Daishōjin Bosatsu, from “Album of Buddhist Deities from the Diamond World and Womb World Mandalas”

A serene bodhisattva wearing an elaborate golden crown sits on a large lotus pedestal. His body is light pink. His left hand rests on his thigh, while in his right he holds a vajra attached to a long staff. Scarves loosely drape his torso, their ends fluttering behind him. His name, Dai Shōjin Bosatsu, is inscribed at the bottom right, and his secret name, Futai Kongō, at the bottom left. The word sam 'maiyagyō (attribute) and Bosatsu's "seed" letter, which signifies his nature and function, are written on either side of the vajra.

This small painting, which is now mounted on the back of an old, unrelated sutra, was originally part of a book of iconographic drawings representing the Buddhas and boclhisattvas of the Kongōkai mandala. Commonly known as the Kontai butsugajō (Book of Buddhist Deities from the Kongōkai and Taizōkai mandalas), the book had an extraordinary history. According to a vivid personal account by Tanaka Ichimatsu, a small book of 112 pages of drawings and text was "discovered" in 1927 at Ganjōji, Kumamoto Prefecture.[1] In fact, the book was fairly well known before that time, since a facsimile edition had been published in 1921.[2] From the moment of its so-called discovery, the book was dissassembled, its pages cut apart and distributed among various collections—the fate of many books and scroll paintings before 1929, when the government issued restrictions concerning the preservation of works of art. Twelve pages are now in the Museum Yamato Bunkakan, Nara, eighteen in the collection of Kososhi Bunkichi, Kyoto, and at least five in collections in the United States.[3]

In its original arrangement, the book opened with five schematic diagrams of the Diamond World mandala (fig. 14). These were followed by a brief description of the mandala and by illustrations of ninety-five deities. With the exception of the last twenty-two figures, each deity was accompanied by an inscription with his name, a secret name, a "seed" letter, and his attribute. In addition, notations for each of the first thirty-eight figures indicate the deity's color, mudra, and name in Sanskrit.

The fragment in the Burke Collection represents the forty-third figure, Dai Shōjin Bosatsu, known also as Yūmō Bosatsu (Skt: Shauraya Bodhisattva), all these names referring to his unswerving faith. He is one of sixteen guardian deities of the Diamond World mandala known collectively as the Gengō Jūroku Son.

At the end of the book were three inscriptions concerning its history. According to the earliest inscription, dated to the fifteenth day of the first month, the twenty-seventh year of the Ōei era (1420), the book was given to the monk Kōshin by the monk Chōson, a transaction that took place at Kōdaiin on Mount Kōya, the headquarters of Shingon Buddhism. The second inscription, written in the seventh month of the fifth year of the Kyōroku era (1532 by Shinson, the eighth abbot of Ganjōji, furnishes the title of the book and attributes its authorship to the Buddhist painter Takuma Tametō (fl. ca.1132–74). The third inscription, dated to the third month of the sixteenth year of the Kan'ei era (1639), states that by a "miraculous connection," the book came into the possession of Gyōshin, sixteenth abbot of Ganjōji, and there it remained for nearly three hundred years.

In his commentary to the facsimile edition, Ōmura Seigai states that the second inscription was not originally in the book but was among those he discovered in the massive temple records preserved at Ganjōji. On the basis of the calligraphy, however, Tanaka argues that this is a modern copy of the sixteenth- century inscription and that its contents are authentic. Several facts suggest that there may indeed have been a "miraculous connection" between the temples of Mount Kōya and those of Ganjōji. Most obvious, the name Shinson (the author of the second inscription) is a composite of the second syllables of the names Kōshin and Chōson, the monks mentioned in the first inscription. Second, the subtemple Dai Dempōin on Mount Kōya once housed mandala paintings made on pillars in 1131 by Tame to, the artist named in the second inscription. That temple's founder, the reformer Kakuban (1095–1143), was believed to have established in 1140 the small temple in Wakayama, near Mount Kōya, that later expanded to become Negorodera. Negorodera maintained close ties with Dai Dempōin long after Kakuban's death, as well as with Ganjōji, founded in 1233, which was apparently under the theological jurisdiction of the Dai Dempōin group. Negorodera was destroyed in 1585 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi. At that time, one of its high-ranking monks, Seishin, escaped to Ganjōji, taking with him temple treasures and important sutras. Eventually he became the thirteenth abbot of Gangōji. If the date of the second inscription—1532—is accurate, Seishin's departure to Ganjōji would have occurred after the transfer of the Kontai butsugajō to Kyūshū, but it suggests that the book was taken there earlier by monks from Mount Kōya.

While the accuracy of the attribution to Takuma Tametō would seem to rest on the validity of the second inscription, stylistic evidence suggests that the paintings were made by a professional Buddhist painter of the twelfth century. The bodhisattvas' full, oblong faces, long torsos, relaxed poses, and brightly colored ornaments, as well as the smoothly flowing ink outlines, are all characteristic of twelfth-century Buddhist works. There is, however, no painting that can be even remotely connected to Tametō.[4]

The book's title suggests that it may have been part of a larger set that included both the Kongōkai and Taizōkai mandalas. In fact, Ōmura included in his facsimile edition a set of two small books with representations of deities from the Taizōkai mandala. In his account of 1966, Tanaka states that he saw this book in 1924 but that its present whereabouts are unknown. His recollections after more than forty years are understandably sketchy, but he recalled that the books were about the same size.[5] The schematic formats of the deities were reportedly identical, and the drawings were stylistically of the same period, if not by the same hand. Iconographically, the deities were complementary.[6]

Among the hundreds of drawings made for iconographic studies, the Kontai butsugajō is unique. The drawings are not the usual hasty sketches in ink monochrome made by monks as notes for their personal use. Rather, they are finished works, and as such they are important examples of Buddhist paintings of the Late Heian period.

[Miyeko Murase 2000, Bridge of Dreams]

[1] Tanaka Ichimatsu 1953, pp. 22–27.
[2] Ōmura Seigai 1921.
[3[ Four of these are reproduced in Rosenfield 1967, nos. 5a–d.
[4] Tanaka Ichimatsu 1966, pp. 115–16.
[5] Ibid., p. 109.
[6] Naitō Tōichirō 1932, fig. 21.

Ganjōji 願成寺 , Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, until ca. 1927; [ Setsu Gatōdō Co., Ltd. , Tokyo, 1974; sold to Burke]; Mary Griggs Burke , New York (from 1974; transferred to Foundation); Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation , New York (until 2015; donated to MMA)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," November 7, 1975–January 4, 1976.

Seattle Art Museum. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," March 10–May 1, 1977.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts. "Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," June 1–July 17, 1977.

Tokyo National Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," May 21, 1985–June 30, 1985.

Ishikawa Prefectural Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," July 13, 1985–August 11, 1985.

Nagoya City Art Museum. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," August 17, 1985–September 23, 1985.

Atami. MOA Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," September 29, 1985–October 27, 1985.

Hamamatsu City Museum of Art. "Nihon bijutsu meihin ten: nyūyōku bāku korekushon," November 12, 1985–December 1, 1985.

New York. Asia Society. "Art of Japan: Selections from the Burke Collection, pts. I and II," October 2, 1986–February 22, 1987.

Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. "Die Kunst des Alten Japan: Meisterwerke aus der Mary and Jackson Burke Collection," September 16, 1990–November 18, 1990.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Masterpieces of Japanese Art from The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," March 30–June 25, 2000.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection," October 20, 2015–May 14, 2017.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japan: A History of Style," March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022.

Murase, Miyeko, Il Kim, Shi-yee Liu, Gratia Williams Nakahashi, Stephanie Wada, Soyoung Lee, and David Sensabaugh. Art Through a Lifetime: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection. Vol. 1, Japanese Paintings, Printed Works, Calligraphy. [New York]: Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, [2013], p. 12, cat. no. 20.