Module 1 - Intro
- Books interred inside the Buddhist sculpture of Prince Shotoku (Shotoku Shaishi, figure from C7 Japan)
- Portrays him at age 2, when he stands up and pays homage to Budha, manifesting a relic (eyeball of Buddha) in hands
- Sacred biography - miraculous events through his life = mythical presence
- Thought to be a reincarnation of Buddha - very popular sculpture motif in C13
- This sculpture - can be dated to 1292 by objects inside
- Oldest of its kind
- Much detail to make him childlike
- Eyes are reflective - catch the light Gell - Art & Agency
- = also an icon / iconic presence
- Body would have glowed - pale/white with blue/green head
- Now candle smoke darkens him afterlife of the object
- Lotus seed in his hand - 'relic'
- Sculpture split in half (wari hagi) to fit objects inside the cavity
- Common practice among E-Asian Buddhist sculptures
- This reminds me of a Buddhist statue that had internal 'organs' inside made of silk -- don't remember where I encountered it anymore!!! A temple in Japan maybe??
How the sculpture came to Boston
- Purchased in 1930s by Ellery Sedgwick (editor of Atlantic magazine)
- Sedgwick encountered it in a temple in 1930, came back looking for it in 1936 and hired a dealer to find it But how lol... sounds violent
- Came to MFA Boston and curator found objects inside, 1937
Objects inside
- Some in linen bags - but don't know how they might have all fit
- 5 miniature sculptures, 1 shrine sculpture, 1 set of relic beads inside a scroll, then put in a bag and placed in belly
- Aizen - religious king who burns passions/repels Mongol invaders - in chest (heart)
- Important to monk Eizon (c13) who helped propagate the Shotoku cult
- Pamphlets folded creased, unsure where in the body they were
- Separate fragments of paper including ordination slips, depicting Chinese and Sanskrit characters
- Slips given to people ordained as lay monks/nuns, who commit to following the Buddhist way
- Highly personal - one is inscribed on the back with a personal vow
- People wanted something of themselves inside the sculpture, carried through into future lives
- Text as sacred, words sacred in themselves
- Prints of Buddha: from Ippen (an itinerant monk who travelled across Japan and made Buddhism accessible)
- Kamakura period (1185-1333): widespread interest in Shotoku
The scroll (kansusou)
- Unrolled from right to left
- Sheets of paper glued together - made of mulbery fibres (kozo), very soft, absorbant, light, thin
- Writing bleeds through so you could annotate on the back and see this from the front -- unique to scroll
- 'Shinnyokan': Contemplation of Suchness
- Kanji and katakana
- Personal copy - includes pronounciation notes for kanji
- End of scroll has: date (1282), no mounting material (very informal)
- No cover, unlike other highly sacred texts/scrolls (sutras)
- Including migaeshi-e: picture appended to start of sutra
The pasted page (detchoso)
- Small books made of dry, crispy paper: paper is ganpi fibre mixed with other materials like clay and vegetable fibres
- Binding: folded paper glued together into pages
- Writing on this object is 'kana': syllabic alphabet, phonetic, vernacular
- Very personal
- Range of formality in objects - some more like sutras, more ordered, with silk binding
- Well-used: everyday devotion
Lotus Sutra
- Hanging scroll from Heian period (794-1186): Lotus Sutra fragment cut out of scroll and mounted vertically
- Patterned/ornamented paper: making surface sacred
- Contains paintings in margins
- Lotus Sutra text demands worship/veneration: rewards if you practice, punishment if not
Pocket binding
- Papers folded and sewn at open edge, creating 'pockets' out of each page
- Simple binding using twisted paper as 'string' = 'monk's binding'
- Pockets prevented ink bleeds from showing due to double layer
- Could also hide/contain extra sheets of paper
Accordion style book
- Paper folded into multiple sections - small and compact
- The book in the Shotoku sculpture was given to Library of Congress so looking at a similar one: an accordion Lotus Sutra remounted as 8 scrolls: lavish, elaborate
- Woodblock printed in China (1160) then imported to Japan - Pan-Asian bookmaking tradition
- Includes illustration of Hell, where you would go if you disobeyed Sutra: transformed into animals, beaten
- Accordion creases can still be seen - damage, helped by new scroll format
- Only Buddhist books were woodblock printed in Japan until C17
End of module 1
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