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Muroji
Murōji, a magnificent temple founded in the eighth century, is known both for its dramatic location and the exceptional quality of its ritual objects and art dating from the ninth and tenth centuries of the Heian period. Sherry Fowler makes extensive use of primary sources to explore the circumstances surrounding the creation and function of the temple’s main images and considers why major works of early Heian sculpture were housed in such a remote mountain setting. Employing a multifaceted approach that looks at Murōji’s art and architecture in socio-political context, she explores the establishment of the temple, its role in the religious life and power structure of the region, and the ways in which the temple reconfigured its early history to suit its later circumstances. Emerging from Fowler’s study are pervasive themes relating to worship and practice at Murōji that highlight plurality of practice (of different schools of Buddhism as well as Shinto); flexibility of practice and its impact on sculptural icons; the relationship of Murōji to other temple/shrine complexes; and the association of the temple with women’s worship.
Accounts and Images of Six Kannon in Japan
Buddhists around the world celebrate the benefits of worshipping Kannon (Avalokiteśvara), a compassionate savior who is one of the most beloved in the Buddhist pantheon. When Kannon appears in multiple manifestations, the deity’s powers are believed to increase to even greater heights. This concept generated several cults throughout history: among the most significant is the cult of the Six Kannon, which began in Japan in the tenth century and remained prominent through the sixteenth century. In this ambitious work, Sherry Fowler examines the development of the Japanese Six Kannon cult, its sculptures and paintings, and its transition to the Thirty-three Kannon cult, which remains active ...
Buddhist Bells and Dragons
Buddhist Bells and Dragons: Under and Over Water, In and Out of Japan recovers the essential but unrecognized roles of Buddhist temple bells in the history of art, religious studies, and the history of interregional and international relations with Japan. Specifically attending to the agency of bronze bells made as early as the seventh century, the chapters address how bells function as significant commodities of material and emotional exchange. Abundant Japanese stories and illustrations of Buddhist bells being transported across the sea or sunk in bodies of water are shared to illuminate why the relationship between dragons, bells, and water is so pervasive in Japanese culture. Utilizing o...
Challenging Past And Present
The complex and coherent development of Japanese art during thecourse of the nineteenth century was inadvertently disrupted by apolitical event: the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Scholars of both thepreceding Edo (1615-1868) and the succeeding Meiji (1868-1912) erashave shunned the decades bordering this arbitrary divide, thus creatingan art-historical void that the former view as a period of waningtechnical and creative inventiveness and the latter as one threatenedby Meiji reforms and indiscriminate westernization and modernization.Challenging Past and Present, to the contrary, demonstrates that theperiod 1840-1890, as seen progressively rather than retrospectively, experienced a dramatic transformation in the visual arts, which in turnmade possible the creative achievements of the twentieth century
A Dream of Resistance
Celebrated as one of Japan’s greatest filmmakers, Kobayashi Masaki’s scorching depictions of war and militarism marked him as a uniquely defiant voice in post-war Japanese cinema. A pacifist drafted into Japan’s Imperial Army, Kobayashi survived the war with his principles intact and created a body of work that was uncompromising in its critique of the nation’s military heritage. Yet his renowned political critiques were grounded in spiritual perspectives, integrating motifs and beliefs from both Buddhism and Christianity. A Dream of Resistance is the first book in English to explore Kobayashi’s entire career, from the early films he made at Shochiku studio, to internationally-accl...
Asian Perspectives
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Medicine Master Buddha: The Iconic Worship of Yakushi in Heian Japan
This profusely illustrated volume illuminates the primacy of icons in disseminating the worship of the Medicine Master Buddha (J: Yakushi Nyorai) in Japan. Suzuki’s meticulous study explicates how the devotional cult of Yakushi, one of the earliest Buddhist cults imported to Japan from the continent, interacted and blended with local beliefs, religious dispositions, and ritual practices over the centuries, developing its own distinctive imprint on Japanese soil. Worship of the Medicine Master Buddha became most influential during the Heian period (794–1185), when Yakushi’s popularity spread to different levels of society and locales outside the capital. The large number of Heian-period...
Jewels, Jewelry, and Other Shiny Things in the Buddhist Imaginary
Renunciation is a core value in the Buddhist tradition, but Buddhism is not necessarily austere. Jewels—along with heavenly flowers, rays of rainbow light, and dazzling deities—shape the literature and the material reality of the tradition. They decorate temples, fill reliquaries, are used as metaphors, and sprout out of imagined Buddha fields. Moreover, jewels reflect a particular type of currency often used to make the Buddhist world go round: merit in exchange for wealth. Regardless of whether the Buddhist community has theoretically transcended the need for them or not, jewels—and the paradox they represent—are everywhere. Scholarship has often looked past this splendor, favoring...
