This intricate painting served a central role in an Esoteric Buddhist ritual intended to prevent natural disasters and illness. The primary deity, the bodhisattva Monju (Manjushri in Sanskrit), appears in the middle of the central white orb. Immediately surrounding him are eight Sanskrit letters written in gold, representing the eight sounds of the incantation at the heart of this ritual as well as Monju’s eight youthful messengers. Four protective, wrathful deities known as Wisdom Kings appear just outside this most sacred sector of the mandala. The twenty-four subsidiary deities who occupy the outermost band consist of eight bodhisattvas, eight celestials (corresponding to the ordinal and cardinal directions of the compass), and their eight concubines, for a total of thirty-seven deities across three sectors of the painting.
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painting
with rollers, knobs and mounting
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八字文殊曼荼羅図
Title:Mandala of the Bodhisattva Monju (Manjushri) of the Eight Syllables
Period:Kamakura period (1185–1333)
Date:13th century
Culture:Japan
Medium:Hanging scroll; ink, color, gold, and gold leaf on silk
Dimensions:52 3/4 × 42 3/8 in. (134 × 107.6 cm) Overall with mounting: 85 1/4 × 51 1/2 in. (216.5 × 130.8 cm) Overall with knobs: 85 1/4 × 54 in. (216.5 × 137.2 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard, and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975
Object Number:1975.268.18
[ Harry G. C. Packard American, Tokyo, until 1975; donated and sold to MMA].
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Arts of Japan," November 5, 1991–December 15, 1992.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Arts of Japan," 1995.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Resonant Image: Tradition in Japanese Art (Part Two)," April 27–September 27, 1998.
Kyoto National Museum. "Elegance, Virtue, and Ceremony: Buddhist Paintings of the Heian and Kamakura Periods," October 20, 1998–November 23, 1998.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Blossoms of Many Colors: A Selection from the Permanent Collection of Japanese Art," March 21–August 9, 2000.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Birds, Flowers, and Buddhist Paradise Imagery in Japanese Art," February 14–June 13, 2004.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Mighty Kano School: Orthodoxy and Iconoclasm," December 18, 2004–June 5, 2005.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "A Sensitivity to the Seasons: Spring and Summer," December 17, 2005–June 4, 2006.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Flowing Streams: Scenes from Japanese Arts and Life," December 21, 2006–June 3, 2007.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japanese Mandalas: Emanations and Avatars," June 18–November 30, 2009.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Arts of Japan Galleries," February 2–July 28, 2013.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Japan: A History of Style," March 8, 2021–April 24, 2022.
Tokyo Kokuritsu Bunkazai Kenkyūjo 東京国立文化財研究所, ed. Nyūyōku Metoroporitan Bijutsukan, kaiga, chōkoku ニューヨークメトロポリタン美術館,絵画・彫刻 (Painting and sculpture of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) Kaigai shozai Nihon bijutsuhin chōsa hōkoku 海外所在日本美術品調查報告 (Catalogue of Japanese art in foreign collections) 1. Tokyo: Kobunkazai Kagaku Kenkyūkai, 1991, p. 5, cat. no. 18.
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The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world.