Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Lotus Sutra with Each Character on a Lotus, Chapter 28 (Ichiji rendai Hokekyō, Fugen Bosatsu kanbotsu-hon)
Not on view
This precious Heian-period Lotus Sutra places every character of the sutra atop its own lotus flower pedestal surrounded by delicately drawn circles of gold ink, as if each sacred word were a Buddha icon with a radiant mandorla. By the late twelfth century, elite patrons were creating a new kind of Genji Lotus Sutra. In this type, frontispieces combined poems and pictorial motifs from the tale with the content of the sutra, ritually dedicated to save Murasaki Shikibu and her readers from the sin of succumbing to seductive fictions. This scroll’s unique frontispiece painting, depicting a group of Buddhist priests officiating at a ceremony on behalf of the aristocratic men and women shown on the veranda, could be one example of a Genji sutra.
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