Bodhidharma in Red Robes

This portrait of Bodhidharma, the founding patriarch of Zen Buddhism, represents him with a thick beard and hirsute chest, gazing not directly at the viewer, but at something or someone off to his left. He is garbed in a bright red-orange robe lavishly decorated with abstract gold phoenix motifs. His pose, seated cross-legged on a rocky outcrop, is a reminder of his legendary nine-year ascetic exercise meditating in a cave. The painting’s signature identifies the artist as one Hasegawa Hakujun, presumably affiliated with the Hasegawa school, though no records have come to light concerning his biography.

The accompanying poem, inscribed by Mu’an Xingtao (Mokuan Shōtō), speaks to Bodhidharma’s unwavering determination in the pursuit of enlightenment and his abandonment of worldly concerns. Mu’an, a Chinese Zen master who came to Japan, served as the second abbot of Manpukuji in Uji, the monastery he helped establish together with his teacher Yinyuan Longqi (see 2015.3). Though the seals impressed on the inscription line up precisely with accepted versions, the calligraphy seems less fluid than we usually associate with Mu’an’s inscriptions of the early 1670s (cf. his self-inscription on his portrait, 2015.500.9.7), which raises the possibility that the verse was brushed by a scribe (jisha) in the master’s stead.