (La Fleur 1990, 251).
Such comments compelled some Interwar artists to look to the Buddhism of
both ancient India and of old Nara for artistic inspiration. These artists, born
between the late 1880s and early 1900s, studied at Japan’s new art schools or
were encouraged to pursue artistic experimentation by reading the new literary
and art journals. Most came from the Kyoto area or were inspired by journeys
there. Only occasionally did they create art for use by temples. More often they
competed in juried painting exhibitions, sold art to private collectors, or created
it as a form of personal devotional expression. Their varied artistic styles reveal
how individualized visual expression of faith had become and, conversely, the
profound changes in the nature of faith itself. Although their art integrated,
in varying degrees, awareness of European art and Buddhist imagery of the
Indian subcontinent, the main underlying current remained their response to
traditional Japanese Buddhist imagery. It marks the first time that nondenomi-
national Buddhism served as a catalyst for religious imagery apart from its insti-
tutions as a response to intellectual discourse. Significantly, these artists greatly
contributed to refocusing public interest in the faith’s spiritual ideals.
Among these artists, the Kyoto native Dōmoto Inshō (1891–1975) had the long
est life span and most diverse oeuvre.40 Studious and introspective, he spent
an unusually long time at his studies, only completing his formal education
after age thirty. After initially training to design crafts, he studied Nihonga at
the Kyoto Municipal Special School of Painting (Kyoto Shiritsu Kaiga Senmon
Gakkō), then privately with the Nihonga painter Nishiyama Suishō (1878–1958).
Subsequently, he sought to expand his stylistic range by traveling to China in
the 1920s and experimenting with a variety of artistic styles, both native and for-
eign. Inshō tried his hand at a variety of themes, but from early on and through-
out his career Buddhist subjects, inspired by his study of Buddhist texts and
imagery, figured prominently in his work, although his first writings about his
outlook towards Buddhism date to the early 1940s.41 By then, Inshō had become
famous as an artist whose deeply introspective and sincere nature and intensely
focused pursuit of art were closely identified by the public with Buddhist ideals.
His Buddhist-themed paintings had won prizes in juried exhibitions, and he
had completed numerous commissions for large-scale paintings at prominent
Buddhist temples, including the dragon (1933) on the ceiling of Tōfukuji’s new
Main Hall, which opened in 1934 (see fig. 7.3). This esteemed reputation must

have accounted for his being selected to create wall paintings for two prominent
Buddhist temples patronized by nationalist supporters of Japan’s expansion into
Asia: Shitennōji in Osaka (1939) and Kongōbuji at the Shingon headquarters at
Mount Kōya (1936 and 1942). To avoid tarnishing his reputation, scholars rarely
address this aspect of his work, because it belongs to an era most people would
rather forget, when Buddhist temples allied themselves with proponents of an
imperialist war. Consequently, Buddhist art of this period by Inshō and others
is difficult to study.42
Representative of Inshō’s Buddhist paintings from this early period is his
large, ethereal portrait, Yuima with a Group of Bodhisattvas and the Ten Great
Disciples of the Buddha (plate 24), completed in 1923, one year after he entered
a painting of similar style, also of a religious subject, in the third-annual, juried,
government-sponsored Teiten exhibition.43 Surrounding the central figure of
Yuima are the Buddha’s ten great disciples and a group of bodhisattvas. Inshō’s
powerful painting, done just when interest was peaking in lay Buddhism, must
have elicited empathy in viewers with his reverential portrayal of Yuima, seated
in the characteristic lotus pose of a buddha.
This painting represents Inshō’s amalgam of diverse painting styles. Although
ostensibly a Nihonga painter whose aesthetic and technical roots lay in tradi-
tional Japanese painting, here he fuses Japanese and Western painting styles.
Despite its orthodox representation of Buddhist iconography, its imaginative
composition, the figures’ proportions and flowing drapery, and the naturalistic
shading and large-scale format reveal his familiarity with Italian Renaissance
altar paintings. Originally, Inshō intended to submit this painting to the pres-
tigious Teiten juried exhibition in 1923, but that event was cancelled due to the
Great Kantō earthquake so he submitted it to another official exhibition. His
later paintings, in a radically different style, will be discussed in chapter 10.
Inshō’s slightly elder contemporary, Hada (Hata) Teruo (1887–1945), also from
Kyoto, discovered Buddhism in a different way, and his paintings reflect his
unique perspective.44 Teruo’s family seems to have been Christian, a faith many
of the era found inspirational. Teruo’s father died when he was nine, and he grew
up in an impoverished household. To help support his family, he began train-
ing for a practical career as an industrial crafts designer at the Kyoto Municipal
School of Arts and Crafts (Kyoto Shiritsu Bijutsu Kōgei Gakkō).45 Teruo’s edu-
cation included classes in Nihonga, which apparently piqued his interest more
than his required classes in the commercial art. After graduation, he joined a
coterie of painters who sought to modernize Nihonga by incorporating Western
painting styles and techniques. The group eventually disbanded, in part because
of Teruo’s unwillingness to compromise his artistic ideals. Later, he wrote that
by 1907 he had begun to question his faith in Christianity and become aware of
the need for art to reflect the harsh realities of life. He also wrote that this trans-

formation in his thoughts about art came from his awakening to the power of
religion to effect social change. Based on his later artistic output, the religion he
refers to in this statement certainly must have included Buddhism.46 His ideas
must have been informed by his awareness of the work of European artists who
specialized in social critiques, gleaned from reading journals such as Shirakaba
and also from publicity about recent humanitarian efforts of intrasect Buddhist
organizations that offered aid to Japanese troops during Japan’s wars with China
and Russia.47
Teruo’s search for creation of a socially relevant art led him to move to Tokyo
in 1915, where he immersed himself in the city’s working-class environment,
painting gritty industrial scenes and bleak portrayals of naked prostitutes, some
crawling towards a dark pool of water and titled with references to the “Blood
Pool” of the Buddhist hells (as seen in Ten Worlds mandala pictures, plate 8).48
In 1919, following a serious illness, he found happiness in marriage and the birth
of his son. These events prompted him to leave the capital in 1921 and relocate
closer to his family in Kyoto, eventually settling in a small town near Nara. He
remained there for the duration of his life, totally absorbed with his study of old
Japanese Buddhist art and the painting of new Buddhist icons, which he created
for temples, private patrons, and occasional public exhibition in commercial
galleries.
Representative of these pictures is his triptych of the buddha Shaka flanked
by Monju and Fugen, completed around 1936 (fig. 8.8). Although Teruo mounted
the pictures in the traditional hanging-scroll format, unlike older icons, which
float serenely in blank space, he so completely filled the picture with his huge
images that their forms are dramatically cut off at the sides. He also departed
from traditional icon representation by using the Western medium of black
chalk rather than Japanese mineral colors and sumi ink. His sketch-like draw-
ing and the dark shading that defined the corporeality of the forms imparted
a modern feeling to the painting. But his distortion of the figures’ proportions,
especially the over-large size of the hands of the Buddha, indicate his familiarity
with seventh-century Buddhist sculptures from Nara.
Murakami Kagaku (1888–1939) is another artist of this era closely identified
with Buddhism.49 Although he was born into an impoverished household near
Osaka, a wealthy aunt adopted him. Like Teruo, Kagaku began training for a prac-
tical career in the arts at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts. Upon
graduation in 1909, he entered the Kyoto Municipal Special School of Painting.
Even before completing that course in 1911, he had begun submitting paintings to
and winning awards at prestigious juried exhibitions. Like Inshō, a painting with
a Buddhist subject won him a top prize at an early competition, the 1916 Bunten.
But this acceptance by the art establishment proved sporadic, and soon he and

8.8. Hada Teruo (1887–1945). The Buddha Shaka with Attendant Bodhisattvas Fugen and Monju,
ca. 1936. Set of three hanging scrolls; charcoal ink and oil on paper, each 129.7 × 30.6 cm. Hoshino
Gallery, Kyoto.

four other similarly disillusioned artist friends founded the Association for the
Creation of National Painting (Kokuga Sōsaku Kyōkai) in 1918. Their manifesto
indicated their utmost respect for artistic creativity and individuality and re-
garded art as “a singular, symbolic religion.”50 This group held well-received ex-
hibitions of members’ works nearly annually in Kyoto and Tokyo and occasionally
in Osaka until it dissolved in 1928, although Kagaku participated only through
1926. After that, poor health and the death of his adopted father forced his retire-
ment to his family home in Ashiya, near Kobe.
Only then, when he eschewed participation in the competitive art scene and
found spiritual solace in his art, did he enter his most productive period of ac-
tivity, attracting numerous patrons for his mesmerizing paintings of evocative
mountain landscapes and sinuous visions of bodhisattvas. Characteristic of his
Buddhist paintings is an early example, completed in 1924, portraying a seated,
meditating bodhisattva holding a sacred jewel (plate 25). Kagaku’s fine iron-wire
outline technique, soft pink flesh tones, and the bodhisattva’s languid, dreamy
facial expression betray his study of the mural paintings of both India’s first-
century Ajanta caves and Hōryūji’s seventh-century Main Hall wall paintings,
which were both famous and widely published in his day. His indebtedness to
them is well documented. The optimistic and contemplative aura of the paint-
ing contrasts starkly with the more somber Buddhist imagery of his contempo-
rary, Hada Teruo.
Inshō, Teruo, and Kagaku had all spent their formative years in the intellec-
tual environs of Kyoto, learning at its modern schools, surrounded by its ancient
Buddhist treasures. Although each one developed his own vision, the art of all
three reveals a sophisticated knowledge of various intellectual and artistic cur-
rents. In contrast, Munakata Shikō (1903–1975), a native of Aomori Prefecture at
the northern tip of Honshu island, in Japan’s far north, first visited Kyoto much
later, after years of living in Tokyo as a struggling artist. By the Interwar pe-
riod, so widespread had Western learning become that even in remote Aomori
Munakata had the opportunity to learn about Western-style oil paintings. He
credits the work of Vincent van Gogh with inspiring him to venture to Tokyo
to pursue a career as a Western-style painter. In Tokyo, though, exposure to
modern woodblock prints created by Japanese artists who carved their own
woodblocks (unlike premodern Japanese printmakers, who functioned primar-
ily as designers and left production of the actual print to specialist artisans) led
him in another artistic direction.
Munakata first visited Kyoto in 1936 at the invitation of the potter Kawai
Kanjirō (1890–1966), a friend of Yanagi Sōetsu and fellow founder of the mingei
movement. Kawai had learned of the artist from Yanagi and their mutual friend
and mingei movement founder, the potter Hamada Shōji (1894–1978). Yanagi and
Hamada had happened to see Munakata’s work displayed at a Tokyo exhibition.

Yanagi and his cohorts found in Munakata’s art a sincerity of purpose and lack
of pretentiousness that was in accord with their mature definition of mingei
aesthetics, which they had formulated by the time they met Munakata.51 Their
theory posited that mingei objects were exemplary products of Japan’s unique
traditional culture, a concept in tune with the fervent nationalistic sentiment of
the era. Yanagi and his associates believed that mingei played a critical role in
defining Japan’s modern cultural identity in relation to that of both the Asian
mainland and of the West (Brandt 1996, 90). They especially appreciated the fact
that Munakata, a self-proclaimed modern artist, worked in a manner that they
could define as both mingei and modern.
Soon after their meeting, Kawai helped to promote Munakata as a Bud-
dhist-inspired mingei artist by writing about him in the group’s journal, Kōgei
(Craftwork). There he described Munakata as an artist who stripped his being
of ego — in other words, someone who worked from an awakened state of con-
sciousness now described as the Buddha Mind. Only after that article appeared
did Munakata astutely assert the centrality of this Buddhist notion of selfless-
ness to his artistic practice (Hockley 2004, 81). Using Buddhist metaphors, he
later defined himself as a modern Buddhist artist, writing often about his reli-
gious passion for his woodblocks and his following the “way” of the woodblock
print, as in the following: “The essence of hanga (woodblock print) lies in the
fact that one must give in to the ways of the board. . . . There is a power in the
board, and one cannot force the tool against that power. It is the power which
lies outside the artist, rather than any power within him, that dominates the
creation of hanga.”52
In Kyoto, Munakata spent several weeks attending Kawai’s lectures about
Buddhist philosophy and its icons and soon, with the encouragement of these
mingei-movement mentors, began featuring Buddhist figures in his art. Like
Yanagi, Kawai also admired the sculpture of the Edo-period Buddhist monk
Mokujiki, whose work he collected. The example illustrated in this book comes
from his personal collection (see fig. 6.8). These rough, simple carvings must
have inspired Munakata’s Buddhist imagery, which share an intuitive appeal and
joyous energy. Munakata worked with the frenetic vigor of a sculptor, bypassing
what many artists would consider an essential step in the production process by
drawing and then carving directly into the block without a preparatory sketch
to guide him. He used this method for his early, large, and widely celebrated
series of prints, Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha Shaka and Two Bodhisattva,
in 1939, two panels of which are illustrated in figure 8.9.53 Munakata considered
the woodblock itself so precious that he strove to utilize its entire surface, which
resulted in these large-scale, dramatic figures. He noted later that at the time he
created this series, he “wanted to carve ten of every possible face, every form,
and every person” (Singer and Kakeya 2002, 55), following a tradition established

8.9. Munakata Shikō (1903–1975). Two of Buddha’s disciples, from the set Ten Great Disciples of the
Buddha Shaka and Two Bodhisattvas, 1939. Two-panel screen (from a set of six); woodblock print
in ink on paper. 100.5 × 50.5 cm. Chiba City Museum of Art.
by Edo-period carvers of Rakan who drew inspiration from the ordinary people
in the world around them.
Munakata’s dynamic spirit as well as his working methods and various state-
ments about Buddhism and creativity have led to the perception of him as a
Zen-influenced artist, an impression he cultivated particularly in visits abroad
after World War II.54 Although Munakata’s Buddhist art appears entirely differ-
ent from that of the other Interwar artists introduced here, his also developed
in response to the intellectual climate of that time. All these artists turned to
Buddhist imagery for intensely personal reasons, without regard for the whims
of the art establishment, and developed distinctive styles for Buddhist subjects.
They borrowed freely from Western art and philosophy in order to instill new
life into traditional religious themes, and they completely absorbed themselves
in their work, which itself became their path of self-cultivation.

Complex circumstances coalesced to initiate a profound reconfiguration
of the perception and production of Buddhist imagery at this critical juncture
in the religion’s history in Japan. Over the course of about sixty years in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for the first time Buddhist material
culture became appreciated for reasons other than religious efficacy, and artists
working outside formal institutions began to create secular art inspired by the
faith’s spiritual values. This chapter opened with an assessment of the various
stages in the collecting of Buddhist imagery, for this activity significantly con-
tributed to this transformation. The artists introduced here — sculptors, paint-
ers, and a printmaker — who chose to represent Buddhist icons for various pro-
fessional and personal reasons, reveal a gradual synthesis of Buddhist religious
ideals and aesthetic values. They discovered in Buddhism a source of creativity
and a means to express their individuality, some by looking back to the past and
others to Indian Asia. The following chapters of this book explore the continu-
ance of these artistic directions in the post–World War II period as well as the
assessment of recent art created for Buddhist institutions.

Chapter Nine
Buddhist Sites of Worship, 1945–2005
world war ii dramatically changed the architectural landscape of Japan.

Previously, wooden structures predominated. Afterwards, increasingly strin-
gent fire-prevention codes, better access to foreign building materials, and new
technologies encouraged the construction of buildings — including Buddhist
worship halls traditionally made of timber — of reinforced concrete and other
modern building materials. Japanese architects embraced modernist styles of
architecture — buildings erected using modern materials, stripped of extraneous
ornamentation, and designed for ease of use — as much for technical virtuosity
as for aesthetics and practicality.1 These structures also contributed to projecting
a desired aura of modernity in the appearance of Japan’s built environment.
Earlier in the twentieth century, some temples had utilized these materials,
but the practice remained sporadic. Only after the war, with the expansion of
urban fire-prevention districts in the early 1950s to encompass most temple com-
pounds, did reinforced concrete construction become widespread at temples.2
Yet because Japanese building codes allow officials to defer to local preferences,
temples can still obtain permission to construct wood-framed structures. Never-
theless, most recent temple buildings are composed of modern materials, some-
times mimicking older timber-framed buildings and sometimes creating wholly
new types of religious spaces, light-filled and comfortable, in accordance with
principles of modern design. In premodern Japan, although each Buddhist sect
required slightly different building types, certain consistent stylistic elements
identified all their buildings as Buddhist. Not so for recent Buddhist monuments.
These diverse structures reflect the varied nature of Buddhist practice in Japan
today as well as the competing expressions of modern architectural styles.

Temples Responding to Tradition
By its very nature, most religious practice is conservative, aiming to instill in its
clergy and worshipers respect for established traditions. Perpetuation of familiar
building forms and icons establishes continuity with the past. Yet the appear-
ance of even the most conventional Buddhist temples varies over time — to ac-
commodate new devotional practices and fluctuating numbers of parishioners,
the aesthetic and ideological preferences of temple leaders and financial backers,
the availability of raw materials, and the adoption of new construction technol-
ogy. Adherence to traditional forms prevails most frequently at temples that
possess landmark buildings made of wood, wish to attract conservative-minded
worshipers, or are newly established and whose founders desire association with
orthodox Buddhist institutions.
One of the earliest postwar temple structures based on a traditional form
takes as its model not a traditional architectural prototype, but a Buddhist
statue. It represents, in reinforced concrete, one of the faith’s most familiar
deities, the bodhisattva Kannon, in a popular female incarnation, the White-
Robed Kannon (Byakue Kannon). The statue, with a worship hall within, rises
prominently above a large hill at its namesake temple, Ōfuna Kannonji (fig. 9.1).
Passengers at the nearby Ōfuna train station south of Tokyo can see the statue
even at night, when it is illuminated by floodlights. It was consecrated in 1960
and the temple opened the following year, in affiliation with the adjacent Sōtō
Zen temple Muga Sōzan Mokusenji (founded in 1909).3
The Ōfuna Kannon is the most famous and one of the earliest of many post-
war Daibutsu, monumental-sized statues of Buddhist deities, usually Kannon
or Amida, made out of reinforced concrete instead of the traditional wood or
bronze. Many of these statues house interior multilevel worship halls and ob-
servation platforms. They serve to spread the compassion and protection of
Buddhist deities to those who gaze upon the images and/or to attract tour-
ists. Although all existing concrete Buddhist statue-buildings in Japan postdate
World War II, their origin actually dates to the early twentieth century.
Takamura Kōun is credited with stimulating the boom in modern statue-
buildings, although his design was but a temporary structure for amusement,
conceived after he saw an empty spot of land in central Tokyo that he thought
appropriate for such a venture. His inspiration probably stemmed from several
sources: the popular Ueno Daibutsu in Tokyo’s Ueno Park, which he saw as a
child; his knowledge of large, temporary models constructed in the Edo and early
Meiji periods as misemono (spectacle attractions) at festivals; and the Statue of
Liberty, which France sent to America in 1886.4 He built the framework out of
bamboo and paper and, with the help and funding of friends, covered it with
thatch and plaster and painted it to resemble bronze. His statue, in the form of
Buddhist Sites of Worship | 227

9.1. White-Robed Kannon
(popularly known as the
Ōfuna Kannon), at Muga
Sozan Ōfuna Kannonji,
Ōfuna, Kanagawa Pre
fecture, 1961. Reinforced
concrete. Height: 25.4 m;
width: 18.6 m; weight: 1,915
tons. Photograph by author.
the bodhisattva Kannon, was reputed to be over 14 meters tall, large enough to
have four interior floors and statuary inside (Hashizume 1998, 25–29).
Shortly afterwards, in 1915, another plaster Buddha building was created for
the San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915 (as men-
tioned previously, it was a replica of the Nōfuku Daibutsu in Kobe). This build-
ing functioned as a showplace for Japanese products displayed at the fair.5 It too
was intended only for temporary use, but this and Takamura Kōun’s structure
inspired the creation soon after of permanent Buddha buildings made of con-
crete. Little scholarly research has been conducted on them, however, largely
because they and most records about them no longer survive. Their appearance
then coincided with the first widespread use of concrete as a building material
in Japan. One intrepid Japanese fan has recently investigated them, however,
and concluded that the earliest concrete Buddhist statue may be a 6-meter-tall
statue of Amida, the Yobiko Daibutsu, erected in Karatsu City, Saga Prefecture
(northern Kyushu Island) in 1922.6 This statue had no usable interior, however.

This fan states that the earliest statue-building with interior floors may be the
Jurakuen Daibutsu (Splendid Garden Great Buddha), erected in the town of
Tōkai, south of Nagoya, by a commercial building developer who was said to
have created it ostensibly to commemorate the wedding of the emperor, but
actually to make an eye-catching tourist attraction for his city. Like the Kobe
Daibutsu at Nōfukuji (see fig. 7.9), it also had an electric light in its forehead.
Visitors could enter its body from the back and circumambulate the interior on
a simulated pilgrimage journey, just as they did inside sazaedō spiral halls (see
fig. 2.16) popular in the late Edo period. Construction of the Jurakuen Daibutsu
began in 1924, and the statue was consecrated in 1927. Because of flaws in the
early concrete manufacturing process, it deteriorated over the decades and was
heavily restored in 1985, when its surface was painted to simulate bronze. It
stands at a height of 18.8 meters.7
An originally more famous statue of this type, now largely forgotten because
it no longer survives, is the Beppu Daibutsu, located in the hot-springs resort
town of Beppu in northern Kyushu, near Usuki City, where a rare and famous
group of twelfth-century stone Buddhist images carved into the walls of caves
is located. It was created in 1928 to serve as both a tourist attraction at a large
national and international exposition in Beppu as well as a monument to faith.
It stood 24 meters high. A wealthy local resident, Okamoto Eizaburō, was said to
have paid for the entire project at the behest of his mother, who thought him too
selfish and encouraged him to devote his life to Buddhism. He followed her ad-
vice and became a Jōdo-sect priest, visiting the Jōdo-sect headquarters in Kyoto
at the time he formally joined the priesthood. While there, he traveled to the
nearby temple of Isshinji in Osaka and, after seeing that temple’s famous statues
made of cremated remains (okotsu butsu; see fig. 7.7), decided to create some-
thing similar in his hometown. The concrete statue he made incorporated the
ashes and hair of many thousands of deceased persons. Unfortunately, because
it sat out in the open, it deteriorated badly and had to be dismantled around
1965. While it stood, it was a famous site in Kyushu that even the U.S. Army
encouraged its occupation forces to visit.8 Like sazaedō, it also had a spiral stair-
way inside that led to its head. Three interior floors contained an astonishing
assemblage of popular Buddhist images, including the bodhisattva Jizō; Enma,
the king of hell; a mini-pilgrimage around the thirty-three Saikoku Kannon
and eighty-eight Shikoku circuits, both on the second floor; and six gates on the
third level with various buddhas and other deities beyond them. There was even
an exterior doorway on the second level leading to an outdoor viewing deck.
The initial backers of the Ōfuna Kannon began planning their statue in 1929,
shortly after completion of these other concrete Buddha statue-buildings, al-
though theirs was not finished until 1960. While its form generally resembles
the other two, the motivation of its creators was not commercial or personal.

Rather, it was more broadly altruistic, with the statue intended to serve as a
symbol of eternal peace in an era of increasing militarism. To achieve that aim
a small group of influential individuals of different political persuasions, all
of whom believed in Buddhism as a universal and transnational faith, came
together to form an association to venerate Kannon, with the Ōfuna Kannon
statue as a focal point.9 They wanted their statue to usurp the popularity of its
more famous neighbor, the Great Buddha of Kamakura. When finally com-
pleted in 1960, it stood 25.4 meters high, easily dwarfing the 11.47-meter-high
Kamakura Buddha.
The sculptor, Yamazaki Chōun (1867–1954), a disciple of Takamura Kōun, ini-
tially designed the statue.10 By 1934, the armature of reinforcing steel was com-
pleted, but the project was abandoned because of the impending war. In 1954,
construction resumed under the direction of a new lay association whose mem-
bers again included prominent politicians, architects, and civic and business
leaders. Among these were architects Yoshida Isoya (1894–1974) and Sakakura
Junzō (1901–1969); journalist and later minister of state Andō Masazumi (1876–
1955); and railway industrialist and art collector Gotō Keita (1882–1959). Yama-
moto Toyoichi (1899–1987), a sculpture professor at the Tokyo University of Fine
Arts and Music, known for his pioneering adaptations of traditional Japanese
dry-lacquer sculptural techniques, oversaw the construction.
The postwar statue and its temple were also created to promote peace as
well as to honor the victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Naga-
saki. This sculpture is but one of many monuments and temples dedicated to
the promotion of world peace after World War II, conceived in reaction to the
bombings. The idea of Japan as a pacifist nation has become a central concept
of Japanese civic discourse in the postwar era, embraced by a broad spectrum
of religious and lay organizations and individuals.11
From a distance, the Ōfuna Kannon rises majestically over the landscape;
upon close inspection, viewers see that it possesses no body below its chest,
which emerges simultaneously massive and ghostlike from its stone foundation.
Visitors offer prayers before it and also can circumambulate its perimeter, stop-
ping at its rear to enter its worship hall. A controversial image from its creation,
some visitors see in its face the beatific countenance of Kannon, while others
decry it as a monstrosity.
Far south of Ōfuna, in the town of Setoda-chō on the small Hiroshima Pre-
fecture island of Ikuchijima in the Inland Sea, is Kōsanji, at once one of the
most beguiling and derided of recently established temples. It is most famous
for twenty buildings, built over a thirty-year span beginning in 1936, inspired by
famous old temples and shrines throughout Japan. Its compound also contains
a number of other structures including a 15-meter-tall iron and mortar replica
of the famous Yumedono Kannon statue of Hōryūj and an underground passage

through the Buddhist hells and paradise. These features exemplify the types
of attractions modern temples create to attract tourists, a practice that had its
roots in misemono spectacles at Edo-period temples. In 2000 a new section
opened, designed by Kuetani Kazutō, a contemporary sculptor (discussed later
in this chapter).
The temple’s founder and first priest was a successful industrialist, Kōsanji
Kōsō Wajo (1891–1970). His father had owned a small steel-manufacturing plant,
and Kōsō took it over at age sixteen, when his father died. Soon after that he
witnessed a demonstration of new steel-welding techniques by French engi-
neers and subsequently traveled to France to study the technology further. Upon
his return, he founded his own company to manufacture steel pipe, much in
demand for the construction of the many Western-style buildings then being
erected. Because his business was the only one of its kind in Japan, his company
prospered. In addition to founding the temple, he amassed a superlative collec-
tion of art now housed in a private museum adjacent to the temple.12
Shortly after his mother’s death in 1934, Kōsō became a Jōdo Shin-sect (Hon-
ganji school) priest to pray for her salvation. A dream soon after inspired him to
construct a mortuary temple to her because he felt he owed his success to her
support. He also intended the temple to serve as homage to the spirit of moth-
ers everywhere, since no other temple in all of Japan had been founded for this
purpose (Setoda-chō Kyōikuiinkai 2001, 3). He chose Setoda-chō for the temple’s
site because it was his mother’s birthplace. Kōsō devised his unusual plan for
the temple because of his great love for ancient Japanese religious architecture.
Although he oversaw the temple’s design, from the beginning his project had
wide community support.13
When Kōsanji was formally dedicated in 1948 upon completion of its Main
(Amida) Hall, it became the western Japan regional headquarters of the Shin-
sect Honganji school. The following year, even before all its main buildings were
finished, it was designated one of the one hundred best scenic and religious
sites of western Japan. In recent years, despite its fairly remote location, it has
remained a popular tourist attraction, with some three hundred thousand visi-
tors annually, about 20–30 percent of whom come to offer prayers as devout
Buddhists.14 The temple also has detractors who revile its architecture as os-
tentatious, derivative, and kitsch, in part due to misunderstanding the founder’s
intentions.15 Reverend Kōsō did not simply copy famous old buildings; rather,
he ordered modifications of original plans and architectural ornamentation to
suit his tastes and his temple’s needs. The temple looks nothing like a traditional
Shin-sect complex. Its distinct architecture includes buildings based on famous
structures at Buddhist temples of diverse sects and Shinto shrines. It also in-
corporates Buddhist imagery not usually associated with the Shin sect, namely
wooden relief and stone carvings of the Rakan and statues representing esoteric

9.2. Filial Piety Gate (Kōyōmon), Kōsanji, Setoda-chō, Ikuchi Island, Hiroshima Prefecture, 1960.
forms of the bodhisattva Kannon. These features reveal the syncretic nature of
religious devotion at the site, a common occurrence in modern Japanese temples
and an inheritance of Edo-period attitudes.
Kōsō engaged the finest traditionally trained architects and artists to design
his buildings and create their sculpted and painted ornamentation. The temple’s
Filial Piety Gate (Kōyōmon) (fig. 9.2), designed from a set of blueprints Kōsō ob-
tained of the famed Yōmeimon gate at the Tōshōgū shrine in Nikkō, is the tem-
ple’s most famous structure and accounts for its nickname, “the Nikkō of west-

ern Japan.” Construction began in 1954 and lasted until 1964. The four niches
in the front and back flanking the central entrance contain life-sized sculptures
of various forms of the bodhisattva Kannon by Miki Sōsaku (1891–1945), a re-
nowned wood sculptor who carved statues of the seven esoteric forms of the
bodhisattva Kannon for eventual placement in various buildings at Kōsanji be-
tween 1938 and 1941.
Sōsaku had trained with Yamamoto Zuiun, a Tokyo-based artist who special-
ized in Buddhist subjects and who had studied under Takamura Kōun (Kawakita
1989, 333). Kōun instructed his pupil Zuiun to emphasize dynamic and precise
carving of the figure’s body, like those found on old Kamakura sculptures. Zuiun
transmitted this directive to Sōsaku, whose mature sculptural style carries on
his master’s tradition, as seen in the statue of the mother goddess Juntei Kannon,
which sits in a niche in the front of the Filial Piety Gate (plate 26). Curiously,
though, Kōsanji apparently deemed the sculptures too austere and, after they
were completed, had a craftsman augment them with meticulous patterns in
bright colors.16
In contrast to the creative interpretation of past architectural styles at Kōsanji,
Yakushiji, one of Japan’s oldest temples, has attempted a much more literal re-
creation of old buildings in the recent restoration of its compound. Yakushiji
heads one of the two branches of the Hossō sect, one of Japan’s first Buddhist
sects. Emperor Tenmu (673–686) began planning the temple in 680, although
it did not open until 697. As an important religious center, in 718 it was re-
located to its current site after the new capital city of Nara was founded. A
pair of double-roofed, three-tier pagodas, a Golden (Main) Hall and a Lecture
Hall surrounded by a cloister stood within its core compound. Its Golden Hall
houses an early eighth-century National Treasure, a bronze triad of the buddha
Yakushi and his attendant bodhisattvas (Mason 2005, pl. 103). The Lecture Hall
also enshrines an eighth-century bronze Yakushi triad, designated an Important
Cultural Property.
After the founding of the new capital city of Kyoto in 794, more recently
introduced Buddhist sects gradually usurped Yakushiji’s importance, resulting
in its subsequent impoverishment and a diminished number of adherents. In-
evitably, fires and wars ravaged the compound so that by 1528 only the origi-
nal East Pagoda survived. The temple managed to erect a modest, single-story
Golden Hall in 1600 and a Lecture Hall, also much reduced in scale, in 1852.
The compound’s physical appearance remained derelict into the 1960s, when
trees sprouted within the central courtyard and woods and fields replaced lost
adjacent subsidiary buildings.17
Perhaps as part of Japan’s efforts to bolster its image in the world in prepara-
tion for a large international exposition in Osaka in 1970, the head priest during
the 1960s sought to improve Yakushiji’s appearance. Capitalizing on a resurgence

of interest in Buddhism, he initially funded the reconstruction through encour-
aging public participation in the meritorious act of sutra copying in exchange for
a monetary donation.18 This tactic proved a resounding success and encouraged
many other temples to adopt a similar fund-raising plan. Consequently, sutra
copying has now become extremely popular among diverse individuals and not
just among the elderly, as was traditionally the case. Even fashionable young
women find it induces a relaxing, refreshing state of mind, a respite from their
fast-paced lives.
Unlike Kōsanji, which incorporated diverse temple building styles from dif-
ferent eras into its overall plan, Yakushiji sought to recreate the “original state”
( fukugen) of its main compound at the time of its heyday.19 This type of resto-
ration is typically found at old temple complexes like Yakushiji, which seek to
capitalize on their venerable history. The grand scale of Yakushiji’s privately
funded project exceeds most others being attempted, reflecting the unprece-
dented success of its leaders. The project continues in stages and will take many
years to complete.
In some ways the practice is controversial, for it obliterates the subsequent
history of the material culture of temples at which later buildings replaced lost
ones, or where original buildings have been transformed over time by additions
and alterations. Restoration to an “original state” is well accepted in the case of
historic buildings destroyed recently, such as the circa 800 pagoda at Murōji
in the mountains outside Nara, severely damaged in a typhoon in 1998 (Fowler
2005, chap. 3), or those lost earlier and simply not rebuilt. But some restorations
remove later additions to buildings or, as at Yakushiji, dismantle and remove
extant Edo-period structures to make way for their newly constructed replace-
ments. Because the old Golden Hall remained in good physical condition, it was
saved and reconstructed nearby at another Hossō temple, Kōfukuji, which had
lost many of its structures over the centuries. But Kōfukuji is now beginning to
reconstruct its main compound, so the fate of Yakushiji’s relocated hall remains
uncertain (Enders and Gutschow 1998, 47, pl. 52).
Another contentious issue with this type of reconstruction is the difficulty of
discerning the “original state” when neither the original structure nor detailed
building plans of it exist. This happened with Yakushiji, where restorers had
to rely on archaeological evidence (sometimes inconclusive) and on adapting
building techniques and design features from the few other extant buildings of
the period (Enders and Gutschow 1998, 49).
Yakushiji first restored its Golden Hall, starting construction in 1970 and com-
pleting it in 1976 under the direction of architectural historians Ōta Hirotarō (b.
1912), Asano Kiyoshi (1905–1991), master carpenter Nishioka Tsunekazu (1908–
1995), and architect Ōka Minoru (b. 1900).20 All four had worked together since
the 1930s, most notably on restoration at Hōryūji. Asano is generally credited

with advancing the field of restoration in the 1930s and 1940s by emphasizing
intensive scrutiny of ancient temple buildings at the time of their restoration.
This resulted in rediscovery of forgotten carpentry techniques and structural
systems (Larsen 1994, 106–107). Master carpenter Nishioka became an expert at
these ancient working methods, but he had to modify them slightly to accom-
modate the physical properties of the type of wood he was forced to use, Tai-
wanese cypress (used previously in the reconstruction of Tōfukuji’s Main Hall
in 1934; see fig. 7.3), because of the scarcity of native timber. Also, because the
building was intended as a repository for statues designated National Treasures,
laws for the preservation of cultural properties require that these be housed in
a fireproof structure, so the new Golden Hall incorporated a hidden, reinforced
concrete core and an emergency sprinkler system. After finishing the Golden
Hall, the team recreated the lost West Pagoda between 1977 and 1981, based on
close study of its mate.21
The most recently completed building at Yakushiji is its Great Lecture Hall
(Dai Kōdō) (plate 27). Master carpenter Uehara Masanori, a disciple of Nishioka,
headed the construction team. The new building, consecrated in 2003, is much
larger than the Golden Hall, as it was originally. Because it also houses pro-
tected cultural properties, it too possesses a fireproof core. The reconstructed
Great Lecture Hall plan was well received publicly, attracting huge donations
of devotional objects and art from both amateur devotees and celebrated art-
ists (further discussed in chap. 10).22 The building’s interior wall paintings, de-
picting the Amida Buddha’s Pure Land paradise, were also commissioned for
the new building by contemporary artists who adapted their design from older
works. Plate 27 shows the building on 22 May 2006, during a ground-breaking
ceremony for the erection of roofed corridors on either side of the structure
(construction scaffolding is hidden from view within temporary enclosures at
the sides of the building). These, slated for completion in 2008, will eventually
connect with the cloisters, completed earlier, that surround the front and sides
of the temple’s main compound.
Around the same time that Yakushiji’s abbot was contemplating plans to re-
vive his temple in the 1960s, Naritasan was also embarking on a grand restora-
tion project. But unlike Yakushiji, which over time had become a small, secluded
temple, widespread popular patronage of Naritasan Shinjōji has continued in an
unbroken progression from the Edo period to the present. By the 1990s it had
evolved into a sprawling, affluent religious complex, one of Japan’s most visited
religious sites during the New Year’s season and the most popular temple for
visitors offering prayers for traffic safety (Reader and Tanabe 1998, 42). Recently,
temple officials have also promoted Naritasan Shinjōji as a locus for prayers for
the more universal goal of world peace. Like Yakushiji, expansion is ongoing. As
of this writing in July 2006, a new, massive gate complex is being constructed in

9.3. Yoshida Isoya (1894–1974). Main Hall (Hondō), Naritasan Shinshōji, Narita, Chiba Prefecture,
1968. Photograph by author.
front of the existing gate from 1830 and will open to coincide with the temple’s
1,070th anniversary in 2008.
The two most important building projects completed in recent decades at
Naritasan Shinjōji are the temple’s new Main Hall and its Great Pagoda of Peace.
Like Kōsanji and Yakushiji, these new buildings resemble ancient forms, but
here they more overtly fuse tradition with modernity. Also unlike Yakushiji,
which resolved to recreate the image of the temple at its inception, Naritasan
Shinjōji both embraces its past and looks to the future — not only through its
decidedly modern-looking new buildings, but also by reuse of its earlier, still
extant Edo-period Main Halls elsewhere in its precincts.
Architect Yoshida Isoya (a sponsor of the Ōfuna Kannon), most famous for his
modern interpretations of traditional Japanese-style secular buildings, designed
the new Main Hall, which opened in 1968 (fig. 9.3).23 This building marked a new
direction in his work, away from his forte in secular architecture to the design
of Buddhist halls. For many years previously, his secular buildings had attracted
both supporters and detractors. Modernist architects thought his designs too
deferential to tradition, and both they and proponents of traditional architec-
ture disliked what they considered “sham construction,” which used modern
structural systems with traditional Japanese-style elements only as textures and
finishes. But as concrete construction gained a foothold in the Japanese con-

struction industry, by the late 1960s, when Yoshida designed the Naritasan Main
Hall, his approach to integrating tradition with modernity had become more
highly regarded (Japan Architect 1969, 111–112).
Yoshida recognized that up to the 1960s, new Buddhist architecture had taken
two directions. Buildings either resembled meeting halls or copied, as authenti-
cally as possible, classic temple forms, sometimes replicating old bracketing sys-
tems in concrete and steel. His goal at Naritasan Shinjōji was to modernize tra-
ditional-style temple architecture but retain the spirit of tradition. He achieved
this by eliminating familiar elements such as elaborate bracketing, double rafters,
and posts (Yoshida 1969, 109). As with his secular buildings, the Main Hall for
Naritasan Shinjōji, far larger than any past worship halls, nevertheless success-
fully retains continuity with the past in its proportions and overall shape, while
simultaneously creating a modern feel in the hushed, light-filled, and spacious
interior. Yoshida attempted a similar effect in another temple project for Chūguji
nunnery in Nara, also completed in 1968 (Japan Architect 1969, 97–102).
The second enormous modern structure at Naritasan Shinjōji is its tahōtō-
style Great Pagoda of Peace (Daitō), completed in 1984 (fig. 9.4). It was designed
by the Kyoto Traditional Architecture Techniques Association (Kyōto Dentō
Kenchiku Gijutsu Kyōkai), a firm specializing in modern, traditional-style build-
ings. The building rises five stories to a height of 58 meters. Its basement serves
as a museum for the display of votive tablets by famous and anonymous artists
from the Edo period to the present and other objects donated by worshipers.
Underground is a time capsule filled with wishes for world peace donated by
various world leaders. The first floor is the building’s public worship hall, fea-
turing enormous statues of the five Myōō. These images, as well as the temple’s
brightly colored Buddhist wall paintings, were created by Matsuhisa Sōrin (dis-
cussed in chap. 10), of the Matsuhisa bussho, the foremost Buddhist image-mak-
ing atelier in Japan. The two floors above contain one of two known copies of the
complete Tibetan tripitaka donated by the fourteenth Dalai Lama, offerings of
tiny statues and sutras made by devotees, and plaques recognizing the building’s
donors. The top-floor Diamond Hall (Kongōden) enshrines the Five Wisdom
Buddhas (Gochi Nyorai) sacred to Shingon. Mandala paintings grace the wall
and stained glass on the ceiling infuses the chamber with colored light, evoking
the resplendence of paradise.24
The imposing scale and interior spaces of this pagoda, filled with dazzling
images, typify the approach temples take when they seek to update traditional
Buddhist architecture. Since the 1990s, though, many temples and the younger
generation of architects who design their buildings have abandoned tradition
and instead look to the tenets of contemporary architecture to forge new types
of sacred spaces for the practice of Buddhism.

Temple Halls in Modern Forms
Japanese architects born immediately before or shortly after World War II

and who began designing buildings in the 1960s and 1970s have been heralded
worldwide for their groundbreaking designs. Renowned modernist architect
Maki Fumihiko (b. 1928) has described this group as “Stray Berserkers,” akin to
unruly, masterless samurai (rōnin). Maki is said to have conceived the term to
distinguish himself and his contemporaries, born before the war into privileged
backgrounds, from the next generation of practitioners, whose more diverse
upbringings encouraged them to develop iconoclastic attitudes towards design
(Knabe and Noennig 1999, 127–128). Buddhist temple halls by these younger
postwar architects reflect their interest in inventing new building types for
modern-day worshipers.
Takaguchi Yoshiyuki (b. 1940 in Kyoto) approaches Buddhist architectural
design from the unique perspective of an ordained Buddhist cleric. From 1972
to 2005 he served as head priest at the Jōdo-sect temple of Isshinji in Osaka,
famous for its okotsu butsu statues (see fig. 7.7). The temple is now headed by his
son. Between 1977 and 2003 he designed a series of distinctive modern struc-
tures for his temple and commissioned contemporary artists, not professional
Buddhist painters and sculptors, to design imagery for them. Reverend Takagu-
chi continues to reside at Isshinji and oversees its social-service programs and
building addition plans. His involvement with the temple began in the 1960s,
when he married the daughter of the head priest and became his disciple. Con-
currently, he studied architecture at Kyoto University, then moved to Canada
to work briefly for the celebrated Israeli-born architect Moshe Safdie (b. 1938)
before returning to Japan to teach and practice architecture. When his father-
in-law died suddenly, the Jōdo-sect hierarchy chose him as successor. He has
nevertheless continued to practice architecture, designing both religious build-
ings and residential housing.25
All the temple’s buildings were destroyed during World War II. At first, money
for reconstruction came from donors and bank loans, which the temple repaid
by 1980. As donations continued during the economic boom of the 1980s, Is-
shinji deposited these funds in high-interest bank accounts. After the economic
downturn in the early 1990s, the temple used its cash to purchase nearby land
inexpensively and expand. It first rebuilt the most important structure, the hall
for housing the okotsu butsu (Nōkotsudō), in 1957 in the form of a traditional
Buddhist memorial hall. The Main Hall was rebuilt next, in 1966, again follow-
ing a traditional design. Takaguchi and his firm, Zōka Associates (Zōka Ken-
chiku Kenkyūsho), have designed all subsequent buildings in the compound,
seeking to serve the needs of ever increasing numbers of visitors, which, by the
late 1990s, sometimes reached twenty thousand persons in a single day.

9.4. Kyoto Traditional Architecture Techniques Association (Kyōto Dentō Kenchiku Gijutsu
Kyōkai). Great Pagoda of Peace (Daitō), Naritasan Shinshōji, 1984. Photograph by author.
Reverend Takaguchi situated the buildings in the temple compound to ac-

commodate the large numbers of visitors who come to offer prayers to the okotsu
butsu statues. Therefore, he placed greater emphasis on the exterior courtyard
spaces than the buildings themselves and accentuated the connecting spaces
between the structures. Temple courtyards as the focal point of worship first
became significant during the Edo period. Because so many people pay respects
and leave offerings at the okotsu butsu, Takaguchi has plans to increase the size
of the offering area in front of the okotsu butsu hall and has recently enlarged
the courtyard immediately in front of it.
The first building Takaguchi completed in 1977 was the large Guest Center
(Nissōden) for welcoming visitors and housing the temple’s offices. It is a bright
and airy reinforced-concrete structure with a tile roof that appears to float ma-
jestically above. In 1992, a spire-topped octagonal structure of reinforced con-
crete and glass blocks opened as a reception building (Nenbutsudō) for devotees
wishing to donate cremated remains. Visitors encounter this building just after

9.5. Takaguchi Yoshiyuki (b. 1940) and Zōka Kenchiku Kenkyūsho. Main Gate at Isshinji, Osaka,
1997. Photograph courtesy of Takaguchi Yoshiyuki.
passing through the Main Gate (fig. 9.5). The new Main Gate, composed not of
wood but of steel, reinforced concrete, glass blocks, and glass, followed in 1997.
Takaguchi based his design for it on ancient Indian descriptions of the cosmos
in which trees (the gate’s metal framework) hang down from heaven to form a
net adorned with bells that marks the entrance to Amida Buddha’s Pure Land.
He incorporated into the gate a waiting room and underground section with
modern toilet facilities.
Takaguchi engaged prominent artists for this project. Akino Fuku (1908–
2001), a highly respected woman Nihonga painter, designed relief sculpture
of celestial maidens for either side of the gate’s entryway.26 The imposing gate
guardians, usually made of wood (see fig. 7.6), are here rendered in bronze by
Kanbe Mineo (b. 1944), a well-known sculptor who specializes in Western-style
figural sculpture. Kanbe’s forms comply with Takaguchi’s directive for the stat-
ues to resemble real people so visitors can relate to them easily. Takaguchi con-
sidered every detail, including their clothing, age, and poses, and decided that
as universal symbols of strength the figures should be virtually naked, with only
a loincloth covering their genitals, and that they should represent the strength
of men at different ages. The physique of the guardian on the right in figure 9.5

distinguishes him as the younger of the two. Takaguchi also wanted them to
stand as if about to engage a foe and to wield invisible blades, like light sabers
wielded by the characters in Star Wars movies, instead of hoisting the tradi-
tional diamond-headed blades, which viewers would think old-fashioned. Kanbe
completed the statues in 1997 after two years of work. Takaguchi admits that
at first public reception of this unusual gate was mixed, but people seem to
be growing accustomed to it. Takaguchi’s novel inclusion of modern, Western-
style sculpture within a formal temple setting derives from his belief that such
images educate visitors about Western influence in early Indian Buddhist art,
connected to Japan via the Silk Route.
In his temple’s newest building, the Three Thousand Buddha Hall (Sanzen
Butsudō), completed in 2002, Takaguchi again included modern elements in
both the design of the building’s form and its decoration. The name for the
building comes from niches filled with statues of buddhas that circle the interior
perimeter of the central worship hall. At present, many of the niches contain
only lotus-petal thrones, awaiting donors for the images. This unconventional
structure, used for traditional Buddhist services, meetings, and weddings, also
includes, on its basement level, a state-of-the-art public theater space for the
staging of experimental productions by a neighborhood theater troupe.
The heart of the building, though, remains its worship hall, which Takaguchi
designed to resemble a Christian church whose space visitors could enter with-
out removing their shoes (plate 28). It has pews instead of floor-level cushions
for worshipers because Takaguchi wanted to make the sanctuary comfortable
for those who could not or who felt uncomfortable sitting on the floor. It does
feature traditional Buddhist imagery, though in an unusual configuration and
modernized form. He commissioned a Kyoto busshi to carve a gold-leaf-covered
relief sculpture of the Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha Shaka (Shaka Jūdai
Deshi), a traditional theme done in a modern style, for the middle of the altar
directly below a huge mural, the focal point of the interior decoration, on the
back wall. Shaka in his most ancient Indian aniconic form is represented in this
relief as the leaves of the bodhi tree under which he sat when meditating prior
to his enlightenment. In front of the relief is a lotus throne with a stele upon
it, representing and pointing up to the buddha Amida, the central figure in
the mural above. This mural, a traditional subject (Yamagoshi Amida), features
Amida and his attendant bodhisattvas, Kannon and Seishi, appearing above the
mountains to welcome dying believers. Here, these deities appear not over the
low, rounded hills of Japan as would be the norm (see plate 16, by Reizei Tame-
chika), but towering over the Himalayan peaks. The painter Takaguchi engaged
to create this, the largest tempera-painted mural in the world, is Ri Shaogan (Ch.
Li Xiaogan; b. 1958 in Beijing), a Western-style painting professor at the Kyoto
University of Art and Design.

A number of other architects of Takaguchi’s generation have also occasion-
ally designed nonconformist buildings for Buddhist temples.27 One of the most
articulate, prolific, and visionary of these is the Kyoto-based Takamatsu Shin
(b. 1948). Takamatsu also studied architecture at Kyoto University, where he
later became professor. In the 1980s he gained fame for a series of sleek, dra-
matic buildings with the character of colossal, sometimes menacing machinery,
epitomized by the iconic 1987 Kirin Plaza tower in downtown Osaka. He has
described himself as “an old style architect who is always dreaming of archi-
tecture as a monument or as something with a symbolic presence. A piece of
architecture to me stops simply being a building and becomes a monument
when it converses with its surroundings and takes on the guise of a living thing,
breathing and functioning as a vital part of a city.”28
Two totally dissimilar temple structures, both completed in 1998, which
Takamatsu designed for two different Buddhist organizations, embody his tal-
ent for taking his design cues from the buildings’ surroundings, in one case a
traditional temple compound and in the other a sacred mountain. The former
is a vast underground structure at Higashi Honganji in Kyoto, the Shin-sect
Original Temple Visitor Learning Hall (Shinshū Honbyō Shichōkaku Hōru).29
The new building commemorates the 500th anniversary of the death of Rennyō
(1415–1499), the influential eighth abbot of Honganji who revitalized and ex-
panded the sect. Entrance to the building is to the right of the temple’s 1895
Main Hall (see fig. 7.1), through a visitors’ reception building dating to 1934.
Takamatsu carefully conceived his design to respect the ambiance of the temple
compound, dominated by old, wood-frame structures.30 At ground level, all that
appears is the central skylight of the new building’s roof: a flat, circular, glass
and concrete form with a concave side, in the middle of a raked gravel courtyard
(fig. 9.6). Inside, Takamatsu’s building is a three-story wholly modern, light-filled
structure that houses a gallery, a room in which sacred Buddhist icons are en-
shrined in an altar, and, directly below the courtyard skylight, a spacious central
meeting hall with tiered, plush auditorium seating and state-of-the-art sound
and audio systems.
Takamatsu took a diametrically opposite approach from the underground
building at Higashi Honganji in his Star Peak (Seirei) Hall, which soars above
the nondescript tile-roofed wood buildings of its adjacent Myōkendō temple
at Mount Myōken (Myōkenzan) (fig. 9.7). The temple sits at the summit of this
small, remote mountain in northern Osaka Prefecture near the town of Nōse.31
Mount Myōken has long been considered a place sacred to Shinto. Since the
late sixteenth century it was thought to be the earthly abode of the Pole Star
bodhisattva Myōken as well, considered a Buddhist manifestation of the Shinto
deity of the mountain. Myōken is venerated most intently by the Nichiren sect,
which then established a temple there. This ultra-nationalistic sect admired

9.6. Takamatsu Shin (b. 1948). View of the glass roof of the Shin Sect Original Temple Visitor
Learning Hall (Shinshū Honbyō Shichōkaku Hōru) at Higashi Honganji, Kyoto, 1998. Photograph
by author.
Myōken because of his alleged ability to protect the nation from disasters. He is
also thought to posses powers to increase longevity and cure eye diseases (Daitō
Shuppansha 1991, 231). Because he confers these more practical benefits, the site
became a local pilgrimage destination. Today, although the mountain temple
remains isolated (accessible by cable car and ropeway), it attracts large numbers
of devout worshipers, also admirers of its surrounding scenery.
Takamatsu used steel and wood for the “double-skin” support structure,
whose complex shape he modeled on that of a star, after the temple’s name-
sake bodhisattva. But the actual design he borrowed from the appearance of an
arrow’s nock (the piece of metal or plastic at an arrow’s end that supports the
bowstring) (Aisu Rabo 1998, 7). The temple’s abbot, however, conceived the tow-
ering form of the structure based on a passage from chapter 16 of the Nichiren
sect’s most revered text, the Lotus Sutra, that describes a Treasure Pagoda in
which the buddhas Shaka and Tahō (the Buddha of Many Treasures; Skt. Prab-
hutaratna) sat while Shaka preached to devotees. During his sermon, the pagoda
rose to heaven and lifted with it all in attendance.
Takamatsu covered the building with a wooden membrane of cedar logs har-
vested from the sacred mountain itself, respecting the long-standing esteem for
wood in Japanese culture and the belief that “wood should be used in the place
where it is cut.”32 The building serves as a venue for both religious and cultural
activities. An information center, gallery, and resting areas fill the lowest of three
floors. The middle level, with vast glass walls, is a natural observation deck also
used as a performance stage. The uppermost level houses a sacred space, a rep-
resentation of the Buddhist paradise, illuminated by light entering via tall, clear
windows and a transparent glass floor, a feature intended to suggest the pathway

9.7. Takamatsu Shin
(b. 1948). Star Peak
(Seirei) Hall at Mount
Myōken (Myōkenzan),
Hyogo Prefecture, 1998.
to this realm. Floating above are large, brightly colored statues of Jōgyō (Skt.
Viśistacāritra) bodhisattvas, representative of the myriad bodhisattvas whom,
as described in the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha directed to spread his teachings on
earth after his death. They were created by professional secular artists rather
than Buddhist sculptors. Their presence reinforces the perception of this space
as a liminal boundary between the earth below and heaven above.
Another, slightly younger architect whose Buddhist buildings project a dis-
tinct vision of modern Buddhist spirituality is Yamaguchi Takashi (b. 1953). He,
too, studied architecture at Kyoto University. Afterwards, he worked in the ar-
chitecture office of Andō Tadao (b. 1941), the Pritzker Prize–winning master of
minimalism whose values Yamaguchi obviously shares. Yamaguchi’s debut proj-
ect, a gleaming white stone-and-glass underground guesthouse known as Glass
Temple, for the seventeenth-century Kyoto Zen temple of Rengeikōji, opened in
1998.33 His White Temple of 2000, a hall for offering prayers to deceased ances-
tors (ihaidō) for the secluded and very private temple of Zuisenji in Sonobe-chō,
Kyoto Prefecture, further explores his awe-inspiring interpretation of the sacred
(plate 29).34

Plate 18. Tenjin Hoshin’nō
(1664–1690). Thousand-
Armed Kannon (Senju Kan-
zeon Bosatsu), 1689. Hanging
scroll; ink, colors, gold pig-
ment, and gold leaf on silk,
96 × 43 cm. Rinnōji, Nikko.
Plate 19. (Above) Empress Tōfukumon’in (1607–
1678). Fish Basket [Merōfu] Kannon Bodhisattva.
Fabric-wrapped paper collage (oshie) installed in a
gilt-wood lacquer shrine. Image height: 49.5 cm; ex-
terior shrine height: 20.1 cm. Eigenji, Shiga Prefec-
ture. Photograph courtesy of the Rittō City History
Museum, Shiga Prefecture.
Plate 20. (Right) Katō Nobukiyo (1734–1810).

Ten Rakan Examining a Painting of White-Robed
Kannon, one scroll from a set of fifty paintings por-
traying the Five Hundred Rakan, the buddha Shaka,
and his attendant bodhisattvas Fugen and Monju,
set completed between 1788 and 1792. Hanging
scroll; ink, color, and gold on paper, 130.3 × 57.7 cm.
Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation.
Photograph: Carl Nardiello.
Plate 21. Itō Jakuchū
(1716–1800). Fish in a
Lotus Pond, from the
series Colorful Realm of
Living Beings (Dōshoku
saie), set completed be-
tween ca. 1757 and 1770.
One of a set of thirty
hanging scrolls; ink on
paper, 142.3 × 79.6 cm.
Sannomaru, Shozōkan
Museum, Imperial
Household Agency.
Plate 22. Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831–1889). A Paradise-Bound Steam Train, page from the album A Journey
Around Hell and Paradise, 1872. Album leaf; ink, color, and gold on paper, 25.6 × 21 cm. Seikadō Bunkō Art
Museum.
Plate 23. Takeuchi Hisakazu (alt. Kyūichi, 1857–1916). Gigeiten, exhibited at the World’s Columbian
Exposition in Chicago, 1893. Wood with polychrome. Height: 215 cm. The University Art Museum,
Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.
Plate 24. (Above) Dōmoto Inshō
(1891–1975). Yuima with a Group
of Bodhisattvas and the Ten
Great Disciples of the Buddha,
1923. Framed triptych; pigments
on silk, central panel: 225 × 166
cm; each lateral panel: 225 × 61
cm. Kyoto Prefectural Dōmoto
Inshō Museum of Fine Arts.
Plate 25. (Right) Murakami

Kagaku (1888–1939). Seated
Bodhisattva, 1924. Hanging
scroll; ink and colors on silk,
58.2 × 50.6 cm. Hiroshima
Prefectural Art Museum.
Plate 26. (Left) Miki Sōsaku
(1891–1945). Juntei Kannon
Bodhisattva, Filial Piety
Gate (Kōyōmon) at Kōsanji,
Setoda-chō, Ikuchi Island,
Hiroshima Prefecture,
1938–1941. Wood with gilt,
polychrome, and inset crystal
eyes. Height of statue includ-
ing mandorla and base: 1505
cm.; height of statue alone:
640 cm.
Plate 27. (Below) Great

Lecture Hall (Dai Kōdō),
Yakushiji, Nara, 2003.
Plate 28. Building by Takaguchi Yoshiyuki (b. 1940) and Zōka Kenchiku Kenkyūsho; painting by Ri Shaogan
(Ch. Li Xiaogan) (b. 1958). Interior view of the Three Thousand Buddha Hall (Sanzen Butsudō) with wall
painting, Yamagoshi Amida Rising over the Himalayan Mountains, Isshinji, Osaka, 2002. Painting, tempera
paint and gold on plaster, 10 × 25 m. Photograph courtesy of Takaguchi Yoshiyuki.
Plate 29. Yama-

guchi Takashi
(b. 1953). White
Temple (Ihaidō)
at Zuisenji,
Sonobe-cho,
Kyoto Prefecture,
2000. Photo-
graph courtesy
of Yamaguchi
Takashi.
Plate 30. Kuetani Kazutō (b. 1942). The Heights of Eternal Hope for the Future (Miraishin no Oka) at Kōsanji,
Setoda-chō, Ikuchi Island, Hiroshima Prefecture, ongoing from 2000. Large hillside covered with carved
white marble imported from Carrara, Italy. Photograph courtesy of Kōsanji.
Plate 31. (Above) Eri Kōkei (b. 1943) and
Eri Sayoko (b. 1945). The Five Esoteric
Ones (Gohimitsu), installed at Fugen’in,
Mount Kōya, 1999–2004. Wood with
polychrome, cut-gold leaf (kirikane),
and crystal eyes. Height: 101 cm. Photo-
graph courtesy of Eri Kokei.
Plate 32. (Right) Mukōyoshi Yuboku

(b. 1961) and Nakamura Keiboku.
Thousand-Arms Thousand-Eyes Kan-
non (Senju Sengen Kannon), 2004.
Wood with polychrome, cut-gold leaf
(kirikane), and crystal eyes. Height: 100
cm. Private collection, Osaka. Photo
courtesy of Mukoyoshi Yuboku.
Plate 33. Sawada Seikō (1894–1988). Renge (Lotus), 1983. Wood with polychrome and gold pigment. Height:
215 cm. Atami Municipal Sawada Seikō Memorial Museum.
Plate 34. Hirayama Ikuo (b. 1930). Hiroshima Reborn (Hiroshima shōhenzu), 1979. Six-panel screen; ink and
colors on paper, 171 × 364 cm. Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum. Photograph courtesy of Hirayama Ikuo.
Plate 35. Maeda Jōsaku (b. 1926). Meditation on the Silver River (Ginka meisō), from the series Personal Impres-
sions of Mandalas (Kansō mandara shirizu), 1980–1982. Acrylic paint on canvas, 181.8 × 227.3 cm. Toyama
Prefectural Museum of Art.
Plate 36. (Facing page) Kondō Kōmei (b. 1924). Illu-
sionary Light (Genkō — gokan no fuji), 1987. Six-panel
folding screen, color on paper, 164.9 × 300.1 cm.
Hiratsuka City Museum of Art.
Plate 37. (Below) Mori Mariko (b. 1967). Pure Land,

from the multimedia installation Nirvana, 1996–
1998. Glass with photo interlays in five panels, overall
dimensions: 304.8 × 609.6 × 2.16 cm.; width of each
panel: 122 cm. Photograph courtesy of Deitch Proj-
ects, New York.
Plate 38. Dōmoto Inshō (1891–1975). Wind God (Fujin), 1960. Six-panel screen; color on silk, 166 × 372 cm.
Kyoto Prefectural Dōmoto Inshō Museum of Fine Arts.
Plate 39. Ōkura Jirō (b. 1942). Hamadryad Cylinders, 2004. Camphor wood, pigments, animal glue, screw
nails. Height of each element: approx. 61 cm., diameter: 42 cm. Photograph courtesy of Ōkura Jirō.
Zuisenji is affiliated with no particular Buddhist sect, a situation increas-
ingly common in contemporary Japan, though its main images are traditional
Buddhist icons. Like Yamaguchi’s Glass Temple, this building is also a simple
rectangle situated within a stark gravel courtyard near older traditional wood-
framed, tile-roofed Buddhist halls. The interior is open but has clearly defined
spaces for mourners, mortuary tablets, and a single devotional icon, a stand-
ing image of the bodhisattva Kannon. Its purpose is to honor the memory of
maternal ancestors and for those with no living relatives (muen botoke). As at
Kōsanji, dedicating a sanctuary to women is a rare instance of this practice in
male-dominated Japan, where reverence for the male family line remains domi-
nant. Yamaguchi took the building’s function as the starting point for his design,
about which he wrote,
I set out to create a space that would envelop visitors in a womb-like atmosphere.
In such a space, people might be reminded of their maternal blood relations and
feel moved to thankfulness for the gift of life. In the interior, therefore, I tried to
orchestrate a floating sensation, as of the fetus in the fluid of the womb. Into this
atmosphere, then, I introduced the movement of time. The light inside the build-
ing grows lighter or darker along with the changing brightness of the sky, so that
the space seems to breathe. With each change in the intensity of the light, in other
words, the space seems to swell or shrink. This swelling and shrinking, which is like
the motion inside the womb, envelops people in a soft way. . . . In such a place, we
feel inspired to look beyond mundane concerns toward the world of spirit. It is my
hope that this space will help people enter a mood of dialogue with the souls of their
ancestors, while reminding them of the preciousness of life.35
The pure, bright, silent space that Yamaguchi designed is in accord with the
concerns of other postwar Buddhist temple designers, who similarly infuse their
buildings with light rather than darkness, the latter a prevailing feature of pre-
modern worship halls. This light-filled space brings a new conception of reli-
giosity to institutional Buddhist structures that the following section explores
from another perspective — the infusion of Buddhist sentiments at places not
designed as formal places of worship.
Evocations of Buddhism at Nondenominational Sites

In premodern Japan, Buddhist worship typically occurred at prescribed loca-
tions, defined by the presence of formal icons, altars, or buildings. In the post-
war era, the faith’s ideals have begun to inspire creation of quasi-religious, non-
denominational sites of contemplation such as those described below, which
compel visitors, even those who do not practice the faith, to feel Buddhism’s
spiritual presence.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and Park both memorializes those
who perished on 6 August 1945 and expresses prayers for world peace. One of
the great masters of modernist architecture in Japan, Tange Kenzō (1913–2005),
designed the complex after winning an open competition as a young, unknown
architect. The project launched his career. Tange boldly fused traditional Japa-
nese architectural aesthetics with the positivist spirit embodied in modern tech-
nology and international modernist architectural principles.
Although designed as a nondenominational memorial to attract visitors year
round, huge crowds congregate during the annual August Buddhist Festival of
the Dead (Ōbon), which nearly coincides with the date of the bombing. The rites
performed then derive from traditional Japanese Buddhist memorial services.
But unlike ordinary Buddhist memorial services, which are private affairs for
family and friends, the circumstances of mass death required the creation of a
large site for collective group participation (Foard 1994, 25). At first, Buddhist-
style funerary rites took place at the park’s ossuary, which interred cremated
remains of bombing victims. Originally a votive pillar for the deceased (kuyōtō),
the site is now dominated by a large hill known as the “Atomic Bomb Mound.”
In 1952, coinciding with the end of the American occupation, a new Tange-
designed site for memorial rites, a large cenotaph (fig. 9.8), has become the focus
of memorials. The present structure, placed there in 1985, is a replacement for
the original, whose condition had deteriorated. It sits along the central axis of
the park between the Peace Memorial Museum building and the Atomic Bomb
(Genbaku) Dome, the skeletal framework of the Western-style Hiroshima Pre-
fectural Industrial Promotion Hall close to the epicenter, the only structure in
the vicinity that the blast did not completely flatten.
This cenotaph, nondenominational like the park in which it resides, never-
theless has its roots in altars at Buddhist temples. Its actual form is based on
an ancient, pre-Buddhist structure, a house (like those seen in models known
as haniwa) that adorned the summits of grave mounds in pre-Buddhist Japan
(fourth through sixth centuries). It contains a registry of the names of all known
bombing victims (those who died immediately and those who died later). As of
6 August 2005, the sixtieth anniversary of the bombing, it contained 242,437
names, but the number continues to increase. Though an individual’s visit
might be inspired by personal connection to a victim, the cenotaph includes no
Buddhist icon as the focus of prayers. Instead, visitors usually silently bow their
heads and place flowers at the altar in front of the cenotaph, looking through
it to the eternal flame of peace and, beyond that, to the shell of the Genbaku
Dome. Groups of schoolchildren also regularly congregate in front of it during
group excursions, often to sing hymns. At the cenotaph, visitors are confronted
with a universal plea for peace engraved on a plaque on the memorial’s side that
neatly unites the monument’s private function with its other, more modern and

9.8. Tange Kenzō (1913–2005). Cenotaph in the plaza of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.
Originally installed in 1952. Present structure is a 1985 replacement. Photograph by author.
civic role as a locus of prayers for world peace. Emblematic of this latter func-
tion, each year on 6 August, peace protesters gather at the plaza that surrounds
the cenotaph, facing away from it and the Genbaku Dome and towards the
Peace Memorial Museum. These protestors also offer prayers here after large-
scale nuclear tests worldwide (Foard 1994, 37).
Modern art museums function as another type of nondenominational site
of spiritual contemplation. In art museums, religious images generally derive
meaning from their intrinsic aesthetic beauty rather than their function. In
most Japanese art museums, exhibitions do not re-create the appearance of the
sacred spaces that once held the objects displayed. This holds true even for dis-
plays in temple treasure halls, beginning with the first modern structure of this
type that opened at the Shingon-sect headquarters at Mount Kōya in 1921 (Guth
1993, 189–190). Although these new temple museums are not formal worship
halls, sometimes devout worshipers treat them as such by leaving offerings of
flowers and coins before images displayed in them. Still, the icons were (and still
are) lined up in rows on platforms or behind glass and not on altars, arranged
thematically and/or chronologically, with didactic labels that temple worship
halls would not include.
In contrast, the early art museums outside Japan that exhibited Buddhist
objects, such as the Musee Guimet in Paris, desired to re-create the original
religious context. Sometimes museums, as in the installation in 1928 of a small

temple worship hall in the Philadelphia Art Museum, installed reconstructed
buildings, creating elaborate “period rooms.” Beginning in the early postwar
period, museum displays of these religious objects changed dramatically. Many
began to place greater emphasis on the object and deemphasized its context.
This emerged from the influence of modernist aesthetics and the requirements
of displaying contemporary art in appropriate gallery spaces that would vanish,
so “the work is isolated from everything that would detract from its own evalu-
ation of itself.”36 Although this type of exhibition environment may be appropri-
ate for modern art intended from the outset for gallery displays, it has proved
problematic for displaying religious imagery. Consequently, in recent decades
many museums have once again begun to design contextual installations by
installing temple altars in galleries, often commissioning traditionally trained
temple carpenters to construct them.37
Most of the new displays help visitors visualize the way people of the past
worshiped but fail to explain satisfactorily the relevance of these objects to mod-
ern life or to instill in viewers a sense of spiritual connection to the religion for
which the objects were created. The Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures (Hōryūji Ho-
motsukan) at the Tokyo National Museum, completed in 2000 and designed by
Taniguchi Yoshio (b. 1937), is, I believe, a rare exception to this rule.38 Taniguchi
wrote that “out of a desire to respect both the sublime works to be displayed and
the natural setting, I made it my goal in designing the new Gallery of Horyuji
Treasures to create on the site an environment of a kind that has become all too
rare in present-day Tokyo, that is, an environment characterized by tranquil-
ity, order, and dignity . . . creating a space that establishes a special relationship
between visitors and the exhibited works” (2001, 9).
When visitors enter the first floor’s hushed and darkened main gallery, it is
as if they have entered the sacred sanctuary of an ancient temple hall as wor-
shipers (fig. 9.9). A darkened ceiling, carefully placed fiber-optic lighting, and a
grid arrangement of numerous gilt bronze statues of the bodhisattva Kannon
encased in transparent cubes all combine to sanctify the space. The dim light-
ing suggests the flickering flames of candles, once the only illumination for the
icons. Their arrangement and lighting produce a perception of walking through
a mandala, a sacred diagram of the universe, or wandering about infinite min-
iature Buddha worlds.
Such nondenominational sacred places even show up occasionally at tem-
ples. The most remarkable of these, The Heights of Eternal Hope for the Future
(Miraishin no Oka) (plate 30) is an ongoing project at Kōsanji (see fig. 9.2 and
plate 26). It rises like an otherworldly presence atop a large hill behind the main
compound, a montage of giant, abstract sculptural forms. Since its opening in
2000, the site has functioned as an unusual venue for group activities, outdoor
classical musical concerts, and theatrical performances, as well as serving as a

9.9. Taniguchi Yoshio (b. 1937). Interior view of the first-floor gallery of the Gallery of Hōryūji
Treasures, Tokyo National Museum, 2000. Photograph: Kitajima Toshiharu, courtesy of Taniguchi
and Associates.
popular spot for private contemplation of its sculptural installations and view-
ing the scenic coastline and small islands along the Inland Sea. Japanese sculp-
tor Kuetani Kazutō (b. 1942) conceived this massive environmental sculpture at
the request of the temple’s second abbot, son of the founder, who had seen and
admired Kuetani’s work. Kuetani was actually born near Kōsanji but has trav-
eled far from his homeland to achieve recognition internationally. Since 1969
he has resided in Italy’s great marble-production center of Carrara, where he
originally went as a student.
At Kōsanji, the abbot charged Kuetani with designing a monument express-
ing “love of mother,” in keeping with the original purpose of the temple as a
memorial to his grandmother. He requested that the sculptor design a dynamic
space celebrating life, not a static, traditional monument. Kuetani responded
by fashioning three thousand tons of gleaming white Carrara marble into free-
standing sculptures, walkways, stairways, a small restaurant, and furniture. He
described the structure as “an island floating in the sea or a mountain of stone.”39
He stated that his goal was to create “an environment where man, sculpture,
and nature balance and understand each other, where children would be eager
to leap onto the sculptures, and where hurried working people could find a little

peace and quiet by being ushered into a time that stands still” (Spencer 2005,
86). Kuetani bestowed on the various parts evocative, spiritual names such as
“Tower of Light” (two giant slabs of marble joined like hands in prayer), located
at the summit of the Terrace of the White Elephant (Buddhists believe that
the buddha Shaka was conceived in India when a white elephant entered the
womb of his mother and divinely impregnated her). In a nod to New Age mys-
ticism, a small grotto just beneath the Tower of Light that he titled the “Chair
of Comfort and Power” creates a nexus for capturing the energy of the sky and
the earth, where visitors can sit and absorb this energy. Kuetani set out to make
this monument, which covers 5,000 square meters, his greatest achievement.
In 2005 this monument was awarded the Internazionale Marmi e Macchine di
Carrara Marble Architectural Award for Urban Landscape even though, after
twelve years of effort, the sculptor declared it but half finished.
Postwar Buddhist monuments are a varied group. Some replicate the ap-
pearance of conventional structures, sometimes in wood and sometimes in
concrete, but many diverge from tradition to create unexpected types of en-
vironments conducive to spiritual contemplation. As before, buildings for for-
mal worship within orthodox temple compounds generally include religious
imagery. But the artists chosen to create these images differ according to the
intended use of the buildings. Professionals who specialize in Buddhist sculp-
ture and painting produce traditional-looking icons for the most formal of these
buildings that contain altars. Other temple structures frequently include less or-
thodox figural imagery by secular artists. In contrast, nondenominational sites
infused with the presence of Buddhism often lack representational icons entirely
or incorporate ancient imagery in nontraditional settings. Chapter 10 discusses
the varied types of these new images further.

Chapter Ten
Visualizing Faith, 1945–2005
sinCe the end of World War II, Japanese Buddhist followers have become
divided into two, not always mutually exclusive, groups of enthusiasts: monks
and lay practitioners associated with its traditional institutions, and individuals
inspired by Buddhist philosophy as propagated by secular scholars. Because of
the multiple ways people have come to relate to Buddhism, visual expression
takes many forms. Temples continue to generate a need for recognizable repre-
sentations of the faith’s deities, often in response to new devotional practices.
Specialists in Buddhist image making, workshops of anonymous artisans, and
amateur devotees all create such images. Other visual materials, generally more
suggestive or allegorical and the product of professional secular artists, stem
from the makers’ and the public’s interest in nondenominational Buddhism and
the humanitarian values that the faith espouses. Scholars and art critics gener-
ally regard only these latter materials as art and consider the former emblematic
of Buddhism’s commodification. This chapter focuses on select artists and types
of imagery, both traditional and avant-garde, that exemplify the profusion of
visual expression inspired by Buddhism.
Devotional Imagery for Institutional Buddhism

Devotional imagery for orthodox Buddhist practitioners serves the needs of its
traditional adherents. This imagery varies widely in style, quality, and material,
dependent upon the wealth, taste, and needs of the patrons.
In Japan, where ancient traditions flourish alongside the new, master artists
trained in orthodox Buddhist sculpture and painting ateliers live on. Since the

early twentieth century their specialist workshops, scattered throughout Japan,
are known as bussho (Buddhist workshops). In some cases, these artists learned
the craft from their fathers or grandfathers. In others, they turned to this profes-
sion because of a personal calling. Some attended specialized art universities,
but upon graduation, instead of embarking on a career path as secular artists,
they entered ateliers of professional Buddhist image-makers. Others entered
these workshops directly following high school. Like professional, secular artists
who gain recognition and ultimately patrons through winning prizes at national
juried art exhibitions, makers of Buddhist images enter similar competitions,
such as the Kyoto Prefectural Handicraft Techniques Competition (Kyōto-fu
Kōgei Sangyō Gijutsu Konkūru). They also gain esteem when important temples
for which they complete commissions confer upon them the honorary title of
Great Master Buddhist Sculptor (Dai busshi). Although their work lacks the
patina of age and respect accorded to antique Buddhist art, they have great ap-
peal to contemporary worshipers, who admire their appearance and the ancient
techniques they perpetuate.1
The largest and most famous of these workshops, the Matsuhisa bussho in
Kyoto, maintains a network of affiliated regional ateliers where professionals,
trained at the main studio, create images for regional clients and teach amateur
practitioners. Buddhist image making has become a popular hobby in modern
Japan, alongside flower arranging, the tea ceremony, calligraphy, and other tradi-
tional arts. Matsuhisa Hōrin (1901–1987) and his son Sōrin (1926–1992) founded
the atelier in 1962, after many decades of practice. Hōrin learned the art from his
father, a late Meiji sculptor. Their bright, dramatic sculptures and wall paintings
grace the halls of many of Japan’s most important Buddhist temples, including
Naritasan Shinshōji, Natadera, and Shitennōji in Osaka. Since Sōrin’s death,
the studio has continued under the leadership of his second daughter, Kayū, a
sculptor, while his first daughter, Maya, continues to work there creating Bud-
dhist paintings. The lineage has engendered new ateliers as well, established by
talented artists whom Hōrin and Sōrin trained.2
Arguably the best of these is the Kyoto-based Heian bussho of Eri Kōkei (b.
1943) and his wife Eri Sayoko (b. 1945). Kōkei, whose father was also a Buddhist
sculptor, specializes in carving, while Sayoko concentrates on painting and ap-
plication of the ancient technique of cut gold leaf (kirikane), which she applies to
paintings and her husband’s sculptures, as well as to secular three-dimensional
decorative arts and wall pieces.3 In 2002 the Japanese government designated
her as a bearer of an Intangible Important Cultural Property, a designation pop-
ularly known as a Living National Treasure (Ningen Kokuhō), for her achieve-
ments in preserving and advancing this ancient, technically challenging art.4
Kōkei and Sayoko work in a small atelier with three apprentices and their son,
whom they trained but who also studied in Europe.

One of the most intriguing of their many recent commissions was for the
subtemple of Fugen’in at Mount Kōya (plate 31). The Eris originally created and
installed a statue of the esoteric bodhisattva Kongōsatta (Skt. Vajrasatta) there
in 1999. After the statue’s installation and ritual dedication, the head priest of the
temple decided to change the image to that of the Five Esoteric Ones (Gohimi
tsu), consisting of Kongosatta surrounded by four other bodhisattvas. Together
they personify the Great Pleasure doctrine, in which the four great negative
human attachments (desire, arrogance, love, and passion) are transformed into
positive means of attaining enlightenment. This iconography can be found in
Japanese esoteric Buddhist paintings dating back to the thirteenth century, but
never before in sculpture.5
The Eris spent several years accomplishing the technically difficult task of
modifying the statue to make the new parts meld with the original and then
inserting the new sections into the sculpture without damaging the earlier-
completed section. They finished the revisions and re-consecrated the image
in 2004. The statue and the new, traditionally shaped six-sided building that
houses it are part of a new, largely underground complex at this old subtem-
ple on Mount Kōya. The focal point of this endeavor, and the impetus for the
new structure, is a small bone fragment of the mortal Buddha, Shaka, called a
busshari (relic of the Buddha), which was given as a gift in 1996 to Fugen’in from
a temple in Nepal and is enshrined in the center of an underground worship hall
directly beneath the Gohimitsu statue.
Mukōyoshi Yuboku (b. 1961) and Nakamura Keiboku are another talented
husband-and-wife team who head a small Osaka-based atelier where they cre-
ate original Buddhist sculptures and paintings and repair ancient Buddhist
sculptures. Mukōyoshi also occasionally enjoys creating non-Buddhist wood
sculpture (among these is a large project with the celebrated American sculptor
Charles Ray, born 1953). Mukōyoshi is a fourth-generation Buddhist sculptor
whose great-grandfather in the mid-eighteenth century belonged to a presti-
gious Nara-based Kei-school lineage workshop. His family moved to Kagoshima
(the southern tip of Kyushu island) during the Meiji period, where Mukōyoshi
was reared and where he received early training from his father. Mukōyoshi
came to Kyoto in 1980 to study Buddhist painting with Matsuhisa Sōrin. He met
Nakamura, a native of Osaka, in 1982 at the Matsuhisa studio, where she was
studying sculpture. Eventually each decided to switch specializations, and today
Mukoyōshi carves sculpture and Nakamura decorates the statues with painting
and gold leaf and also produces Buddhist pictorial imagery of her own design.
Mukōyoshi is a gregarious man who exudes a persona of Buddhist serenity.
When asked if inspired to carve because of his belief in Buddhism, he replied
that, on the contrary, his years of creating religious imagery led to his deeper
understanding of the religion.6
Visualizing Faith | 253

One of their most striking joint productions is a statue of the Thousand-
Arms Thousand-Eyes Kannon (Senju Sengen Kannon), first designed in 2004.
They have made two nearly identical sculptures of this figure, both for private
patrons who intend to donate the sculptures to their families after they die
(plate 32). Although Buddhist liturgy requires that the image of the deity in-
clude accurate iconographic representation, subsidiary sections of the design
are left up to the sculptor. So Mukōyoshi devised an unusual pedestal for sup-
porting Kannon’s lotus-petal throne. Encircling the statue’s base are eight bell-
shaped forms surmounted by upright thunderbolt scepters, each containing a
crystal ball. These scepters are known as vajra (Jp. kongō), esoteric Buddhist
implements that priests carry during rituals. These objects are also often placed
on altars of esoteric temples as symbols of spiritual firmness and because they
possess the power to dispel evil. Although normally made of gilt bronze, here
Mukōyoshi carved them in wood and Nakamura embellished them with deli-
cate, geometric cut-gold-leaf patterns based on traditional Buddhist designs.
Mukōyoshi envisioned these eight objects as representative of the four cardinal
and four subsidiary directions of the Buddhist universe, positions occupied by
Buddhist guardian figures in traditional paintings of groups of deities and sculp-
tural assemblages on temple altars. Directly beneath the Kannon figure he sus-
pended another crystal ball, representing the soul of the bodhisattva. Enlivened
by the original conception of its pedestal and by its graceful expression, delicate
features, and restrained, elegant, cut-gold-leaf decoration, this statue epitomizes
the refined spirit of contemporary Buddhist sculpture and is testimony to the
continued creativity of sculptors working for orthodox Buddhist institutions.
Contemporaneous with the production of religious imagery for temples and
patrons by this elite group of talented professionals, the vast amounts of reli-
gious imagery that populate most temples are made elsewhere. They are prod-
ucts of less prestigious regional workshops, resulting from the earnest effort of
devotees themselves, or they are the creations of self-taught monks. They serve
the needs of participants of popular religious practices, especially pilgrimages
and memorial services to deceased loved ones.
In the late twentieth century, pilgrimages, in the traditional form of walking
trips or in their modern style, the package bus tour, have boomed in Japan.7
They follow the old Saikoku Kannon and Shikoku pilgrimage circuits and also
other regional routes more recently created, dedicated to Kannon and also to
the Seven Gods of Good Fortune. People embark on such quests for various
reasons and they take many forms, including multiyear sojourns to visit all the
temples along one particular circuit or mini-pilgrimages to circuits near their
homes. They can even attend museum exhibitions about a famous pilgrimage
route as a substitute for taking the journeys themselves.8 As before, pilgrims
purchase talismans and devotional imagery commemorative of their journey.

Most often, pilgrims paste these commemorative prints into albums, but oc-
casionally they commission artists to affix them to hanging scrolls or folding
screens, as in the well-preserved example shown in figure 10.1. The right panel
shows the buddha Amida and his attendant bodhisattvas descending from the
Western Paradise to welcome the soul of a dying believer, while the left panel
features lotus flowers, symbols of Buddhist purity. Scattered throughout the
screen pale pink and ivory-colored flower petals flutter about, suggestive of the
ambience of paradise. Surrounding these painted images, affixed in neat rows,
are woodblock-printed votive charms that a pilgrim must have collected from
years of travel. Inscriptions on the prints identify the temples from which they
came, mostly the Saikoku Kannon and Shikoku pilgrimage routes. Printed im-
ages of sacred chants and Buddhist deities circumambulate the perimeter of the
screen. Stylistic analysis of the prints suggests that many were cut from older
blocks dating to the early nineteenth to mid-twentieth century (it is common
practice to use old blocks until they wear out, then recut them as necessary).
But the pigments and quality of the painting indicate a production date for the
painting no earlier than the 1970s.
Prayers for salvation, good fortune, and absolution from sins account for the
plethora of sculpted monuments in stone and bronze that populate the grounds
of popular temples in Japan today. These statues first proliferated in the Edo
period, but since World War II have increased exponentially in response to new
devotional practices that temples promote to augment their income. Detractors
of institutional Buddhism decry such customs as crass commercialization and
degradation of the faith, but believers see them differently. Following trends that
first appeared in the Edo period, the most popular deities represented in these
sculptures are Jizō, Kannon, and the Rakan.
Visitors to temples cannot fail to notice numerous small statues of Jizō lined
up in rows or scattered throughout temple courtyards. So many of them are
dedicated to the Kamakura temple of Hasedera (in 1983 numbers exceeded fifty
thousand) that older ones must regularly be removed to make way for newly do-
nated imagery (LaFleur 1992, 4–5) (fig. 10.2). The statues are offerings by people,
primarily women, who personalize them with inscriptions and cloth or knitted
caps, capes, and bibs. Surprisingly, the ubiquitous presence of these statues at
many popular temples dates only to the 1970s and coincides with the escalation
in performance of memorial rites for unborn children (mizuko kuyō; lit. “me-
morial rites for children of the waters,” a euphemism for aborted fetuses). So
accepting are Japanese of abortion that only one Buddhist denomination (albeit
a large one), the Jōdo Shin sect, opposes it.9 Scholars in recent years have tried
to explain and often condemn this rite that has no basis in canonical Buddhist
literature.10 It serves both as a prayer for salvation of the fetus and as an apology
to it. William LaFleur suggests that mizuko kuyō “seems to ‘fix’ the emotional

10.1. The Descent of Amida and His Attendant Bodhisattvas (Amida Raigō) adorned with votive im-
ages obtained from pilgrimage route temples; painting, late twentieth century; prints, nineteenth
to twentieth centuries. Six-panel screen; painted in ink, colors, and gold on paper and woodblock-
printed images in ink, 134 × 263 cm. Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas. Gift of David H.
Weinglass and Marilyn Carbonell.
life of the many persons struggling with their deeply ambivalent feelings about
an abortion” (1998, 398).
The ritual derives from premodern devotional practices of women who prayed
to Kannon and Jizō for the health of their living children and for the salvation
of the souls of those they lost as fetuses or after birth. Kannon, as a protec-
tive mother figure in female guise, was known as the Compassionate Mother
Kannon (Jibo Kannon) and the Child-Rearing or Child-Protecting Kannon (Ko-
mochi or Koyasu Kannon).11 In deference to popular custom, since the 1970s
she has been renamed Mizuko Kannon. One of the earliest statues so named,
dated 1970, resides in the courtyard of the Tendai-sect Daikanjin subtemple of
the pilgrimage temple Zenkōji in Nagano (fig. 10.3).12 This large bronze statue
of Kannon cradling a baby forms a locus for the bereaved mothers’ prayers.
According to the temple, the statue owes its creation to a priest from Fukui
Prefecture who commissioned it from an unnamed artist and had it installed

10.2. Rows of Jizō Bodhisattva statues at Hasedera, Kamakura, installed between 2000 and 2004.
Stone with cloth and yarn accoutrements, height of each ca. 40 cm. Photograph by author.
there following a directive he received in a dream.13 She stands in the center of

a pool of water surrounded by bouquets of flowers left by devotees. In the back-
ground can be seen a stand for votive tablets. Here, instead of the usual wooden
placards, women leave offerings of small toys and dolls. Devotees activate the
deity’s powers by throwing water at the statue in ritual ablution, using ladles laid
out for this purpose.
Participatory expressions of reverence towards sculpted representations of
deities, noted in the Edo period, remain popular among today’s Buddhist devo-
tees. Not only do they rub, wash, or clothe the sacred images, but they also
sometimes produce them. One temple famous for its sculptures, all created by
devotees, is Otagi Nenbutsuji, a small Tendai-sect temple on the hillside of the
Arashiyama District of Kyoto. The temple had originally been established in the
city center in the eighth century and moved to its current setting in 1922.14 In
1951 a typhoon razed its buildings and it stood dilapidated until 1976, when the
young, newly appointed head priest at the time, Nishimura Kōei (b. 1955), de-
cided to restore it. With completion of the buildings in 1981, in honor of their re-
newal and to raise money for the temple’s upkeep, he invited Nishimura Kōchō
(1915–2003), previously the temple’s head priest (from 1955) and professor at the
Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music, to teach parishioners how to make
stone carvings of Rakan in exchange for small donations. The elder, illustrious
Nishimura worked as a sculptor and conservator of Buddhist images and wrote
prolifically about historic Buddhist sculpture. The temple provided stone blocks

10.3. Kannon with Child (Mizuko
Kannon), installed in the court
yard of the Daikanjin nun-
nery, a subtemple of Zenkōji,
Nagano Prefecture, 1970. Cast
bronze. Height: approx. 150 cm.
and Nishimura gave lessons to hundreds of people.15 By 1991, over twelve hun-
dred charmingly naive statues filled the temple’s grounds, a sharp contrast to
the factory-like regularity of the rows of Jizō statues at Hasedera (fig. 10.4). Vary-
ing from serene to sincere to terrifying to eccentric, these images encapsulate
the saintly spirit that Rakan exude. Simultaneously, their resemblance to real
people (who could be Rakan in disguise) makes them instantly appealing to visi-
tors. As a result, the temple has become a nationally famous pilgrimage center
for groups of amateur aficionados of stone Buddhist carvings (sekibutsu).
Artists Inspired by Transnational,

Nondenominational Buddhism
Throughout the twentieth century, the influence of Buddhism and of its philo-
sophical tenets appears in the art of numerous Japanese artists working inde-
pendently of, though occasionally on commission for, formal Buddhist organiza-
tions. While awareness of traditional imagery informs their pictorial images or
their titles, often the Buddhist content is tempered by prevailing Western con-
ceptions of the personal nature of artistic creativity. In addition, many of these
artists derive the language of their visual expression from several influential
Western twentieth-century art movements, including abstract expressionism,
pop, conceptualism, and minimalism, some of whose pioneers had themselves
been inspired by Buddhism.16

10.4. Rows of Rakan statues at Otagi Nenbutsuji, Arashiyama, 1970s–2003. Stone. Height: approx.
Some of these artists have removed representational imagery from their art,
focusing exclusively on line and color and reducing images to their most es-
sential form to express the enlightened state of nothingness that constitutes
the Buddha Mind. Others insert references to Buddhism or its iconographic
imagery into seemingly secular images to elucidate the interconnectedness of
the sacred and profane. Still others focus on the process and conception of their
art rather than an end product. With few exceptions, they eschew sect-specific
references. Although the artists presented here are all Japanese citizens, born
and reared in Japan, their art is not always appreciated in their homeland. Some
find greater admiration among art enthusiasts abroad.
Through this worldwide reception, these artists transcend the specificity of
their cultural identity to become spiritual guides for a new, more globally ori-
ented transnational Buddhism. This pan-Asian orientation in Japanese Bud-
dhists began during the prewar period and, as already discussed, was connected
with the country’s expansionist policies into Asia. Transformed in the aftermath
of World War II, it has remained one of the defining characteristics of Japanese
Buddhism into the early twenty-first century. Many postwar artists inspired
by Buddhism use their nondenominational Buddhist art as a means to reach
diverse audiences in order to promote their advocacy of world peace or univer-
sal Buddhist values. So many artists have been inspired by Buddhism in these
ways in postwar Japan that I present here only a representative sampling of their
creations to highlight the diversity of their visual expressions.17

Sawada Seikō (1894–1988)
Sawada Seikō was one of the best wood sculptors at the dawn of the modern
period who bridged the divide between traditional Buddhist image-makers and
modern artists inspired by Buddhism.18 As a child in Atami, a resort town in
Shizuoka Prefecture near Tokyo, he wanted to study painting, but instead his
parents had him apprenticed to Yamamoto Zuiun, a distant relative in Tokyo,
the same wood sculptor who had initially taught Miki Sōsaku (see plate 26).
Eventually Seikō began taking classes in a formal art school in Tokyo and had
pieces accepted to juried competitions, beginning with the third annual Tei
ten exhibition in 1921. That same year he enrolled in his first teacher’s alma
mater, the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. He studied there under Asakura Fumio
(1883–1964), widely acknowledged as the father of modern Japanese sculpture
and referred to as the “Rodin of Japan.”
Seikō’s oeuvre ranged from traditional Buddhist imagery to self-portraits and
allegorical figural sculpture. He worked in various media, but primarily wood,
bronze, and cast resin. Many of his works reside in public museums, including
two devoted exclusively to his achievements.19 He also carved statues for wor-
ship halls at temples of diverse Buddhist sects. These commissions include the
central icons for Kongōbuji at Mount Kōya (1968); the Main Hall (Shakaden) at
the Tokyo headquarters of the Reiyūkai (1975), a new Buddhist lay organization;
and the reconstructed West Pagoda at Yakushiji in Nara (1981).
From his teacher Fumio, Seikō learned to be a modern artist. To do so he had
to study diligently and widely, developing an understanding of the achievements
of Western masters such as Picasso and Chagall, as well as philosophy, and not
simply rely on innate talent.20 Still, he believed that art must emerge from the
artist’s heart and surpass representation of outward forms.21 Although he de-
clined to associate with organized religious institutions, he created art from the
perspective of a deeply religious person who believed that though religion and
art had separated in the modern world, they were originally inseparable. Seikō
recognized that early Japanese Buddhist sculpture was not created as art but for
religious use. Only later did people come to regard it as art because, he believed,
of its intrinsic beauty. He held in especially high regard two Edo-period Bud-
dhist monks, Enkū and Mokujiki (see figs. 6.7 and 6.8), who as sculptors created
beautiful images because of their devotion to Buddhism. Yet Seikō considered
himself not a craftsman, like premodern professional makers of Buddhist im-
ages, but a modern artist intent upon instilling new life and beauty into the
portrayal of Buddhist sculpture to make it compatible with future generations.
Representative of Seikō’s artistic vision is his seated six-armed bodhisattva
of 1983, titled Lotus (Renge) (plate 33), after Buddhism’s sacred flower. Critics
generally regard it as one of his masterpieces. His title and the figure’s indistinct

iconography (it lacks identifying attributes) reveal that this is not a canonical
Buddhist icon. Although it somewhat resembles a famous ninth-century statue
of Nyōirin Kannon at Kanshinji in Osaka, a lithograph that Seikō did in 1979
of Aizen Myōō (Skt. Rāgarāja), the Buddhist Bright King of Love, is generally
credited as the preparatory drawing for this work.22 Its serene facial expression,
languid pose with gently undulating arms, and muted colors infuse it with a rec-
ognizably Buddhist aura of peace and serenity. Although Seikō may have looked
to ancient sculptures for his model, his sculpture is endowed with his personal
style, characterized by a sensitivity to the delineation of the facial features and a
delicate, muted application of colors, which he considered an essential element
of successful sculpture. Seikō’s adaptation of Buddhist iconography encapsulates
the attitude of most modern Japanese artists who represent the religion’s deities
and sacred realms as familiar but somehow transformed.
Nakamura Shinya (b. 1926)

Like Sawada Seikō, Nakamura Shinya specializes in modern figurative sculpture
imbued with religious sentiments, but instead of portraying the transcendental
deities and other allegorical figures that Seikō favored, his interest lies in repre-
sentation of real people who serve as models of morality for the modern world.
Born in Mie Prefecture in central Japan, Nakamura began the study of sculp-
ture with Koga Tadao (1903–1979), a graduate, like Seikō, of the Tokyo School
of Fine Arts. Unlike Seikō, though, who left Japan only when his works were
shown abroad very late in his life, Nakamura traveled to France and Spain in the
1960s to study with prominent European sculptors. While in Europe and during
subsequent trips in the 1990s, Nakamura visited many Christian churches, the
Vatican museums in Rome, and important pilgrimage sites, including Santiago
de Compostela in Spain, dedicated to Saint James, one of the twelve disciples of
Jesus. Ironically, this visit deepened Nakamura’s interest in the Buddhist faith
because it prompted him to wonder why he had not heard of Buddhist temples
dedicated to the Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha Shaka.
Nakamura knew that earlier Japanese artists had portrayed representations
of these disciples, but he felt these earlier images captured only the artistic style
prevalent at the time they were made, not the compassionate and noble spirit of
the men who had lived so long ago in India. So as part of a yearning to find “the
original landscape of Buddhism,” he traveled to India and Nepal to understand
these great Buddhist devotees better. Upon his return, he desired to spread ap-
preciation for these disciples, who he believed had become overshadowed by
emphasis on worship of bodhisattvas and Buddha relics. In 2000 Nakamura
offered to make a set of sculptures of these men for Yakushiji in Nara for place-
ment in the temple’s soon-to-be reconstructed Great Lecture Hall (see plate

10.5. Nakamura Shinya (b. 1926). The Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha Shaka (Shaka Jūdai
deshi), 2000. Great Lecture Hall at Yakushiji, Nara. Cast bronze. Height of each: approx. 180 cm.
Photograph: Nishimiya Masaaki, courtesy of Seihōsha and Nakamura Shinya.
27). He aimed to reunite appreciation of these disciples with reverence for the
Buddha in the sacred space of this new hall. Nakamura’s statues stand behind
the wall that separates the altar, upon which the main statues sit, from the back
ambulatory space within the building (fig. 10.5).
The sculptures Nakamura created for this building typify his efforts to rep-
resent the inner life, not simply the outward form, of his subjects. He has writ-
ten that he became drawn to these disciples because of their ability to “serve as
good pilots on the path of the thread of our lives.”23 He wanted them to “show to
people today a path towards peace.” His sculptures portray the disciples, gaunt
and simply dressed, as befitting their ascetic lifestyle, standing still and facing
the viewer while engaged in conversation or in prayer. Because Nakamura be-
lieves the face captures a person’s true character, he expended the most effort
at delineating each face carefully, creating uncannily penetrating portraits of
deeply devout individuals.

Hirayama Ikuo (b. 1930)
Hirayama Ikuo is a Nihonga painter who, like Nakamura, also uses Buddhist
imagery as a vehicle for promoting the religion’s relevance to modern life and
world peace.24 He is one of Japan’s most famous artists, respected internationally
as much for his humanitarian efforts as for his art. He rose from humble begin-
nings as son of a head priest at a small Buddhist temple in the town of Setoda-
chō on the island of Ikuchijima (where Kōsanji is located) to become president
of the prestigious Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music (the former Tokyo
School of Fine Arts, from which he graduated). He also serves as a UNESCO
Goodwill Ambassador and founder of that organization’s Red Cross Spirit for
Cultural Heritage, which aims to foster appreciation for and protection of the
world’s great cultural properties. To further this goal, he established the Tokyo-
based nonprofit Foundation for Cultural Heritage and Art Research.
Hirayama assisted the war effort as a junior high school student in Hiro-
shima during World War II. He was there when the atomic bomb was dropped
and suffered serious radiation sickness afterwards. While ill during the 1950s
he found solace in Buddhism, around the same time he chose painting as his
vocation. However, he claims allegiance to no particular Buddhist sect and in
fact does not consider himself exclusively a Buddhist. His wife is Christian,
so through her he has gained understanding of and appreciation for Christian
teachings. His shunning of association with institutional Buddhism typifies the
attitude of many Buddhists in Japan today and the world over who are inspired
by Buddhism’s universal values of compassion that other faiths share. Some-
times, because he feels affinity with other world religions, he portrays images
relating to them in his art.
Although he wishes people throughout the world, regardless of their professed
religious affiliation, to appreciate his art, many of his paintings feature Buddhist
subjects and references to its religious tradition, especially those in which he
espouses peace and cross-cultural communications. Among these works, many
illustrate the transmission of Buddhism along the Central Asian Silk Road, a
subject related to his work for UNESCO, where he strives to preserve cultural
heritage sites in India and Central Asia, places connected with the early cen-
turies of Buddhism and its spread eastward to China and Japan. Outstanding
among these is a large series of wall paintings he completed in 2001 for Yakushiji
as part of the celebration of the temple’s restoration of its Great Lecture Hall,
a complement to Nakamura Shinya’s Ten Great Disciples of the Buddha Shaka
sculptures, conceived around the same time (Wriggins 2001).
Among Hirayama’s works that make an appeal for peace, his six-panel folding
screen, Hiroshima Reborn (Hiroshima shōhenzu), completed in 1979 (plate 34),
stands out as his most personal statement against war. He presented it to the

Hiroshima Prefectural Museum of Art after its initial display at the Inten exhi-
bition that year. The painting portrays the sky as a sea of flames and the skeletal
Atomic Dome building towering above nearby ruins, with the Buddhist deity
Fudō Myōō hovering above. Hirayama wrote that though he long wanted to
paint about his experience in Hiroshima, he had avoided doing so before com-
pleting this work because his memories were too painful. As he pondered how
to depict the conflagration, he saw in his mind nothing but the city in flames.
But a visit to the Hiroshima Peace Park’s Cenotaph during a memorial service
inspired him to focus not on the tragedy as a historic event in and of itself, but
as a way to inspire hope in viewers and serve as a prayer for peace. Therefore he
decided to include a Buddhist deity in the picture, as protector of the city and
savior of those who had died. After considering and rejecting the inclusion of
Buddhism’s most famous compassionate deities, Amida and Kannon, he decided
to include the wrathful Bright King, Fudō Myōō, always portrayed within a ring
of fire. He saw Fudō as a fitting a symbol of the reborn city, of life emerging from
within the flames of destruction.25 More recently, he wrote that “the wrath in
the eyes of Fudō Myōō as he gazes at the blazing city below is directed against
war, with an exhortation to mortals to see that Hiroshima shall be born again.”26
In 1994 the city installed a life-size, photographic reproduction of the screen on
ceramic tile panels on the lower floor of the Peace Memorial Museum so that
the image as a symbol of the resurrected city would be visible to the numerous
visitors to that museum (the original painting, a delicate work on paper, can only
occasionally be displayed publicly).
Yamanaka Manabu (b. 1959)

Yamanaka Manabu is a photographer who also invokes images of Buddhist dei-
ties in his striking photographs of real people.27 He grew up in a working-class
neighborhood in the Osaka suburb of Amagasaki, where community life re-
volved around local Buddhist festivals.28 However, he did not feel deeply about
Buddhism until after he had moved to Tokyo at the age of twenty-three. There,
he worked first as a commercial photographer but soon decided to try creating
an artistic series of photographs of life-size portraits of homeless people (fig.
10.6). He titled the series Arakan (Rakan) because the homeless men whom he
photographed seemed to embody the spirit of Rakan, the Buddha’s devout fol-
lowers who lived as ascetics in impoverished circumstances within but separate
from the world around them. Yamanaka conceived of this series after encoun-
tering numerous homeless people who seemed somehow pure because of their
estrangement from ordinary life, qualities that the Buddhist Rakan had pos-
sessed. After six years of research and production, he first exhibited this series
in 1989.

10.6. Yamanaka Manabu
(b. 1959). Arakan series
#1 (Homeless Person as
Rakan), 1989. Black-and-
white photograph, 180
× 90 cm. Photograph
courtesy of Yamanaka
Manabu.

Viewers’ immediate recognition of these figures as possessing the qualities
of both vagrants and saints is not unlike the effect Mori Sosen’s naturalistic
rendering of Shussan Shaka (see plate 14) must have had on his audience. To
accomplish these photos, Yamanaka had to first gain the trust of his wary, often
mentally ill subjects. He did this by living in small capsule hotels near home-
less communities. In all, he photographed about six hundred men, mainly in
Osaka and Tokyo. From this large number, he selected a Buddhist canonical
number — sixteen — for inclusion in his series.
His studies of Buddhism for this series led to his deeper engagement with the
universal values of the faith that he continues to convey in his art. One subse-
quent series, Fujōkan (Decomposing animals) featured dead animals he found
on a beach, inspired by the traditional Buddhist concept of kusō, the subject
of Kikuchi Yōsai’s painting, The Inevitable Change (see plate 15). In Fujōkan
Yamanaka emphasized the Buddhist concept of death as a natural extension of
life, a concept that crystallized at a young age, when he witnessed the death of
his grandmother in the home she shared with his family and also after a traffic
accident killed his favorite pet dog. Other series feature people whom he be-
lieves personify Buddhist deities or saintly personages. One, Gyahtei, focused
on extremely elderly nude women valiantly posing for his camera. In another,
Doshi (Buddhist acolytes, young children who accompany and assist deities), he
sought to show that living children possess this saintly spirit. But because of the
extreme materialism of Japanese society, Yamanaka felt that he could find such
children to photograph only in remote Southeast Asian villages, where Bud-
dhism in a purer form continues to flourish.
In all his series, Yamanaka explains that his goal is to find and reveal a kind of
inner beauty in his subjects, one that exceeds the superficial notion of “pretty.”
However, due to the disturbing and confrontational nature of his images, his
work is not so popular in Japan. Nevertheless, he continues to reside in Tokyo,
but shows his work primarily through a New York gallery.
Maeda Jōsaku (b. 1926)

Maeda Jōsaku is one of a number of Japanese artists who take as his starting
point not Buddhism’s saints or deities, but rather its sacred sites and transcen-
dent realms, especially mandalas (cosmic diagrams of the Buddhist universe),
first conceived in the esoteric Buddhist sects. Because of a tradition of secrecy
and oral transmission of esoteric rituals, contemporary scholars cannot be
sure exactly how these mandalas were used or interpreted long ago when they
were devised. But it is clear that their purpose was to aid believers’ quests for
enlightenment.
Maeda works in a Japanese painting tradition known as Yōga (Western-style
painting), using oil or acrylic paints on a framed, stretched-canvas format, and

creates lithographs and silk-screen prints. Like Hirayama, Maeda has achieved re-
nown for his art both within Japan and worldwide, and he, too, is a well-respected
academic, president of the prestigious Musashino Art University in Tokyo, his
alma mater.29 Also like Hirayama, he occasionally paints works for temples of
various sects and is warmly regarded by the orthodox Buddhist establishment,
who appreciate his original interpretations of iconic Buddhist images.30
Maeda first traveled to Paris in the 1950s, studying Western art for five years.
Writing about a Paris exhibition of his paintings in 1960, a French critic de-
scribed them as “mandala-like.” Only after seeing this comment did Maeda real-
ize that although he had not consciously invoked such imagery, he was indeed
drawn to it through his faith in Shingon Buddhism, whose ritual practices place
great importance on mandalas. This devotion obliges him to approach paint-
ing itself as a religious act; he always meditates prior to taking brush to paper.
He has completed many series of paintings and prints featuring diagrammatic
imagery of temples along the Kannon pilgrimage circuits and of various forms
of mandalas, especially the Shingon sect’s “Mandala of the Two Worlds,” com-
posed of two separate components, the Diamond World and the Womb World.
His Meditation on the Silver River (Ginka meisō) (plate 35), from his Personal
Impressions of Mandalas (Kansō mandara shirizu), completed between 1980
and 1982, is one of a pair of paintings he completed that represents his free
interpretation of this Shingon mandala. Here, Maeda visualized the Diamond
World mandala, which “represents reality in the Buddha realm, the world of the
unconditioned, the real, the universal, and the absolute.”31 Maeda wrote that in
his mandala paintings he attempted to create a pictorial vision of the centripetal
and centrifugal forces of the coming and going of the limitless universe and the
motion of all things within it.32 His early mandala paintings, like this one, bor-
rowed literally from orthodox mandala imagery, although they did so with great
imagination, as here, turning the flat, gridlike composition of the original into a
futuristic three-dimensional rendering. In later paintings of mandalas, “he came
to portray a mystical realm he had experienced in his own mind.”33
Kondō Kōmei (b. 1924)

A contemporary of Maeda, Kondō Kōmei also specializes in representing Bud-
dha worlds in his art, particularly that of the Buddhist paradise into which be-
lievers are reborn after death. He does this from the perspective of an ordained
Tendai-sect priest using the visual language of Nihonga. He first began painting
as a child, studying traditional Buddhist painting from his father, head priest
of a Tokyo Tendai-sect temple. During World War II he enrolled in the Tokyo
School of Fine Arts, but he interrupted his studies when called into military ser-
vice in 1944. During glider training in the mountains near Karuizawa in Nagano
Prefecture, Kondō experienced an epiphany — after seeing small plants high

atop a mountain peak, he yearned to be free like them. He recalled later that the
beauty he discerned on this occasion became the inspiration for his paintings.
During his military training he fell ill and was treated at a military hospital be-
fore returning to civilian life. After the war, as eldest son he followed his father’s
profession and briefly entered the Tendai priesthood, where he recovered his
health, studied Tendai philosophy, and had his eyes opened to the symbolism
in the mysterious world of Buddhist painting. But he soon left the clergy and
returned to Tokyo to complete his degree in painting at the Tokyo School of
Fine Arts. He has worked as a professional painter ever since. Although he has
never studied abroad, his paintings have been shown worldwide since the 1960s
in various international exhibition venues of modern Japanese art.
Throughout his career, Kondō has focused on portraying the magnificent
beauty of the Buddhist paradise in landscape scenes occasionally complemented
by the ethereal form of the bodhisattva Kannon. He sees his art as a continuum
of the work of Buddhist painters of the past, whose pictures gave concrete form
to the unfathomable splendor of Buddhist truths.34 Representative of his paint-
ings is Illusionary Light, completed in 1987, a visualization of the Western Para-
dise of the Buddha Amida, with a yellow orb of the sun setting amidst a deeply
red cloud-filled sky where golden butterflies flutter gracefully around a bejew-
eled wisteria vine (plate 36).
Mori Mariko (b. 1967)

Mori Mariko joins traditional Buddhist iconography and futuristic visions in
mesmerizing multimedia photo and video installations that transport viewers
into her visualizations of enlightenment, mystic Buddha worlds that fuse the
spiritual and material realms. Her art forces viewers to question their notions
of reality as it envelops them in all-encompassing environments, complete with
interactive elements and sounds that encourage tranquil and meditative frames
of minds, similar in spirit, but perhaps more intense, to the immersive atmo-
sphere that Taniguchi attempted to create in his Hōryūji Treasure Hall at the
Tokyo National Museum (see fig. 9.9).
Mori first left Japan at age twenty to study in London and then New York,
after a brief stint as a fashion model in her teen years. She now divides her time
between New York and Tokyo. She left Japan, she says, in search of individual-
ity and freedom of expression.35 Only after long residence abroad did she seek
to reconnect with her roots. This led to her formal study of Buddhism in 1996
and her observation that although Japanese people may not formally follow the
faith’s tenets, its respect for all life and its overriding concern for maintenance
of harmony with nature make up an integral part of the Japanese worldview,
different from the Western presumption that humankind dominates nature.36
Through her art she endeavors to show the relevance of such values beyond

cultural and national borders and that “in the next millennium, the power and
energy of the human spirit should unify the world” (Mori 1998, 11).
Mori is a modern-day pop artist in the spirit of the Dada artist Marcel Du
champ (1887–1968), whose “readymades” included his infamous Fountain of 1917,
an inverted urinal that commentators of his day likened to the image of a seated
Buddha (Baas 2005, 83). Mori enjoys inserting herself, in the guise of deities or
shamans, into her surreal scenes, much like anime fans who “cosplay” (“costume
play,” dressing up in the costume of favorite anime characters). Typical of her ex-
travagant installations is Nirvana (1996–1998), titled after the Buddhist state of
enlightenment. It includes an acrylic lotus-shape sculpture, a three-dimensional
video (that viewers watch after donning special glasses), and four huge glass
photographs of dramatic vistas of famous locations throughout the world that
symbolize four forces of nature — earth, air, fire, and water. One of these, Pure
Land (plate 37), shows an unearthly vision of the Dead Sea with Mori, assuming
the persona of a bodhisattva, hovering over a cartoon-like fantasy version of the
Pure Land Buddhist paradise. Such inventive, whimsical, pop art interpretations
of central Buddhist concerns have found enthusiastic responses from Western
audiences, more so than from Japanese.
Dōmoto Inshō (1891–1975)

Other Japanese artists inspired by Buddhism chose to represent their faith
through abstract rather than representational imagery. Foremost among these is
Dōmoto Inshō, who in his youth showed paintings in the same 1920s Teiten ex-
hibitions where Sawada Seikō exhibited his sculptures. While Seikō maintained
the same course throughout his career, Inshō embarked on a radically different
artistic trajectory in the post–World War II period. After he traveled to Europe
for study in 1952, one of the few artists to do so soon after the war, he abruptly
reinvented himself as an abstract artist, abandoning representation of figural
imagery as characterized by paintings such as Yuima (see plate 24). Although he
was the first Nihonga painter to embrace abstraction completely, some Interwar
artists had incorporated elements of it and others had formed radical art asso-
ciations designed to inject a new spirit of modernity into their art (Rimer 1995a,
65–66). By the time Inshō instigated this change he had become a much-loved
artist, and this turnaround garnered him a mixed public reception domestically,
though it attracted the interest of foreigners through shows of his work in Europe
and New York. Inshō wrote that he initiated this new direction because “without
breaking free from everything in the past, there can be no true creativity. The
denial of tradition based on pure awareness is itself genuine tradition. Only from
years of experience and faith can this be done. Thus I ventured forth into creativ-
ism.”37 Among his sources, he credits the Russian-born abstract painter Wassily
Kandinsky (1866–1944), who was himself interested in Buddhist philosophy.38

In his abstract paintings, Inshō sought to unearth the divine essence of visual
expression using only color, line, and form, completely distant from the material
world. This spirit infused many of his later, nonrepresentational paintings, in
which his occasional titles alluded to Buddhism, such as Consciousness, Per-
ception of Infinity, Fulfillment of Prayer, or Endless Circulation.39 He painted
many works in this spontaneous style for important temples, with those at the
Zen temple of Kokedera (alternately called Saihōji, completed in 1965) and his
family’s Jōdo-sect mortuary temple of Hōnen’in (completed 1971) the most well
known. One painting of this type is Wind God (Fujin), named after the Buddhist
protective deity appropriated from Hindu mythology. He is usually portrayed
as an oni flying through the air carrying a bag of wind and paired with the god
of thunder (Raijin) — and this painting also once had a mate. Inshō completed
this aniconic image in 1960 (plate 38), and the following year he included it in a
special exhibition of his art that opened in Turin, Italy, then toured other cities
in Europe. The exhibit was praised by the influential French critic Michel Tapié
(1909–1987), who helped teach Japanese artists about abstraction and who had
previously visited Inshō’s home in Kyoto.40 The painting eschews literal defini-
tion of the form of the deity, but evokes his spiritual presence in swirling, spon-
taneous brushwork and bold patches of bright colors.
Matsuzawa Yutaka (1922–2006)

Matsuzawa Yutaka led the international postwar modernist conceptual art
movement (called Gainenha — lit. “concept art” — in Japanese) that first arose
in the 1960s and remained active through the 1970s, with Japanese artists as
some of its instigators.41 Artists who ascribed to conceptual art’s ideals turned
away from the formalism of mid-twentieth-century modernist art and instead
questioned the meaning of art itself by emphasizing its theoretical conception
(often in texts) instead of a finished product. Sometimes these artists made use
of found materials, and often their art was participatory, calling upon viewers
to complete the art in their minds.
The scholar Alexandra Munroe suggests that the sub-branch of conceptual-
ism in Japan, as practiced by Matsuzawa and his compatriots, should be called
the School of Metaphysics because of its stress on the interrelationships between
Buddhism, metaphysics, quantum physics, and cosmology, which she describes
as a “philosophical investigation into the nature of time-space-infinity and ex-
istence-death-eternity” (Munroe 1994, 222). Matsuzawa is considered the fa-
ther of this movement in Japan. He and his followers actually called themselves
the “Nirvana school,” named after the Buddhist state of enlightenment (Tomii
1999, 20). Matsuzawa championed the use of process-oriented art with text in
lieu of images, which emerged from his critique of “the materialism of modern
civilization as a whole.” He is said to have developed this philosophy in 1964

upon hearing a voice that commanded, “Vanish Objects! He thereupon set out
to create art solely from text, as a denunciation of art’s materiality and human
sense-reception” (Tomii 1999, 19).
Matsuzawa first became interested in conceptual art after leaving Japan for
postgraduate study in the philosophy of religion and contemporary art at Co-
lumbia University between 1955 and 1957. Previously he had studied architec-
ture at Waseda University and, after graduation, briefly taught mathematics and
published poetry on the theme of immortality. During his sojourn in America,
Matsuzawa grew increasingly interested in the metaphysical tenets of Shingon
Buddhism, whose influence appears in his first artwork, dated 1964, ΨCorpseΨ
(Pusai no shitai itai) (fig. 10.7), a large handbill with a geometric diagram in the
form of the Shingon sect’s Diamond World mandala, the same mandala that
inspired Maeda Jōsaku (see plate 35).42 Matsuzawa designed his handbill to be
read in the prescribed manner of contemplating its images, beginning with the
text in the central square, then moving to the box below that, then clockwise
through the remaining boxes.43 His text describes his new art as nonsensory
painting and compares it to quantum mechanics, stating,
[It] cannot be perceived by the five senses. Some may say such a work that has no
virtue or vice is meaningless; however, is it really so? Somewhere and sometime, you
may have heard of the expanding universe or the universe with negative curvature;
or of a single electron that simultaneously exists in two places; or antimatter that will
disappear upon colliding with ordinary matter. You cannot perceive their images by
your eyes, ears, noses. In fact, contemporary physicists have proved their existence
by means of mathematics or experiments. In a similar way, nonsensory painting ex-
ists. There it is, manifoldly overlapping the space of this exhibition; there it is, in your
bag, under your ample breasts, at that delicate place beneath your soft clothes; and
in the depths of your stomach; or it is sticking onto your cold back. . . . Nonsensory
painting surrounds you, saturates you, enters into you. You are being invaded by it.
Soon, you won’t be able to stand, to move. You will soon feel that you cannot stand it
anymore, that you will die. You will close your eyes and experience nirvana. You will
precipitately see the future of the universe and human beings.44
ōkura Jirō (b. 1942)

Ōkura Jirō creates minimalist, abstract sculptures, most often using his favor-
ite medium of fragrant Japanese camphor laurel wood (kusunoki). He has also
substituted brush and ink and occasionally, recently, has used society’s detritus,
especially in collaborative projects with members of workshops he has taught
both overseas and in Japan. He grew up and still resides in Uji, near the Ōbaku
Zen-sect headquarters of Manpukuji. His study of Zen meditation there during
his youth has profoundly influenced his approach to art production, which has

10.7. Matsuzawa Yutaka (1922–2006). ΨCorpseΨ (Pusai no shitai itai), 1964. Printed matter (flyer) on
paper, 39 × 26.6 cm. Collection of Jeff Rothstein and Reiko Tomii. Photograph: Reiko Tomii.

evolved in response to other influences, including several trips to the United
States. His first trip, in 1969, took him across the desert between Phoenix and
Los Angeles. During that trip he recalls that the vast, empty space opened his
mind to the Zen concept of mu (nothingness). This confrontation with a space so
different from the Japanese landscape to which he was accustomed profoundly
affected his worldview and the course of his art. After returning to Japan he
took up wood carving, at first meticulously finishing each piece but gradually
learning to concentrate on the simple act of carving as “a bodily rather than a
verbal kind of meditative ‘chanting.’ ”45 The incense-like aroma of the wood he
uses and his manner of finishing the materials with red and black paint evoke
the sacred spaces of Japanese temples and shrines.
Ōkura’s process-oriented approach betrays the influence of both Zen and of
the conceptual art movement, which itself came under the sway of Zen through
the teachings of D. T. Suzuki and his prominent followers, such as the composer
John Cage (1912–1992).46 In fact, Ōkura knew and admired Cage and met him in
1990, during the first of several teaching residencies Ōkura did at the Mountain
Lake Workshop in Virginia. He calls one project that has engaged his attention
since the 1990s Hamadryad, after the Greek nature spirit that inhabits trees.
His Hamadryad Cylinders of 2004 (plate 39) at once resembles hollow logs and a
three-dimensional ensō, the Zen circle that symbolizes the emptiness of the en-
lightened Buddha Mind and that monks frequently brushed on paper. For each
piece Ōkura used a single rough-hewn board of aromatic camphor wood that
he hacked against the grain, cutting it into strips that he painted red or black.
He then glued them back together in approximately the same configuration as
in the original, in respect of the natural form of the tree. Then he hand-chiseled
their edges to create a rough surface texture not unlike that on Enkū’s sculptures
(see fig. 6.7).
The diversity and vibrancy of the visual arts inspired by Buddhism during
the second half of the twentieth century and continuing unabated into the dawn
of the succeeding century that have been introduced here should put to rest any
notion that Buddhism has ceased to function as a creative impetus for Japanese
culture. Both Buddhism’s orthodox practitioners and its more independent ad-
vocates remain actively engaged in the commissioning and producing of Bud-
dhist visual arts as objects of devotion and as expressions of personal faith that
inspire belief in others. These arts encapsulate the crucial function of art to
engage their audiences, changing the way their viewers perceive the world. The
vast differences between the types of arts created by these groups underscore
the creative force within the faith that allows it to propagate its belief system in

myriad ways, making its tenets relevant to each individual’s needs. Institutional
Buddhism requires familiar images to spread its teachings to its committed fol-
lowers. Secular-based artists inspired by Buddhism use the modern language
of art to show the uninitiated that Buddhist ideals can offer them hope and
inspiration as well, regardless of their personal religious calling. The visual arts
have played an essential role in transmitting Buddhism since its inception; their
strength and profusion into the early twenty-first century indicate they will
continue to do so into the future.

Conclusion
the profound metamorphosis of Buddhism and its arts over the past four
centuries in Japan has occurred before the backdrop of broad sociopolitical de-
velopments that have irrevocably modernized the nation. These developments
instigated a power shift from the religious to the secular sphere, facilitating the
emergence of a Westernized, secular-based way of life. Despite these changes, as
the arts and sites introduced in this book have demonstrated, Japanese people
did not abandon their faith in Buddhism. Buddhism’s recent material culture
belies the notion of a demise of the faith as a cultural force in modern and con-
temporary Japan. These materials also highlight the fact that although Japanese
Buddhism’s sites of devotion and the visual expressions of piety by its devotees
may have changed in appearance, the faith has continued to attract staunchly
devout followers for whom the visual remains central to their expression of de-
votion. Finally, these arts and architecture demonstrate a close connection be-
tween the underlying motivations for religious faith in the early modern period
and those of today’s followers, helping to explain why so many of the religious
practices and deities revered then continue to proliferate today.
No society is static, and as Japanese society changed so did its visual culture,
formerly dominated by the aesthetic preferences and religious concerns of the
elites. Since the Edo period, the tastes and spiritual concerns of the broader
populace have become increasingly important. But significantly, popular cul-
ture in general and that associated with Buddhism in particular did not replace
that of the upper classes, but came to commingle, bringing new life and greater
diversity to established traditions. The widespread acceptance of Ōbaku Zen in
the Edo period, the devotion to trans-sectarian deities such as Jizō, the Rakan,
and Kannon, and the increasingly elaborate representations of the afterlife in
paintings, sculpture, and architectural form exemplify this phenomenon.

As this book has confirmed, the rise of commoner culture in the Edo period
and the dominance of Western influence in the Meiji (both intellectual ideas
and new technology) profoundly affected the development of Buddhist beliefs,
the nature of its institutions, and, concurrently, the appearance of its material
culture. These influences render more tenuous its ties to the “golden age” of
Japan’s Buddhist civilization in the ancient and medieval eras. Buddhism’s more
recent material culture simply looks too different from what was created before
to be evaluated using the traditional models as a standard and using traditional
methodologies of analysis. To its detractors, the plurality of influences, from
East and West, from high and popular culture, renders the cultural authenticity
of modern Buddhist arts questionable.
For this reason, most of these copious materials have been left out of the mod-
ern canon of Japanese art and architectural history, or if individual objects and
sites have been included because of esteem for their makers or for the site itself,
Buddhism is not generally regarded as the principal stimulus to their creation.
This oversight derives in large measure from the ways those in power, whether
intellectuals or government entities, use material culture to create definitions
of cultural identity in the contemporary world. Retaining a sense of cultural
uniqueness is essential to counter the elimination of discrepancies among once
distinctive cultures due to globalization, an inevitable result of improvements in
technology and worldwide communication. Such is the case with the material
culture of Buddhism in Japan, where only ancient and medieval Japanese tem-
ples and their arts have been hailed, since the late Meiji period, as representative
of Japan’s great cultural achievements of the past, in particular its pan-Asian
roots and imperial heritage. Ignored are less prestigious products of commoner
beliefs that dominated the Edo period or those that reflected the influence of the
nation’s more recent efforts at modernization along the Western model.
This break with the past results from internal changes in the practice of Bud-
dhism, most profoundly after persecution in the early Meiji era. But as this book
makes clear, changes in the status and practice of Buddhism actually pre-date
the Meiji, in response to the implementation of policies towards Buddhism by the
Tokugawa rulers. These internal developments significantly contributed to the
growing invisibility of Buddhism’s more recently produced arts and architecture.
Not only did the appearance of the images begin to change, but the nature of
their makers changed as well. Since the Edo period, private individuals and not
government initiatives drove both laity and clerics, often functioning apart from
mainstream organizations, to play a greater role in the production of imagery, the
founding of temples, and the creation of spiritually potent places for contempla-
tion, sometimes at temple compounds and sometimes elsewhere.
In ancient and medieval Japan, Buddhist image-makers worked directly for
institutions, or, when they created imagery on commission or as private acts of
276 | Conclusion

devotion, their arts would have still been associated with the faith’s institutions,
whether sold or donated to temples or used in private services. The separation
of Buddhism from its institutional base began during the Edo period, when
Buddhist temples became sites of secular activities and Buddhist subjects be-
came used as imagery in popular visual culture. It intensified in the Meiji and
Taishō periods, when lay practitioners and scholars came to dominate study of
the faith, old Buddhist imagery became redefined as art, traditionally trained
Buddhist image-makers transformed themselves into modern artists, and art-
ists began creating Buddhist-inspired art for display in new types of secular
environments.
In the postwar era, these trends have continued. As the result of an increas-
ing diversity in the appearance of Buddhist art and sites of formal and infor-
mal devotion, the faith has lost a clarity of visual identity, but, as this book has
revealed, not its power to inspire artistic creativity as a result of deep spiritual
commitment to the faith by diverse individuals, both within and beyond its for-
mal institutions. The prominence of these spiritually moving places and images
in contemporary Japan reveals that even in today’s highly secularized and glo-
balized age dominated by technological and scientific achievements, Buddhism
continues to thrive as a beacon of spiritual illumination.
Conclusion | 277

Appendix
Guide To Tokyo-Area Temples Mentioned in This Book

Note: The temples listed below are limited to those within Tokyo or accessible from the
city as day trips. This guide provides only general locations/directions using public trans-
portation. Because access routes sometimes change, it is best to verify directions prior to
visiting. For temples within the city of Tokyo, I list only the name of the district (ku) after
the temple’s name. For all other temples, I list the city and prefecture in which they are
located.
Daienji, Meguro-ku. Meguro station, JR Yamanote line or subway Mita or Tōzai line.
Ekōin, Sumida-ku. Ryōgoku station (west exit), JR Sōbu line.
Fukagawa Fudō Hall (Fukagawa Fudōdō), adjacent to the Tomioka Hachimangū Shrine,
Kōtō-ku. Monzen-nakachō station, subway Tōzai or Ōedo lines.
Gokokuji, Bunkyō-ku. Gokokuji station, subway Yūrakuchō line.
Gohyaku Rakanji, Meguro-ku. Two routes: 1) JR line to Meguro station, then thirteen-
minute walk; 2) private Tokyū Meguro line to Fudō-mae station, then eight-minute
walk.
Gōtokuji, Setagaya-ku. Gōtokuji station. From Shibuya, take private Keiō Inokashira line
to Shimo-kitazawa, change to private Odakyū line.
Hasedera, Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture. Hase station, Enoden line (originating at Ka-
makura station, JR Yokosuka line).
Honsenji, Shinagawa-ku (formerly at the start of Tōkaidō Road). Aomono Yokocho sta-
tion, private Keihin Kyūkō line.
Jōshinji (Kuhon Butsu), Setagaya-ku. Kuhon Butsu station. From Tokyo city center take
subway Namboku line through (west) to Ōokayama, then change to private Ōimachi
line.
Kan’eiji, Ueno Park (to see pagoda you must enter the zoo). Ueno station, JR line; subway
Ginza or Hibiya lines
Kenchōji, Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture. Kita-Kamakura or Kamakura station, JR Yo-
kosuka line.
Kitain, Kawagoe, Saitama Prefecture. Kawagoe or Hon-Kawagoe station. Three routes
from Tokyo: 1) Private Tōbu Tōjō line from Ikebukuro station, destination: Kawagoe;
2) Private Seibu line from Seibu-Shinjuku, destination: Hon-Kawagoe station; 3) JR
Saikyō/Kawagoe line (direct trains via Ōmiya) to Kawagoe station.
Kōganji (Togenuki Jizō temple), Toshima-ku. Sugamo station, JR Yamanote line or sub-
way Mita line.
Kōtokuin (Kamakura Daibutsu), Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture. Hase station, private
Enoden line (originating at the JR Yokosuka line, Kamakura station).

Naritasan Shinshōji, Narita City, Chiba Prefecture. Narita station, JR or private Keisei
lines. Fifteen-minute walk from stations along a street lined with old shops. (Note: the
earliest of the surviving Main Halls is located on a small hill to your left at the main in-
tersection where you veer to the right as you head to the temple from the stations.)
Nihonji, Nokogiriyama, Hamakanaya, Chiba Prefecture. Private Keihin Kyūkū line to
Keikyū-Kurihama station, then bus or taxi to ferry port bound for Kanaya (ferry takes
thirty-five minutes). From there it is a ten-minute walk from Kanaya ferry port to the
base of the mountain; a cable car takes visitors to the summit.
Ōfuna Kannonji, Ōfuna, Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture. Ōfuna station, various JR
lines.
Reiyūkai, Minato-ku. Kamiyachō station, subway Hibiya line.
Rinnōji and Nikkō Tōshōgū, Nikkō, Tochigi Prefecture. Nikkō station. Two routes: 1)
Private Tobu line originating at Asakusa or Shinjuku; 2) JR line to Utsunomiya, then
transfer to JR Nikkō line. In both cases the shrine temple complex is a ten-minute bus
or taxi ride or thirty-minute walk from station.
Rinsenji, Bunkyō-ku. Myōgadani station, subway Marunouchi line.
Sensōji, Taitō-ku. Asakusa station, subway Ginza or Asakusa lines.
Tsukiji Honganji, Chūō-ku. Tsukiji station, subway Hibiya line.
Yakuōin on Mount Takaō, Saitama Prefecture. Takaōsan-guchi station, private Keiō line
(originating at Keiō Shinjuku station).
Zōjōji, Minato-ku. Shibakōen station, subway Mita line.
Zuishōji, Minato-ku. Shirokanedai station (exit 2), subway Namboku line.
280 | Appendix

Notes
Introduction
1. These deities are too numerous to enumerate here, but among the many different
classes of divinities frequently mentioned later in this book are the following: persons who
have attained enlightenment (Skt. buddha; Jp. nyōrai); beings who have realized enlight-
enment but selflessly postpone attainment of their goal to help save the living (Skt. bo-
dhisattva; Jp. bosatsu); wrathful manifestations of buddhas, known as Bright Kings, who
direct their anger at nonbelievers and demons but who offer salvation to those who ask (Skt.
vidyarāja; Jp. myōō); and saintlike ascetic followers of the mortal Buddha who lived in India
in the sixth century BCE (Skt. arhat; Jp. rakan).
2. See Sharf 1995, esp. 134–135.
3. See, e.g., the recent project Awake: Art, Buddhism, and the Dimensions of Consciousness,
described on the group’s Web site, http://artandbuddhism.org (accessed 30 January 2005),
and the edited volume of essays that emerged from this project, Baas and Jacob 2004.
4. For an insightful study of this more practical function of the Sōtō Zen sect in the early
modern period, see Williams 2005.
5. Scholars cite several dates as the beginning point of this historical era. Historians pre-
fer 1600, when Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated a rival coalition of daimyo at the great battle of
Sekigahara, or 1603, when the emperor awarded Ieyasu the title Great Barbarian-quelling
Generalissimo (Seii Taishōgun, abbreviated to Shōgun) after rival factions had pledged alle-
giance to his authority. Art historians generally use the later date of 1615, when Ieyasu finally
crushed those loyal to the heirs of Toyotomi Hideyoshi at the siege of Osaka Castle. The
period is also known by two interchangeable names: Edo, after the city (now called Tokyo;
lit. “Eastern Capital”) that Ieyasu named his capital, and Tokugawa, the family name of the
fifteen successive generations of shoguns that ruled for the era’s duration.
6. On the rise of secular power over the authority of the clergy as the starting point for
Western Enlightenment and the values of modernity in the West, see Lee and Ackerman
2002, 6.
7. On the understanding of Confucianism for instilling Chinese ideals in warriors through
visual imagery in the Momoyama period, see K. Brown 1997. For the widely held opinion
that Confucianism was the dominant ideology of the Tokugawa shoguns from the begin-
ning, see McMullin 1984, 264–283. On the promotion of Confucianism by the fifth shogun,
see Bodart-Bailey 2006, esp. 218–229. Bodart-Bailey’s study helps put into perspective the
motivations for the plentiful body of shogunate- and commoner-sponsored Buddhist ma-
terials addressed in this book that concurrently corroborate her claim.
8. Collcutt 1986, 145–146, esp. n. 3.
9. Scholarship that accepts the degradation of Buddhism during the Edo period is reap-
praised in Watt 1984, 188–191, and more fully in J. Sawada 2002, 39–64, esp. 51–56. For
another assessment of why Buddhism of this period is considered corrupt, see LaFleur
1992, chap. 5.

10. On the acceptance of this view, see McMullin 1984, 266–267.
11. See Tsuji 1990; Shibuya Kuritsu Shōtō Bijutsukan 1995; Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan 1997;
Tsuji 2000; and Yamashita 2003.
12. Such as Addiss 1978, 1989; Seo and Addiss 1998; Yamashita et al. 2000.
13. Particularly Watsky 2004.
14. See Patricia Fister’s provocative look at religious art created from an unorthodox
material, 2000, and her bilingual catalogue, 2003.
15. These include sculptures by illustrious monks such as Enkū (1628–1695) and Mokujiki
Myōman (1718–1810) and studies on ōtsue (folk paintings made at Ōtsu). For recent Western-
language studies of these materials, see, e.g., Van Alphen 1999 and McArthur 1999.
16. For a rare reassessment of Edo-period Buddhist art in English, see Singer 1998b.
17. For more on this issue focusing on Western scholarship, see Graham 2002a, 19–20.
For a discussion of the emphasis on aesthetics in the study of Japanese Buddhist sculpture,
see Bogel 2002.
18. The reader should be aware that the discussion here, on the formation of the Japanese
art historical canon, is necessarily highly abbreviated. The complex factors that contrib-
uted to its formation are far beyond the scope of this book. But it is important to note that
initially there was not one authoritative canon, but several, created by different individuals
and groups, including government officials, private collectors, foreign scholars, and Japa-
nese art critics, each with their own agendas, that only sometimes coincided. Furthermore,
to illustrate the high level of complexity of this issue, even for one of these canons — the
official, government-approved one — the types of arts included changed over time, in ac-
cordance with alterations to state policies. Always, though, all of these canons included
large numbers of early Japanese Buddhist arts. See Guth 1993, esp. chap. 4, 1996–1997, 1997;
Murakado 1999; and S. Tanaka 1999.
19. Rosenfield 1998b, esp. 236–239, and 1998a, 170–172.
20. See Gluck 1998, 265; and S. Tanaka 1999, 52, 55.
21. On the overemphasis of subjective aesthetic values in the study of Japanese Buddhist
sculpture, see esp. Bogel 2002, 57. For a general discussion of connoisseurship and the his-
tory of taste within the context of present art historical methodologies, see Gaskell 2001.
22. See, e.g., the catalogue of the blockbuster exhibition Edo: Art in Japan 1615–1868, at
the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC (Singer 1998a). One of the catalogue writ-
ers (Herman Ooms) defined Edo art as a product of a largely urban society, characterized
by its variety, sophistication, and high technical quality, viewing art as a status-conferring
commodity, largely luxury goods for the wealthy (31). The show and catalogue did include a
provocative chapter on religious materials, however. Folk arts (mingei), much of it religious
subject matter by and for the lower classes and often made from plentiful local materials,
have long been regarded as a separate category of Japanese art, displayed in separate, spe-
cialized museums. Notably, mingei was largely absent from this Edo show.
23. E.g., see Itabashi Kuritsu Bijutsukan 1984; Ōga 1986–1987; and Kyoto-shi Bijutsukan
2005.
24. The most significant publication on religious painting and sculpture of Japan’s mod-
ern period, Ōga (1986–1987), almost completely excludes works by professionals whose
workshops specialize in the production of Buddhist sculpture and painting. Regarding
modern and contemporary Buddhist architecture, I know of only one volume in a multi-
volume survey of buildings completed between 1988 and 1996 that includes various types
of religious architecture, including mortuaries and ossuaries (Meisei Shuppan 1997). Most
architectural historians emphasize modernist masters and, with few exceptions, exclude
from their studies the religious structures designed by these architects.
282 | Notes to Pages 7–10

25. See Keyes, Hardacre, and Kendall 1994, esp. their jointly written introduction.
26. For a theoretical study of selected aspects of modern religious art worldwide, see
Lee and Ackerman 2002. See also an assessment of recent studies on spirituality in art in
Robertson and McDaniel 2006.
27. E.g., one source defines visual culture as a “history of images” rather than a “his-
tory of art” interpreted in a “semiotic notion of representation.” See Bryson, Holley, and
Moxey 1994, esp. xvi and xviii. In contrast, Nicholas Mirzoeff (1998, chap. 1) associates
visual culture exclusively with modernity. On the importance of visual culture to the study
of religion, see Morgan and Promey 2001, esp. 124. On material culture studies of Chinese
Buddhism, see Kieschnick 2003, esp. the introduction. For an overview of these various
viewpoints, see Cherry 2004.
28. On this issue, in relation to Chinese Buddhist material culture, see Kieschnick 2003,
21–22. Other critical studies I found particularly insightful were Freedberg 1989 and Faure
1998.
29. Professor Tamamuro’s studies are discussed at length in Ambros and Williams 2001,
212–219. See also Tamamuro 1987.
Chapter 1: Institutional Buddhism under Warrior Rule

1. For a detailed analysis of the rise of these warrior-monks and their temples, see Adolph-
son 2000.
2. On Shōmu’s statue and its significance, see Yiengpruksawan 1998b, 1–2.
3. Bodart-Bailey 2006, 52. On Sūden’s residence at the Nanzenji subtemple of Konchiin,
which contains a magnificent Zen garden designed by shogunal adviser Kobori Enshū, see
Kuitert 2002, 191–196. For a short biography, see Toby 1983 and Tamamuro 1996, 124–125.
On Tenkai, see Ooms 1985, 173–186 and Daitō Shuppansha 1991, 352.
4. Exact numbers of Edo-period temples are hard to gauge. McMullin 1984, 246 and
398, nn. 48 and 49, cites the following statistics: in the medieval era (fourteenth through
sixteenth centuries), temples nationwide numbered from between 13,000 to 90,000, while
in the Edo period, their numbers increased to either 462,000 or 600,000. Another source
(Kabanoff 1999, 55) cites land registers of the Kansei era (1799–1801), indicating the existence
of 469,934 temples at that time.
5. Ishin Sūden played a large role in this edict and its outcome. See Nosco 1996, 146; Butler
2002, 230–232; and Kuitert 2002, 191–192.
6. See Bodart-Bailey 2006, 206; Ooms 1985, 173; and Coaldrake 1996, 180.
7. The statues represent the buddha Amida and the bodhisattva Kannon (Skt.
Avalokiteśvara; Ch. Guanyin) in two manifestations, as the Thousand-Armed Kannon (Jp.
Senju Kannon) and the Horse-Headed Kannon (Jp. Batō Kannon).
8. Originally it sat closer to the Tōshōgū complex, but authorities commanded its reloca-
tion in 1871 in accordance with government (shinbutsu bunri) regulations that separated
Shinto and Buddhist institutions, discussed at length in chapter 7.
9. Hidetada’s monument is the Taitokuin Reibyō, erected in 1632 alongside the precincts
of Zōjōji in Edo. Both it and the Tōshōgū for Ieyasu are discussed at length in Coaldrake
1996, chap. 7. Another mausoleum for Ieyasu at Kan’eiji in Edo was completed by order of
Iemitsu in 1651.
10. On the financial plight of the bakufu at this time, see Bodart-Bailey 2006, 185–189;
and Totman 1993, 125–132.
11. On Kōjō, see Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan 1997, 80, 99. The gilt-wood statue of about four
feet in height still survives, but it is a secret image and never photographed. Since the open-
Notes to Pages 10–26 | 283

ing of a new Fire Ritual Hall (Gomadō) at Rinnōji, completed in 1988, it has been kept hidden
from public view in an alcove of a private worship hall on the second floor of this building.
This statue is one of three enshrined there in adjacent niches, all carved by the Seventh
Avenue Atelier. From right to left they are the statue of Shaka; Yakushi, commissioned for
display at Iemitsu’s funeral service and representing Tokugawa Ieyasu reincarnated, who
presided over the ritual; and Amida, also created for Iemitsu’s funeral to guide him towards
his Western Paradise.
12. For illustrations of the other two scrolls, see Nikkōzan Rinnōji Hōmotsuden 2004, pl.
17. One depicts a long procession of monks, courtiers, and samurai heading to the shrine;
the other shows the recitation of the Lotus Sutra, as that was the principal sutra of the
Tendai sect. Its recitation lasted ten days and was performed by a multitude of monks in
Rinnōji’s Main Hall.
13. As already discussed in this book’s introduction, Beatrice Bodart-Bailey has recently
published a revisionist view of the achievements of this shogun; see Bodart-Bailey 2006.
14. On Keishōin and Tsunayoshi’s patronage of Buddhism, see Shivley 1970, 89–90, 103–
106; Tsukamoto 1998; and Bodart-Bailey 2006.
15. See Foard 1982; Osaka Shiritsu Bijutsukan 1987b; Tanabe and Tanabe 1989; and Wat-
son 1993.
16. On architecture invested with symbolic meaning, created for the third shogun Ie-
mitsu, see Gerhart 1999.
17. Other major projects in Kyoto and its vicinity include the Sutra Repository, Main
Gate (both 1619), and the Founder’s or Main Hall (1639) at the Jōdo-sect head temple of
Chiōn’in; the Main Gate (Sanmon) and subtemple of Konchiin (Ishin Sūden’s residence) at
the Zen temple of Nanzenji (both ca. 1628); two buildings at the important Shingon-sect
temple of Tōji: the Ordination Hall (Kanjōin, 1634) and Five-Story Pagoda (1644), the tallest
surviving premodern pagoda in Japan, which was rebuilt following its destruction by fire
in 1634; the Main Hall (Konpon Chūdō, 1641) at Enryakuji, the Tendai-sect headquarters
at Mount Hiei; the previously discussed reconstruction of the Hōkōji Great Buddha (1664);
and the Main Hall of the Jōdo-sect temple of Seiryōji in Kyoto (1701). In Nara, the Tokugawa
reconstructed the gigantic Main Hall at the Shingon-sect pilgrimage site of Hasedera (1650)
and the Second Month Hall (Nigatsudō, 1669) at Tōdaiji. Many buildings at the Shingon-
sect headquarters of Mount Kōya (Kōyasan) in Wakayama Prefecture were also built with
Tokugawa support during the seventeenth century, including a Tokugawa family mauso-
leum, completed in 1643. For other examples of notable temple and shrine buildings of the
Edo period, many funded by the bakufu, see Okawa 1991, 131–138.
18. Information on the city’s development, land area, and population comes from Coal-
drake 1981 and H. Watanabe 2001, 25–26. Watanabe provides more conservative estimates
on Edo’s population than Coaldrake, noting that the population did not surpass one million
until the early nineteenth century.
19. For new approaches to Daoist studies in China, see Kohn 2001; J. Miller 2003; and
Kirkland 2004.
20. Although fengshui is often considered a Daoist practice primarily because one of
its main concepts makes use of Daoist belief in the flow of energy forces, some scholars of
Chinese Daoism prefer to define it as a “traditional Chinese art” that falls into the spectrum
of practices encompassed by the broad term “Daoist arts.” Such arts, including breathing
meditation and energy movement, could be practiced at formal religious institutions, in
more informal group settings, or privately. See J. Miller 2003, 16–17. I am greatly indebted
to Noelle Giuffrida for advising me on this issue and Daoist studies in China generally.

21. For a survey of the various influences of Daoism in Japan, see Masuo 2000. On the
importance of Daoist rituals at the court in Heian-period Japan, see A. Miller 1971.
22. For a discussion of these screens, formerly in the private collection of the Hayashi
family and known among scholars as the “Hayashi Edo screens,” see McKelway 2006,
203–209.
23. On the temple’s history and its buildings, see Kan’eiji Kyōkabu 1993.
24. Temple brochures date the temple founding to 1678, but a standard Buddhist dictio
nary recounts the possibility of a different founding date (1665); see Tamamuro 1992, 376.
25. Not all scholars agree with this assessment. Some think they are too good to be ama-
teur products and that Kaseki merely raised the money for their production. See Tsuji 1979,
199, text for pl. 61; and A. Satō 1991, 189.
26. Illustrated in Mason 2005, pl. 183. On the nine grades of Amida statues, see Parent
2001.
27. A festival of similar type had first been held in the thirteenth-century temple of Jōdoji
in Ono, Hyogo Prefecture, which the Tōdaiji priest Chōgen (1121–1206) founded in 1192.
Records of this temple indicate the festival’s continuation into the seventeenth century; see
Nara Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2006, cat. no. 96.
28. Nishiyama 1997, 80. For an in-depth discussion of this book, see Chiba 2001.
29. Such replicas of famous pilgrimage routes and destinations proliferated from the
eighteenth century in large cities during the Edo period. They catered to the era’s increasing
number of commoner devotees (further discussed in chaps. 2, 3, and 4). See, e.g., a study
of the Osaka Thirty-Three Kannon pilgrimage circuit, first recorded in a text in 1678, in
Brownstein 2006.
Chapter 2: Buddhist Temples for the Elites

1. For a list of twenty-nine temples designated monzeki in the mid-nineteenth century, see
www.geocities.co.jp/CollegeLife/6188/monzek/monzeks.html (accessed 10 February 2006).
Many monzeki were eliminated by the Meiji government, which required that the imperial
family abandon Buddhism in favor of Shinto. Recent research on imperial nunneries at the
Institute for Medieval Japanese Studies at Columbia University has found that thirteen
monzeki have survived into the twentieth century; see Fister 2003.
2. The last monzeki abbot at Kan’eiji and Rinnōji, Prince Kogen (1847–1895), took the sur-
name of Shirakawa in the Meiji period and became the head of the imperial guards.
3. Einō is best known as the publisher of one of the earliest histories of Japanese painting,
The History of Painting in this Realm (Honchō gashi). See Phillips 1994 and Gerhart 2003, 21.
4. For representative paintings of Japanese temples and shrines by Einō, see Hyōgo Ken-
ritsu Rekishi Hakubutsukan 1999, pl. 4, 7, 8, 10, 51.
5. A picture of Sennyūji of this type, also showing the newly rebuilt main compound, is
illustrated in Kasumi Kaikan 2000, 89.
6. Information on these visits comes from personal discussion (in October 2004) with
Prof. Ōtsuki Mikio, who shared unpublished references with me.
7. This distance measurement originated in India and has some association with Bud-
dhism. However, the distance it measures has never been standardized, so is impossible to
calculate. See Mochizuki and Tsukamoto 1954–1958, 1:737.
8. Keikō refers to Abbot Tenkei, hereafter translated as “Tenkei” in this text.
9. One zhang is about 3.3 meters.
10. Kano Tan’yū, the best seventeenth-century painter of the official Kano school (further

discussed in chap. 5). “Hōin” (Eye of the Law) is the highest honorary rank awarded to top
official painters. Zenzai Dōji was a devout follower of the Buddha in India who became a
bodhisattva.
11. This artist is better known as Guan Xiu (832–912). Rakan (Skt. Arhat) were virtuous
followers of the Buddha in India (see chap. 4). These paintings may be the ones that came
into the possession of Sennyūji when the temple’s founding priest, Shunjō (1166–1227), trav-
eled to China and received them from a Chinese master, as discussed in Faure 1996, 90, who
describes them, however, as a set of eighteen. If they are the same set, two must have been
destroyed by the time Kōsen saw them, for he clearly notes they were a set of sixteen. Alas,
Sennyūji no longer owns them. Nishitani Tsutomu, a curator at the Sennyūji museum, told
me in correspondence (25 April 2006) that the temple thinks they were probably removed at
the time of Buddhist persecutions during the early Meiji period. He also noted that temple
records of Sennyūji’s treasures, on loan to a public exhibition at a temple in Nagoya during
the late Edo period, indicated they were among possessions displayed there then.
12. Dong Qichang (1555–1636).
13. Renowned Chinese calligraphers Zhong Yao (151–230) and Wang Xizhi (303–379).
14. The text also appears in the woodblock-printed collected writings of Kōsen, published
in 1672 (Kōsen zenshi hōen ryaku shū, 4:14–16). I thank Ōtsuki Mikio for assistance in locat-
ing this printed source and helping to interpret it. Chinese art historian Chang Qing pro-
vided a rough English translation, and Joseph Seubert also helped with difficult passages.
15. Baroni (2000, 166) suggests that “the bakufu’s interest was predominantly cultural
rather than religious, and the emperor’s more a matter of personal devotion to the practice
of Zen.”
16. On Shōan, see Ōtsuki et al. 1988, 182–184. On the building, see Y. Miyata 1975, 275–293.
17. The manji is a clockwise swastika symbol that signifies divine quality or good fortune
— this symbol is one of the distinguishing marks of buddhahood, found on the breast,
hands, feet, and head of the Buddha; see Daitō Shuppansha 1991, 216.
18. For extensive illustrations of the Rakan statues at Gohyaku Rakanji, see Komyunikeshi-
yon Mentōsu 1972. On the temple’s history and enduring popular appeal, see Screech 1993.
For an authoritative account of the circumstances surrounding the temple’s founding, see
biographical information on its founder, Shōun Genkei, in Ōtsuki et al. 1988, 156–157. See
also Takahashi 1981.
19. Tetsugen was later celebrated as one of Japan’s illustrious eccentrics and included in
the popular compilation of such persons. See Ban and Mikuma 1972, 53–55. For an English-
language biography, see Baroni 2000, 82–83.
20. Among his other extant statues are three buddhas for another Edo temple, Gōtokuji,
completed in 1677 (see Tsuji 1990, 144–145), and the main Buddha images at the Sendai
Ōbaku temple of Dainenji, completed in 1691 (see Sendai-shi Hakubutsukan 2003, pl. 47).
21. This temple is cited in De Visser 1923, 52–57, where it is described as being located in
Atoda Village of the former Buzen Province, with stone images erected by a Chinese priest,
Kenjun (Ch. Kienshun), in 1360. It was apparently modeled after the famous Mount Tiantai
in China, legendary home to the Five Hundred Rakan, who dwelt there beyond a dangerous
rock bridge that only “pure monks” could safely cross; see Faure 1996, 91–92, and 94, n. 34).
The present assemblage of five hundred stone Rakan statues at Rakanji date to 1776. Since
1600 the temple has been affiliated with the Sōtō Zen sect. See also Tamamuro 1992, 894.
22. For biographic information on Egoku Dōmyō, see Baroni 2000, 79–80; and Ōtsuki
et al. 1988, 36–38.
23. Shōun’s biography in Ōtsuki et al. 1988, 156–157, states that the set was completed in
1695. Private correspondence from Mr. Saitō to conservator Suzanna Shaw of the National

Gallery of Australia (24 August 2000) mentions an early text that says Shōun completed
the statues only in 1700. I am indebted to Ms. Shaw for access to this correspondence. All
surviving documents that describe the making of these statues postdate Shōun’s time, so
none can be considered authoritative.
24. For English-language publications of some of these statues, see Lee 1947 and Jenkins
1976, pl. 49.
25. However, several clans with close familial ties to the Tokugawa family enacted anti-
Buddhist policies in the 1660s and did not support Buddhism, even requiring citizens to
register at Shinto shrines instead of temples (Ooms 1985, 192).
26. This issue is a point of contention among early modern historians; see P. Brown 2003,
20; and Toby 2001.
27. The most famous of these was Myōryūji, a Nichiren-sect temple popularly known as
Ninjadera (the Ninja, or Military Spy, Temple), which he built in 1643 as his family’s private
site of worship.
28. For another temple with a history of religious plurality that also converted to Shingon
at this time, see Sherry Fowler’s study of Murōji (2006).
29. Toshitada and his father constructed the most celebrated of all Japanese architectural
and garden monuments, the Katsura Imperial Villa, in Arashiyama outside Kyoto, which
was expanded the same year Toshitada married the Maeda daimyo’s daughter, presumably
with funding from her father; see Fujioka 1983, 38.
30. On Shugendō and shamanism in Japan, see Blacker 1975 and Miyake 2001.
31. The first syllable, nata, came from Mount Nachi, the location of temple number 1
on the Kannon pilgrimage route; the second syllable, ta, was derived from the name of the
mountain, Mount Tanigumi, the location of the last temple, number 33.
32. Miyake 2001, 32.
33. Information on this temple comes from Ōtsuki 1985, 312–318, and captions for pl.
384–457; and Takamatsu Shiritsu Shiryōkan 1992.
34. These are designated as Important Cultural Properties and are illustrated in Okawa
1991, 133, fig. 68.
35. Published in Shinpen Hirosaki Shishi Hensan Iinkai 1998, 184–199.
36. On the dating of the Gohyaku Rakanji structure, see Screech 1993, 417–424; and Smith
and Poster 1986, pl. 66 caption.
37. For a slightly earlier, more elaborate structure of this type dated 1796 in the northern
Japan castle town of Aizu Wakamatsu, see www.cs.ucla.edu/~jmg/saz98 (accessed 13 Febru-
ary 2006). This building is illustrated in Tsuji 2005, 338. Information on the Rokkadō comes
from a leaflet distributed by Ranteiin, the temple that now manages it, and from Aomori-
ken Kyōiku Iinkai 1991, 2:84.
Chapter 3. Temples for Commoners

1. For estimates of the numbers of Edo-period temples, see McMullin 1984, 246 and 398,
nn. 48, 49).
2. For historical facts, see www.vill.taira.toyama.jp/cultural/cult_03.html (accessed 17
March 2004). For a short overview of the village, see Young and Young 2004, 84–87.
3. See Blacker 1984; Vaporis 1994; Reader and Swanson 1997; Reader 1996; Formanek
1998.
4. For studies comparing the Saikoku and Shikoku circuits, see Readicker-Henderson
1995 and Hoshino 1997. On the Shikoku pilgrimage, see Kagawa-ken Bunka Kaikan 1988;
Mainichi Shinbunsha 2002; and Reader 2005. Ian Reader notes, by the way, that the reasons

for fixing the Shikoku pilgrimage route at eighty-eight sites remain a mystery; see Reader
2005, 277–278.
5. Popular stories of the time, such as Hizakurige (Shank’s mare) by Jippensha Ikku (1765–
1831), however, reveal that although travel along the routes was pleasurable, it still had its
perils; see Jippensha Ikku 1960. Also, local overlords sometimes ordered their subjects not
to offer alms to freeloading, impoverished pilgrims who begged for lodging and provisions
along their way; see Reader 2005, 122–126.
6. On guidebooks, see Nagoya-shi Hakubutsukan 1988; and Ikeda et al. 1979–1988.
7. The nonstandard number of sites on the Chichibu route (thirty-four), was conceived
simply so that this route, traversed together with the the Saikoku and Bandō routes, would
add up to an even one hundred.
8. Selected illustrations in Shibuya Kuritsu Shōtō Bijutsukan 1999, 13–17. All are in the
online database of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto: www
.nichibun.ac.jp/graphicversion/dbase/reikenki/index.html (accessed 2 February 2006).
9. On the meaning of hibutsu, see Rambelli 2002.
10. On Zenkōji’s displays in Edo and the general restrictions the government placed on
them, see Ambros 2004.
11. On Ōyama, see Ambros 2001.
12. For a lively account of commoner temples in Edo, see Nishiyama 1997, chap. 5.
13. The only surviving Edo buildings are an eastern side gate (erected in 1618) and its af-
filiate Sanja Gongen Shinto shrine (erected in 1649).
14. On Sensōji’s exhibitions and the meaning and importance of this phenomenon in
general, see Hur 2000, 80–81, 212–213, 217–219.
15. On degaichō at Ekōin, see Ambros 2004; and Hiruma 1980, 45–48.
16. The bronze caster came from Ōmi (near Kyoto), but came to Edo to serve the sho
gunate in making mostly temple bells, including one for Sensōji. See Rittō Rekishi Minzoku
Hakubutsukan 2002, 30.
17. The Myōō are wrathful manifestations of the five most important buddhas in esoteric
Buddhism. Among these kings, Fudo Myōō occupies the central position as the manifesta-
tion of Dainichi. For dates of the temple’s degaichō in Edo, see Shinshōji 1968, 208–209; and
Hiruma 1980, 150–151.
18. The Japanese government has designated this statue as an Important Cultural Prop-
erty; for an illustration, see Mainichi Shinbunsha 1973, 103, pl. 483. The original statue now
resides at Nan’in at the Shingon-sect headquarters site of Mount Kōya. For more on this
incident, see Mack n.d.
19. For an illustration of the maedachi statue, see Naritasan Shinshōji 1984, 36, pl. 32.
20. This section on Naritasan Shinshōji is an abbreviated adaptation of a longer article I
wrote about popular patronage at the temple; see Graham 2004.
21. For information on Ieyasu and daimyo support for Naritasan Shinshōji, see Shinshōji
1968, 494–495.
22. This information comes from the writings of Ichikawa Danjūrō II. See excerpted
translations in Kominz 1997, 35–36, and 267, n. 3.
23. Some accounts of Danjūrō I indicate that he believed himself a “living embodiment”
of Fudō Myōō, but he more likely considered himself simply a devoted follower of the deity,
and the “living embodiment” assertion likely stems from a misinterpretation of records
describing viewers’ impressions that they saw the deity come to life when watching him
perform. For such a comment, see Clark et al. 1994, 162. On Danjūrō’s faith in Buddhism,
see Kominz 1997, 61–64.

24. See discussion of patronage by Ichikawa Danjūrō V (1741–1806) in Kominz (1993, 73).
See also prints of Danjūrō V as Fudō Myōō in Clark et al. 1994, pl. 55, 56.
25. For a variety of Kanto and central Honshu religious structures with this type of
brightly colored, deep-cut decoration, see Tabata et al. 1994.
26. The side-by-side images of Daoist and Confucian sages at Naritasan Shinshōji and
elsewhere reflect the nature of later Chinese Confucian ideology that was transmitted to
Japan and that incorporated aspects of Daoist beliefs.
27. The tripitaka (Jp: sanzō) — lit. “three baskets,” or in this case three groups of col-
lected writings about Buddhism — includes sutras (texts expounding the teachings of the
buddhas), vinayanas (Buddha’s commandments), and śāstras (commentaries on Buddhist
doctrines). See Daitō Shuppansha 1991, 288.
28. The throngs of spectators jostling with one another at these openings have been rep-
resented by the ukiyoe printmakers Utagawa Toyokuni (1769–1825) and Utagawa Kunisato
(d. 1885). These are illustrated in Shinshōji 1968, pl. 3, 4; preceding p. 199.
29. For information on these treasures, see Shinshōji 1968, 211–225. Many of its famous
votive tablets, by illustrious artists of Edo, are illustrated in Ōno and Ogura 1979.
30. For materials related to the carvings by Ryōzan, see Kawai 1983, figs. 31–48.
31. This arrangement is visible in a picture of the temple in the 1858 Illustrated Guide-
book to Narita, Record of a Pilgrimage to Narita (Narita meisho zue, Narita sankei ki), by
Hasegawa Settei (1819–1882), son of Settan, reproduced in Suzuki and Ikeda 1980, 331; and
Graham 2004, 23.
Chapter 4. Depictions of Popular Deities and Spiritual Concerns

1. This is the prevailing theme of two recent books on Edo art, Guth 1996a and Singer
1998a.
2. For a detailed study of faddish deities, see Miyata 1972. They are also briefly discussed
in Nishiyama 1997, 90–91; and Kominz 1997, 42–43.
3. The most famous site of this type is Mount Osore (Osorezan) in northern Japan. See
Ivy 1995, chap. 5; and Miyazaki and Williams 2001. On the growing practice of abortion and
concomitant devotion to Jizō in the Edo period, see LaFleur 1992, chaps. 5–7.
4. Information on Shingan comes from a pamphlet of an exhibition of his paintings at
the Kanazawa Prefectural Art Museum (Kanazawa Kenritsu Bijutsukan 1989) and from a
personal interview with the head priest at Daienji in October 2003. The temple maintains
a small gallery for his paintings.
5. Although rare, other examples of this practice are known from Japan and will be dis-
cussed later in this book. In chapter 5, see the discussion of Daitsū Bunchi, Gomizunoo’s
eldest daughter. See also Buddha statues made from cremated remains in the Meiji period,
discussed and illustrated in chapter 7 (fig. 7.7).
6. For images of these, see the Web site “Six Jizoes in Edo”: http://homepage3.nifty. com/
matsan/HPjizo/jz-e0.html (accessed 1 October 2004).
7. On arhats in Chinese and Japanese art, with extensive discussion on their textual
bases, see De Visser 1923 and shorter critiques by Faure 1991, 266–272; and 1996, 88–96.
On the history of their veneration in China, see Kent 1994. For a recent Japanese exhibition
catalogue on important Rakan imagery in Japanese collections, see Shiga Kenritsu Biwako
Bunkakan 1994.
8. Mujaku 1963, 15; and discussed in Shiga Kenritsu Biwako Bunkakan 1994, 146; text
for pl. 51. On Gakkai Chōja’s conversion to Buddhism and the legend explaining his role in

creating the Zenkōji Amida triad, see McCallum 1994, 46–47. On Zenzai Dōji, see Fontein
1967. Among the Rinzai Zen temple gates in Japan that contain the iconographic program
Mujaku described are those at Tōfukuji (ca. 1425) and Nanzenji (ca. 1628). On the associa-
tion of the transcendent Shaka with Zen temples ever since the fourteenth century, see
Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2003b, xxiii.
9. As discussed in Levine 2005, 293. See also translation of selected Edo-period tales of
Ikkyū, including some about the Five Hundred Rakan, published in a compilation dated
1668, in Sanford 1981, 266–268.
10. The story is mentioned in Singer 1998b, 21, and translated in Iharu 1963, 203–208.
11. Kent 1995, 152–164. For an introductory survey of later Luohan images in China, see
Stevens 2001.
12. For his biography, see Ōtsuki et al. 1988, 314–315. For other sculptures by Han Dōsei
at Manpukuji, see Fuji et al. 1977, pl. 28–29, 31–36). He also sculpted a set of Eighteen Rakan
for the Main Hall of Sōfukuji in Nagasaki (see fig. 2.4); see Y. Miyata 1975, 305–306.
13. This is the Sōtō Zen-sect temple of Nihonji atop Mount Nokogiri (Nokogiriyama) in
Hamakanaya, Chiba Prefecture, overlooking Tokyo Bay with carvings by a master stone
sculptor and his twenty-seven apprentices dating to the 1780s and 1790s, as conceived by
the head priest of the temple at that time (Nihon Sekibutsu Kyōkai 1999, 117).
14. See chap. 6 for other examples of Edo-period Five Hundred Rakan paintings by Ike
Taiga and Katō Nobukiyo, and a stone set by Itō Jakuchū.
15. The production of these paintings and their appreciation in Japan are meticulously
documented in Kawai 1983. For excellent photos of a selected group of these, see Yamashita
2004, 153–160. Another set by him of fifty scrolls is owned by the Tokyo National Museum;
see Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2006a.
16. The most famous set of Japanese pictures of the Five Hundred Rakan, thought to
be based on a lost Chinese prototype, is by the Tōfukuji monk Minchō. See Yamaguchi
Kenritsu Bijutsukan 1998, 165–169, with images of Rakan hovering on clouds above hungry
ghosts (or possibly beggars) banished to an unearthly, torturous realm after their death.
This same set is also illustrated in Mainichi Shinbunsha 1973, pl. 159.
17. A. Satō 1991, 193, gives his dates as 1810–1858. Moss 1998, 80, cites these and alternate
dates. For other Buddhist statues by him, see Satō 1991, 193.
18. For discussion of this commission and a selection of these sculptures, see Tokyo
Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2003b, 239, and pl. 159.
19. On the creation of the group and their appreciation in contemporary Japan, see Reader
and Tanabe 1998, 156–163.
20. On narrative tales, see Komatsu 1998, 20–30. For a general overview of Shichifukujin
in the Muromachi period and information on specific deities mentioned in different texts,
see Kida 1976, 74–95.
21. For biographical information on Gizan, see Imaizumi 1999, 184–185.
22. Shōjō seems only to have joined the group briefly during the Genroku era, just when
this book was published; see Kida 1976, 91.
23. The popularity and importance of this 1783 edition is attested to by its numerous
reprintings through the late Meiji period. It is also available in a modern facsimile edition
(Kino Shūshin 1972).
24. Rawson 1992, 126. For a representative selection of Chinese folk prints, mostly modern
printings from late Qing dynasty blocks, see Bo and Johnson 1992. For additional illustra-
tions and discussion of their relationship with the Japanese Seven Gods, see Ehrich 1991.
25. Saitō 1977, 159. For an English translation of the passage that describes the seven
misfortunes and blessings, see Reader and Tanabe 1998, 161. For a disputation of this leg-

endary origin of the group, see Kida 1976, 78–79. Frédéric 1995, 238–239; and Gerhart 1999,
76, quote standard Japanese sources stating that Tenkai invented the grouping. Curators
of Rinnōji’s treasure house museum and the temple’s priests know the anecdote and have
searched temple records for verification of the story but have found no documentation of
this claim (based on personal conversations during a visit to Rinnōji in October 2004).
26. Saitō 1977, 159. For a representative painting of this early type featuring early favorites
among the group — Ebisu, Daikoku, Hotei, and Jūrōjin — by Iwasa Matabei (1578–1650), see
Chiba-shi Bijutsukan 2004, pl. 29, far right screen panel.
27. Known paintings by Tan’yū show only five of them together; see Yasumura 1990, 63.
28. E.g., see a late fifteenth- or early sixteenth-century Chinese painting of Eight Daoist
Immortals in a recent Nezu Institute of Arts exhibition; Nezu Bijutsukan 2005, pl. 15.
29. See a handscroll by Kano Tsunenobu 1636–1713, Tan’yū’s nephew and pupil, published
in Yamatane 1989, pl. 20, copied by his second son and pupil, Kano Minenobu (1663–1709),
published in Itabashi Kuritsu Bijutsukan 1990, pl. 21.
30. For other ukiyoe prints of the Seven Gods, see Shibuya Kuritsu Shōtō Bijutsukan
1999, 87–98.
31. On Shōki in Edo-period popular art, see Welch 1985.
32. On various Edo- and Meiji-period images of these Ten Worlds, see Shibuya Kuritsu
Shōtō Bijutsukan 1995, pl. 20–22; Yokkaichi Shiritsu Hakubutsukan 2001; Itabashi Kuritsu
Bijutsukan 2001; Kokuritsu Rekishi Minzoku Hakubutsukan 2001a; Kokuritsu Rekishi
Minzoku Hakubutsukan 2001b; and Nagano Shiritsu Hakubutsukan 2003. On the function
of these paintings, see Akai 1990. On the importance of these subjects in earlier Japanese
Buddhism, see Ruch 1992 and LaFleur 1983, 26–59.
33. For Pure Land paintings of these worlds and derivations from them, see Okazaki 1977.
For a Shingon vision of the Pure Land, see Kōyasan Reikōkan Museum 2002, cat. no. 11.
34. Etoki had first been employed by clerics at major temples as a method of gaining con-
verts and teaching the fundamentals of Buddhism in the tenth century. By the thirteenth
century, itinerant missionary monks, mainly of the Pure Land sects, began to use etoki to
reach commoners throughout the country; see Kaminishi 2006, 19; Hagiwara 1983.
35. Published in Kokuritsu Rekishi Minzoku Hakubutsukan 2001a, 29. For a similar Ku-
mano Mandala, see ten Grotenhuis 1999, pl. 18.
36. Information about these nuns comes from Ruch 2002b and Kaminishi 2006,
137–164.
37. See, e.g., the woodblock-printed Diagram of the Ten Worlds in the British Museum
collection dated 1669; in Zwalf 1985, pl. 406.
38. These are described and illustrated in detail in Ruch 2002b, 567–573. This particular
mandala is also the subject of a documentary movie, Preaching from Pictures (2003). For
several other published examples, see Kokuritsu Rekishi Minzoku Hakubutsukan 2001a,
26–28.
39. Among these is the Jizō cult centers of Mount Osore and Mount Tate (Tateyama),
which also begat a type of mandala painting used in the religious instruction of women. For
information in English on Tateyama mandalas, see Formanek 1998; Seidel 1992–1993; and
Kaminishi 2006, 165–192. For illustrations, see Kokuritsu Rekishi Minzoku Hakubutsukan
2001b, 82–91. The Blood Pool Sutra was probably introduced to Japan from China in the
fourteenth or fifteenth century, as discussed in Kaminishi 2006, 187.
40. For a study of early Japanese pictures of the Ten Kings, see Phillips 2003.
41. For Ten Kings paintings for commoners, see, e.g., Shibuya Kuritsu Shōtō Bijutsukan
1995, pl. 20 and 21.
42. On humor in Edo art, see Tsuji 1986, 61–86. For humorous paintings of oni, see Addiss

1985, pl. 35, 38, and 40. For late Edo- and Meiji-era prints of oni presiding over the Wheel of
the Five Realms of Transmigration, see Kokuritsu Rekishi Minzoku Hakubutsukan 2001a,
pl. 16; and Yokkaichi Shiritsu Hakubutsukan 2001, pl. 44. On a Tendai monk from Mount
Hiei who reappeared after death as an oni to fulfill a vow to protect his temple, see Wolf-
gram 1985, 94–95.
43. On ema in the Edo period, see Tsuji 1990, 298–316; and Hauge and Hauge 2004. On
ema in religious practice in Japan today, see Reader and Tanabe 1998.
44. See Williams 2000, 143–144, for discussion and illustration of its Edo-period talis-
man; and Williams 2005, 102–112 on the temple generally.
45. For recent exhibition catalogues in English on ōtsue, see McArthur 1999 and Welch
1994.
46. McArthur 1999, 30; and Welch 1994, 41. For English translations of inscriptions on
some oni paintings, see McArthur 1999, 87.
47. On Shingaku and its founder, Ishida Baigan, see Robert Bellah’s somewhat dated but
still useful study (1957, 133–216), and Najita (1987, 77–78, 95–98). On Shingaku ideals in
ōtsue, see McArthur 1999, 21–22, 33; and Rosenfield 1999, 2:371–373.
48. As translated in Ogyu 2005, 121. For other versions of this poem, see McArthur 1999,
89.
Chapter 5. Professional Icon-Makers

1. On early busshi lineages, see Washizuka 1997 and Yiengpruksawan 1998b, 24.
2. On the Seventh Avenue Atelier in the Edo period, see Miyama 1996; on them in the
medieval era, see Nedachi (2006).
3. McCallum 1996, 127; and Miyama 1984, 192–193, who quotes the foremost Meiji-period
sculptor, Takamura Kōun (further discussed in chap. 7).
4. On Kyoto busshi at Manpukuji, see Chō 1998, 26. For examples of Kyoto busshi imagery
at Manpukuji, see Fujii et al. 1977, 27, 30.
5. Ryūkei was also famous for his small-scale ensemble sculptures of townspeople. See
Singer 1998a, 439–440 [cat. 243]. Three subsequent generations of artists also used this
name; see Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan 1997, 105–106.
6. On the collaboration between Ryūkei and Tankai and additional photos of this statue,
see Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan 1997, 30–31; see 104–105 for Tankai’s biography. A Yakushi
Buddha, probably erroneously ascribed to Tankai himself and commissioned by the monk
Kōkei (1648–1705) for Tōdaiji in Nara, is illustrated in Mino et al. 1986, 104–105, pl. 26. For
another Fudō Myōō by Ryūkei (at the Nara temple Genkōji), see Nara Kenritsu Bijutsukan
1991, pl. 25. For a sketch of Fudō Myōō by Tankai owned by the Nara temple Chōkōji, see
Nara Kenritsu Bijutsukan 1991, pl. 26.
7. For surveys of Edo-period Buddhist sculptors, see Tsuji 1979, 144–151; A. Satō 1991;
Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan 1997; Chō 1999; and Hase 2001. Note: authors Chō Yōichi and Hase
Yōichi are the same person; he also authored Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan 1997. On sculpture in
Edo, see Kuno 1994. On sculptors patronized by the bakufu, see Miyama 1996.
8. Shinpen Hirosaki Shishi Hensan Iinkai 1998, 81. I thank Sudō Hirotoshi for guiding
my visit to Hirosaki temples and sharing his voluminous research with me. In contrast
to this elegant statue that verifies the influence of Kyoto ateliers in Hirosaki, see Aomori-
ken Bunkazai Kankōbu 2006 for Buddhist sculpture of rural Aomori Prefecture produced
mostly by local artisans, the itinerant monk-sculptor Enkū (see chap. 6), and his followers.
9. Basic information on this project and the sculptors involved is found in Sakai-shi
Hakubutsukan 1997, 89; and A. Satō 1991, 188–189. For a more thorough examination, see

Nara Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2005b. The final statues carved for the building’s interior
were a set of four guardian kings. Unfortunately, the last two were never finished. Only
their heads were completed before financial constraints curtailed their production (Nara
Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2005b, 162, and pl. 99–100). These heads sit on display in the back
of the building today.
10. The statue had been seriously damaged in the civil wars of the late sixteenth century,
and some repairs, but not replacement of the ruined head, had been undertaken then; see
Yiengpruksawan 1996, 496. See Coaldrake 1986 for information on the seventeenth-century
building restoration project.
11. On the origin of the Tsubai Minbu lineage, whose members came from prestigious
ateliers in both Nara and Kyoto, see Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan 1997, 89; and A. Satō 1991,
188.
12. See his biography in Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan 1997, 109.
13. The Ganku portrait, at Shinjōin in Kyoto, is published in Chō 1999, 101.
14. On the Tōji sculptures, see Tōji Hōmotsukan 1994, 71, and caption for pl. 2; and Kyōō
Gokokuji 1996, 144. The central buddha, Dainichi, dates to the Muromachi period.
15. On the history of ebusshi, see Rosenfield and ten Grotenhuis 1979, 18; Stanley-Baker
2005; Waterhouse 2005; and Parent 2001, secs. on edokoro and ebusshi. On ebusshi in the
Muromachi period, see Wheelwright 1985, 81, 89.
16. The names of successive generations of artists using the name Ryōtaku through the
1840s are recorded in the genealogical compendium Record of Lineages (Jige kaden), pub-
lished in 1854; see Mikami 1854, 408. For illustrations of paintings by artists of this lineage
in old daimyo collections, see Fukuoka-shi Bijutsukan 2004 and Sendai-shi Hakubutsukan
2003.
17. The document verifies that a painter, Tosa Sakyō Ryōgen Masahisa, was the same
person as painter Kimura Shingorō; see Fukuoka-shi Bijutsukan 2004, 46.
18. Scholars assume the two groups collaborated regularly, based on the relative proxim-
ity of their respective studios in Kyoto; see Fukuoka-shi Bijutsukan 2004, 46. For one impor-
tant collaboration at the Main Hall at Tōji in 1598, see Tōji Hōmotsukan 1998, 62–63.
19. Habutae is the name of a particular type of fine quality, lightweight Kyoto silk. It
lent its name to this guidebook, which enumerated prominent Kyoto businesses, religious
institutions, and people of the city.
20. Fukuoka-shi Bijutsukan 2004, 45; and Yuasa 1914–1917, 210. The names Tokuetsu and
Sakyō are also found together on Buddhist paintings at Zōjōji in Edo and at Tōji in Kyoto.
Because Kimura-school artists signed their works with varying names, the relationship be-
tween known artists and these sublineages is difficult to clarify; see Fukuoka-shi Bijutsukan
2004, 44–49.
21. See Sendai-shi Hakubutsukan 2003, pl. 95; and Fukuoka-shi Bijutsukan 2004, pl. 11.
22. Sadatsuna was so famous for his Ōbaku portraits that one he brushed of Ōbaku Kōsen
was mentioned in the standard dictionary of Japanese painters, Kōga biko; see Asaoka 1983,
2:995, compiled by Asaoka Okisada (1800–1856) around 1850 and first published in 1904.
23. Another version of Death of the Buddha by Sadatsuna lacks the additional scenes seen
here, but these three supplementary episodes appear in a pair of stylistically similar scrolls
by him portraying eight scenes from the life of the Buddha; see Fukuoka-shi Bijutsukan
2004, pl. 10 and 11.
24. For examples of later-generation Kimura Ryōtaku paintings at Nikkō, see Tochigi
Kenritsu Hakubutsukan 1996.
25. The exact date of this commission is speculative, but probably slightly predated In-
gen’s arrival; see Ōtsuki 2000, 211.

26. Ryōkei’s records and many paintings for the temple done by Yasunobu and other Kano
artists, some bearing inscriptions by Ingen, were all transferred to the nearby Ōbaku temple
of Keizuiji shortly after Ryōkei’s death; see Ōtsuki 2000.
27. For Itsunen’s Shaka, see Graham 1991, pl. 10; for the whole triptych, see Kobe Shiritsu
Hakubutsukan 1991, pl. 46. For Tan’yū’s triptych, see Kobe Shiritsu Hakubutsukan 1991, pl.
99; or Fuji et al. 1997, pl. 43.
28. For discussion of the training methods in the Kano school, see Jordan 2003. On the
derogatory attitude of Kano artists by later scholars, see Gerhart 2003, 25.
29. See also Kano Buddhist paintings in Itabashi Kuritsu Bijutsukan 2001, pl. 2–3. Recent
studies have begun to reappraise the school in general; see Kyoto Bunka Hakubutsukan
2004; Yamashita 2004; and Sasaki 2006.
30. For Sansetsu’s paintings, see Kyoto Bunka Hakubutsukan 1998, 274 and pl. 0-1. For
three scrolls from Takuhō Dōshū’s set, see Kobe Shiritsu Hakubutsukan 1991, pl. 110. For
three scrolls from Zaichū’s set, see Kyoto Furitsu Sōgō Shiryōkan 1976, pl. 16.
31. For illustrations of the complete Hōnenji set, see Namikawa et al. 1985, 452–459; or
Takamatsu Shiritsu Shiryōkan 1992, pl. 448–460. Information on the painting and its dating
come from these sources.
32. One is owned by Gokokuji, the Edo temple founded by Tokugawa Tsunayoshi. See two
from this set in Tajima 1899–1908, vol. 7.
33. For an illustration of the same scene in Minchō’s set, see Yamaguchi Kenritsu Biju
tsukan 1998, 37, fig. 9-25.
34. For general introduction to nanga, see Graham 1990 or Addiss 2002.
35. For his biography, see Rosenfield 1999, 3:23. On the social status of nanga painters of
Taizan’s generation, see Graham 2002b.
36. For an illustration of the original Shaka, see Graham 1991, pl. 23; for the triptych, see
Yamane 1983, pl. 10–12.
37. Sosen was uncle and later adopted father to painter Mori Tessan (father to busshi
Tanaka Kōkyō). For a reproduction of his Shaka, see Graham 1991, pl. 22.
38. For a similar painting by Kano Tsunenobu, see Ōtsuki 2000, pl. 21.
39. For a recent exhibition catalogue on Buddhist subjects in ukiyoe, see Shibuya Kuritsu
Shōtō Bijutsukan 1999.
40. For a devout religious image of Jizō by Moronobu, see Clark 1992, pl. 7. For an abridged
version that he did of book illustrations from the Kannon Sutra, see Chiba-shi Bijutsukan
2000, pl. 100.
41. The print is published and described as a mitate (parody picture) in Chiba-shi Biju
tsukan 2000, pl. 98.
42. National Learning (Kokugaku) scholars helped spread this interest in Heian court
culture. See Lillehoj 2004 on the revival of interest in aristocratic art styles during the
seventeenth century.
43. See the 1792 Catalogue of Treasures Inspected at Temples and Shrines (Jisha hōmotsu
tenetsu mokuroku), in Kokusho Kankōkai (1906–1909, 16:158–216); and the Ten Categories of
Assembled Antiquities (Shukō jisshu), published in 1800, in Kokusho Kankōkai 1908.
44. It included biographies and illustrations of ancient heroes from the dawn of Japan’s
history through the mid-fourteenth century, reproduced photographically at http://
ddb.libnet.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/exhibit/0069/image/47/0069s415.html (accessed 24 March
2005).
45. The history, meaning, and audience for this subject has attracted recent scholarly
interest; see Chin 1998 and Kanda 2005.
46. For an illustration of the inscription, see D. Satō 1993, pl. 86.

47. For other Buddhist paintings by Tamechika, see Okazaki-shi Bijutsu Hakubutsukan
2001, pl. 36–39.
48. This Tendai picture is the Sannō Treasure Pagoda Mandala (Sannō Hōtō Mandara);
see Kageyama 1973, 111, fig. 116. The Sannō shrine is dedicated to the tutelary Shinto deity
of Mount Hiei, the location of the Tendai sect headquarters of Enryakuji.
Chapter 6. Expressions of Faith

1. For a short biography of him, see Rinnōji 1967, 74–75.
2. For a short biography and his elegant copy of the Lotus Sutra, see Nikkōzan Rinnōji
Hōmotsuden 2004, pl. 31. For a painting by him of Amida, see Tōchigi Kenritsu Hakubu
tsukan 1998, pl. 43.
3. Fister 2000, 2001, and 2003. For other studies, see Kasumi Kaikan 1992 and Graybill
and Ohki 1998.
4. On Daitsū, see Fister 2000; and 2003, 23, and pl. 11 and 17.
5. Addiss 1989, 94–99; Fister 1994, pl. 71; Ruch 2002a; Fister 2003, 26–27, 81.
6. One of these zushi is now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art; see Ford 1987, 48,
pl. 54.
7. Lillehoj 1996b, 33. On the iconography of this deity, see Yü 1984, 166–169.
8. For more detailed information about this donation, see Fister 2005, 583–585; and n.d.
This is the same temple whose main gate was reconstructed in 1802 and for which an
impressive set of sixteen Rakan was carved (see fig. 4.3). On this image, see Rittō Rekishi
Minzoku Hakubutsukan 2003, pl. 74. For another example of a Buddhist embroidery depict-
ing the death of the Buddha incorporating the donor’s hair, see a large silk embroidery by a
professional artisan that Tenshin’in, a Matsudaira clan Kii daimyo wife, donated to Hōyōji
in Edo in 1663. Her hair was used for the snail-shell curls on the Buddha’s head; see Tokyo
Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2003a, 245 [pl. 110].
9. For two other published works by Jishōin, see Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2003a,
pl. 113 and 114.
10. The temple was officially named for her: Jishōzan Kokuzenji (Kokuzenji of Mount
Jishō). The second character (zen) is an alternate reading for Mae, the first character of
her maiden name (Maeda). On the temple, see Chūgoku Shinbunsha, Hiroshima-ken Dai
Hyakka Jiten Kankō Iinkai Jimukyoku 1982, vol. 1.
11. Information based on a discussion with the temple’s head priest in 2004.
12. For discussion of this set, see Asaoka 1983, 1172–1175; Suzuki 1989; and Murase 2000,
274–275. For others from this set by Nobukiyo, see Suzuki 1989; and Shibuya Kuritsu Shōtō
Bijutsukan 1995, pl. 30–34.
13. For two scrolls from Minchō’s set, see Yamaguchi Kenritsu Bijutsukan 1998, pl. 8. For
the whole set, see Mainichi Shinbunsha 1973, 92.
14. His Kano-style bird-and-flower, bamboo, and tree paintings earned him fame later,
although these paintings were his most celebrated of all; see Asaoka 1983, 2:1173.
15. The twelfth-century painting formed with characters from the Golden Light Sutra
(Konkōmyōō saishōōkyō) is owned by Chūsonji and depicts a pagoda. It is discussed at
length in Yiengpruksawan 1998a, 166–177. Tan’yū’s under-drawing is for a picture of the
bodhisattva Kannon painted by a monk named Sōzen, with characters from the Lotus
Sutra (although Tan’yū also delineated the facial features); see Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha
2002, pl. 104.
16. These depict Amida and two attendants and are dated 1794 and 1797. See Shibuya
Kuritsu Shōtō Bijutsukan 1995, pl. 33 and 34.

17. For information on Hakuin’s life and art, see Addiss 1989, 102–129; Rosenfield 1999,
3:20–21; and Yajima 2000. For his writings, see Yampolsky 1971.
18. On Jiun as an artist, see Addiss 1989, 152–158. On Jiun as a Buddhist reformer, see
Watt 1984 and 1999.
19. For the textual citation, see Murase et al. 2002, 154. For a possible interpretation of
this phrase as a reference to the essential Zen teaching on the relationship between the self
and attainment of enlightenment, see Addiss 1989, 157.
20. Biographical information comes from Araki 1975, 1:844.
21. Information on Rengetsu can be found in numerous Japanese exhibition catalogues
and in English in Fister 1988b, 144–146, 149–157.
22. For discussion of his paintings within a broader art historical context, see Graham
1992.
23. On the historical importance of this sutra, see Daitō Shuppansha 1991, 274; and Shi-
mizu and Rosenfield 1984, 34.
24. McCallum 1974a and 1974b list Japanese sources that include a few limited-scope
pre–World War II studies by local historians. See also Rosenfield 1999, 3:16–17; and Van
Alphen et al. 1999. Yanagi published his initial research on Enkū in the journal he edited,
Mingei, in 1959.
25. On Yanagi’s formation of mingei theory, see Brandt 1996 and Kikuchi 2004. On Yanagi
and the British Arts and Crafts movement, see Conant 1992.
26. On Yanagi’s study of Mokujiki, see Brandt 1996, 74–87; and Kikuchi 2004, 44–46.
Mokujiki is also featured in the recent Tokyo National Museum exhibition (Tokyo Koku-
ritsu Hakubutsukan 2006b, pl. 53–65).
27. Discussed briefly in Conant 1992, 9, and more extensively Brandt 1996, esp. 78–88.
Yanagi’s later conceptualization of mingei theory is discussed in chapter 8 in connection
with his promotion of the printmaker Munakata Shikō.
28. For representative examples of paintings and sculptures, see Asahi Shinbunsha 1997.
For his biography, see Rosenfield 1999, 3:63–64.
29. For the Japanese Folk Craft Museum’s statues, see Asahi Shinbunsha 1997, pl. 18, 23,
and p. 185 for the history of this group.
30. See Fister 1985/86, 1988a, and 2002, 56–62; and his biography in Rosenfield 1999,
3:113–116.
31. For more on the religious nature of this community and its Nichiren beliefs, see Cran-
ston 2000, 120–124.
32. For various sections of this handscroll, see Fischer et al. 2000, pl. 61–65, and p. 196 for
discussion of the scroll. See also Murase 2000, 211–212.
33. For more on this revival of interest in the subject, see Mostow 2004, esp. 138; and
1996.
34. Still, scholars note that Buddhist paintings by Hōitsu and his followers appear with
greater frequency than by other Rinpa artists, perhaps because of his status as a monk; see
Hosomi Bijutsukan 2001, 62, discussion for pl. 35. For two other late Rinpa-school Buddhist
icon paintings by Hōitsu and his follower, Suzuki Kiitsu (1796–1858), respectively, see Ishida
and Yamamoto 2002, pl. 14 and 15.
35. For illustrations of the complete set, see Hickman and Satō 1989, 53–57, 114–123.
36. On the appeal of these paintings and their aesthetic qualities, see Yamashita 2003,
211, quoting a conversation that he had about them with Prof. Tsuji Nobuo, his teacher (and
mine), who rediscovered the artist in the late twentieth century.
37. For a reproduction of Jakuchū’s painting, dated 1789, see McKelway et al. 2005, cat. 59.
For the 1885 print, see Hickman and Satō 1989, 27.

38. A handwritten manuscript dated to Meiji 33 (1900) and preserved at the archives of
Manpukuji notes that Gen. Akihito Shinnō (1846–1903) took some of the statues to his
Tokyo residence.
39. See Takeuchi 1992 for a detailed study of Taiga and his milieu.
40. Reproduced in Kyoto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 1990, pl. 57.
41. Reproduced in Ike Taiga 1960, 2:pl. 48. Information on Taiga’s motivation for the
painting and its date comes from this source.
42. For reproductions of Chen Xian paintings, see Graham 1991, pl. 16; Kobe Shiritsu
Hakubutsukan 1991, pl. 25–28; or Kyoto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 1993, pl. 96–98.
Part II Introduction
1. On these converts, see Guth 1995; Clarke 1997; and Benfey 2003. Foreign visitors to
Meiji Japan left a wealth of travel literature too extensive to enumerate here. Much of it
contains perceptive comments on Japanese living habits, religious practices, geography,
dwellings, gardens, and arts.
2. For statistics and further comments on these questions, see www.adherents.com/
largecom/ com_buddhist.html (accessed 23 April 2005).
Chapter 7. Buddhist Institutions after an Era of Persecution, 1868–1945

1. On these ordinances, see Ketelaar 1990, 8–9; Tamamuro 1997; and Collcutt 1986, 151–
159. For case studies, see Hardacre 2002, esp. chaps. 6 and 7.
2. Guth 1993, 105. Evidence for the unabated continuance of Edo-period Buddhist devo-
tional practices is found in the many surviving examples of popular imagery.
3. Their members accompanied the Iwakura Mission. One of their clergy who studied
at Oxford, Nanjō Bunyū (1849–1927), later published an influential text on Buddhism in En
glish, Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka; see Snodgrass 2003,
119–120.
4. On Buddhist universities, see Ketelaar 1990, 179. On lay involvement, see J. Sawada
2004, esp. chap. 6.
5. On religion in the Meiji constitution, see Ketelaar 1990, 131–132. For the role of Japa-
nese Buddhists in Chicago, see Ketelaar 1990, xii, 139; and a more extended discussion in
Snodgrass 2003.
6. Stone 1990, 224. Watanabe, a Jōdo-sect priest, studied Eastern religions in Germany
for ten years and taught religious studies at Tokyo University after his return; see Stone
1990, 222–223.
7. This statement is an excerpt from the preface published in Stone 1990, 227. This set, the
Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, is known more generally as the Taishō tripitaka.
8. On fear of Christianity, see Collcutt 1986, 154. On these early efforts at surveying and
preserving buildings at temples, see Coaldrake 1996, 248; and Larsen 1994, 31–32.
9. After his year in Europe, he was later dispatched to America (1884–1888) as a consular
minister. On Kuki’s elitist background, see Conant 1984, 126.
10. On these laws as they pertain to buildings, see Coaldrake 1996, 248–249.
11. On the sect’s popular support and relationship with the government, see Collcutt
1986, 161–163; and Ketelaar 1990, 71, 74. See Shinshū Ōtanihashū Jimusho Shuppanbu 1997
for detailed information about this reconstruction.
12. “Nihonga” (lit. “Japanese-style painting”) refers to traditional Japanese ink painting
created from the Meiji period forward. The term distinguishes modern artists who work in

traditionally derived styles, media, and formats from a new type of Japanese painting that
emulated Western traditions (Yōga) and utilized Western formats, materials, and stylistic
conventions. The Kyoto Nihonga artist Kōno Bairei (1844–1895) painted lotus flowers for
the wall behind the central altar; see Shiga Kenritsu Kindai Bijutsukan 1990a, pl. 23 and 54
(preparatory drawings).
13. Hasegawa 2004. This information is included as background in an article about en-
vironmental conservation at the temple initiated by current reconstruction of the Found-
er’s Hall, due to be completed in time for the 750th anniversary of the death of the sect’s
founder, Shinran, in 2011.
14. See Wendelken 1996, 35–36. In this article, fig. 8, on p. 36, illustrates the original plan
for this Hakodate building, but erroneously identifies it as a design for a Main Hall at Hi-
gashi Honganji, Kyoto.
15. Information on this reconstruction comes from Coaldrake 1996, 243–249.
16. For more on this, see Larsen 1994, 163, and chap. 5.
17. For more on financing this reconstruction, see Coaldrake 1996, 247. On the most
recent repair, see Coaldrake 1986, 45–46.
18. However, carpenters still prefer the native Japanese variety because the Taiwanese
wood stains and fluctuates in size in the Japanese climate; see Larsen 1994, 88.
19. Richard Jaffe has been studying these buildings; see Jaffe 2004a, 2004b, and 2006. His
forthcoming book, Seeking Shakyamuni: World Travel and the Reconstruction of Japanese
Buddhism (University of Chicago Press, 2007), deals with these materials. I am grateful for
his generosity in sharing unpublished information with me.
20. Itō in general and this building in particular have been objects of much recent re-
search; see Wendelken 2000; Reynolds 2001, 16–20; Kikuchi 2004, 34–95; T. Watanabe
2006; and Jaffe 2006.
21. See Kikuchi 2004, 93–95. For an excellent overview of Fenollosa and Okakrua, see
Benfey 2003. They are discussed further below and in chap. 8.
22. Richard Jaffe has found that a slightly earlier temple (Zenpukuji, or Modan dera in
Kobe, completed in 1930) also had pews instead of traditional floor-level tatami seating for
worshipers; see Jaffe 2006.
23. The emergence of this shajiyō style is discussed in Wendleken 1996. Josiah Conder
and his students’ precedents are discussed in T. Watanabe 1996; Reynolds 2001, 13–14; and
Tseng 2004.
24. For an illustration, see Andreasen 1998, 166.
25. Wendelken 2000, 823, suggests a darker side to the Shin-sect support of the imperial
government’s expansionist plans as well — that its founder had understood that sometimes
followers needed to fight when necessary for a “just war.”
26. For busshi participation in the first and second of these exhibitions in 1877 and 1881,
see Tokyo Kokuritsu Bunkazai Kenkyūjo 1996.
27. On the Kōbu Bijutsu Gakko, see Amagai 2003. Western-style sculpture was taught by
the Italian artist Vincente Ragusa (1841–1927).
28. The most important dictionary of modern artists, Kawakita 1989, includes entries
only on artists specializing in Western categories of fine arts: painting (in native Nihonga
and Western Yōga styles), Western-style sculpture, and modern printmakers, who perfected
styles that synthesized traditional Japanese and modern Western aesthetics.
29. Information on Meiji busshi is hard to come by; for a short discussion of Kyoto sculp-
tors, see Kyoto-fu Bunkazai Hogokikin 1970, 146–147.
30. Following its tradition of hiring the city’s best contemporary artists to decorate its
halls, the temple commissioned the Nihonga painter Takeuchi Seihō (1864–1942) to paint

heavenly musicians for the ceiling of the second-floor image chamber of this gate, where
the Tanaka atelier statues were enshrined; see Shinshū Ōtanihashū Jimusho Shuppanbu
1997, pl. 65.
31. For a frontal view of this triad, see Kyoto-fu Bunkazai Hogokikin 1970, 148–153; or
Mizuno 2001, 182.
32. On this sutra and its relation to the Shin sect, see Andreasen 1998, 105; and Daitō
Shuppansha 1991, 227.
33. I sincerely thank the priests at Higashi Honganji’s administrative offices for allowing
me access to this chamber.
34. For his Shaka triad of 1909 in Nanzenji’s Lecture Hall, see Kyoto-fu Bunkazai
Hogokikin 1970, 156–157.
35. In 1949, this school merged with the Tokyo School of Music and was renamed the
Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music.
36. On Kōun, see Tanaka Shūji 1994, 20–67; Tokushima Kenritsu Kindai Bijutsukan et al.
2002; and Guth 2004a, who translates and discusses passages from his memoirs. His more
modern pieces include secular statues for public places, a new concept for Japan, and exhi-
bition pieces such as Aged Monkey, now owned by the Tokyo National Museum (discussed
further in chap. 8).
37. For illustrations of these Tōdaiji sculptures, see Washizuka 1997, 50; or Mason 2005,
pl. 216. For photographs of Takamura Kōun’s small-scale models for both the Zenkōji Niō
statues, see Tokushima Kenritsu Kindai Bijutsukan et al. 2002, 37.
38. I learned of Isshinji’s connection to Ichikawa Danjūrō VIII in a lecture at the Univer-
sity of Kansas, 2 May 2006, by Melinda Takeuchi, “The Apotheosis of Danjūrō the Eighth:
Piety or Parody?” She discussed how Danjūrō’s fans responded to his death by producing an
unprecedented number of woodblock-printed memorial portraits, or shinie (around three
hundred).
39. The recently retired head priest of the temple, Rev. Takaguchi Yoshiyuki, supplied me
with the information on these statues and their makers.
40. One of these, Hōnenji in Takamatsu, first asked permission of Isshinji to copy the idea.
Its statues are cast by a professor of sculpture at the Kyoto City University of the Arts. The
other is Shōjōkein, in Kyoto, long patronized by the imperial family.
41. On this project, the names of the potters, and illustrations of a few more from this set,
see Hata et al. 1976, 155–156, and pl. 62 and 63.
42. Saichō (Dengyō Daishi, 767–822), founder of the Tendai sect, established the temple
in 805. It later became famous at the place where the powerful warlord Taira Kiyomori
(1118–1181) became a monk and was buried; see Nōfukuji 2005.
43. The replica was designed by Nishimura Kōchō, a famous Buddhist sculptor and pro-
fessor at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music, further discussed in connection with
Otagi Nenbutsuji in chap. 10.
44. On the history of the Edo statue, see Kan’eiji Kyōkabu 1993, section on the Daibutsu,
n.p. Only the face remains today, embedded in a plaque in Ueno Park.
45. The Kamakura Buddha lost its building in a tsunami in 1495; the Ueno Daibutsu lost
its building in 1873.
46. Walter Weston, considered the father of mountain climbing in Japan, set off on his
treks from his home in Kobe, near this Daibutsu.
47. The statue became internationally famous when a large-scale model of it was dis-
played at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (which celebrated the opening of
the Panama Canal) in San Francisco in 1915; see Kobe Shinbun 1989, 63. One writer even
claimed that it was finer than the Daibutsu at Tōdaiji; see Fitch 1913.

Chapter 8: From Icon to Art, 1868–1945
1. For a provocative, recent exhibition catalogue on Buddhist deities represented by Kyoto

painters of the prewar period, see Kyoto-shi Bijutsukan 2005.
2. Information on Makimura comes from Conant 1984, 128–129; Collcutt 1986, 159; and
Guth 1993, 101.
3. See the obscure and largely forgotten deities discussed in Miyata 1972.
4. I thank Paul Moss for bringing this statue to my attention and for information on its
history. See Moss and Rutherston 2004.
5. This museum’s earliest acquisitions included Buddhist arts, both sculpture and paint-
ings. For illustrations, see Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 1992, pl. 53–60, 357. On the mo-
tivations for this first survey, see Guth 1996–1997, 315–316; and S. Tanaka 1999, 52.
6. On Kuki’s motivations for this survey, see S. Tanaka 1999, 53–54; and Conant 1984,
136.
7. His articles appear in issues no. 2 (November 1889), 6 (March 1890), and 7 (April 1890).
8. One of the most important of these new collectors of Buddhist art was industrialist
Masuda Takashi (1848–1938); see Guth 1993, 118–119. This law formalized the categories
and hierarchies of art that lasted until legislation overhaul in 1950; see Guth 1996–1997, 318;
and S. Tanaka 1999. As Guth 1997, 41, points out, these laws regulated and designated art
only in religious institutions; the first law to include works in private collections as National
Treasures was not enacted until 1929.
9. This series is Tajima 1899–1908. This association published the first five volumes only;
the remainder was published privately, mostly by the newly founded Shimbi Shōin Com-
pany. For critical analysis of this series, see Murakado 1999, 34; and Rosenfield 1998b, 237.
For Kuki’s preface, see Kuki 1899.
10. This becomes evident when looking closely at those involved with the production of
the Japanese- and French-language editions of the Paris exposition, as suggested by Ellen
Conant; see Conant 1991, 85, and nn. 33 and 34.
11. On this exhibition, see the Office of the Imperial Japanese Government Commission
to the Japan-British Exhibition 1910 and Sato and Watanabe 1991. For an overview of Japan’s
participation in this and other earlier exhibitions, see Conant 1991 and 2006.
12. On Hayashi and other Parisian dealers, see Conant 1984, 137; Chang 2002, 21; and Baas
2005, 23. For a general overview of early collectors of Buddhist art, see Rosenfield 1998b.
13. On their travels, see Inaga 1998; Chang 2002; and Maucuer 2005, 25. Duret also helped
introduce his friend, the Impressionist painter Claude Monet (1840–1926), to Japanese art.
14. The most famous example is perhaps the one in the San Francisco Japanese Tea
Garden, dated 1790, and installed there in 1949; see K. Brown 1999, 32–43. On Chiossone,
see Conant 1999.
15. For discussion of this colonialist mentality as impetus for collecting, see Chang 2002,
24, 30–32. On these Bostonian Buddhists, see Guth 1995 and 2004b; and Swinton 2004.
16. As quoted in an English translation in Baas 2005, 22. See also Duret 1874.
17. On Guimet’s knowledge of Max Müller’s writings, see Conant 1984, 124. On the trans-
lation of the Compendium of Buddhist Images, see Hoffman 1851 and discussion of this book
in Seibu Hyakkaten 1989, 10; and Frank 1991, 20.
18. This museum is now officially known as the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques-
Guimet. On its Japanese collection, see Seibu Hyakkaten 1989 and Frank 1991.
19. For a biography of Yamamoto, see Sakai-shi Hakubutsukan 1997, 110–111. The height
of the Amida by Yamamoto is 70 cm; the one at Tōji by Tanaka Kōkyō is 138.8 cm.

20. For an illustration of discarded Buddhist statues at Tōshōdaiji in Nara in 1880, see
Rosenfield 1998b, fig. 5. See also Morse and Tsuji 1998, which includes Buddhist sculp-
tures once thought to be older but have recently been re-identified as dating from the Meiji
period.
21. See Morse and Tsuji 1998 for many examples identified with Meiji-period dates. See
Cohen 1992 for a critical study of many of the early American collectors of Asian art.
22. For more on the role of copies in training painters at this school, see V. Weston 2004.
In Kyoto, Meiji-period art schools also incorporated copying older works in their curricula,
but this happened somewhat later, under influence from this Tokyo school. On the training
methods at these schools, see Conant et al. 1995, 84–85. For copies of early Buddhist paint-
ings by Kyoto artists owned by the Kyoto City University of Arts, see Kyoto Shiritsu Geijutsu
Daigaku Fuzoku Toshokan 1987.
23. Two exhibition catalogues illustrate and discuss these copies: Shiga Kenritsu Kindai
Bijutsukan 1990b and Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2005; the latter includes a reprint
(without the illustrations included in the original) of an older article (A. Satō 1977), on the
display of copies at the Tokyo Imperial Museum.
24. Published in Asano et al. 1967–1970, 1:pl. 242. Study of this painting soon after its ac-
quisition took place during a graduate seminar at the University of Kansas offered by Chris-
tine Guth. My husband, David Dunfield, then a graduate student in Asian art, conducted the
research that determined the painting to be a forgery. I draw on his work here.
25. Provenance information comes from Trevor’s son, who donated the painting to the
Nelson-Atkins Museum. Since Freer made trips to Japan and Asia between 1895 and 1911,
the painting must date from that time. I have been unable to determine on which trip to
Japan Trevor accompanied Freer.
26. For other pictures of this theme by Kyōsai, see Clark 1993, pl. 60 and 62.
27. On Kyōsai’s Buddhist devotion see Clark 1993, 76, and pl. 43 and 46.
28. The entire album is illustrated in Kobayashi and Kōno 1992, 92–94, 122–127.
29. See Conant 1984, 131; and Clark 1993, pl. 26, 45, and 105.
30. Morikawa previously studied Maruyama-school painting, then took up carving
wooden Nara dolls (Nara ningyo) and, simultaneously, became famous as a comic kyōgen
theater actor; see Nara Kenritsu Bijutsukan 1993. On his copies of older Buddhist sculpture,
see Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 2005, 8.
31. For a critical assessment of Japan’s participation in this exhibition, see Conant 2006.
See also Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan 1997 for a representative sampling of Japanese art
displayed there.
32. Published in Mason 2005, pl. 421.
33. For an illustration of the Akishinodera piece, see Nakano et al. 1981. This enigmatic
piece has a wood-core, dry-lacquer head datable to the eighth or ninth century placed atop
a carved wooden body of the thirteenth century.
34. Only the prize-winning pieces from this fair were acquired afterwards by the Tokyo
Imperial Museum. The Tokyo School of Fine Arts purchased Hisakazu’s statue several
years later directly from the artist. My information on this piece comes from Yokomizo
2003.
35. See the recent exhibition catalogue, Kagoshima Shiritsu Bijutsukan 2004.
36. On Shirakaba, see Rimer 1987, 46; Menzies 1998, 111–112; Weisenfeld 2002, 20–22,
272, n. 28; and Kikuchi 2004, 4, 9–11. Kikuchi 2004, 77 and 257, nn. 131–135, cites specific
issues of the journal between 1920 and 1923 that include Buddhist materials.
37. This essay is discussed in Rimer 1987, 59–60, and 1995b, 49; Guth 1996b, 19; and

Weisenfeld 2002, 24; and is translated in Hiroaki Sato 1992, 180–186. See Guth 2004a, 167–
179, for insightful comments on Kōtarō’s philosophy and examples of his own sculpture.
38. However, later scholars of the Kyoto school after Nishida’s retirement and through the
World War II years, moved their scholarly inquiries in another direction, which justified the
expansionist policies of the Japanese military.
39. On Yuima and Prince Shōtoku as models, see Ketelaar 1990, 185. On Okakura and
Fenollosa, see D. Satō 1996, 115; and V. Weston 2004, 145–150. I do not address Buddhist
subject matter in paintings by Nihonga artists who were disciples of Okakura and Fenollosa
in this book because I believe those materials are more appropriately categorized as histori-
cal painting rather than modern Buddhist painting.
40. For biographical information, I draw on Kyoto Furitsu Dōmoto Inshō Bijutsukan 1995;
Conant et al. 1995, 291; and Morioka and Berry 1999, 282–283.
41. I am deeply indebted to Columbia University graduate student Tsuchikane Yasuko,
currently completing a dissertation about Dōmoto Inshō’s wall paintings, for sharing her
discovery that Inshō’s personal library contains numerous texts on Buddhism, many first
published in the second and third decades of the twentieth century. She includes transla-
tions of many of his Buddhist writings in her dissertation.
42. For a brief discussion of Inshō’s wartime temple wall paintings, see Nagashima 2004,
101–107.
43. On Teiten, see Conant et al. 1995, 98–99. Dōmoto’s 1922 Teiten submission portrayed
Kariteimo (Skt. Hārītī), a protector of children, now in the Kyoto National Museum of
Modern Art collection.
44. My information on this artist comes from Szostak n.d.; Menzies 1998, 99; Morioka
and Berry 1999, 212–213; Hoshino Garō 2000; and Kasaoka, Nerima, and Kyoto 2003.
45. On the history of this and other art schools in Kyoto, see Conant et al. 1995, 84–85.
46. Morioka and Berry 1999, 213, translate this phrase as “religious-social consciousness.”
For the original text, see Hoshino Garō 2000, 38.
47. According to James Ketelaar, these humanitarian concerns, while not new to Bud-
dhism, became integral to the reconfiguration of Buddhism as a modern, cosmopolitan
religion whose central tenets emphasized support of the Japanese nation and its people; see
Ketelaar 1990, 132–134.
48. See Kasaoka, Nerima, and Kyoto 2003, pl. 19–24.
49. Biographical information comes from Conant et al. 1995, 315–316, and a recent retro-
spective exhibition catalogue, Kyoto Kokuritsu Kindai Bijutsukan 2005.
50. On the formation and aims of this group, see Conant et al. 1995, 106–107; and Szostack
2005. I am also grateful to John Szostack, who shared with me additional information on
the group’s manifesto and from whose private correspondence with me I quote the phrase
“singular, symbolic religion.”
51. Yanagi’s early ideas about mingei have already been discussed in chapter 6 in connec-
tion with the sculptors Enkū and Mokujiki.
52. From Yasuda 1958, 810; and also repeated in Kikuchi 2004, 209–210. For related writ-
ings by Munakata, see Hockley 2004, 81.
53. For discussion of this set and illustrations of all the panels, see Singer and Kakeya
2002, 55, 67–71.
54. Hockley 2004 discusses this characterization at great length.

Chapter 9: Buddhist Sites of Worship, 1945–2005
1. See Reynolds 2001, esp. 249–254, for an erudite study of the growing appreciation for
modernist architectural aesthetics in Japan centered on Maekawa Kunio (1905–1986).
2. In 1919 urban planning laws included fire-prevention districts only for city centers. On
building codes in Japan, see Ōhashi 1993.
3. On the popular appeal of the statue and its history, see Kinoshita 1998.
4. His statue is thought to date from around the time the Statue of Liberty was installed
in New York, before he became a professor at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts; see Hashizume
1998, 28–29.
5. Discussed in Hashizume 1998, 29; for an illustration, see p. 26.
6. See the Web site: www41.tok2.com/home/kanihei5/saga-dabutu.html (accessed 31 July
2006). This is part of a broader Web site (author not identified) titled “Funky Buddha Ex-
perience” (Chinji daidōjō).
7. Information from www41.tok2.com/home/kanihei5/syurakuen.html (accessed 30 July
2006). The statue takes its name from the magnificent palatial castle Jurakudai, which Toyo
tomi Hideyoshi erected in Kyoto in 1587.
8. It was a featured destination for troops to visit in their free time listed in a publi-
cation of the 24th Infantry Division, Scenario — Troop Information & Education Feature
(1/9, 6 May 1949). For photos and information on this statue, see www41.tok2.com/home/
kanihei5/beppudaibutu.html (accessed 30 July 2006).
9. Those involved in this first phase included Kaneko Kentarō (1853–1942), one of the
drafters of the Meiji Constitution; Kiyoura Keigo (1850–1942), son of a Buddhist priest and
a pacifist government minister; and, curiously, Tōyama Mitsuru (1855–1944), a right-wing
politician who advocated expansion into Asia.
10. For his biography, see Kawakita 1989, 367–368.
11. See Kisala 1999.
12. For an official history of the temple and information on his art collection, see Setoda-
chō Kyōikuiinkai 2001.
13. See Setoda-chō Kyōikuiinkai 2001 for old photos, newspaper publicity, and official
records.
14. Attendance figures come from a personal interview in October 2003 with the present
head of the temple, Reverend Kōsō, the founder’s grandson.
15. Tsuzuki 2001, 57; and Richie 2002, 150–155.
16. Old photos in the temple’s collection show Miki Sōsaku’s statues prior to the addition
of color. In that state, the fine quality of his carving is more clearly evident.
17. For an aerial photo from the late 1960s, see Nara Rokudaiji Taikan Kankōkai 1970,
pl. 1.
18. S. Brown 1989, 41. For a drawing showing the grand reconstruction plan circa 1975,
see Enders and Gutschow 1998, 28.
19. On fukugen, see Enders and Gutschow 1998, esp. 42–56.
20. For an illustration, see Mason 2005, pl. 75; or Enders and Gutschow 1998, 47, pl. 51.
21. For illustrations of both the old and new pagodas, see Enders and Gutschow 1998, 48.
For just the east one, see Mason 2005, pl. 76.
22. For illustrations of these donations and discussion of the restoration process, see
Hossōshū Daihonzan Yakushiji 2002.
23. For a selection of his other buildings, see Japan Architect 1975 and 1984.
24. For illustrations of each of these levels, see Shinshōji 1984.

25. Information on this temple and its art comes from several interviews with Reverend
Takaguchi between 2001 and 2006. For illustrations of all but his most recent buildings at
Isshinji, see Meisei Shuppan 1997, 98–104.
26. They represent women from different parts of the Buddhist world: India, Sri Lanka,
Korea, and Japan.
27. For a selection, see Meisei Shuppan 1997.
28. From the architect’s official Web site: www.takamatsu.co.jp/ (accessed 30 January
2006).
29. Shinshū Honbyō is the official name for the Shin-sect temple headquartered at Hi-
gashi Honganji, adopted in 1987, although the older, more familiar name for the temple
remains in popular use. For an aerial view of the exterior and photos of the interior of this
new building, see Shinshū Ōtanihashū Jimusho Shuppanbu 2000, 3, 16–17.
30. Other architects active in the late 1990s also designed underground structures at old
temple complexes for similar reasons. Most famous is Andō Tadao’s Water Temple (Hon-
pukuji) on Awaji Island, completed in 1991, published in Meisei Shuppan 1997, 130–136; and
Andō et al. 2003, 118–127.
31. For additional photos of the building, see Aisu Rabo 1998. The building has also been
published in the journal Shinkenchiku (July 1998: 104), and its model appears in Takamatsu
and Vitta 1996, 160–165.
32. From an interview with the architect in Buck 2000, 141.
33. Published in Gallery O 1998.
34. See Pollack 2001; Shinkenchiku (November 2000: 14–15); and “Liquid Stone: New
Architecture in Concrete,” an online exhibition at the National Building Museum, Wash-
ington, D.C: www.nbm.org/liquid_stone/home.html (accessed 31 January 2006).
35. From the architect’s Web site: www.yamaguchi-a.jp/work_e/white.htm (accessed 31
January 2006).
36. O’Doherty 1976/1986, 14. This book describes why modern art looks best in the empty
gallery space of the “white cube.”
37. On the value of contextual displays, see Branham 1994/95. For an example of one of
these altars, see the 1987 Japanese gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated
in Ford 1987, 14–15.
38. Taniguchi is most famous in the United States for his recent addition to New York’s
Museum of Modern Art. He studied architecture at Keio and Harvard Universities and
worked briefly for Walter Gropius (1883–1969), an influential German Bauhaus-school mod-
ernist architect.
39. From the Web site www.kousanji.or.jp/english/speranza/kuetani.html (accessed 30
January 2006).
Chapter 10: Visualizing Faith, 1945–2005

1. E.g., they never use Western sandpaper or electric sanders to finish their wood
sculptures.
2. On the Matsuhisa atelier and Sōrin in particular, see Matsuhisa 1992.
3. Her large, abstract wall pieces can be found in many public spaces, including the Impe-
rial Hotel in Tokyo and the Brighton Hotel in Kyoto.
4. Eri Sayoko contributed to a recent scholarly study of ancient Buddhist images that in-
corporate the technique; see Ariga 1997, 86–93. Several of her original pieces are illustrated
there.
5. For a Kamakura-period painting of the theme now in the Cleveland Museum of Art,

and further discussion of the meaning of the iconography, see Rosenfield and ten Groten-
huis 1979, pl. 17.
6. Information from an interview with Mr. Mukōyoshi in May 2003.
7. On contemporary pilgrimages in Japan, see Reader 1996 and 2005; Hoshino 1997; and
Formanek 1998.
8. A recent exhibition focusing on the Shikoku circuit arranged to simulate a sequential
walk to the eighty-eight temples along this route included a gift shop, through which visi-
tors exited, that sold amulets and votive icons; see Mainichi Shinbunsha 2002.
9. Many clergy of this sect will perform these rites if asked by parishioners; see LaFleur
1998, 392.
10. On this debate, see Werblowky 1991; LaFleur 1992 and 1998; Hardacre 1997a; and
Green 1999. Memorial rites are, of course, canonical, but those for aborted fetuses are not.
11. See Collcutt 2006 for an insightful study of belief in this Kannon during the Edo
and Meiji periods, and especially the illustration of the stone Kannon at Kinshōji in Chiba
Prefecture, fig. 8.
12. The Jōdo-sect nunnery of Daihongan at Zenkōji is also famous for mizuko kuyō rites.
13. Information from correspondence with the temple in 2005.
14. This move occurred following the Main Hall’s designation as an Important Cultural
Property in the late Meiji period. Because space constraints precluded its preservation at
its existing location, it was disassembled and reconstructed at the new site; see Tamamuro
1992, 81.
15. For basic information on this temple in English, see Addiss and Seo 1996, 51–52.
16. See Baas and Jacob 2004; Baas 2005; and Elliott and Tazzi 2003; the last is an exhibi-
tion catalogue divided into sections provocatively titled “Arcadia,” “Nirvana,” “Desire,” and
“Harmony.”
17. For others, see Ōga 1986–1987; and Yamaguchi Kenritsu Bijutsukan 1986.
18. For a short biography, see Kawakita 1989, 176. Another early, modern artist who cre-
ated wooden sculptures for both temples and the art world was Hirakushi Denchū (1872–
1979), a professor at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts; see Ibara-shi Denchū Bijutsukan 2003.
19. The Atami Municipal Sawada Seikō Memorial Museum and the Tanimura Art Mu-
seum in Itoigawa, Niigata Prefecture, which is the final building designed by the famed
modernist architect Murano Togo (1891–1984).
20. Although Seikō never published statements about his philosophy of art and attitudes
towards the making of Buddhist sculpture himself, he did speak about these issues in in-
terviews that were published in many magazine and newspaper articles during his lifetime.
Curators at the Atami Municipal Sawada Seikō Memorial Museum compiled his comments,
which are as yet unpublished. I am grateful that they gave me copies of these writings. They
form the basis of my comments about Seikō’s attitudes on art and religion.
21. This is a paraphrase of a quote from Atami Shiritsu Atami Seikō Kinenkan 1988, 5.
22. For the Kannon, see Bogel 2002. The Aizen Myōō is published in Atami Shiritsu
Sawada Seikō Kinenkan 2001, 163, fig. 90.
23. Nakamura discusses his motivation for these statues in Nakamura 2002. My quota-
tions of his statements in this discussion of his work come from this volume, whose pages
are unnumbered.
24. For an English biography and extended bibliography, see Conant et al. 1995, 296,
340. Information about Hirayama’s attitude towards religion comes from a personal inter-
view with his attorney, Mr. Hyotani Toshiyuki, and his foundation’s secretary, Mr. Muraki
Shigeru (in May 2006).
25. This memoir is included in Hirayama 1988, 15–22. I thank two curators at the Hiro-

shima Prefectural Museum of Art, Fukuda Hiroko and Nagai Akio, for providing me with
this reference.
26. From a small, English-language booklet, A Prayer for Peace, by Hirayama Ikuo,
UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador (ca. 2005), privately distributed by Hirayama’s Founda-
tion for Cultural Heritage and Art Research.
27. For published works by this artist, see Weiermair and Matt 1997, 129–135; and Fruit-
market Gallery 1994, 62.
28. Information on Yamanaka’s life and art comes from personal interviews with the art-
ist in June 2005 and May 2006.
29. For biographical information and exhibition catalogues of his work, see Maeda 1989
and Kanagawa Kenritsu Kindai Bijutsukan 2002, which includes a copious listing of major
publications about his art (46–51).
30. A recent issue of the popular Buddhist magazine Daihōrin (Great Wheel of the Law)
(73[6] [2006]: 5–19], features Maeda’s paintings, including recently completed ceiling panels
for the Rinzai Zen temple of Nanyōji near Tokyo.
31. ten Grotenhuis 1999, 37. For a representative example of this mandala at Tōji, see
plate 6.
32. Ōga 1986–1987, 3:118.
33. Comment by Umehara Takeshi, former director of the International Research Center
for Japanese Studies, in Maeda 1989 (unpaginated English-language preface).
34. Hiratsuka-shi Bijutsukan 1994, 8. For a bibliography of his extensive writings on his
artistic philosophy, see pp. 96–97.
35. Comment from an interview in the online Journal of Contemporary Art (1998), www
.jca-online.com/mori.html (accessed 3 July 2005).
36. Baas and Jacob 2004, 259.
37. Quotation from the transcript of a DVD about him, Kyoto Prefecture 2004.
38. On Kandinsky and Buddhism, see Baas 2005, 60–69.
39. For these paintings and others in a similar vein, see Kyoto Furitsu Dōmoto Inshō
Bijutsukan 1995.
40. Kyoto Furitsu Dōmoto Inshō Bijutsukan 1995, 117–118. For more on Tapié in con-
nection with his promotion of Japanese avant-garde artists, see Munroe 1994, 94–97; and
Rimer 1995a, 67.
41. For more on this movement, see Munroe 1994, chap. 10.
42. For discussion of this work, see Tomii 1999, 19. As Tomii notes, this Greek letter Ψ is
a symbol of psychology, here referring to the psyche, and is used in an important quantum
mechanics equation (Tomii 1999, 28, n. 37).
43. This is actually one of two contemporary scholarly interpretations of how to “read”
the images; an alternative would be to start at the lower right box and move upward from
there in a counterclockwise direction, ending at the central square (ten Grotenhuis 1999,
38).
44. This text is an excerpt from a translation of the entire handbill by Tomii Reiko for an
unpublished handout for the exhibition Global Conceptualism (Camnitzer et al. 1999). I am
grateful for her permission to reproduce it here.
45. These comments come from his artist’s statement in Farmer 1996.
46. On the Buddhist influence in Cage’s work, see, e.g., Baas 2005, 164–177.

Character Glossary
Akino Fuku 秋野不矩 dankadera 檀家寺

Akishinodera 秋篠寺 dannadera 旦（檀）那寺
ama monzeki 尼門跡 daibutsu 大仏
Andō Hiroshige 安藤広重 degaichō 出開帳
Andō Tadao 安藤忠雄 Doi Toshikatsu 土井利勝
aragoto 荒事 Dōmoto Inshō 堂本印象
Asano Kiyoshi 浅野清
Asano Mitsuakira 浅野光晟 ebusshi 画仏師
edokoro 画（絵）所
bakufu 幕府 Egoku Dōmyō 慧極道明
Banryūji 蟠龍寺 Eitaiji 永代寺
Beppu Daibutsu 別府大仏 Ekōin 回向院
bodaiji 菩提寺 ema 絵馬
busshari 仏舎利 Enkū Shōnin 円空聖人
busshi 仏師 Enryakuji 延暦寺
bussho 仏所 Eri Kōkei 江里廉慧
Busshōzan Hōnenji 仏生山法然寺 Eri Sayoko 江里佐代子
Butsuzō zui 仏像図彙 eshi 画師
Byakue Kannon 白衣観音 etoki 絵解き
Byakushibutsu 辟支佛
Byōdōin 平等院 Fugen’in 普賢院
Fūhime 富姫
Chen Xian (Jp. Chin Ken) 陳賢 Fukagawa Fudōdō 深川不動堂
Chin Genkō (Ch. Chen Xuanxing) fukko yamatoe 復古大和絵
陳玄興 Fukusaiji 福斉寺
chingo kokka bukkyō 鎮護国家仏教 Fumonji 普門寺
Chion’in 知恩院
Chisokuin 知促院 gafu 画譜
chōkoku 彫刻 Gakkai Chōja 月蓋長者
Chōon Dōkai 潮音道海 Gankai 願海
Chōshōji 長勝寺 gasshō zukuri 合掌造り
Genshin 玄信
Dai busshi 大仏師 Gizan 義山
Daienji 大円寺 Goeidō 御影堂
Daikanjin 大勧進 Gohimitsu 五秘密
Daishōin 大照院 Gojiin 護持院
Daiyūhōden 大雄宝殿 Gokayama Ainokura 五箇山相倉
Daiten Kenjō 大典顕常 Gokokuji 護国寺
Gomadō 護摩堂 Isshinji 一心寺
Gomizunoo 五水尾 Itō Chūta 伊東忠太
Gōtokuji 豪徳寺 Itō Jakuchū 伊藤若冲
goyō eshi 御用絵師 Itsunen (Ch. Yiran) 逸念
Guan Xiu (Jp. Kankyū) 貫休 Iwakisan Jinja 岩木山神社
Iwayadera 岩屋寺
Hachijō Toshihito 八条智仁 Izuna Gongen 飯縄権現
Hachijō Toshitada 八条智忠
Hada (Hata) Teruo 秦テルヲ Jige kaden 地下家傳
haibutsu kishaku 廃仏毀釈 jikkai 十界
Hakuin Ekaku 白隠慧鶴 jinbi 深秘
Han Dōsei (Ch. Fan Daosheng) 范道生 Jingōji 神護寺
Hasedera 長谷寺 Jinkōin 神光院
Hasegawa Settan 長谷川雪旦 jisha bugyō 寺社奉行
Hasegawa Settei 長谷川雪提 Jishōin 自昌院
Hatta Ryōkei 八田了慶 Jitsuden Dōkin 実伝道鈞
hayari gami 流行神 Jiun Onkō 慈雲飲光
hibutsu 秘仏 jōroku 丈六
Hieizan 比叡山 Jōshinji 浄眞寺
Higashi Honganji 東本願寺 Joshū Chōrō 如周長老
Hirayama Ikuo 平山郁夫 Jūōdō 十王堂
Hishikawa Moronobu 菱川師宣 Jurakuen Daibutsu 聚楽園大仏
Hōkōji 方広寺
Hon’ami Kōetsu 本阿弥光悦 kaichō 開帳
Hōnenji 法然寺 kaidan meguri 戒壇廻り
honji suijaku 本地垂迹 Kakushū Genkō (Sumiyoshi Hironatsu)
Honjō 本庄鶴洲元翯（住吉広夏）
Honsenji 品川寺 Kanbe Mineo 神戸峰男
honzan matsuji 本山末寺 Kanchō 寛朝
Hōonji 報恩寺 Kan’eiji 寛永寺
Hōryūji 法隆寺 Kannon reigenki 観音霊験記
Hossō 法相 Kano Einō 狩野永納
Hōyōji 法養寺 Kano Kazunobu (alt. Isshin) 狩野一信
Hōzan Tankai 宝山湛海 Kano Minenobu 狩野岑信
Hōzanji 宝山寺 Kano Sansetsu 狩野山雪
Hyakutakuhaiji 百沢廃寺 Kano Tan’yū 狩野探幽
Kano Tōhaku 狩野洞白
Ichikawa Danjūrō 市川団十郎 Kano Tsunenobu 狩野常信
Ichikawa Kuzō 市川九蔵 Kano Yasunobu 狩野安信
Ihaidō 位牌堂 Kaoku Shōnin 珂億上人
Ike Taiga 池大雅 Kaseki Shōnin 珂碩上人
Imamura Hajime 今村源 Katō Nobukiyo 加藤信清
Imamura Kyūbei 今村久兵衛 Kawai Kanjirō 河井寛次郎
Imamura Teruhisa 今村輝久 Kawanabe Kyōsai 川鍋暁済
Ingen Ryūki (Ch. Yinyuan Longqi) 隠元 Kazan Tennō 華山天王
隆琦 Keishōin 桂昌院
Iseya Kakichirō 伊勢屋嘉吉郎 Kenchōji 建長寺
Ishikawa Mitsuaki (alt. Kōmei) 石川 Kenninji 建仁寺
光明 Kikuchi Yōsai 菊池容斎
308 character glossary

Kimura Ryōtaku 木村了琢 machi eshi 町絵師
Kimura Shingorō 木村新五郎 Machida Hisanari 町田久成
Kimura Tokuetsu 木村徳悦 Maeda Jōsaku 前田常作
Kimura Tokuō 木村徳応 Maeda Toshitsune 前田利常
Kino Shūshin 紀の秀信 maedachi 前立ち
Kinryūzan 金龍山 manji 卍
Kishi Ganku 岸岸駒 Manpukuji 万福寺
Kitain 喜多院 Maruyama 円山
Kiura (Sakura) Sōgorō 木浦（佐倉） Maruyama Ōkyo 円山応挙
宗吾郎 Matsudaira 松平
kō 講 Matsudaira Yorishige 松平頼重
Kōbō Daishi 弘法大師 Matsuhisa Hōrin 松久朋琳
Kōetsuji 光悦寺 Matsuhisa Kayū 松久佳遊
Kōfukuji (Nagasaki) 廣福寺 Matsuhisa Maya 松久真や
Kōfukuji (Nara) 興福寺 Matsuhisa Sōrin 松久宗琳
Kōganji 高岩寺 Matsumoto Ryōzan 松本良山
koji 居士 Matsuzawa Yutaka 松沢宥
Kōjō 庚乗 Merōfu Kannon 馬郎婦観音
Kokawadera 粉河寺 Miki Sōsaku 三木宗策
Kōkei 公慶 Minchō 明兆
Kōkō Tennō 光孝天皇 mingei 民芸
kokubunji 国分寺 Miraishin no Oka 未来心の丘
Kokuzenji 国前寺 misemono 見世物
Kondō Kōmei 近藤弘明 mizuko kuyō 水子供養
Kōon 庚音 Mokuan Shōtō (Ch. Muan Xingtao) 木庵
Kōsanji 耕三寺性瑫
Kōsanji Kōsō Wajo 耕三寺耕三和上 Mokujiki Myōman (alt. Gyōdō, Gogyō)
Kōyasan 高野山木喰明満（行道﹐五行）
Kōsen Shōton (Ch. Kao Chuan Xing monzeki 門跡
Tong) 高泉性敦 Mori Sosen 森狙仙
Kōsen zenshi hōen ryaku shū 高線禅師 Mori Tessan (alt. Tetsuzan) 森鉄山
法苑略集 Mōri Yoshinari 毛利吉就
Kōshō 庚正 Morikawa Toen 森川杜園
Kōtokuin 高徳院 Muga Sōzan Mokusenji 無我相山黙仙寺
Kōyō no mon 孝養の門 Mūkoyoshi Yuboku 向吉悠睦
Kōyū 庚猶 Munakata Shikō 棟方志功
Kōyū 庚祐 (act. 1670–1694) Murakami Kagaku 村上華岳
Kuetani Kazutō 机谷一東 Myōkenzan 妙見山
Kuhon Butsu Jōshinji 九品仏淨眞寺 Myōryūji 妙立寺
Kuhonzan Yuizainenbutsu’in Jōshinji
九品山唯在念仏院淨眞寺 Nakamura Keiboku 中村佳睦
Kūkai 空海 Nakamura Shinya 中村晋也
Kuki Ryūichi 九鬼隆一 Nanjō Masahyōe 南条荘兵衛
Kumano kanjin jikkai mandara 熊野 Nankōbō Tenkai 南光坊天海
観心十界曼荼羅 Nanzenji 南禅寺
kusōzu 九相図 Naritasan Bunjin Fudō 成田山分身不動
Kyōhabutae 京羽二重 Naritasan Shinshōji 成田山新勝寺
natabori 鉈彫
machi busshi 町仏師 Natadera 那谷寺
character glossary 309

Nehandō 涅槃堂 Saitō Kōdō 斉藤晃道
Nihonji 日本寺 Sakai Hōitsu 酒井抱一
Niiro Chūnosuke 新納忠之介 Sakon Sadatsuna Tokuei 左近貞綱徳栄
Nikkō Tōshōgū 日光東照宮 Sanbutsudō 三仏堂
Ninnaji 仁和寺 sankei mandara 参詣曼荼羅
Ninnō kyō 仁王経 Sanzen Butsudō 三千仏堂
Nishi Honganji 西本願寺 Sawada Seikō 澤田政廣
Nishida Kitarō 西田幾多郎 sazaedō さざえ堂
Nishimura Kōchō 西村公朝 Seirei 星嶺
Nishioka Tsunekazu 西岡常一 Sekihōji 石峰寺
Nishiyama Suishō 西山翠嶂 Senkōji 千光寺
Nisondō 二尊堂 Sennyūji 泉通寺
Nōfukuji 能福寺 Sensōji 浅草寺
shasei 写生
Oda Nobunaga 織田信長 Shibarare Jizō 縛られ地蔵
Ōfuna Kannonji 大船観音寺 Shichijō bussho 七条仏所
Ōka Minoru 岡實 Shijō 志誠
Okakura Kakuzō (Tenshin) 岡倉覚三 Shikoku henro 四国遍路
（天心） Shimada (Ki) Motonao (Randō) 島田（紀）
okotsu butsu お骨仏元直（鸞洞）
Ōkura Jirō 大倉侍郎 Shimizu Ryūkei 清水隆慶
Ōta Hirotarō 太田博太郎 Shimbi Taikan 心美大観
Ōta Rokuemon (Kamaroku) 太田六右衛 shinbutsu bunri 神仏分離
門（釜六） Shingan 心岩
Ōtagaki Rengetsu 大田垣蓮月 Shinran 親鸞
Otagi Nenbutsuji 愛宕念佛寺 Shinshū Honbyō 真宗本廟
otogi zōshi 御伽草子 Shiokawa Bunrin 塩川文麟
ōtsue 大津絵 Shōbōritsu 正法律
Ōyama 大山 Shōhan Shōnin 照範上人
Shōjō 猩々
Qin Gao (Jp. Kinkō) 琴高 Shōkadō Shōjō 松花堂昭乗
Shōkokuji 相国寺
Raigōdō 来迎堂 Shōun Genkei 松雲元慶
reibyō 霊びょう Shōzan Gen’yō 照山元瑤
Reizei Tamechika 冷泉為恭 Shuchō Hōshin’nō 守澄法親皇
Rennyō 蓮如 Shukuin Busshi 宿院仏師
Ri Shaogan (Ch. Li Xiaogan) 李暁剛 Shussan Shaka 出山釈迦
Rinnōji 輪王寺 Sōfukuji 崇福寺
Rinsenji 林泉寺 Sōnenji 相念寺
Rokkadō 六角堂 Sumiyoshi Jokei 住吉如慶
Rushana 留遮那
Ryōkei Shōsen 龍渓性潜 Taichō 泰澄
Ryōken 亮賢 Taiyūin Reibyō 大猷院霊びょう
Ryōmen Sukuna 両面宿儺 Takagamine 鷹が峰
Ryūkōji 龍興寺 Takaguchi Yoshiyuki 高口恭行
Takahashi Hōun 高橋鳳雲
saikoku junrei 西国巡礼 Takamatsu Shin 高松伸
Saishōin 最勝院 Takamura Kōtarō 高村光太郎
Saitō Gesshin 斉藤月岑 Takamura Kōun 高村光雲
310 character glossary

Takamura Tōun 高村東雲 Tsugaru 津軽
Takaōsan 高尾山 Tsukiji Honganji 築地本願寺
Takei Saian 竹井蔡庵 Tsuwamono kongen Soga 兵根源曽我
Takeuchi Hisakazu (alt. Kyūichi) 竹内
久一 Uda Tennō 宇多天皇
Takuhō Dōshū 卓峰道秀 Ugokazu no mikoto 動かずの尊
Tanaka Bunya 田中文弥 Ukita Ikkei 浮田一慧
Tanaka Kōkyō 田中弘教 Utagawa Kunisada 歌川国貞
Tanaka Mon’a 田中紋阿 Utagawa Kunisato 歌川国郷
Tanaka Totsugen 田中訥言 Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川国吉
Tanaka Uchikurasuke 田中内蔵丞 Utagawa Toyokuni 歌川豊国
Tange Kenzō 丹下健三 Utagawa Toyokuni III (Kunisada) 歌川豊
Taniguchi Yoshio 谷口吉生国（国貞）
Tenjin Hōshin’nō 天真法親王
Tenkei Shōshū 天圭照周 Wada Gozan (Gesshin) 和田呉山（月心）
Ten’onzan Gohyaku Rakanji 天恩山五百 Watsuji Tetsurō 和辻哲郎
羅漢寺
terauke shūmon 寺請宗門 Yakuōin 薬王院
Tetsugen Dōkō 鉄眼道光 Yakushiji 薬師寺
Tetsugyū Dōki 鉄牛道機 Yamaguchi Takashi 山口高志
Tōdaiji 東大寺 Yamamoto Junkei 山本順慶
Tōeizan 東叡山 Yamamoto Mosuke 山本茂助 (alt. char
Tōfukuji 東福寺 for suke: 祐)
Tōfukumon’in 東福門院 Yamanaka Manabu 山中学
Tōji 東寺 Yamazaki Chōun 山崎朝雲
Tōkōji 東光寺 Yanagi Sōetsu (alt. Muneyoshi) 柳宗悦
Tokugawa Hidetada 徳川秀忠 Yobiko Daibutsu 呼子大仏
Tokugawa Iemitsu 徳川家光 Yokoyama Take 横山竹
Tokugawa Ietsuna 徳川家綱 Yoshida Isoya 吉田五十八
Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康 Yoshiminedera 善峰寺
Tokugawa Tsunayoshi 徳川綱吉 Yonehara Unkai 米原雲海
Tomioka Hachimansha 富岡八幡社 Yushima Seidō 湯島聖堂
Torii Kiyomitsu 鳥居清満
Torii Kiyonobu 鳥居清信 Zenkan kojitsu 前賢故実
Tosa Hidenobu 土佐秀信 Zenkōji 善光寺
Tosa Mitsuyoshi 土佐光芳 Zenrin shōkisen 禅林象器箋
Tosa Sakyō Ryōgen Masahisa 土佐左京 Zenzai Dōji 善哉童子
亮源正久 zō 像
Tōshōji 東勝寺 Zōho shoshū butsuzō zui 増補諸集仏像
Totsuka Shichibei 戸塚七兵衛図彙
Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 Zōjōji 増上寺
Tsubai Minbu 椿井民部 Zuisenji 瑞専寺
Tsubai Minbu Inkei 椿民部尹慶 Zuishōji 瑞聖寺
Tsubai Minbu Kenkei 椿民部賢慶 zushi 厨子
character glossary 311

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Index
Bold page numbers refer to Customs (Zenkan kojitsu; art schools, 188, 189–191, 192,
illustrations. Kikuchi Yōsai), 146 213, 214–216, 218, 220, 252
Andō Hiroshige: Ōtsu, from Asakura Fumio, 260
abortion, 255–256 the Fifty Three Stations of Asakusa Sensōji. See Sensōji
abstract art, 269–270, 271 the Tōkaidō Road, 123, 124; Asano Kiyoshi, 234–235
Acalanātha. See Fudō Myōō The Seven Gods of Good Asano Mitsuakira, 154
afterlife: beliefs, 116, 147; im- Fortune in Their Treasure ascetic practitioners: hijiri, 61,
ages of, 116–119, 211 Ship, 114, 114 76; monks, 160, 164; yama-
Akino Fuku, 240 Andō Hiroshige II, Yoshi bushi, 61, 82, 117
Akishinodera, 214 minedera, 79–80, 79 Association for the Creation of
Akita Ranga school of paint- Andō Masazumi, 230 National Painting (Kokuga
ing, 70 Andō Tadao, 244, 304n30 Sōsaku Kyōkai), 222
Akiyama Terakazu, 136 Arakan. See Rakan Avalokiteśvara. See Kannon
ama monzeki. See imperial architectural styles: Indo- Avatamsaka. See Flower Gar-
nunneries Saracenic, 187; modern- land Sutra
Amida (Amitābha), Western ist, 226, 236, 246. See also
Paradise of, 18, 98, 148, 268 temple architecture Bandō pilgrimage circuit, 79
Amida images: Amida and Arhat. See Rakan Banryūji, Amida Buddha, 203,
Two Bodhisattvas Welcom- aristocrats (courtiers, nobil- 204–205, 204
ing the Soul of the Dead ity): Buddhist sects patron- Benzaiten, 37, 109, 110. See
(Ike Taiga), 172, 173; from ized by, 17–18, 19; economic also Seven Gods of Good
Banryūji, 203, 204–205, status, 6; images commis- Fortune
204; The Descent of Amida sioned by, 20; interest in Beppu Daibutsu, 229
and His Attendant Bod- Heian art, 146–148; pilgrim- Bhaisajyaguru. See Yakushi
hisattvas (Amida Raigō), ages, 76; relations with sho- Birushana (Vairocana), 20, 93,
255, 256; at Hōnenji, 65, 66; gunate, 45; temples, 45–46; 196, 197
Kamakura Daibutsu (Great women, 152–154 Bishamonten, 109, 110, 115. See
Buddha), 176, 196, 230; by art history canon, Japanese, also Seven Gods of Good
Kaseki Shōnin (at Jōshinji), 8–9, 11–12, 282n18 Fortune
39–41, 40; by Kōon, 38, 39; artists: Buddhist image- blood pool imagery, 118, 220
Kumano Heart Visualiza- makers not seen as, 188; Blood Pool Sutra
tion Mandalas, 117; by Ōta expressions of personal (Ketsubonkyō), 118
Rokuemon (at Ekōin), 85, faith, 218, 224; inspired by bodaiji. See mortuary temples
86; triad of Zenkōji, 80, 81, nondenominational Bud- Bodart-Bailey, Beatrice M.,
85; Yamagoshi Amida Rising dhism, 258–273; of inter- 5–6
over the Himalayan Moun- war period, 216–224, 269; buddha images: directional,
tains by Ri Shaogan, 241; by relationship to Buddhism, 38; Four Wisdom Buddhas
Yamamoto Mosuke, 205– 216–218. See also Buddhist by Tanaka Kōkyō, 131–132,
206, 206; Yobiko Daibutsu image-makers; secular 133, 205–206; okotsu butsu
(Karatsu City), 228 artists (of cremated remains),
Amitābha. See Amida art journals, 202, 216–217, 192–194, 194, 229, 238, 239;
Ancient Wisdom and Old 220, 223 statue-buildings, 227–230;

as tourist attractions, 197, artists, 188. See also artists; period, 189, 191–192; Nara
229; Western interest in, busshi; sculptors workshops, 130, 132; Osaka
203–205. See also Amida Buddhist images: of afterlife, workshops, 130–131; pa-
images; Great Buddha im- 116–119, 211; as art, 209, trons, 133–134; restoration
ages; Shaka images 247–248, 251, 260, 276; projects, 131, 135; seen as
Buddhism: in contemporary commissioned by aristo- craftsmakers, 188; Tanaka
Japan, 176, 275; criticism of, crats, 20; commissioned lineage, 131, 189; work-
6–7, 177; cross-sectarian by commoners, 96, 97, 99; ing methods, 189. See also
elements, 94–95, 155–156, commissioned by samurai, Shōun Genkei
170; faddish deities, 98; fu- 20, 127, 138, 147, 148; con- bussho (Buddhist image-
sion with popular culture, flation with Confucian or making workshops), 252–253
126, 275, 277; intellectual Daoist imagery, 90; copies, Busshōzan Hōnenji. See
views of, 216–217, 218; mod- 138–139, 142–144, 208–209, Hōnenji
ernization efforts, 178–179, 213, 216; elite sponsorship, Butsuzō zui. See Illustrated
197–198; nondenomina- 97; exporting, 188; expres- Compendium of Buddhist
tional, 218, 259; pan-Asian, sions of maker’s faith, 150, Images
186, 217–218, 259; popular 166–174; forgeries, 208–209; Byōdōin, Uji, 136
deities, 97–98; revival of hidden, 80, 189; in Meiji
popular belief, 178, 197; period, 187–197, 210–211, Cage, John, 273
scholarship, 178, 179–180, 225; motives for viewing Celestial Beings (Hiten), 154;
217; transnational, 230, in person, 84; in postwar by Jishōin, 155
258–259 period, 251–258; power of, Cernuschi, Henri (Enrico),
Buddhism and state: in Edo 3, 121–122; preservation of, 203, 205
period, 19, 23–24, 32, 177; 180–181, 202, 209, 217–218; Chan Buddhism: emigrant
legitimacy conferred by publications on, 202–203; Chinese monks, 46, 48, 52,
association, 3, 5–6, 25–27, removed from temples, 53, 103, 104, 137–138, 139;
44; in Momoyama period, 199–200; requests for divine temple architecture, 55;
17–23; protection of nation, assistance, 119–126; scholar- transmission to Japan, 52.
21; regulations, 23–24, 60, ship on, 202; standard ico- See also Zen Buddhism
63, 74, 81; shift from reli- nography, 110, 127, 138–139, Chen Xian (Chin Ken), 172
gious to secular power, 4; 142–144, 208–209; stand-ins Chicago, World’s Columbian
suppression of Buddhism, (maedachi), 81, 87; surveys, Exhibition, 179, 203, 213–
4, 17, 74; Tokugawa policies, 200–203, 213; in temple 214, 301n34
32, 35, 36, 60; unification courtyards, 106, 195. See also Chichibu pilgrimage circuit,
in Nara period, 21. See also buddha images; exhibitions 79
Meiji government of temple treasures; votive Chikubushima, 37
Buddhist image-makers: ama- tablets Chiossone, Edoardo, 204
teurs, 252, 257–258; clerics, building materials: concrete, Chisokuin, 42
106–107, 157–166; competi- 183, 184, 226, 227–230, 236– Chōshōji, 69, 70
tions, 252; ebusshi (icon- 237, 239; steel, 231; wood, Christianity: “Ages of Man”
painting specialists), 134– 184, 226, 235 imagery, 117; in Japan, 219;
136; expressions of faith, bunjinga (Japanese literati missionaries, 24, 179, 180,
12, 150, 166–174; imperial painting). See nanga 197
clerics, 151–152; independent busshi (professional makers of Chūguji nunnery, 237
painters, 141–149; itinerant Buddhist statues), 128–132, collectors of Buddhist art, 176,
self-taught monks, 160– 149; Fujiwara Shigetsugu, 199–200, 203–206, 208, 209,
166; marginalized, 150–151; 66; Imamura Kyūbei family, 300n8
motives, 150; patrons, 127, 193–194; Jōchō, 128; Kōshō, commoners: as Buddhist
276–277; professional, 71, 20; Kyoto workshops, 66, devotees, 73; Buddhist im-
127–128, 136–141, 142, 149, 128, 130, 131, 188–189; lay ages for, 96, 97, 99, 128, 134,
166–174, 251–254; samurai, town sculptors (machi 141, 157–166; in Edo, 33, 38;
70, 98–99, 154–156; seen as busshi), 132–134; lineages, education levels, 97; expres-
craftsmakers rather than 128, 131, 188–189; in Meiji sions of religious devotion,
340 | Index

9; financing temples, 73–74, institutions, 60–71; political Edo-period temples in Edo
88, 131; local temples, 74–75; autonomy, 60–61; residents (Tokyo): associated with
pilgrimages, 77; religious of Edo, 33; temple projects, bakufu, 35; for commoners,
practices, 74, 83, 97; study 28–29, 36, 38; wives, 154 83–94; head temples, 35;
of Confucianism, 27–28, Daiten Kenjō, 156, 170 images commissioned for,
96–97, 102, 145; temple Daitokuji, 103, 136 130; locations of, 34, 35, 83,
buildings for, 69–71; temples Daitsū Bunchi, 152 88; sponsored by Tokugawa
frequented by, 28, 38, 69–71, Daoism (Taoism), 34–35, 90, shoguns, 33–44, 85–86, 87.
73, 83–94; urban culture, 78, 102, 109, 110, 112 See also Chisokuin; Eitaiji;
96, 210. See also merchants Daruma images: Daruma Ekōin; Gohyaku Rakanji;
conceptual art, 270–271, 273 Crossing the Sea (Niiro Gokokuji; Honsenji; Jōshinji;
Conder, Josiah, 187 Chūnosuke), 215, 215; by Kan’eiji; Kōganji; Rinsenji;
Confucianism: filial piety Jiun Onkō, 159–160, 159; Ryūkōji; Sensōji; Zōjōji;
(reverence for ancestors), 21, Rakan, formerly identified Zuishōji
27, 92, 96–97, 102; Japanese as Daruma (Shōun Genkei), Egoku Dōmyō, 59, 63
interest in, 4–5, 6, 27–28, 206–208, 207 Eigenji, 154; Shaka, Zenzai
53, 96–97, 125, 145; sages, Da Vinci, Leonardo, 70 Dōji, Gakkai Chōja, and the
92, 102; social structure, 4, dealers, art, 203, 206–208 Sixteen Rakan, in second-
6; syncretism in China, 104; degaichō. See exhibitions of story chamber of Main Gate
themes in temple sculpture, temple treasures (Sanmon), 102, 103
90, 92 demons. See oni Eisai, 194
courtiers. See aristocrats Dengyō Daishi. See Saichō Eitaiji: exhibitions held at, 86–
cremated remains incor- Doi Toshikatsu, 38 87, 89, 90; Fukagawa Fudō
porated into statues, 99, Dōmoto Inshō, 218–219, 222; Hall, 86–87, 279
192–194, 229, 238, 239 abstract paintings, 269–270; Ekōin, 85–86, 279; Amida
cultural nationalism, 164, 180, Wind God (Fujin), 270, Plate statue, 85, 86
197, 213, 223 38; Yuima with a Group of elites. See aristocrats; daimyo;
Bodhisattvas and the Ten imperial family; samurai
Daibutsu. See Great Buddha Great Disciples of the Bud- ema. See votive tablets
images dha, 219, 269, Plate 24 Enkū Shōnin, 161–162, 163,
Daienji (Hirosaki), 67 Duchamp, Marcel, Fountain, 260, 273; Two-Faced Sukuna
Daienji (Kanezawa), Jizō 269 (Ryōmen Sukuna), 162, 162
statue, 98–99, 193, Plate 6 Duret, Théodore, 203; Voyage Enma, King of Hell, 118, 119,
Daienji (Tokyo), 279; Shaka en Asie, 204–205 211, 212
and the Five Hundred Enryakuji, 35, 88
Rakan, 106, 107 Ebisu, 109–110, 111. See Eppō Dōshō. See Yuehfeng
Daikanjin nunnery, Zenkōji, also Seven Gods of Good Daozhang
Kannon with Child (Mizuko Fortune Eri Kōkei and Eri Sayoko, 252;
Kannon) sculpture, 256–257, ebusshi (icon-painting special- The Five Esoteric Ones
258 ists), 134–136 (Gohimitsu), 253, Plate 31
Daikokokuten, 109, 110. See Edo (Tokyo): as administra- esoteric Buddhism, 98,
also Seven Gods of Good tive capital, 33, 87–88; city 131–132, 253, 254. See also
Fortune plan, 33; earthquakes, 43, mandalas
daimyo: clan temples, 60; 99; exhibitions of temple etoki. See painting recitation
domains, 6, 60–61; im- treasures, 28, 81, 83, 84–85, sermons
ages commissioned by, 127; 86–87, 89, 90; fire brigades, exhibitions of temple trea-
intermarriage with imperial 120; fires, 38, 83, 85; popula- sures: celebrity promotion
family, 61; mortuary tem- tion growth, 33; reorganiza- of, 89; in Europe, 202,
ples, 63–66, 69, 70; Ōbaku tion of urban area, 38–39, 205; kaichō, 81, 84–85; in
converts, 63; opponents of 83; residents, 33 museums, 200, 209–210,
Buddhism, 177, 287n25; op- Edo meisho zue. See Illustrated 247–248; at other temples
ponents of Tokugawa, 61, Guide to Famous Places of (degaichō), 28, 83, 85, 86–87,
63; patronage of Buddhist Edo 89, 90, Plate 5; of replicas,
Index | 341

205–206, 208–209; in secu- Gankai, 148 Hakodate, Ōtani Shin-sect
lar spaces, 199–200 Genroku era, 27, 78, 97 temple, 183
expositions, international, 187, Gensan, 79–80 Hakuin Ekaku, 157–158; The
202, 203, 213–214, 228 Genshin, scale model for Great Seven Gods of Good Fortune,
Buddha statue (Hōkōji), 20, 115, 115, 158
faith healing, 121–122 21, 22 Hakusan (Mount Haku), 61,
Fan Daosheng. See Han Dōsei Gizan, Illustrated Compen- 172
fengshui (geomancy), 34–35, dium of Buddhist Images Hamada Shōji, 222–223
36, 284n20 (Butsuzō zui), 110, 111, 127 Han Dōsei (Fan Daosheng):
Fenollosa, Ernest, 187, 189–191, goblins. See oni Group of Rakan (Manpu-
202, 204, 208, 209, 213, 217 Gohyaku Rakanji, 206–208, kuji), 104–106, 105; influ-
Festival for the Dead (Obon), 279; Five Hundred Rakan ence, 129, 165; The Rakan
118, 246 statues, 57–60, 58, 104–106; Subinda, 105
filial piety, 22, 27, 92, 102 Spiral Hall, 57, 70 Hara Zaichū, 139
fire prevention efforts, 182, Gokayama Ainokura Village, Hasedera, 279; Jizō statues,
226, 235 74–75 255, 257
Fister, Patricia, 152, 154 Gokokuji, 42–43, 44, 279 Hasegawa school of painting,
Five Hundred Rakan. See Gomizunoo, Emperor: abdica- 136
Rakan images, Five tion, 24; advisers, 61; Lotus Hasegawa Settan, Overview
Hundred Sutra copies, 52; marriage, of Gokokuji from the Il-
Flower Garland Sutra (Skt. 22, 46; support of Ōbaku lustrated Guide to Famous
Avatamsaka; Ch. Huayen; sect, 53–54; temples sup- Places of Edo, 42, 43
Jp. Kegon), 116 ported by, 46, 47, 102; ton- Hatta Ryōkei, The Bodhisattva
folkcraft movement (mingei), sured relatives, 151, 152 Kokuzō, 131, 132
162–164, 217, 222, 223 Gonse, Louis, L’art japonais, Hayashi Tadamasa, 203
forgeries, 208–209 205 Hieizan (Mount Hiei), 23, 35,
Freer, Charles Lang, 208, 209, Gotō Keita, 230 36, 88
301n25 Gōtokuji, 279, 286n20 Higashi Honganji, 18, 170, 178;
Fudō Myōō (Skt. Acalanātha; Great Buddha (Daibutsu) im- Founder’s Hall (Goeidō),
Ch. Budong Fo): as charac- ages: Hōkōji, 19–21, 22–23, 182, 182; images for Found-
ter in Kabuki play, 88–89, 128; Hōkōji Daibutsu ma- er’s Hall Gate (Goeidōmon),
89, 288n23; Naritasan Shin quette by Genshin, 20, 21, 189, 190, 298–299n30; re-
shōji icon, 86–87, 88, 89, 22; Hyōgō, Kobe, 195–197, construction, 181–182; Shin-
90, 91–92; Shinto name, 87; 196, 228, 299n47; Jurakuen sect Original Temple Visitor
statue by Kiyomizu Ryūkei (Tōkai), 229; Kamakura, Learning Hall (Shinshū
and Hōzan Tankai, 129, 129; 176, 196, 230, 279; Kan’eiji Honbyō Shichōkaku Hōru),
as symbol of Hiroshima, 264 (Ueno), 196, 299nn44–45; 242, 243
Fujisan (Mount Fuji), 42, 43, Ōfuna Kannon, 227, 228, hijiri. See ascetic practitioners
76, 82, 172 229–230, 280; salvific pow- Hine Taizan, Sixteen Rakan,
Fujiwara Shigetsugu, 66 ers, 19; Tōdaiji, 20–21, 131, 142, Plate 13
Fujiwara Teika, 169 196 Hirayama Ikuo, 263; Hiro-
Fukagawa Fudō Hall, 86–87, Great Kanto earthquake, 185 shima Reborn (Hiroshima
279 Guan Xiu (Chanyue), 51, shōhenzu), 263–264, Plate
fukko yamatoe (yamatoe re- 286n11 34
vival), 147 Guanyin. See Kannon Hirosaki, 67–70; Daienji, 67;
Fukurokuju, 110, 111, 112, 114. Guimet, Emile, 178, 202, Hōonji, 130; Hyakutaku-
See also Seven Gods of 205–206 haiji (Hyakutakuji), 68–69;
Good Fortune Iwakisan Jinja, 68–69, 69,
Fukusaiji, 54 Hachijō Toshitada, 61, 287n29 70; Saishōin, 67–68, 68;
Fumonji, 53, 137–138 Hada (Hata) Teruo, 219–220, Spiral Hall, 70, 71; Tsugaru
funerary rites, 97, 246 222; The Buddha Shaka clan, 67–69, 130
with Attendant Bodhisat- Hiroshima, 154, 230, 246–247,
Gainenha (concept art) move- tvas Fugen and Monju, 220, 263–264
ment, 270 221 Hiroshima Peace Memorial
342 | Index

Park: cenotaph, 246–247, Hotei, 109, 110, 111. See also with shogunate, 24, 45–46;
247, 264; museum, 246–247, Seven Gods of Good Shinto and, 6, 22; temples
264 Fortune supported by, 45–46, 71–72,
Hishikawa Moronobu, 210; A Hōzan Tankai, Fudō Myōō, 102. See also Gomizunoo,
Courtesan Depicted as the 129, 129 Emperor
Bodhisattva Jizō, 145–146, Hyakunin isshu (Poems from imperialism, 163, 180, 219, 259
145 the “One Hundred Poems imperial nunneries (ama
Hokke (Lotus) sect. See Ni by One Hundred Poets” by monzeki), 46
chiren sect Hon’ami Kōetsu and Tawa- imperial temples (monzeki),
Hokke kyō. See Lotus Sutra raya Sōtatsu), 168, 169 22, 46, 151, 285n1. See also
Hōkōji, 19, 22. See also Great Hyakutakuhaiji (Hyakutakuji), Rinnōji
Buddha images, Hōkōji 68–69 Important Cultural Properties
Hon’ami Kōetsu, 166–169; Hyōgō (Kobe) Daibutsu, 195– (Jūyō Bunkazai), 7, 202
Poems from the “One Hun- 197, 196, 228, 299n47 India: Ajanta cave paintings,
dred Poems by One Hundred 222; early Buddhism, 179,
Poets” (Hyakunin isshu), Ichikawa Danjūrō lineage of 217; Indo-Saracenic archi-
168, 169 kabuki actors: Danjūrō I, 81, tecture, 187
Hōnen’in, 270 88–90, 288n23; Danjūrō II Ingen Ryūki (Yinyuan Longqi),
Hōnenji, 63–66; Amida Bud- (Kuzō), 88–89; Danjūrō VII, 49, 53, 54, 102, 137–138; in-
dha statue, 65, 66; Hall 93–94; Danjūrō VIII, 94, scriptions, 138, Plate 12
of the Three Buddhas 193, 299n38 Iseya Kakichirō, 108
(Sanbutsudō), 65–66, 67; icon makers. See Buddhist Ishida Baigan, 125
Hall of the Two Buddhas image-makers Ishikawa Mitsuaki (alt.
(Nisondō), 64–65, 66; paint- Iharu Saikaku, 104 Kōmei), 213
ings, 139; statues re-creating Ike Taiga, 157, 172; Amida and Ishin Sūden, 23
death of buddha, 65–66, 67, Two Bodhisattvas Welcom- Isshinji: Buddha statues of
131; Ten Kings of Hell Hall ing the Soul of the Dead, cremated remains (okotsu
(Jūōdō), 64, 65, 118 172, 173 butsu), 192–194, 194, 229,
Honganji, 18, 19 Ikkyū Sōjun, 103, 211 238, 239; Guest Center
Honganji school (Shinshū Ikumi Kaminishi, 3 (Nissōden), 239; Main Gate,
Honganji ha), 18, 185–186, Illustrated Compendium of 240–241, 240; modern-
187, 231 Buddhist Images (Butsuzō style buildings, 238–241;
honji suijaku (origin and man- zui), 110, 111, 127; Enlarged Three Thousand Buddha
ifestation) doctrine, 24–25, Edition Encompassing Vari- Hall (Sanzen Butsudō), 241,
61, 117; mandala, 148–149 ous Sects of the Illustrated Plate 28
Honsenji, 279; Jizō Bodhisat- Compendium of Buddhist Itō Chūta, 181, 184, 186–187;
tva, 99–100, 101 Images (Zōho shoshū Main Hall of Tsukiji Hon-
Hōonji, Jizō statue, 130, 130 butsuzō zui), 110, 111, 205 ganji, 185–186, 186, 187
Hōryūji: bronze lantern, 28, Illustrated Guide to Famous Itō Jakuchū, 169–172; Fish in a
28, 29; exhibition of trea- Places of Edo (Edo meisho Lotus Pond, 170–171, Plate
sures, 28, 85; Gallery of zue), 42, 43, 83 21; Three Rakan, 171–172,
Hōryūji Treasures, Tokyo Imamura Kyūbei family: Bud- 171
National Museum, 248, 249; dha statues of cremated Itsunen (Yiran), 53, 138, 142
Kujaku Myōō image, 209; remains (okotsu butsu), Iwakisan Jinja, 68–69, 69,
Main Hall wall paintings, 192–194, 194; Hajime, 193; 70
28; objects given to Imperial Teruhisa, 193 Iwayadera, 61–62
Household Collection, 200; imperial family: clerics, 46, Izuna Gongen, 82
restoration funding, 200; 151–152; connections to
study of, 186; Yumedono Tokugawa family, 29, 46; Jaffe, Richard M., 186
Kannon statue, 202, 230 divine origins, 6, 25, 177; Japan Art Institute (Nihon
Hossō (Faxiang) sect, 32 intermarriage with daimyo Bijutsuin), 216
Hossō-sect temples: Kōfukuji, clans, 61; loyalists, 160; Meiji Japan-British Exhibition, 203
53, 234; Yakushiji, 233–235. Restoration, 177; mortuary Japanese Association of the
See also Kiyomizudera temples, 46, 47; relations True Beauty of Buddhism
Index | 343

(Nihon Bukkyō Shimbi Juntei Kannon, 31; by Miki Kannon Bodhisattva by
Kyōkai), 202 Sōsaku, 233, Plate 26 Miki Sōsaku, 233, Plate 26;
Jigoku Dayu, 211, 212 Jurakuen Daibutsu (Splendid Kannon Bodhisattva Saving
Jingōji, 87 Garden Great Buddha; a Man from Drowning by
Jinkōin, 160 Tōkai), 229 Kakushū Genkō, 139–141,
Jisha Bugyō. See Office of Jurōjin, 110, 112. See also Seven 140; Kannon with Child
Temple and Shrine Gods of Good Fortune (Mizuko Kannon), Daikanjin
Administrators Jūyō Bunkazai. See Important nunnery, Zenkōji, 256–257,
Jishōin, 154; Celestial Beings Cultural Properties 258; at Kōganji, 121–122,
(Hiten), 154, 155 123; at Kōsanji, 233; paint-
Jitsuden Dōkin, 59 Kabuki actors, 81, 88–90, 93– ing by Kano Tan’yū, 51; in
Jiun Onkō, 158–159; Daruma, 94, 193 portable shrine, 134, 134;
159–160, 159 Kaempfer, Engelbert, 112 statue-buildings, 227–228,
Jizō (Kstigarbha), 97–98, 117; kaichō. See exhibitions of 229–230; Thousand-Armed
Splinter-Removing (Toge- temple treasures Kannon (Senju Kanzeon Bo-
nuki), 122 Kaihō school of painting, 136 satsu) by Tenjin Hoshin’nō,
Jizō images: A Courtesan Kakushū Genkō (aka Sumi 151, Plate 18; Thousand-
Depicted as the Bodhisat- yoshi Hironatsu), 139; Arms Thousand-Eyes Kan-
tva Jizō by Hishikawa Kannon Bodhisattva Sav- non (Senju Sengen Kannon)
Moronobu, 145–146, 145; at ing a Man from Drowning, by Mukoyoshi Yuboku and
Hasedera, 255, 257; at Hon- 139–141, 140 Nakamura Keiboku, 254,
senji, 99–100, 101; at Hōonji, Kamakura Daibutsu (Great Plate 32; by Tokugawa
130, 130; Jizō Bodhisattva by Buddha), 176, 196, 230, 279. Tsunayoshi, 30–31, 31, 151;
Shingan, 98–99, 193, Plate See also Great Buddha White-Robed Kannon by
6; offerings to small statues, images Shōzan Gen’yō, 152, 153;
98, 255–256, 257; Otake Jizō, kami (Shinto deities), 6, 24–25, White-Robed Kannon Hov-
Mount Kōya, 99, 100; six 61, 76. See also honji suijaku ering over Farmers Toiling
statues in Edo, 99–100, 101; Kaminishi, Ikumi, 117 in a Field by Wada Gozan,
String-Bound (Shibarare), Kanbe Mineo, 240–241 160, 161; Yumedono Kannon
120–121, 122; talismans, Kandinsky, Wassily, 269 statue, 202, 230
122, 124 Kan’eiji, 279; affiliate temples, Kano Einō, Pictorial Record
Jōchō, 128 80; construction, 23, 35, of the Eastern Mountains
Jōdo sect (Jōdo shū), 19, 39–42 36–38; Kiyomizu Hall, (Higashiyama ki), 47–49,
Jōdo-sect temples: Chion’in, 37–38; monzeki abbots, 48–49
35; Daihongan nunnery 46; pagoda, 38; statues in Kano Kazunobu, 93, 156–157;
(Zenkōji), 305n12. See also pagoda interior, 38, 39, 128; Rakan and the Buddhist
Daienji (Kanezawa); Ekōin; (Ueno) Daibutsu image, 196, Hell (One Hundred Scrolls
Hōnenji; Isshinji; Jōshinji; 299nn44–45 of the Five Hundred Rakan),
Kōsanji; Zōjōji Kannon (Skt. Avalokiteśvara; 107–108, 138, Plate 7
Jōdo Shin sect (True Pure Ch. Guanyin): definition, Kano Sansetsu, 139
Land; Jōdo Shinshū), 18, 19, 283n7; earthly abode, 76; Kano school of painting:
74–75, 178 female manifestations, 151, branches, 30, 118, 138, 141,
Jōdo Shin-sect temples. See 153–154, 227, 256–257; Jun- 147, 156; Buddhist images,
Higashi Honganji; Nishi tei, 31; kami manifestation, 136; female students, 152;
Honganji; Sōnenji; Tsukiji 61; manifestations of, 29, images of Seven Gods of
Honganji 138–139, 151; Nyōirin, 117, Good Fortune, 112–114;
Jōrūriji, 41 131, 261; veneration of, 98; influence, 155; leaders, 30,
Jōshinji, 279; Amida statues, White-Robed, 152, 155–156, 47; painters, 92–93, 107–108;
39–41, 40; founding, 39; 160, 227, 229–230. See also rank among official paint-
Halls of the Three Buddhas Saikoku Junrei ers, 136–137; students, 211;
(San Butsudō), 41, 41; omen Kannon images: Fish Basket styles, 148; training meth-
kaburi festival, 41–42, [Merōfu] Kannon Bodhi- ods, 138, 142, 151; Zōjōji,
44 sattva by Tōfukumon’in, from Views of Edo (Edo zu
Joshū Chōrō, 47 153–154, Plate 19; Juntei byōbu), 36, 37
344 | Index

Kano Tan’yū, 30, 112, 137–138, (Zenkan kojitsu), 146; The Kōon, 38; Amida Buddha,
152, 156; The Buddha Shaka, Inevitable Change, 146–147, 38, 39
138, Plate 12; disciples, 266, Plate 15 Kōsanji, 230–233; Filial Piety
112–114, 139; painting of Kimura lineage of Buddhist Gate (Kōyōmon), 232–233,
Kannon, 51 painters, 134–136, 151; 232; The Heights of Eternal
Kano Tōhaku, 211; Scenes from Ryōtaku lineage, 134–135, Hope for the Future (Mirai
Hell, 118, 138, Plate 9 148; Tokuō, 135–136. See also shin no Oka), 248–250,
Kano Yasunobu, 30, 138, 152; Sakon Sadatsuna Plate 30; Kannon sculp-
The Seven Gods of Good Kimura Ryōtaku VI, The tures, 233, Plate 26
Fortune, 112, 113 Buddha Shaka and His Kōsanji Kōsō Wajo, 231
Kao Chuan Xing Tong. See Attendant Bodhisattvas Kōsen Shōton (Kao Chuan
Kōsen Shōton Fugen and Monju (Shaka Xing Tong), 48, 59; Record
Kaoku Shōnin, 40, 41 sanshōzō), 135, 136, Plate 10 of the Eastern Mountains
Kaseki Shōnin, 39–41, 157; Kishi Ganku, 131 (Higashiyama ki), 48–52
Amida Buddhas (Kuhon Kitain, 23, 36, 156, 279; Five Kōshō, 20, 38
Butsu Jōshinji), 39–41, 40 Hundred Rakan, 106–107, Kōtokuin. See Kamakura
Katō Nobukiyo, 154–155, 156; 108 Daibutsu
Ten Rakan Examining a Kita no Mandokoro, 22 Kōyasan (Mount Kōya), 117,
Painting of White-Robed Kiyomizu (or Shimizu) Ryūkei, 219, 247; Fugen’in, 253,
Kannon, 155–156, 156, Plate 129; Fudō Myōō, 129, 129 Plate 31; Kongōbuji, 219,
20 Kiyomizudera, 32, 80; Main 260; Otake Jizō, 99, 100
Kawai Kanjirō, 164–165, 222, Hall, 32, 32, 37, 38 Kōyū (active ca. 1670–1694),
223 Kiyomizu potters of Kyoto, 66
Kawanabe Kyōsai, 211; Enma, Rakan, 194–195, 195 Kōyū (twenty-second head of
King of Hell, Examining a kō. See lay religious Seventh Avenue Atelier), 38
Painting of the Hell Cour- associations Kstigarbha. See Jizō
tesan Jigoku Dayu, 211, 212; Kobe (Hyōgō) Daibutsu. See Kuetani Kazutō, 231; The
A Journey Around Hell and Hyōgō (Kobe) Daibutsu; Heights of Eternal Hope for
Paradise, 211–213; A Para- Nōfukuji the Future (Miraishin no
dise-Bound Steam Train, Kōbō Daishi. See Kūkai Oka), 248–250, Plate 30
Plate 22 Kōdaiji, 22 Kuhon Butsu Jōshinji. See
Kawase Hasui, Pagoda at Kōetsuji, 168 Jōshinji
Saishōin in Snow, Hirosaki, Kōfukuji, 53, 234 Kujaku Myōō, 209, 210
67–68, 68 Kōganji, 279; Jizō talismans, Kūkai (Kōbō Daishi), 18, 50, 51,
Kazan, Emperor, 61–62 122, 124; Kannon statue, 76–77, 87, 131, 132
Kegon kyō. See Flower Garland 121–122, 123 Kuki Ryūichi, 180–181, 187,
Sutra Koga Tadao, 261 200–203, 205
Keishōin, 27, 29–30, 42, 59, 77, Kōjō, 26 Kumano bikuni (nuns), 116–
81, 86–87, 89 Kokawadera, 148 117, 157
Kenchōji, 279; Shaka and Kokedera (Saihōji), 270 Kumano Heart Visualization
the Five Hundred Rakan, Kōkei, 131 and Ten Worlds Mandala
108–109, 109 Kokka, 202 (Kumano kanjin jikkai
Kenninji, 202; Rakan in the Kokuga Sōsaku Kyōkai. See mandala), 116–118, Plate 8
rōmon gate of the Founder’s Association for the Creation Kumano mountains, 76,
Hall (Kaisandō), 194–195, of National Painting 116–117
195 Kokuhō. See National Kuramadera, 35
Ketelaar, James Edward, 179 Treasures Kyoto: architectural styles, 181;
Ketsubonkyō. See Blood Pool Kokuzenji, 154 busshi workshops, 66, 128,
Sutra Kokuzō images, 131, 132 130, 131, 188–189; exhibitions
Kichijōten (Śrīmahādevī), 110, Kondō Kōmei, 267–268; Illu- of temple treasures, 81
114. See also Seven Gods of sionary Light (Genkō— Kyoto temples: Daiunji, 104;
Good Fortune gokan no fuji), 268, Plate Enryakuji, 35, 88; Jingōji,
Kikuchi Yōsai: Ancient Wis- 36 87; Jinkōin, 160; Kenninji,
dom and Old Customs Kongōbuji, 219, 260 194–195, 202; Kuramadera,
Index | 345

35; locations, 19, 35, 88; artists inspired by, 266–267; Meishō, Empress, 154
Myōhōin, 22; Myōshinji, painting of Five Hundred memorial rites for unborn
53, 136; Ninnaji, 46–47; Rakan by Ike Taiga, 172; children (mizuko kuyō),
Nishi Honganji, 18; Otagi Shingon Two Worlds, 267, 255–256, 305n12
Nenbutsuji, 257–258; Saiji, 271; temple and shrine merchants, 6, 59, 114, 120, 127,
35; Sekihōji, 171–172. See (sankei mandara), 77–78, 134
also Higashi Honganji; 116–117; use in Shingon vi- Miki Sōsaku, 233, 260; Juntei
Hōkōji; Kiyomizudera; sualization rites, 18, 267 Kannon Bodhisattva, 233,
Sennyūji; Tōfukuji; Tōji; Manpukuji, 54, 56, 165, 271; Plate 26
Yoshiminadera Eighteen Rakan carvings, Minchō, 103, 138–139, 141, 155,
Kyoto Traditional Architec- 104–106, 105; painting of 290n16
ture Techniques Associa- Five Hundred Rakan by mingei (folkcraft movement),
tion (Kyōto Dentō Kenchiku Ike Taiga, 172; paintings, 162–164, 217, 222, 223
Gijutsu Kyōkai), Great 138; sketch of temple pre- minimalism, 271
Pagoda of Peace (Daitō), cincts, 50 mizuko kuyō. See memorial
Naritasan Shinshōji, 236, Maruyama school of paint- rites for unborn children
237, 239 ing, 131, 160; copybooks, Mokuan Shōtō (Muan Xing-
142–144; Ōkyo, 131, 142; tao), 49, 55, 57, 58
LaFleur, William, 255–256 Ōzui, 131; Sketch of the bud- Mokujiki Myōman (alt.
lay religious associations (kō), dha Shaka, 143, 143 Mokujiki Gyōdō or Gogyō),
77, 90 Matsudaira daimyo clan, 106; 163–165, 223, 260; Shaka,
lay town sculptors (machi Yorishige, 63–64, 65, 139 164–165, 165
busshi), 132–134 Matsuhisa bussho, 237, 252; monks: ascetic, 164; emigrant
Lion-dog (Karashishi) guard- Hōrin, Kayū, and Maya, 252; Chinese, 46, 48, 52, 53, 103,
ians, Iwaki Jinja, 69, 70 Sōrin, 237, 252, 253 104, 137–138, 139; imperial
Li Xiaogan. See Ri Shaogan Matsumoto Ryōzan, 92–93 clerics, 46, 151–152; itiner-
Lotus Sutra (Hokke kyō): Matsuzawa Yutaka, 270–272; ant, 77, 97, 160–166; paint-
copying, 151, 154; linked to ψCorpseψ (Pusai no shitai ers, 134, 157–166. See also
Rakan, 102, 155–156; mani- itai), 271, 272 nuns
festations of Kannon, 29, 31, mausolea. See Shinto shrine monzeki. See imperial temples
138–139, 151; temple build- mausolea Mōri daimyo clan, 63; Yoshi-
ings inspired by, 243, 244; McCallum, Donald F., 163 nari, 63
and Tendai sect, 18; text on McMullin, Neil, 4 Morikawa Toen, 213, 301n30
paintings, 139, 155–156; tran- Meiji government: art schools, Mori Mariko, 268–269; Pure
scriptions, 52 188; Buddhist art collected Land, from Nirvana, 269,
Luohan. See Rakan by, 200; constitution, 179; Plate 37
funding of temple restora- Mori school of painting,
machi busshi. See lay town tion projects, 180–181, 184; 142; Sosen, The Buddha
sculptors Imperial Household Min- Shaka Descending from the
Machida Hisanari, 200, 213 istry, 180; laws to safeguard Mountain (Shussan Shaka),
machi eshi. See town painters cultural properties, 180–181, 143–144, 266, Plate 14;
Maeda daimyo clan, 61, 98, 139, 202, 209, 217–218, 300n8; Tessan, 131, 160
154, 166–168; Toshijie, 61; Meiji Restoration, 177; Min- mortuary temples (bodaiji),
Toshitsune, 61, 62, 154 istry of Rites, 178; Ministry 34, 46; of daimyo, 63–66, 69,
Maeda Jōsaku, 266–267; Medi- of the Interior, 180, 184; 70; Hōnen’in, 270; of impe-
tation on the Silver River persecution of Buddhism, rial family, 46, 47; of Kabuki
(Ginka meisō), 267, Plate 35 87, 99, 177–178, 187; rela- actors, 193; of Tokugawa
Maki Fumihiko, 238 tions with Buddhist institu- family, 23, 25–27, 34, 35, 36,
Makimura Masanao, 199–200 tions, 178, 197; separation 106–107
mandalas, 1; honji suijaku, of Shinto and Buddhism, mountains, sacred: Fujisan
148–149; Kumano Heart Vi- 38, 177, 199, 200; surveys of (Mount Fuji), 42, 43, 76,
sualization and Ten Worlds, temple and shrine treasures, 82, 172; Hakusan (Mount
116–118, Plate 8; modern 200–203 Haku), 61, 172; Hieizan
346 | Index

(Mount Hiei), 23, 35, 36, Thousand-Arms Thousand- Nichiren sect, 73, 154, 168–169,
88; Kumano, 76, 116–117; Eyes Kannon (Senju Sengen 242–243
Myōkenzan (Mount Myō Kannon), 254, Plate 32 Nichiren-sect temples:
ken), 242–244; Ōyama Nakamura Shinya, 261; The Kōetsuji, 168; Kokuzenji,
(Mount Ō), 82; Tateyama Ten Great Disciples of the 154; Myōryūji, 287n27. See
(Mount Tate), 172, 291n39. Buddha Shaka (Shaka Jūdai also Myōken
See also Kōyasan deshi), 261–262, 262 Nihon Bijutsuin. See Japan Art
Moxon, Joseph, 70 nanga (southern painting), Institute
Muan Xingtao. See Mokuan 142, 157, 166, 172 Nihon Bukkyō Shimbi Kyōkai.
Shōtō Nanjō Masahyōe, 197 See Japanese Associa-
Mujaku Dōchū, Zen Notes on Nankōbō Tenkai, 23, 25, 33, 36, tion of the True Beauty of
Objects in the World (Zenrin 37–38, 112, 135 Buddhism
shōkisen), 102–103 Nara National Museum, 202 Nihonga (Japanese-style
Mukōyoshi Yuboku, 253; Nara temples: Akishinodera, modern Japanese paint-
Thousand-Arms Thousand- 214; architectural styles, 181; ing): contemporary paint-
Eyes Kannon (Senju Sengen Chūguji nunnery, 237; ex- ers, 263, 267; description,
Kannon), 254, Plate 32 hibitions of treasures, 200; 297–298n12; subject matter,
Müller, Friedrich Max, 178, inspiration for twentieth- 217; temple wall paintings,
205 century artists, 218; Jōrūriji, 182; training in, 191, 218, 219;
Munakata Shikō, 222–224; 41; surveys of treasures, 202. Western influences, 219
Ten Great Disciples of the See also Hōryūji; Tōdaiji; Nihonji, 280, 290n13
Buddha Shaka and Two Yakushiji Niiro Chūnosuke, 214–216;
Bodhisattvas, 223–224, Naritasan Bunjin Fudō (The Daruma Crossing the Sea,
224 Avatars of the Fudō of Na 215, 215
Munroe, Alexandra, 270 rita Temple), 89 Nikkō, Taiyūin Reibyō, 26, 135.
Murakami Kagaku, 220–222; Naritasan Shinshōji, 280; fi- See also Rinnōji
Seated Bodhisattva, 222, nancial supporters, 87–88, Nikkō Tōshōgū, 23, 25–27, 135,
Plate 25 90; founding, 87, 88; Fudō 232, 280
Murōji pagoda, 234, 287n28 Myōō icon, 86–87, 88, 89, Ninnaji: Main Hall, 46–47, 47;
Musée Guimet, 205, 247–248 90, 91–92; Great Pagoda of restoration, 46–47
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Peace (Daitō), 236, 237, 239; Niō (Buddhist Guardians),
202, 208 Main Gate (Niōmon), 92, statues by Takamura Kōun
museums, exhibitions of tem- 92; Main Hall, 88, 92–93; and Yonehara Unkai, 191,
ple treasures, 200, 209–210, new Main Hall, 236–237, 192
247–248 236; pagoda, 90, 91; pilgrim- Nishida Kitarō, 217
Myōhōin, 22 ages to, 86, 90; popularity Nishi Honganji, 18
Myōkenzan (Mount Myōken), of, 91–92, 235; relief carving Nishimura Kōchō, 257, 299n43
Star Peak (Seirei) Hall, on buildings, 90, 92; restora- Nishimura Kōei, 257
242–244, 244 tion, 235–237; scripture col- Nishioka Tsunekazu, 234, 235
Myōō (Wisdom Kings), 237, lection (tripitaka), 91; Shaka Nishiyama Suishō, 218
288n17. See also Fudō Myōō Hall (Shakadō), 92–93, 93; nobility. See aristocrats
Myōshinji, 53, 136 Sutra Hall, 90–91; treasures Nōfukuji, 299n42; Great
exhibited in Edo, 86–87, Buddha of Kobe (Hyōgō
Nachi Waterfall, 116–117 89, 90; Votive Tablet Hall Daibutsu), 195–197, 196, 228,
Nagano City. See Zenkōji (Gakudō), 93–94, 94; votive 299n47
Nagasaki: Fukasaiji, 54; tablets, 120 nondenominational Buddhism
Kōfukuji, 53, 234; monu- Natadera, 61–63; pagoda, and sites, 245–250
ments to victims of atomic 62–63, 62 nunneries: Chūguji, 237; Dai-
bombing, 230; Sōfukuji, 54– National Treasures (Kokuhō), kanjin, 256–257, 258; impe-
55, 56; temples, 54–55, 165 181, 202, 300n8 rial, 46; Kōdaiji, 22
Nakajima Kiyoshi, Old Paint- Nelson-Atkins Museum of nuns: artists, 160; images cre-
ings, 209 Art, 206–208 ated by, 116–117, 151–152;
Nakamura Keiboku, 253; netsuke, 108, 115 imperial family members,
Index | 347

46, 151–152; Kumano bikuni, Otagi Nenbutsuji, Rakan carv- Poems by One Hundred
116–117, 157 ings, 257–258, 259 Poets” (Hyakunin isshu;
Ōta Hirotarō, 234 Hon’ami Kōetsu and Tawa-
Ōbaku-sect temples: Fumonji, Otake Jizō, Mount Kōya, 99, raya Sōtatsu), 168, 169
53, 137–138; in Nagasaki, 165; 100 pop art, 269
number of, 60; Sekihōji, 171– Ōtani school (Shinshū Ōtani Promey, Sally M., 10–11
172; Tōkōji, 63; Zuiryūji, 58, ha), 18 Pure Land sects, 18, 19, 73, 77,
59; Zuishōji, 55–57, 59, 280. Ōta Rokuemon, Amida Bud- 116, 148. See also Jōdo Shin
See also Gohyaku Rakanji; dha, 85, 86 sect
Manpukuji ōtsue prints, 123–126, 200
Ōbaku Zen sect: acceptance Ōyama (Mount Ō), Roben no Rakan (Ch. Luohan; Skt.
in Japan, 53–54, 60; doc- taki (Roben Waterfall at Arhat): association with
trines, 52–53; elite support Ōyama by Utagawa Kuni Confucian sages, 92, 102;
of, 52–60; emigrant Chinese yoshi), 82, Plate 3 Eighteen, 101; Five Hundred,
monks, 46, 48, 52, 53, 103, 101, 103, 104; functions,
104, 137–138, 139; found- painters: clerics, 165–166; 101–102; linked to Lotus
ing, 19, 52; imperial sup- Rinpa style, 166, 169. See Sutra, 102, 155–156; popular-
port, 53–54; influence on also ebusshi; secular artists ity, 97–98, 103, 104, 106; re-
religious imagery, 53; nuns, painting recitation sermons semblance to actual people,
152; painting style, 138, 142; (etoki), 77, 116, 211, 291n34 104; Sixteen, 101; veneration
Rakan veneration, 58, 104– Panama-Pacific International of, 58, 102, 103, 104–105. See
105; Tokugawa support, 53 Exposition, 228, 299n47 also Ten Great Disciples of
Oda Nobunaga, 4, 17, 18, 19 pan-Asian Buddhism, 186, the Buddha Shaka
Office of Temple and Shrine 217–218, 259 Rakan images: Arakan series #1
Administrators (Jisha Paris: art collectors, 203, 205; (Homeless Person as Rakan)
Bugyō), 19 art dealers, 203; Exposi- by Yamanaka Manabu,
Ōfuna Kannonji and Ōfuna tion Universelle, 202, 203, 264–266, 265; Chinese,
Kannon Daibutsu statue, 205–206; Musée Guimet, 103, 286n11; copying, 103;
227, 228, 229–230, 280. See 205, 247–248 Eighteen, 56–57, 104–106,
also Great Buddha images peace: monuments, 230, 246– 105; by Han Dōsei, 104–106,
Ogyū Sorai, 53 247; prayers and wishes for, 105; by Itō Jakuchū, 171–172,
Okakura Tenshin (aka 235, 237, 246 171; nanga paintings, 142; at
Kakuzō), 187, 189–191, 202, Philadelphia Art Museum, 248 Otagi Nenbutsuji, 257–258,
208, 209, 213, 214, 215–216, photography, 264–266, 268 259; pottery, at Kenninji,
217 pilgrimage circuits, 76; Bandō, 194–195, 195; at Rakanji, 58,
Ōka Minoru, 234 79; Chichibu, 79; mini-, 42, 103, 286n21; resemblance
okotsu butsu (buddha statues 164, 229; Shikoku, 76–77, to actual people, 106, 195,
of cremated remains), 192– 164–165, 229, 254, 255. See 224, 258; by Shōun Genkei,
194, 194, 229, 238, 239 also Saikoku Junrei 206–208, 207; Sixteen, 90,
Ōkura Jirō, 271–273; Hama- pilgrimages: associations 102, 103, 108, 142, Plate 13;
dryad Cylinders, 273, Plate (kō), 77; handbooks and in temple courtyards, 106;
39 guides, 78, 98; to Kumano Ten Rakan Examining a
oni (goblins; demons), 118–119, mountains, 76, 116–117; to Painting of White-Robed
123; images, 270; ōtsue im- Naritasan Shinshōji, 86, Kannon by Katō Nobukiyo,
ages, 123–124, 200 90; popularity, 76, 78; route 155–156, 156, Plate 20
Organization of United Bud- maps, 78, 79; talismans and Rakan images, Five Hundred:
dhist Sects (Soshū Dōtoku imagery purchased by pil- at Daienji, 106, 107; at
Kairen), 178 grims, 254–255; in twentieth Daiunji, 104; at Gohyaku
Osaka temples: Fumonji, 53, century, 254; by women, Rakanji, 57–60, 58, 104–106;
137–138; Honganji, 18; im- 117, 118 by Kano Kazunobu, 93,
ages commissioned for, 130; pilgrimage sites, 76–83; im- 107–108, 138, 156–157, Plate
Shitennōji, 219; Zuiryūji, 58, ages, 77–78; related to Jizō, 7; at Kenchōji, 108–109, 109;
59. See also Isshinji 98; worship halls, 80 at Kitain, 106–107, 108; by
Ōtagaki Rengetsu, 160 Poems from the “One Hundred Minchō and his workshop,
348 | Index

103, 155, 290n16; at Nari- Ryōnen Gensō, 152 213, 214–215; self-taught,
tasan Shinshōji, 92–93; at Ryūkōji, 155 161–162, 163–165. See also
Sekihōji, 171 Buddhist image-makers;
Rakanji (Kyushu), statues of sacred peaks. See mountains, busshi
Rakan, 58, 103, 286n21 sacred sculptures: abstract, 271;
reibyō. See Shinto shrine Saichō (Dengyō Daishi), 18, of concrete, 227–228;
mausolea 299n42 as fine art, 188, 213–214;
Reiyūkai, 260, 280 Saihōji (Kokedera), 270 hatchet-carving (natabori)
Reizei Tamechika, 147–148, Saiji, 35 technique, 163; at interna-
160; The Descent of Amida Saikoku Junrei (Kannon pil- tional exhibitions, 213–214;
Buddha over the Mountains grimage circuit), 76, 77; modern technology used
(Yamagoshi Amida zu), 148, images of sites, 77–78, 79; in, 195–196; Western-style,
Plate 16; Mandala of Bud- mini-pilgrimage routes, 240–241. See also buddha
dhist and Shinto Deities 42, 229; temples, 29, 62, 80, images; Buddhist images
(Butsuchōson katsudara 148; in twentieth century, secular artists: as makers of
amakami minbutsu da 254–255 religious images, 12; pa-
kōrin mandara), 148–149, Saishōin, pagoda, 67–68, 68 trons, 128; in postwar pe-
Plate 17 Saitō Gesshin, Illustrated riod, 251, 258–273. See also
Rennyō, 242 Guide to Famous Places Buddhist image-makers
Rinnōji, 23, 25, 280; Main of Edo (Edo meisho zue), Secularization Theory of Mo-
Hall (Hall of the Three 42, 43, 83 dernity, 10–11
Buddhas; Sanbutsudō), Saitō Kōdō, 59 Sekihōji, 171–172
25, 26; as monzeki, 26–27, Sakai Hōitsu, 169 Sengai Shōan, 55
46, 151; paintings at, 135, Sakakura Junzō, 230 Senkōji, 162
Plate 10; sculptures at, 128, Sakon Sadatsuna, 135–136; Sennyūji, 46, 47; Kōsen
283–284n11. See also Nikkō Death of the Buddha Shōton’s visit, 48–52; paint-
Tōshōgū (Nehan zu), 136, 137, Plate ing of, 47–49; Rakan paint-
Rinpa style of painting, 166, 11. See also Kimura lineage ings, 286n11
169 of Buddhist painters Sensōji, 34, 35, 36, 84, 280;
Rinsenji, 280; String-Bound Śākyamuni. See Shaka exhibitions of temple trea-
(Shibarare) Jizō, 120–121, samurai: Buddhist images sures, 84–85; Kannon Hall,
122 made by, 98–99, 154–156; 59; pictorial representations,
Rinzai-sect temples: Bud- Buddhist sects patronized 84, Plate 4
dhist paintings for, 135–136; by, 17–18, 19, 56, 57; images Seven Gods of Good Fortune
destroyed, 177–178; Eigenji, commissioned by, 20, 127, (Shichifukujin), 109–112; de-
102, 154; images in main 138, 147, 148; painters, 70; ities in group, 109–110, 114;
gates, 102–103, 108–109; residents of Edo, 33; social pictorial imagery, 110, 111,
Kenninji, 194–195, 202; pa- status, 6; temples supported 112–115; popularity, 98, 114
trons, 19; Shaka images, by, 156–157; women, 152–154 Seventh Avenue Atelier
144. See also Tōfukuji sankei mandara. See temple (Shichijō bussho), 20, 26, 38,
Rinzai Zen sect: commoner and shrine mandalas 66, 128, 135
devotees, 157; lay involve- Sawada Seikō, 260, 269; Renge Shaka (Śākyamuni): disciples,
ment, 178–179; in Momo (Lotus), 260–261, Plate 33 101, 106, 217, 223–224, 241,
yama period, 19; practices, Sazaedō (spiral halls), 70–71, 261–262; interest in life of,
52, 144 71, 287n37 179; relics, 99, 253; venera-
Ri Shaogan (Li Xiaogan), scriptures: calligraphic in- tion of, 144
Yamagoshi Amida Rising scriptions on paintings, 139, Shaka images: The Buddha
over the Himalayan Moun- 155–156; complete collec- Shaka by Kano Tan’yū,
tains, 241, Plate 28 tions (tripitaka), 91, 179– 138, Plate 12; The Buddha
Ryōkei Shōsen, 53, 54, 138, 152 180, 237, 289n27; copying, Shaka and His Attendant
Ryōken, 42 151, 154, 234; Flower Garland Bodhisattvas Fugen and
Ryōmen Sukuna (Two-Faced Sutra, 116. See also Lotus Monju (Shaka sanshōzō)
Sukuna), sculpture by Enkū Sutra by Kimura Ryōtaku VI, 135,
Shōnin, 162, 162 sculptors: art school training, 136, Plate 10; The Buddha
Index | 349

Shaka Descending from the 42–43, 44, 279; Honsenji, Gohyaku Rakanji, 57–60,
Mountain (Shussan Shaka) 99–100, 279; Hyakutaku- 58, 104–106; Rakan, for-
by Mori Sosen, 143–144, haiji, 68–69; Jinkōin, 160; merly identified as Daruma,
266, Plate 14; The Buddha Kongōbuji, 219, 260; Murōji, 206–208, 207
Shaka with Attendant Bod- 234, 287n28; Natadera, 61– Shōzan Gen’yō, 152, 154;
hisattvas Fugen and Monju 63; Saishōin, 67–68; Senkōji, White-Robed Kannon, 152,
by Hada Teruo, 220, 221; 162; Sōnenji, 74–75; wealth, 153
death of buddha, at Hōnenji, 18; Yakuōin, 82–83, 280. See shrine and temple style
65–66, 67, 131; Death of also Naritasan Shinshōji; (shajiyō), 187
the Buddha (Nehan zu) by Ninnaji; Sennyūji; Tōji; Shuchō Hōshin’nō, Prince, 46
Sakon Sadatsuna, 136, 137, Yoshiminadera Shugendō sect, 61, 82, 160–161,
Plate 11; at Kan’eiji, 196; by Shin sect. See Jōdo Shin sect 166
Kōjō, 26; in main gates of Shinshōji. See Naritasan Shukuin Busshi, 132–133
Rinzai temples, 102–103; Shinshōji Siebold, Philip Franz von, 205
by Maruyama school, 143, Shinshū Honganji ha. See Sōfukuji, 54–55; Main Hall
143; by Mokujiki Myōman, Honganji school (Daiyūhōden), 55, 55, 56
164–165, 165; Shaka, Zenzai Shinshū Ōtani ha. See Ōtani Sōnenji, 74–75; Main Hall, 75
Dōji, Gakkai Chōja, and school Soshū Dōtoku Kairen. See
the Sixteen Rakan, Eigenji, Shinto: deification of rul- Organization of United
102, 103; Shaka and the Five ers, 21–22, 25, 26; kami, 6, Buddhist Sects
Hundred Rakan, Daienji, 24–25, 61, 76; as national Sōtō-sect temples: branch, 73;
106, 107; Shaka and the religion, 177; relationship Kōganji, 121–122, 279; Rin-
Five Hundred Rakan by to imperial family, 6, 25; senji, 120–121, 280
Takamura Tōun and Taka- relationship with Buddhism, Sōtō Zen sect, 19, 67, 73
hashi Hōun, 108–109, 109; 24–25; separation from Bud- Splinter-Removing (Togenuki)
Shaka Flanked by Anan and dhism, 38, 177, 199, 200 Jizō, 122
Miroku by Tanaka Bunya Shinto shrine mausolea Śrīmahādevī. See Kichijōten
and Tanaka Mon’a, 189, (reibyō), 21–22, 24, 25, 26, statue-buildings, 227–230
190 36, 38, 135 Sumiyoshi school of paint-
Shaka Jūdai Deshi. See Ten Shinto shrines: Iwakisan Jinja, ing, 139, 141; Hironatsu (aka
Great Disciples of the Bud- 68–69; Izuna Gongen Hall, Kakushū Genkō), 139–141,
dha Shaka Yakuōin, 82, 83; priestesses, 140; Jokei, 139
Shichifukujin. See Seven Gods 147; relationships with Bud- sumo wrestlers, 85–86
of Good Fortune dhist temples, 24–25; tem- Suzuki, D. T. (Daisetsu), 2,
Shichijō bussho. See Seventh ples transformed into, 199 217, 273
Avenue Atelier Shirakaba (White Birch Soci-
Shijō, Five Hundred Rakan, ety), 216–217, 220 Taichō, 61
Kitain, 106–107, 108, 156 Shitennōji, 219 Taiyūin Reibyō, 26, 135, Plate 1
Shikoku henro pilgrimage cir Shōbōritsu. See True Doctrine Takada Dōken, 217
cuit, 76–77, 164–165, 229, of Discipline Takaguchi Yoshiyuki, 238–
254, 255 shogunal government. See 241; Main Gate, Isshinji,
Shimada (orig. Ki) Motonao Tokugawa shogunal 240–241, 240; Three Thou-
(aka Randō), 142 government sand Buddha Hall (Sanzen
Shingaku, 125–126 Shōhan Shōnin, 89 Butsudō), Isshinji, 241, Plate
Shingan, 151, 157; Jizō Bodhi- Shōjō, 110. See also Seven Gods 28
sattva, 98–99, 193, Plate 6 of Good Fortune Takahashi Hōun, Shaka and
Shingon sect: founding, 17–18, Shōki (Zhong Kui), 115, 116, the Five Hundred Rakan,
87; Keishōin’s devotion to, 119. See also Seven Gods of 108–109, 109
27; mandalas, 18, 267, 271; Good Fortune Takai Sōgen, 142
manifestations of Kannon, Shōmu, Emperor, 20, 160 Takamatsu Shin, 242; Shin-
31; temple treasure hall, 247 Shōtoku, Prince, 217 sect Original Temple Visitor
Shingon-sect temples: Chiso Shōun Genkei, 58, 129, 130, Learning Hall (Shinshū
kuin, 42; Daienji, 67; Eitaiji, 157, 286n20; Group of the Honbyō Shichōkaku Hōru)
86–87, 89, 90; Gokokuji, Five Hundred Rakan for at Higashi Honganji, 242,
350 | Index

243; Star Peak (Seirei) Hall modern styles, 185–186, 187, treasures, 200–203, 213;
at Mount Myōken, 242–244, 238–245; passageways under Tokugawa family support,
244 sanctuaries, 81–82, 230–231; 24–32; as tourist attrac-
Takamura Kōtarō, 217 shrine and temple style tions, 197, 198; transformed
Takamura Kōun, 109, 191, 202, (shajiyō), 187; studies of an- into Shinto shrines, 199
213, 217; Aged Monkey, 214; cient, 181, 234–235; timber- Tendai sect, 17–18, 23, 29
Buddhist Guardians (Niō), frame, 183; traditional, 181, Tendai-sect temples: Daienji
191, 192; disciples, 230, 233; 182, 185, 226, 227, 230–233, (Tokyo), 106, 279; Daikanjin
temporary statue of Kan- 236–237; underground subtemple (Zenkōji), 256–
non, 227–228 structures, 242, 253, 304n30; 257, 258; Daiunji, 104; Enrya
Takamura Tōun, 191; Shaka Western-style, 185–186, 187 kuji, 35, 88; Hōonji, 130; Ko-
and the Five Hundred temple construction projects: kowadera, 148; Myōhōin, 22;
Rakan, 108–109, 109 fireproof buildings, 182, 235; Otagi Nenbutsuji, 257–258.
Takeuchi Hisakazu (alt. in Meiji period, 181; in mod- See also Hōkōji; Kan’eiji;
Kyūichi), 213; Gigeiten, 213– ern period, 182–183, 184–185; Kitain; Nōfukuji; Rinnōji;
214, 301n34, Plate 23 motives, 45; sponsored by Sensōji
Takeuchi Seihō, 298–299n30 Tokugawa shoguns, 24, 25, Ten Great Disciples of the
Takuhō Dōshū, 139, 152 27–30, 42, 44, 57, 59, 81. See Buddha Shaka (Shaka Jūdai
talismans (votive charms), 115, also building materials Deshi), 101, 106, 223–224,
119, 122–123, 126, 254; dis- temple restoration projects: 241, 261–262. See also Rakan
plays, 255, 256; of Splinter- controversies, 234; focus Tenjin Hoshin’nō, 151;
Removing (Togenuki) Jizō, on early buildings, 7–8; Thousand-Armed Kannon
Kōganji, 122, 124 funding sources, 28–29, (Senju Kanzeon Bosatsu),
Tamamuro Fumio, 12 181–182, 184; in Meiji pe- 151, Plate 18
Tanaka busshi lineage, 131, riod, 180–182, 183–184; in Tenkei Shōshū, 48–49
189; Bunya and Mon’a, 189; modern period, 180–187, Ten Kings of Hell, 64, 98, 118
Shaka Flanked by Anan 200, 216, 235–237; original Tenmu, Emperor, 233
and Miroku, 189, 190 state ( fukugen) as goal, 234; Ten’onzan Gohyaku Rakanji.
Tanaka Kōkyō (alt. Uchi- in postwar period, 233–237; See Gohyaku Rakanji
kurasuke), 142; Four Wis- sponsored by imperial fam- Ten Worlds pictures, 116
dom Buddhas, 131–132, 133, ily, 46–47; sponsored by Tetsugen Dōkō, 58, 59
205–206 Tokugawa shoguns, 22–23, Tetsugyū Dōki, 59
Tange Kenzō, 246; cenotaph, 25–26, 32, 284n17; use of an- Tiantai Buddhism, 18. See also
Hiroshima Peace Memorial cient carpentry techniques, Tendai sect
Park, 246–247, 247, 264 235 timber, 184, 226, 235
Taniguchi Yoshio, 304n38; temples: commercial activities, Tōdaiji: exhibitions of temple
Gallery of Hōryūji Trea- 82–83; community- treasures, 200; Great Bud-
sures, Tokyo National Mu- supported, 74–75; court- dha Hall (Daibutsuden),
seum, 248, 249 yards, 106, 195, 239; destruc- 130–131, 183–184, 183; Great
Taoism. See Daoism tion by Meiji government, Buddha image, 20–21, 131,
Tapié, Michel, 270 177–178, 180, 200; ebusshi 196; Kokuzō statue, 131, 132
Tateyama (Mount Tate), 172, workshops, 134; efforts to Tōeizan, 36
291n39 attract visitors, 42, 81–82, Tōfukuji: copies of Rakan
Tawaraya Sōtatsu, 169; Poems 197, 231; funding sources, paintings, 103, 155; Main
from the “One Hundred 42, 44, 82–83, 96; household Hall (Butsuden or Hondō),
Poems by One Hundred registration system, 24, 184–185, 185, 218; paintings,
Poets” (Hyakunin isshu), 74; local, 74–75; number in 143
168, 169 Edo period, 283n4; picto- Tōfukumon’in, Empress, 22,
temple and shrine mandalas rial representations, 47–48; 46–47, 102, 152–153; Fish
(sankei mandara), 77–78, as popular entertainment Basket [Merōfu] Kannon Bo-
116–117 sites, 210, 277; regulation of, dhisattva, 153–154, Plate 19
temple architecture: changes 23–24, 74; regulations, 96; Tōji, 35; Four Wisdom Bud-
after World War II, 226; relationships with Shinto dhas by Tanaka Kōkyō,
of commoner temples, 94; shrines, 24–25; surveys of 131–132, 133, 205–206
Index | 351

Tōkōji, 63; cemetery, 63, 64 dhism, 27–28; regulation Tsugaru daimyo clan, 67–69,
Tokugawa family: connections of Buddhist institutions, 130; Nobuyoshi, 67
to imperial family, 29, 46; 96; study of Confucianism Tsuji Nobuo, 7
mortuary temples, 23, 25–27, encouraged by, 5, 6, 27–28, Tsukiji Honganji, 280; Main
34, 35, 36, 106–107; rituals 53, 96–97, 125; support of Hall, 185–186, 186, 187
honoring ancestors, 25–27; temple construction and
support of religious estab- restoration, 27–30, 42, 57, Uehara Masanori, 235
lishments, 24–32; temples 59, 81 Ueno Daibutsu. See Kan’eiji,
supported by, 88 Tokuhō Dōshū, 139 (Ueno) Daibutsu image
Tokugawa Hidetada, 25, 36, Tokyo National Museum Ukita Ikkei, 147
46, 154 (Tokyo Imperial Museum), ukiyoe prints, 78, 123; of Ka-
Tokugawa Iemitsu: Buddhist 38, 163, 200, 202, 209; Gal- buki plays, 89, 89; religious,
advisers, 25, 112; deifica- lery of Hōryūji Treasures 78–80, 144–146; satirical,
tion, 26; mausoleum, 26, (Hōryūji Homotsukan), 248, 145–146; of Seven Gods of
135; painting of, 36, 37; sons, 249 Good Fortune, 114–115, 114
27; temple construction Tokyo School of Fine Arts UNESCO World Heritage
projects, 36; Twenty-first (Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō), 189– sites, 7, 74–75, 117
Memorial Service, 26–27, 191, 208–209, 213, 214–216, Unkoku school of painting, 136
135, Plate 1 260, 261, 267, 268 Utagawa Hiroshige III, Fuka
Tokugawa Ietsuna, 25–27, 39, Tokyo temples, Tsukiji Hon- gawa Fudōson, 87, Plate 5
47, 53, 88 ganji, 185–186, 186, 187, 280. Utagawa Kuniyoshi: Fire Bri-
Tokugawa Ieyasu: Buddhist See also Edo-period temples gade, 120, 120; Roben Water
advisers, 23, 33; construc- in Edo fall at Ōyama (Ōyama
tion of Edo, 33, 35; con- Torii school of printmakers, Roben no taki), 82, Plate 3;
version to Buddhism, 88; 89; Kiyonobu, The Origin students, 211
deification, 25; mausoleum, of the Soga Warrior (Tsu- Utagawa Toyokuni III, Yoshi
23; mortuary shrine, 36; wamono Kongen Soga), 89, minedera, 79–80, 79
opponents, 61; patronage 89
of Hon’ami Kōetsu, 168; Tosa Hidenobu, Enlarged Edi- Vairocana. See Birushana
ranking of official painters, tion Encompassing Various Vienna World Exposition, 187
136–137; relations with Bud- Sects of the Illustrated Com- votive tablets (ema): displays,
dhist institutions, 4, 5–6, 17, pendium of Buddhist Images 93, 120, 237, 255, 256; dona-
18, 23; temples supported by, (Zōho shoshū butsuzō zui), tions, 119–120; of European
80, 87–88, 168, 192–193 110, 111, 205 trading ship, 120, 121; of fire
Tokugawa jikki (The memo- Tosa school of painting, 135, brigade, 120, 120; inscrip-
rable true record of the 139 tions, 119
Tokugawa shoguns), 5, 6, 7 town painters (machi eshi),
Tokugawa shogunal govern- 141–149 Wada Gozan (aka Gesshin),
ment (bakufu): bankrupt Toyokuni (or Hōkoku) Shrine, 160; Mandala of the Sutra
treasury, 25, 26, 32, 74, 131; 21–22 of Radiant Victorious Kings
Buddhist rituals practiced, Toyotomi rulers, 36–37; (Dai konkōmyoō saishōō
25–27; funding of temple Hideyori, 20; Hideyoshi, 4, kyō), 160, 161; White-Robed
restoration projects, 22–23, 18, 19–22, 33 Kannon Hovering over
25–26, 32; Office of Temple Trevor, John B., 209, 301n25 Farmers Toiling in a Field,
and Shrine Administrators, tripitaka (complete scripture 160, 161
19; regulation of Buddhist collections), 91, 179–180, 237, Wanfusi, 52, 53, 54
institutions, 23–24, 32, 35, 289n27 Wang Yangming, 52
60, 63, 74, 81, 96; relations True Doctrine of Discipline Watanabe Kaigyoku, 179–180
with imperial family, 24, (Shōbōritsu), 158 Watsuji Tetsurō, 218
45–46; temples associated True Pure Land sect. See Jōdo Weston, Walter, 197
with, 35 Shin sect Wisdom Kings. See Fudō
Tokugawa Tsunayoshi: Kan- Tsubai Minbu busshi lineage: Myōō; Myōō
non Bodhisattva, 30–31, Inkei, The Bodhisattva women: aristocratic and
31, 151; promotion of Bud- Kokuzō, 131, 132; Kenkei, 131 samurai, 152–154; contribu-
352 | Index

tions to temple restoration Yamamoto Mosuke, Amida Yoshiminedera Temple Pre-
projects, 181–182; exclusion Buddha, 205–206, 206 cincts), 77–78, Plate 2
from Buddhist places, 117; Yamamoto Toyoichi, 230 Yuehfeng Daozhang (Eppō
honoring female ancestors, Yamamoto Zuiun, 233, 260 Dōshō), 53
245, 249; images created by, Yamanaka Manabu, 264–266; Yumedono Kannon statue,
151–154; interest in Kannon Arakan series #1 (Homeless 202, 230
images, 151; as liminal fig- Person as Rakan), 264–266, Yushima Seidō, 6, 200
ures, 146; memorial rites for 265
unborn children, 255–256, yamatoe (pictures of Yamato), Zen Buddhism: kōans,
305n12; pilgrimages, 117, 118; 135, 146, 147, 148 125–126; lay practitioners,
pollution from menstrual Yamazaki Chōun, 230 2; in Momoyama period, 19;
blood, 118; postwar artists, Yanagi Sōetsu (alt. Muneyo- Rakan images in temples,
240–241, 252–254, 268–269; shi), 162–164, 216–217, 222, 102–103; Western interest
Shinto priestesses, 147; sutra 223 in, 2, 273. See also Ōbaku
copying, 151, 154. See also Yanigisawa Yoshiyasu, 53 Zen sect; Rinzai Zen sect;
nuns Yatsuyanagi Naoki, stone Sōtō Zen sect
woodblock books, 97, 98 image of the bodhisattva Zenga (Zen painting), 144,
woodblock prints: modern, Kannon, 121–122, 123 157, 160
222, 223–224; ōtsue, 123– Yinyuan Longqi. See Ingen Zenken kojitsu (Ancient Wis-
126, 200; talismans (votive Ryūki dom and Old Customs; Ki-
charms), 122–123, 255, Yiran. See Itsunen kuchi Yōsai), 146
256. See also ukiyoe Yobiko Daibutsu (Karatsu Zenkōji: Amida triad, 80,
prints City), 228 81, 85; Kannon with Child
World’s Parliament of Reli- Yōga (Western-style) painting, (Mizuko Kannon) at Daikan-
gions, 179 266–267 jin nunnery, 256–257, 258;
World War II, 226, 230, 238, Yokoi Kinkoku, 165–166, 172; Main Hall, 80–82, 80; Niō
246–247, 263–264 Solitary Path through the Gate (Niōmon), 191, 192; vo-
Cold Mountains and Myr- tive tablets, 120
Yakuōin, 82–83, 280; Izuna iad Trees, 166, 167 Zhong Kui. See Shōki
Gongen Hall, 82, 83 Yokoyama Take, 99 Zōho shoshū butsuzō zui. See
Yakushi (Skt. Bhaisajyaguru; Yonehara Unkai, Buddhist Illustrated Compendium of
Buddha of Healing), 25, 88, Guardians (Niō), 191, 192 Buddhist Images
233 Yoshida Isoya, 230, 236; Zōjōji, 33–34, 35–36, 165, 280;
Yakushiji: Great Lecture Hall Chūguji nunnery, 237; Main One Hundred Scrolls of the
(Dai Kōdō), 235, 261–262, Hall (Hondō), Naritasan Five Hundred Rakan (Kano
262, 263, Plate 27; restora- Shinshōji, 236–237, 236 Kazunobu), 93, 107–108, 138,
tion, 233–235; The Ten Great Yoshiminadera, 29–31, 77; Plate 7; in Views of Edo (Edo
Disciples of the Buddha by Dragon Pine Tree and zu byōbu), 36, 37
Nakamura Shinya, 261–262, Taohōtō Pagoda, 29, 30; Zuiryūji, 58, 59
262; West Pagoda, 260 image in Miraculous Sto- Zuisenji, White Temple
yamabushi. See ascetic ries About the Bodhisattva (Ihaidō), 244–245, Plate 29
practitioners Kannon, 79–80, 79; Kannon Zuishōji, 57, 59, 280; Main Hall
Yamaguchi Takashi, 244; Bodhisattva (Tokugawa (Daiyūhōden), 55–57, 56, 57
White Temple (Ihaidō) at Tsunayoshi), 30–31, 31, 151; zushi (portable shrines):
Zuisenji, 244–245, Plate 29 Yoshiminedera sankei man- with Kannon, 134, 134; for
Yamamoto Junkei, 131 dara (Cosmic Diagram of Tōfukumon’in, 153, 295n6
Index | 353

About the Author
Patricia J. Graham is an independent scholar who holds a Ph.D. in Japanese art history
from the University of Kansas. She lectures widely about Japanese art and serves as a con-
sultant and appraiser of Asian art to museums, individuals, and businesses throughout
the United States. She has taught Japanese art and culture at many universities, including
Cornell University, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and the University of Kansas; she
has also served as a curator of Asian art at the St. Louis Art Museum and as a consultant
for Japanese art for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Santa Barbara Museum of
Art. Her numerous publications include Tea of the Sages: The Art of Sencha (University of
Hawai‘i Press, 1998).

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japanese art | religions graham

www.uhpress.hawaii.edu pat rici a j. g r a h a m

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University of Hawai‘i Press | Honolulu

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© 2007 Patricia J. Graham

12 11 10 09 08 07 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-

Designed by April Leidig-Higgins

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17 One. Institutional Buddhism under Warrior Rule

177 Seven. Buddhist Institutions after an Era of

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Color plates follow pp. 148 and 244

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I am very grateful to the organizations that supported my research and

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Buddhist Policies of the Momoyama-Period Military Leaders

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Institutional Buddhism under Warrior Rule | 19

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Tokugawa Bakufu Regulations for Buddhist Institutions

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Tokugawa Family Support of Religious Establishments

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