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The Paintings of the Four Deva Kings in the Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:Recently Rediscovered Paintings from the Shingon-Dō of the Abandoned Temple Eikyū-jiAuthor(s): Taka Yanagisawa and Samuel Crowell MorseSource: Archives of Asian Art, Vol. 37 (1984), pp. 6-37Published by: University of Hawai'i Press for the Asia SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20111142 .
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The Paintings of the Four Deva Kings in the
Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:
Recently Rediscovered Paintings from the
Shingon-d? of the Abandoned Temple Eikyu-ji
Taka YanagisAWA Translated and adapted by
Tokyo National Research Institute Samuel Crowell Morse
of Cultural Properties Amherst College
translator's preface: Taka Yanagisawa,
presently head of the First Research Section of the
Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural
Properties, has long been recognized as one of
Japan's leading authorities of the study of Japa nese Buddhist painting. Originally specializing in
the painting of the Heian period, she has also
done pioneering work on the Buddhist painting of Central Asia and of Tun-huang as well as on
the paintings of the Sh?s?-in and on Buddhist
painting of the Kamakura period. One of her
long-standing interests has been the paintings that were originally in the Shingon-d?a of Eiky?
ji,b a large temple in Nara prefecture connected
with Isonokami Shrine,c which was abandoned
and dismantled in the Meiji period. The present
article, which first appeared in the volume on
Buddhist painting in Zaigai nihon no shih?,1 is
Miss Yanagisawa's latest work on this topic, and
introduces four paintings that had been ignored since the start of this century.
Miss Yanagisawa's method combines detailed
observation, including the use of scientific instru
ments, with expert analysis of iconography,
painting technique, and style, and has resulted in
many major discoveries concerning the history of
Buddhist painting in Japan. Until now, an exam
ple of her method has not been available in a
Western language, so it was with great pleasure that I agreed to translate the following article.
Some changes have been made from the original
Japanese to adapt the material for a Western au
dience.
S.C.M.
INTRODUCTION
In the fall of 1978, I traveled to the United
States at the invitation of the Japan Institute of
Harvard University, and I was given the oppor
tunity to study the Japanese Buddhist paintings in
the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston?the largest such collection in the West. When I first saw the
paintings of the Four Deva Kings (Shitenn?d) discussed here (Figs. 1-4), I was astonished. De
6
spite their damaged condition, they were of such
high quality that I surmised that they might be the mid-Kamakura period paintings of the Four
Deva Kings that were originally installed in the
great abandoned temple, Eiky?-ji, near Tenri in
Nara prefecture. For reasons described below the
existence of these works had been documented,
but their location remained unknown.
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In their only extensive publication in English, Ernest F. Fenollosa described these paintings as
being works of the almost legendary Heian pe
riod master Kose Kanaokae (active late ninth
early tenth centuries A.D.), and done in the style of the T'ang painter Wu Tao-tzu^ (active ca. A.D.
710-760).2 He also stated that they had been in
cluded among the treasures of T?dai-ji before
coming to the Museum of Fine Arts. Museum
records indicate that they had indeed been col
lected by Fenollosa, but the paintings do not date
to the Fujiwara period, as Fenollosa believed.
If my hypothesis was correct?that these paint
ings came originally from Eikyu-ji?then I was
certain that the identity of the artist and the date of
their execution could be discovered through an
examination of the old records relating to the his
tory of the temple. After I returned to Japan, I
worked on these paintings at great length, com
paring them with other works of the period and
analyzing them in relation to the history of the
temple. The following essay presents my con
clusions, which confirm my initial assumptions and which establish the Boston pictures as new
landmarks of Buddhist painting of the Kamakura
period.
THE IDENTITY AND ICONOGRAPHY
OF THE DEVA KINGS
The paintings of the Four Deva Kings that are the
subject of this essay were collected by Ernest
Fenollosa and were registered as part of the col
lection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in
1911 with the numbers 11.4061-4. The registra tion numbers and the names of the deities were
written on slips of paper that were pasted on the
backs of the frames into which the paintings were
mounted. Since the identification of each of the
kings is a critical aspect to solving the history of
these paintings, I intend to refer to the paintings
by their registration numbers, using only the final
digit of each, until all questions of identity have
been resolved.3
The four paintings are all approximately 148 centimeters in height and about 73 centimeters in
width (see Table p. 37). These are not the original
dimensions, for the paintings have been trimmed
somewhat on all four sides. The paintings were
made up of either two or three pieces of joined
silk, and it is important to note that these provide the only example of a complete set of the Four
Deva Kings on silk extant today. As can readily be
understood from the chart listing the dimensions,
the artist took great care to use his cloth as eco
nomically as possible, cutting and joining pieces so that none of the precious material would be
wasted. Consequently, two of the paintings are
made up of three pieces of silk, while the other
two are made up of two pieces. The original di
mensions can be conjectured to have been about
153 centimeters in height and 76 centimeters in
width.
The surface of each painting is dirty and se
verely damaged, but fortunately the paintings were not heavily retouched or repaired. Some of
the most noticeable damage on the bodies of the
figures is the result of flaking of the mineral pig ments and of losses in the silk caused by chemical
reactions in the pigments, which literally ate the
silk away by oxidation (rokush?yakeS). The gold leaf applied from the back of the silk (urahakuh) appears clearly in the places where the surface of
the silk has been abraded, and other damage has
resulted from blows to the surfaces of the paint
ings. Such severe damage of this type is usually not found on Buddhist paintings that were orig
inally mounted as hanging scrolls. The damage to
the Boston paintings is very similar to that seen on
The Short Biography of the Eight Shingon Patriarchs in a private collection in Tokyo (eight paintings) and Subh?karasimha at the Kaniska St?pa and N?
g?rjuna at the Iron Caitya (two paintings) in the
Fujita Museum of Art, Osaka. Consequently, be
cause of the nature of the damage, it can be as
sumed that these paintings of the Four Deva
Kings must have originally been mounted on a
fixed partition (sh?ji1),4 where they were often
bumped into and hit. Fortunately the ink lines on
all four paintings remain comparatively clear, and
it is still possible to study the works in detail by means of infrared photographs. Before any dis
cussion of the style or history of the paintings can
be undertaken, however, it is essential to examine
the attributes of each of the deities in order to
7
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Fig. i. Ch?my?. Tamon-ten, one of the Four Deva Kings, ca. 1253. Ink and polychrome on silk. 148.2 x 73.2 cm.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession no. 11.4061.
Fig. 2. Ch?my?. K?moku-ten, one of the Four Deva Kings, ca. 1253. Ink and polychrome
on silk. 148.3 x 72.9 cm.
Accession no. 11.4064.
ascertain which painting corresponds to which of
the Four Deva Kings. Each king is depicted as a majestic general
standing on a rock in the midst of a rough sea and
accompanied by a number of jaki j The kings in
paintings nos. 2 and 3 (Figs. 3 and 4) wear hel
mets, while those in nos. 1 and 4 (Figs. 1 and 2) are
shown with their hair in high topknots decorated
with jeweled crowns. Each figure wears a large
8
breastplate, a wide belt, and armor over his legs, as well as armor plates over the stomach and groin held in place by cords tied around the hips. All
except for the king in painting no. 2 have fero
cious demon masks (obikuik) adorning the armor
over their stomachs, held in place with strips of
white cloth. The king in no. 2 wears a belt deco
rated with precious stones to hold his stomach
plate in place. All the kings wear gauntlets, and
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Fig. 3. Ch?my?. Z?ch?-ten, one of the Four Deva Kings, ca. 1253. Ink and polychrome
on silk. 148.4 x 72.7 cm.
Accession no. 11.4062.
Fig. 4. Ch?my?.Jikoku-ten, one of the Four Deva Kings, ca. 1253. Ink and polychrome on silk. 147.0 x 72.5 cm.
Accession no. 11.4063.
no. 4 also wears armor on the backs of his hands.
The sleeves of all four have sharp finlike decora
tive edges, and the ends of the sleeves of the king in painting no. 3 have been tied up in knots. The
king in painting no. 4 wears high boots while the
other three wear shinguards and shoes. The de
tails of the armor of all four of the kings are differ
ent, and the motifs show great variety. From their attributes it is possible to identify
the king in painting no. i (Fig. i) as Tamon-ten1
(Vaisravana) and the one in no. 4 (Fig. 2) as
K?moku-ten01 (Vir?p?ksa). The king in painting no. 1 bends his right arm sharply, holding the
palm upward above shoulder level, and loosely
grasps a jeweled pagoda (h?t?n) with his thumb and index and third fingers. With his left hand,
which is at waist level, he holds a forked spear, which he firmly plants on the ground (Fig. 5).
9
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Fig. 5. Tamon-ten. Detail of Figure i. Infrared photograph.
The jeweled pagoda is a traditional attribute of
Tamon-ten, and thus the identity of the king shown in painting no. i can be readily deter
mined. This king stands with his weight on his
right leg and violently treads on the head of a blue
jaki lying prostrate beneath him with his right foot, while his left foot is placed more lightly on
the jaki's rump. With eyebrows raised and eyes wide open in a penetrating gaze focused some
where in the distance, this king faces diagonally off to the right. Although Tamon-ten sports a
moustache his features are youthful, painted a
pale flesh color. Behind his right leg crouches a
red jaki, which is squinting its left eye and exam
ining an arrow. Beside the jaki rests a bow.
K?moku-ten, painting no. 4 (Fig. 2), twists his
upper body to the right and holds a brush in his extended right hand. He angrily looks down to
ward the brush, which he is inking from a circular
inkstone held by a blue jaki crouched immediately below his outstretched arm. In his left hand he
10
holds a blank sheet of paper at shoulder height. The brush and sheet of paper immediately iden
tify this king as K?moku, for they are his tradi
tional attributes. The weight of this king is on his
left leg, and he tramples a prostrate red jaki with
both booted feet. This jaki represents the epitome of agony?it grabs one of the boots of the king
with its left hand in a futile attempt to protect
itself, and pounds the ground with its right fist in
pain. K?moku sports a unique pendant moustache
and a long beard, and his pale flesh-colored fea
tures appear slightly foreign. Thus we can be certain that the remaining two
paintings, nos. 2 and 3 (Figs. 3 and 4) must cor
respond to Jikoku-ten? (Dhrtar?stra) and Z?ch?
tenP (Vir?dhaka), but determining which is Z?
ch? and which is Jikoku is not at all easy. Great
variation in the iconography of the Four Deva
Kings can be seen in paintings of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries; however, I found it neces
sary to solve this problem in order to complete
my reconstruction of the paintings in their origi nal setting. The figure in painting no. 2 (Fig. 3) holds his right arm downward and grasps a sword,
which points upward at an angle from his hips. His left arm is bent at the elbow, and his left hand
is held in front of his chest as if he were intending to grasp the blade of the sword. His head, which is
held at an angle to the right, is the most badly
damaged of all the four paintings. However, it is
possible to tell that the king wears a helmet, bulls
his neck, and holds his pale flesh-colored face
angling somewhat downward while his wide
open eyes look up. This figure has both a mous
tache and a beard; his mouth is open and his ex
pression is slightly severe. It is also possible to
recognize earrings with bells attached?a detail
not included in the other paintings. This king also
stands with his weight on his right leg and tram
ples the head of a red jaki crouching beneath him.
This one-horned jaki rests itself on its elbows and
grabs the right shoe of the Deva King with both
hands in a manner emphasizing the fact that it is
hardly able to bear the king's weight. Another
jaki, also with a single horn, stands to the left
behind the king and holds with both hands a spear
that has a flag attached to the end.
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Fig. 6. Z?ch?-ten. Ink and polychrome on silk. K?fuku-ji, Nara.
Fig. 7. Jikoku-ten. Ink and polychrome on silk. K?fuku-ji, Nara.
The figure in painting no. 3 (Fig. 4) differs most
noticeably from that in no. 2 in that he faces to the
front left and stands with his weight on his left
leg. He bends his right arm and holds a sword in
front of his chest; however, because of damage to
the picture the exact manner in which he is hold
ing the sword is impossible to determine. The
sword, which angles downward to the left, bi
sects the figure's stomach. His left arm is pendant, the palm open and all five fingers spread out; the
entire figure appears as if it is about to thrust the
blade of the sword forward. On his head this king wears a large elaborate helmet with a flaring edge
(fuki-kaeshiq). His angry expression is the most
ferocious of the four, and his face is covered with a
full beard. His eyebrows are knit, and his wide
open eyes glare fiercely at something in front of
him (there is some retouching in this area). His
expression is so intense that it seems as if one
could almost hear an angry yell coming from the
open mouth. The blue jaki trampled underfoot
extends its right hand forward and appears to be
flattened on the ground, its left arm bent at the
elbow, the hand in a fist, apparently trying to raise
the left foot of the Deva King. The brown jaki standing beneath the king's right hand holds a
long spear planted perpendicular to the ground
plane. Because the silk along the edges of the
painting was trimmed in later times, it is impos sible to see both hands of this jaki or the right hand of the jaki being trampled.
Deva Kings nos. 2 and 3 immediately call to
mind the life-size paintings of the two Deva Kings in the collection of K?fuku-ji, Nara (Figs. 6-7).
The king in these paintings who holds a sword in
his right hand and who touches the blade of the sword with his left hand (Fig. 6) corresponds in
posture to no. 2 of the Boston paintings. More
over, the garments of this figure are remarkably similar to those in the Boston painting, and the
11
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Fig. 8. Jikoku-ten. Detail from Hoss? Mandara. Ink and
polychrome on silk. Infrared photograph. Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston.
Fig. 9. Z?ch?-ten. Detail from Hoss? Mandara. Infrared
photograph. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
long spear with the flag attached to the end (in the
K?fuku-ji painting the spear is two-pronged) and
the position of the jaki holding it are analogous as
well. Although there are differences in the gar
ments, in the hand gestures, and in the attitudes of
the bodies between no. 3 of the Boston paintings and the other painting at K?fuku-ji (Fig. 7), in
both works the kings hold swords that point downward.
When one investigates the traditional identifi
cations of the two paintings from K?fuku-ji, the
Nihon kokuh? zensh? says, "according to temple tradition these paintings are of Jikoku-ten and
Z?ch?-ten"; and the commentary indicates that
the painting similar to no. 2 of the Boston paint
ings is Jikoku while the other is Z?ch?.5 More
recently, the eminent historian of Japanese Bud
dhist art, the late Kameda Tsutomu, worked on
12
the two K?fuku-ji paintings and commented,
"The appellations Jikoku-ten and Z?ch?-ten are
in fact not certain ... as one often sees in icono
graphie scrolls that are copies based on T'ang
originals, the names of the deities are not recorded
and the attributes are not fixed, therefore it is im
possible to be absolutely certain of the identity of
almost any of them."6 He thus demonstrates the
difficulty in determining the identities of the de
ities in the Boston paintings. Consequently, I
wish to pursue my own line of inquiry into this
problem a little further.
The Hoss? Mandara ,r which also belongs to the
Boston Museum and which dates to the early Kamakura period, is a work based on T'ang Eso
teric Buddhist models and has the Four Deva
Kings depicted in the corners (Figs. 8-9). Two of
these kings are shown grasping swords, one with
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the tip of the sword angling downward and one
with the tip angling upward, similar to figures nos. 2 and 3 of the Boston paintings. Moreover,
the king in the left-hand corner, when facing the
m?ndala, looks off to the left just as does the king in painting no. 3. In the Hoss? Mandara, however,
all four of the kings have been included, and con
sequently it is possible to determine the identity of
each of the kings from their relative positions in
the painting. By following the standard order of
placement of Deva Kings in Buddhist paintings, the king in the lower right corner, whose attitude
corresponds to that of no. 2, can be thought to be
Jikoku-ten and the one in the lower left corner,
Z?ch?-ten. Numbers 2 and 3 of the Boston paint
ings face each other in the same complementary manner as do the corresponding deities on the
Hoss? Mandara. Because the Boston figures are so
similar to those in the Hoss? Mandara it would
appear that there is no room for disagreement over their identities; consequently no. 2 of the
Boston paintings should be Jikoku, and no. 3,
Z?ch?. This conclusion would seem to be all the
more true because at the present there are no
known paintings, other than this Hoss? Mandara,
that show two Deva Kings grasping swords in a
manner similar to that in the Boston paintings. In fact such a conclusion cannot be made. A
king holding a sword at hip level with the tip
angling upward, and thus similar in form to no. 2
of the Boston paintings, is included as an atten
dant in the western section of the Esoteric icono
graphie handscroll drawn in the style of K?kais
(774-835), known as the Ninn?-gy? goh? shoson
z?l with the inscription "K?moku-ten, attendant
of the western direction" written beside it. (There are two versions of the scroll, now mounted as a
set of hanging scrolls, one in the collection of
Daigo-ji and one in the collection of T?-ji.) More
over, the deity of the "west" in the paintings of
the Sixteen Gods, Protectors of the P?ramit? (dated
corresponding to 1163, private collection) holds a
sword pointing in a similar direction to that held
by no. 2 of the Boston paintings, and thus it is
possible to conclude that this figure was meant to
be K?moku as well (Fig. 10). As I have already
mentioned, however, K?moku-ten in the Boston
"I
Fig. io. K?moku-ten. Detail from the Sixteen Gods,
Protectors of the Paramita. Ink on paper. Private collection,
Tokyo.
paintings holds a brush and a sheet of paper, so
no. 2 of the Boston set cannot be identified as
K?moku-ten.
There are also figures similar to no. 2 of the
Boston paintings that can be identified as Z?ch?
ten. For example, the Deva King in the lower
proper right of the painting of the Bodhisattva Fu
gen Enmei with the Four Deva Kings in the collec
tion of the Museum of Fine Arts (datable to the
mid-twelfth century), can be identified as Z?ch?
ten (Fig. n). The king resembling no. 2 among
the small representations of the Four Deva Kings drawn at the lower edge of the Amida Crossing the
Mountains in the collection of Zenrin-ji, Kyoto, which dates to the first half of the thirteenth cen
tury, is Z?ch?-ten as well.
The above discussion clearly indicates that a
13
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Fig. 11. Z?ch?-ten. Detail from the BodhisatWa Fugen Enmei
with the Four Deva Kings. Ink and polychrome on silk.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
king who holds a sword in his right hand angling upward can at times be identified as Jikoku,
Z?ch?, or K?moku. Therefore, in order to deter
mine which of the three possibilities is correct in
each painting where such a figure appears, one
must rely upon a general understanding of the
iconographie characteristics of the Four Deva
Kings and their placement at the time the painting was executed, since the textual sources on the
matter are unclear. The question of the identity of
paintings nos. 2 and 3 of the Boston set must be
reexamined from this perspective. As I have mentioned before, nos. 2 and 3 of the
Boston set face each other in a complementary manner. Although facing in the same direction,
the paintings of K?moku-ten and Tamon-ten
from the Boston set complement each other as
H
well. When one looks at the bend of the body of
K?moku and the direction of the flames that sur
round him, one notices that they work in con
sonance with similar details on the painting of
Tamon-ten. The heads of the jaki that are being
trampled both face inward, and this helps to cre
ate a unified composition. Therefore, it can be
concluded that if these four deities had been meant
to be arranged in the usual manner, in the four
corners of a painting, then their attitudes and
positions would be similar to the representations of the Four Deva Kings in the previously men
tioned Hoss? Mandara or in the painting of the
Bodhisattva Fugen Enmei, with two pairs of fig ures facing each other. If these four paintings were
originally mounted on a fixed partition, however,
they would most likely have been arranged hori
zontally. This would necessarily have affected the
placement of the individual deities in relation to
one another.
Tamon, who holds a long spear in his left hand,
would naturally have been placed to the far right of such a horizontal arrangement, with the com
plementary K?moku to his immediate right. If
painting no. 2 came next and finally at the far left
no. 3, a king who is attended by a jaki holding a
spear to his right and who tramples another jaki that faces left, then the four paintings would be
arranged in a complementary manner. The place ment of the deities with the long spears at the two
ends would effectively complete the entire com
position. Moreover, the fact that the paintings were meant to be arranged horizontally?a mat
ter that I will discuss in greater detail later?bears
heavily on the possibility that these Four Deva
Kings were originally on the back of the fixed
partition behind the main statue of the Buddha. If
this is indeed the case, then I believe that no. 3 of
the Boston paintings must be Jikoku-ten and no. 2
must be Z?ch?-ten. The fact that Jikoku-ten, the
Deva who is the protector of the east, would be
placed to the far left has its own inherent logic, which I will explain later.
ICONOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS
Very few complete sets of paintings of the Deva
Kings remain today. One example is the set of
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small painted wooden plaques depicting these de
ities from a container for a sacred jewel (h?juu) in
the collection of Ninna-ji, Kyoto, which dates to
the early ioth century .7 There are, however, quite a few m?ndalas and paintings of independent de
ities that include representations of the Four Deva
Kings,8 and there are also a considerable number
of iconographie drawings of the Four Kings.
Moreover, sculpture cannot be ignored when
considering problems of the iconography of the
Four Deva Kings. In order to make any observa
tions concerning the iconography of the paintings of the Four Deva Kings in the collection of the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, one must survey
all the types of objects depicting Deva Kings. As I mentioned in the discussion of the identi
ties of the kings, it appears that the paintings of
Jikoku and of Z?ch? from the Boston set were
stylistically based on T'ang iconographie models.
In contrast, K?moku, who is shown holding a
brush and a sheet of paper (usually he holds only a
rolled scroll) and Tamon, who is shown holding a
small pagoda in his right hand instead of his left, in which he holds a spear, are depicted in more
traditional forms. During the Asuka (552-645) and Nara (645-784) periods these two Deva
Kings were usually shown holding similar objects. The best known examples include the wood stat
ues from the main hall at H?ry?-ji, which date to
about 650; the clay statues from the Kaidan-in at
T?dai-ji, which were sculpted during the mid
eighth century; the dry-lacquer statues from the
Hokke-d? at the same temple and of the same
date; and the wood with dry-lacquer statues from
the main hall at T?sh?dai-ji, which date to about
770. All these statues can be considered to belong to the so-called exoteric style, the modes of sculp ture that reflected standard Mah?y?na Buddhist
doctrines.
No examples of K?moku-ten holding a brush
remain from the early part of the Heian period, a
time when this king is usually shown holding a
spear and a noose. This iconographie change ap
pears to be related to the transmission of the de
veloped Esoteric Buddhist doctrines (junmitsuv) to Japan at the start of the Heian period by figures such as K?kai and Enninw (794-864). These doc
trines stressed complicated rituals and secret
transmission of religious practice from master to
disciple. One of the primary textual sources for
this change can be thought to be the Esoteric sutra
called the Daranijikky?.x The Deva kings shown
in the Zuz?-sh?J a Heian period compilation of
iconographie drawings, follow this text. Al
though the forty-seventh chapter of the Besson
zakki,z an Esoteric iconographie manual, includes
drawings said to be based on the Darani jikky?, Tamon-ten is in fact shown holding a small pa
goda in his left hand with an inscription next to it
that reads, "the attributes of Tamon are different
right and left."9 In fact, most representations of
Tamon-ten from the Heian period usually show
the deity holding the small pagoda in his left hand. Even though all known early Heian representa
tions of Tamon are in the new Esoteric mode, it is
possible to find a few examples of statues of
K?moku-ten that date from the mid or late Heian
period in which this king is shown holding a
brush after the earlier exoteric mode. Some of the
better known examples of these include the stat
ues from Kanzeon-ji in Fukuoka prefecture, T?
raku-ji in Hy?g? prefecture, and Reisen-ji in
Shiga prefecture. The statues of Tamon-ten from
sets such as these usually hold the small pagoda in
their left hands; however, there are examples, like
the statue from Kanzeon-ji, where Tamon holds
the pagoda in his right hand in the pre-Heian manner. In the Kamakura period, statues of K?
moku-ten and Tamon-ten in the exoteric style once again became popular, the result of a move
ment to revive earlier styles of sculpture. Repre sentative statues from this group include the statue
by the famous sculptor Kaikeiaa (active ca. 1185
1220), at Kong?bu-ji in Wakayama prefecture, as
well as those from Kong?rin-ji in Shiga prefec
ture, dated in accordance with 1212, and from
Enj?-ji in Nara prefecture (1217). Some of the
most notable paintings documenting this new
trend are those on the shrine box of Kichij?-tena^ in the collection of Tokyo University of Fine
Arts, dated corresponding to about 1212.
This revival of the more orthodox exoteric
style is related to the paintings of K?moku-ten
and of Tamon-ten from the set in the Museum of
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Fine Arts, Boston. In the case of Tamon, how
ever, the attributes of a pagoda and a spear differ
from the usual attributes of Tamon, and it is im
portant to note that in this painting the artist also
included elements from Esoteric T'ang proto
types. As far as representations of the Four Deva
Kings in the T'ang style are concerned, besides
the four Kings seen in the previously mentioned
Hoss? Mandara there are three examples of icono
graphie drawings done in simple ink lines on
paper (hakuby?ac). The first is found in the fourth scroll of the five-scroll Ninn?-gy? h? hozon z? said
to be by K?kai, which I mentioned earlier. Each
of the kings in this painting is shown with a differ
ent number of attendants, Jikoku with five, Z?
ch? with two, K?moku with six, and Tamon
with six.
The second example is a set of four drawings of
the Four Deva Kings from a set once owned by Gensh?ad that was originally in the collection of
K?zan-ji in Kyoto, but that is now owned by the
Goto Museum of Art, Tokyo. On the back of
each of the drawings is written, "copied from the
second version handed down at Shitenn?-ji by Kawanariae from the country of Silla." Kawanari
(782-853) is a famous painter of the early Heian
period of Paekche heritage who received the he
reditary title "Kudara (Paekche) no Ason"af in
840. Consequently, the mention of the country of
Silla in the inscription on the paintings must be an
error, and the fact that they were recorded as be
ing copies of an original that was supposed to be
by Kawanari and transmitted at Shitenn?-ji means nothing. The kings in these drawings are
all very majestic, each seated on a single jaki with
one leg pendant, and each with attendants hold
ing flags and other attributes (three kings have
three attendants and one king has only two atten
dants). The third example is the iconographie
drawing of the Four Deva Kings with attendants
from the forty-seventh chapter of the Besson
zakki. In this drawing the king to the east is
shown with one attendant, the king to the south
with two, and the king to the north with three.10
Infrared photographs reveal that a seated Bud
dha was drawn inside the pagoda held up by Tamon-ten in the Boston painting (Fig. 12). This
16
Fig. 12. Pagoda with Buddha inside. Detail of Figure i.
Infrared photograph. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
small Buddha has a mandorla drawn around both
head and body, and it is also possible to recognize lines meant to represent radiating light drawn in
ink around the mandorla. Similar examples from
the Heian period include the pagoda held by the Tamon-ten in the Taizokaia? of the Takao Man
dara^1 in the collection of Jingo-ji, Kyoto (datable to 827-833). It is in the shape of an Esoteric pa
goda (tah?-toai), as are the pagodas held by Bi
shamon-tenaJ (the same deity as Tamon-ten) from the sets of seated representations of the J?ni tenak in the collections of Saidai-ji and T?-ji (for
mer mid-ninth century, latter early twelfth cen
tury) . A small seated Buddha can be seen inside a
pagoda held by one of the kings shown in the
previously mentioned Besson zakki (Fig. 13), and
it is also worth noting that the shape of this pa
goda is remarkably similar to that in the Boston
painting. Although the shape of the pagoda is
different, a representation of the Buddha can be
found in the pagoda held by Bishamon-ten in the
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Fig. 13. Tamon-ten. Besson zakki. Ink on paper.
late Kamakura period J?ni-ten by?bu^ in the col
lection of K?ry?-ji, Kyoto. Other paintings de
pict Tamon holding a pagoda that contains repre
sentations of two Buddhas seated on a single ped estal (Raig?-ji, Jingo-ji J?ni-ten by?bu) or a pre cious jewel (T?-ji J?ni-ten by?bu, paintings from
the Kichij?-ten zushi, and the Bishamon-ten also in
the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Bos
ton). From these examples we know that this
mode of depiction was popular throughout the
latter part of the Heian period. The spear held by the Tamon-ten in the Boston
paintings is also unusual. Most often Tamon
ten's spear is single-pronged or triple-pronged, but in this painting it is two-pronged. A spear similar to this, held by one of the attendants of the
deity of the north, Bishamon-ten, is found in a
Kamakura period copy of an iconographie draw
ing brought back to Japan by K?kai, the Shish?
goma honzon oyobi kenzoku zuz?*m in the collec
tion of Daigo-ji. The spears held by Bishamon
ten and Gy?d? Tenn?an in paintings from Tun
huang are two-pronged as well, and the inverted
trapezoid flag-like decoration with pendant rib
bons attached to the head of the spear in the Bos
ton paintings can also be found in these paintings from Tun-huang.11 Because of similarities be
tween the Boston painting and paintings such as
these, it is possible to conclude that at least the
spear in the Boston painting of Tamon-ten was
ultimately based on T'ang sources. Thejaki to the
side of K?moku-ten in the painting from K?fuku
ji holds a two-pronged spear similar to that held
by Tamon-ten in the Boston set, but no other
Japanese examples of Tamon-ten that include this
detail have yet been discovered. Other T'ang ele
ments that can be found in the details of the gar ments of the kings, such as the Iranian style
winged decorations on the crowns, are in a
painting of Tobatsu Bishamon-tenao from Tun
huang.12
Although the K?moku and the Tamon of the
Boston paintings are based on early iconographie
drawings in an exoteric style, their attributes in
corporate new T'ang elements according to the
personal dictates of the artist's creativity. Their
combination with the two other kings, which are
based entirely on Esoteric iconographie drawings in a T'ang lineage, makes these four a unique and
important set of paintings of the Four Deva
Kings. The colors of the bodies of the kings in the
Boston paintings differ from the body colors de
scribed in the Darani jikky? and other sutras as
well. Jikoku is red and the other three are flesh
colored. Thus it is possible to conclude that the
artist took great liberties with the standard icono
graphie texts when he executed these paintings. One further distinctive element of the Boston
paintings are thejaki at the sides of each king. The
spear with the flag attached to the end held by the
jaki that stands at the left and behind Z?ch? is reminiscent of the spear held by one of the atten
dants to one of the kings in the paintings said to be
by Kawanari. Moreover, the jaki that is being
trampled by Tamon-ten is close in form to one of
thejaki in attendance to the Tamon-ten found in
the previously mentioned section of the Besson
zakki. In the K?fuku-ji painting of Z?ch? there is
only one jaki (not at all similar to thejaki in the
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Boston paintings). However, in contrast, in the
K?fuku-ji painting of Jikoku, besides the usual
jaki underfoot, there is also a jaki in attendance.
This jaki is in a posture similar to that of the jaki
holding the arrow and crouching to the side of
Tamon-ten in the Boston set. The K?fuku-ji
paintings are iconographically close to the Boston
paintings but the details are not consistent. Ele
ments that should be included in a painting of
Tamon-ten, such as the forked spear or the jaki
holding an arrow, are included in a painting of
Jikoku instead.
The final formal characteristic of the Boston
paintings that I would like to discuss is the rough sea drawn around the rocks on which the kings stand. Many examples of paintings of Fud?
My??aP from the late Heian period and after in
clude similar waves, for example the paintings at
Ruri-ji in Hy?go prefecture; Dairin-in in Shiga
prefecture; and the painting by Shinkai (d. 1282) at Daigo-ji or the paintings by Takuma Ch?gaacl
(active ca. 1275) of Fud?'s two attendants in the
Freer Gallery, Washington, D.C. Other than
these paintings, the set of the J?ni-ten formerly in
the collection of Sh?ren-in in Kyoto (late Kama
kura period) also include the rough sea, so it
seems legitimate to view the Boston paintings as
belonging to this lineage. By including the waves
whipped up by the wind, the artist was able to
increase the dynamism and the majesty of the
kings.
EXPRESSION AND TECHNIQUE
Each king has been placed in the center of a rec
tangular picture plane, and an attending jaki has
been included at the side of each, at either the front
or the back. The roiling waves washing around
the rocks have been drawn into almost half of the
picture plane, thus producing a composition with
a sense of spatial depth that cannot be found in the
paintings of the two Deva Kings at K?fuku-ji. The large gentle undulating curves of the high waves moving from left to right included in each
of the pictures order the movement of the sea.
Each of the kings is drawn in a majestic stance,
placing his weight on one of his legs and pushing his stomach forward. The scarves, the wide
18
Fig. 14. Z?ch?-ten. Detail ofjuntei Kannon.
Ink and polychrome on silk. Infrared photo
graph. Tokyo National Museum.
sleeves, and the edges of the hems of the different
layers of garments are skillfully depicted to look
as if they were being blown by the breeze. The
painting of Jikoku from K?fuku-ji (see Fig. 7), which resembles the painting of Z?ch?-ten from
the Boston Museum set, is stockier and is drawn
in a more ponderous manner than the Boston
work down to even the minor details. It is remi
niscent of the Four Deva Kings depicted in the
four corners of a painting of Juntei Kannon in the
collection of the Tokyo National Museum (Fig.
14), or the Bishamon-ten in the J?ni-ten by?bu in
the collection of Sh?ju Raig?-ji, Shiga prefecture
(Fig. 15), works that date from the late Heian
period. Consequently, it is possible to conclude
that the K?fuku-ji painting has inherited conven
tional Heian period formal elements. In contrast,
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Fig. 15. Bishamon-ten.
One of the J?ni-ten. Ink and polychrome on silk.
Sh?ju Raig?-ji, Otsu.
Fig. 16. Bishamon-ten.
One of the J?ni-ten. Ink and polychrome on silk.
T?-ji, Kyoto.
15
the body of Z?ch?-ten in the Boston set is slim
mer and more fluid, which brings more balance to
the painting itself, and which indicates that the
work incorporates much of the style of Buddhist
paintings of the Kamakura period. When one looks at the faces of the kings in the
Boston paintings?especially the face of Tamon
ten, which is in relatively good condition?one
immediately notices that these faces are not long and narrow like the face of the Bishamon-ten in
the J?ni-ten by?bu from T?-ji (Fig. 16), which
I?
dates from the early Kamakura period. Rather,
they are full and round, extremely close in form to
the faces of the Four Deva Kings in the above
mentioned painting of Juntei Kannon or the face
of the Bishamon-ten in the painting from Sh?ju
Raig?-ji, an indication that they are in the style of
the Heian period. The combining of Heian period
stylistic traits with new stylistic traits of the
Kamakura period in an extremely sophisticated and skillful manner is another important charac
teristic of the Boston paintings. The rough sea,
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which is often found in Kamakura period Bud
dhist paintings, causes the figures of the kings and
their attendants to stand out conspicuously from
their surroundings, and also must be recognized as a new stylistic trait well suited to the age.
The artist of the Boston paintings did not fol
low the usual order of underdrawing, coloring, and final line-drawing (kaki okoshiar) in creating
his works. Instead, the ink lines of the under
drawing perform the function of the final lines,
and the color was added to bring these lines alive.
As a result, in a number of places the color was
applied from the back of the silk in the urazai
shikias technique. In fact, where the urazaishiki
technique was used the color remains the most
clearly. After the color was applied, the motifs on
the complicated garments were drawn in with
great care and detail. Finally, in a few places, most
noticeably on the faces, the artist added final line
drawing to complete the paintings. Because the
paintings were originally mounted on fixed parti
tions, white urazaishiki was applied over the en
tire back surface, which brightened the picture surface. This is a major technical innovation of
these works.
The line quality in the paintings is generally fine
and soft. However, in the drawing of the robes
and of the jaki the artist used a number of tech
niques including varying the thickness of the line
(yokuy?at), forceful beginnings to his strokes
(uchikomiau), and drawing with sharp corners
(kussetsuav). According to what area he was
painting, he freely changed his type of line. When
doing the actual painting the artist held his brush
in two different ways, perpendicular to the pic ture plane and at a slight angle. The drawing itself
is precise and the complicated compositions are
full of movement. The precedent for this kind of
varied brush technique can be found in xht J?ni-ten
by?bu from T?-ji. The T?b?-kizw records that
these paintings were done by Takuma Sh?gaax
(active 1169-1209?) in 1191, using new techniques. These paintings, which date to the very beginning of the Kamakura period, hold great importance for the history of Buddhist painting in Japan. In
them the artist freely used uchikomi and kussetsu
lines to represent the movement of the drapery;
20
however, he had not fully digested the new Sung
techniques. That Sh?ga had not really mastered
Sung painting techniques is borne out by a com
parison of the T?-ji paintings with the paintings of the Four Deva Kings drawn on the outside of a
box meant to cover a reliquary pagoda with an
inscription of 1013, recently discovered at the
pagoda at Jui-kuang-ssu in Suchou.13 In the Chi
nese paintings the line is more fluid and the figures have been given a greater sense of movement and
three-dimensionality. The drawing of the Boston
paintings reveals that the new brush techniques first seen in the T?-ji paintings have been fully harmonized with the more traditional brushwork
of the preceding generation, a point that must be
considered a second major technical characteristic
of these paintings. This enforces the hypothesis that the Boston paintings date to the mid-Kama
kura period. The faces of the paintings of Tamon-ten and of
K?moku-ten remain in comparatively good con
dition; the color on the face of K?moku is almost
as fresh as when the painting was executed. On
each of the faces the artist used fluid ink lines and
precisely grasped the expression of each deity by
adding accents each time he began a stroke. The
faces of the kings other than Jikoku-ten, whose
face is deep red, have been colored by applying a
light red to the surface of the silk after having
thickly painted white onto the back of the cloth.
This painstaking and intricate technique allowed
the artist to evoke the soft feeling of skin. The
artist drew in the details of the faces on each of the
kings only after the coloring was completed. The artist also added lines in dry ink ( j?bokuay)
at the inner corners and the upper lids of the angry
bulging eyes. Although this is a standard tech
nique, there are unique elements in the manner in
which this particular artist drew the eyes. For ex
ample, when one examines the left eye of Tamon
ten (the right is damaged and cannot be clearly
seen), although the inclusion of cinnabar at the
inner and outer corners is not all that inventive,
the addition of light brown shading on the inner
edges of the large white eyeball seems to have
been intended to make this detail appear more
three-dimensional. The use of such shading can
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not be found on the Bishamon-ten in the J?ni-ten
by?bu at T?-ji; the famous painting of Bishamon
ten in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston; or on other earlier Heian period Buddhist
paintings. A similar use of shading can be seen in
the eyes of the other three kings. On all four, the
pupils have been drawn in black on a brown
ground and are edged with a gold line, causing the
eyes to appear as if they were shining. As with the
use of shading discussed above, this technique cannot be found on earlier paintings.
Such realism in the depiction of the figures can
also be found in the treatment of the eyebrows,
hair, and beards. Although formally these details
are different on each king, each area is drawn ex
tremely skillfully by overlaying fine lines of ink.
For example, when one compares the eyebrows and beard of the Tamon-ten of the Boston set
with corresponding areas on the painting of Bish
amon-ten also in the collection of the Museum of
Fine Arts, although the latter is done with fine
brush strokes, the former is less formalized and
painted more carefully. This kind of exacting
drawing can also be seen in the treatment of the
sideburns of Tamon-ten and of K?moku-ten.
The crowns and helmets on the heads of the
four kings, just like the armor and gauntlets, have
all been colored by applying gold leaf to the back of the silk (urahaku). A fine white line has been added on the inside of the black lines used to draw
the details of the crowns, giving the drawing an
especially rhythmical feeling. In contrast, on the
helmets are refined wing-shaped decorations by the ears that have been colored blue and green in
the ungenaz technique, which requires the paint
ing of a number of bands of two contrasting hues
in graduated tones. Although the flaking in these
areas is severe, the bright colors shine in the deep
gold of the helmet, creating a very luxurious im
pression. Moreover, on K?moku-ten, the lock of
hair over the forehead, the sideburns, the high
topknot, and his hair that is blowing in the breeze
have all been represented by thick lines in mala
chite green.
The colors of the garments of each of the kings are varied, and the artist seems to have had a great interest in decorative motifs. He avoided repeat
ing any of his motifs throughout the paintings, and some of those that he chose are uncommon
for the age. Of the four paintings, that of K?
moku-ten has been done with the brightest col
ors, and since this painting is in the best state of
preservation I wish to examine its coloration first.
The circular pieces of the breastplate are con
structed in two layers, and along the curved edges of both the artist has added a tooth-shaped motif
in pale green malachite (byakurokuba) and darker
green. This area on the other three kings is col
ored in a somewhat similar fashion; however, on
the painting of Jikoku, the tooth-shaped pattern
has been replaced by a motif of radial lines. The
buckles of K?moku's breastplate, like those on
Tamon-ten's, are red with circular motifs. On all
the paintings the buckles have been backed with
gold leaf, and where cinnabar has been added
from the front the circular motifs have been done
in the so-called kakikeshibb technique. In this ex
acting technique the ground is painted with bya kuroku or other pigments, leaving the area that
forms the motif unpainted so that the underlying color shows through.
The use of the kakikeshi technique can be found
in many other areas of the paintings and is one of
the most characteristic methods of coloration used
in these works. The plates of armor over the
thighs have been given a distinctive pattern, and
the lower edge is decorated with interlocked gold swastikas that shine on the light green ground. At
first glance this motif appears to be kirikane,bc
thin sheets of cut gold leaf applied to the surface,
but since it is possible to see that the gold leaf is
beneath the mineral white, it is evident that it is
the kakikeshi technique that was used. Kirikane
was used, however, to create the fine "lightning bolt" motif on the upper right chest. The artist
was equally at home with either the kakikeshi or
the kirikane techniques and displayed his consum
mate skill in the differences in expression and va
rieties of techniques that he used on the paintings. The exact ornamentation at the left side of the
stomach cannot be readily determined because of
the losses to the surface; however, it is possible to
tell that this area was originally decorated with
bright colors. In the center of the stomach circular
21
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Fig. 17. Brush and inkstone. Detail of Figure 2. Infrared
photograph. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Fig. 18. Scribe with Brush. Detail of Subh?karasimha at the
Kaniska St?pa, Fig. 21. Infrared photograph.
cakras (rimp?bd) in kirikane have been aligned
vertically on the cinnabar ground, and they are
entwined with a motif of blue clouds. Along the
broad edges are floral motifs done in blue and
green ungen on a white ground, while gold paint has been carefully added to the open areas. The
green eyes of the demon masks on the decorative
boss of the belt (obikui) glare out at the viewer,
and the face with its sharp white tusks has a some
what humorous expression, another indication of
the artist's inventiveness.
22
K?moku's broad sleeves, which billow out to
the right and to the left of his torso, are painted
bright red, and finishing lines of gold paint have
been added along the folds of the garment. On the
sleeves there are motifs in gold paint that at first
glance appear to be peonies, but that in fact are
demon faces, each different and each freely
painted. Most noteworthy is that where there are
folds in the garment, the artist changed the shapes of these motifs to correspond with the curves of
the cloth in a realistic manner, thus heightening the illusion of movement in the sleeves. Between
these demon faces the artist placed a motif of three
pronged vajras. The skirt is the same color as the
sleeves and is covered with a similar demon-face
motif executed in gold paint over a luxurious,
abstract multicolored ground. Only K?moku-ten
wears boots, and these are darkened because of
the oxidation of their original silver paint. Along the upper edge, alternating gold and silver peo
nies have been arranged on a cinnabar ground, and between them leaves have been carefully added in green in an extremely effective and
painterly fashion.
The face of the red jaki that K?moku is tram
pling has been repainted between the hair line and
the nose. The skin of this jaki has been done in
cinnabar urazaishiki, and the same color has been
painted thinly onto the surface of the silk as well,
except where the figure's muscles are tensed. The
jaki that stands beneath the right arm of the king
grasps an inkstone with both hands; however, the
damage to the silk is especially severe in this area,
and consequently the details cannot be read with
the naked eye. From infrared photographs, how
ever, it is possible to tell that the inkstone is circu
lar, and that the wooden base of the inkstone
(which has been done in the urahaku technique) includes a brushstand that holds a brush and ink
stick (Fig. 17). This is reminiscent of the section in
the painting of Subh?karasimha at the Kaniska St?pa
(see Fig. 21) in the collection of the Fujita Mu
seum. In this painting a scribe is shown grasping a
brush and dipping it into an inkstone on a base
that has a similar brush holder (Fig. 18).14 The
inkstone in the painting of K?moku-ten must
have originally appeared much like this one. The
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color of the body of the jaki holding the inkstone is a darkened green with the body hair done in
gold paint. The orange garment that the jaki is
wearing just barely sticks out from beneath the
armor on its chest, and its red belt provides a
colorful contrast to its dark torso. On its back is a
cloak made from an animal pelt with the head and
feet still attached.
In the painting of Tamon-ten, the garments are
unified by much more subdued color tones than
are those of K?moku-ten. Red and orange can be
found only along the edges of the armor, on the
belt, or on the demon mask (obikui). The ferocity of this demon face contrasts with the dignity of
the face of the king. The sleeves, like the green
scarves, are badly damaged; however, motifs in
kirikane and gold paint remain here and there. On
the red ochre (bengarabe) ground of the sleeves it
appears that the artist drew motifs of rimp? and
three jewels on a lotiform base on clouds. The
skirt is the same color as the sleeves; however, the
motif has fallen off completely. The edge of the
skirt is dark blue, and on it a pattern of running water done in gold paint can barely be seen.
The brightly colored shoes contrast with the
tasteful garments described above and are gaudily colored. They were first painted orange and then
red, except for the peony motif in the center and
two bands above and below this motif. The artist
painted the heels a dark blue, and in the remaining areas of orange ground he added dots in gold
paint, completing the decoration in a very luxuri
ous manner. Moreover, he was able to skillfully
capture the soft feeling of shoes made of cloth.
Thejaki being trampled under Tamon's feet is
presently dark brown in color. Its hair is repre sented by white and black lines that are done
rather sketchily, a detail that is similar on all the
jaki. The brawny muscles of the red jaki next to
the king's right foot have been skillfully painted with modulated ink lines. Where the muscles are
tensed the artist has added white highlights, and
he has also added stiff hairs on the skin. The hair
on the jaki's head is done in red ochre, and after
the individual strands were drawn in fluid black
ink, lines were added in gold to create the impres sion that the jaki's hair was being blown by the
wind. The treatment of the burly form of this jaki has much more of the so-called Kamakura
strength when compared to thejaki in attendance
to the Jikoku from K?fuku-ji. Of the remaining two paintings of Jikoku and
Z?ch?, color remains only on the garments of
Z?ch?, who after K?moku-ten is the most
colorful of the four kings. The edges of the breast
plate, of the stomach armor, and of the plume on
the crown are all done in fresh mineral white. The
fin-shaped decorations on the sleeves consist of
dark blue lines added on a light blue ground and
are outlined in white. The inclusion of a white line
around the edges of this fin-shaped decoration can
be also found on the other two kings. These areas
have all been drawn in rhythmical curves to create
the impression of the delicate movement of cloth
blowing in the wind. The sleeves, orange in color
with red shading along the folds, are ornamented
with motifs done in gold paint. These motifs of a
mystical beast, a fictional combination of bird and
fish, have been drawn freely without a fixed
model, while the area in between has been filled
with fluidly drawn clouds. The skirt is the same
color as the sleeves. However, the decorative mo
tif is different; it appears to be a floral motif in blue
and green. A pattern of circles in mineral blue
(iwagunj?bf) has been added on the shoes.
The hair of the red jaki under the feet of Z?ch?
has been skillfully depicted as standing on end, in
lines of gold ink. The blue jaki has a tiger skin
around its hips as well as animal skins on its shins,
both of which are covered with lines of gold ink.
The flag attached to the blade of the three
pronged spear that this jaki holds has been given a
blue cloud pattern drawn on a red ground, while
the ribbons are decorated in blue ungen.
Jikoku's garments are similar to those of Ta
mon. The sleeves and skirt are done in refined
colors while reds are used only on the edges of the
helmet and on a part of the tunic. The overlying motif on the tunic is of green flowers and inter
connected blue leaves with vines added in be
tween them. Fine gold dots have been added to
the flowers and the leaves in a skilled and detailed
hand. The details along the edge of the armor over
the hips are of four interlocked sword blades in
23
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blue on a subdued red ground. In the center of the
space created by the four sword blades are motifs
of cross-shaped vajra done in gold paint that have
become the basic element of the ornamentation.
On the inside of the mountain-shaped forms that
this motif creates, rimp? have been added in gold
paint. A motif made up of three-pronged vajras with ribbons attached has been added on the dark
brown ground of the wide sleeves and skirt.
Around each of these vajra a curling line has been
added in white in a skillful hand. The green jaki that is being trampled under Jikoku's feet has been
painted in a similar fashion to the dark brown jaki that stands to his side; the hair has been done in
gold ink just as on thejaki of the other paintings. The realistic treatment of details such as these
must be considered one of the most important characteristics of the paintings.
The rocks on which the kings stand are differ
ent in each painting, some flat on the top, others
slightly slanted. All are painted in a rough man
ner; thick brush strokes done with the brush held
at an angle have been used to depict the protru sions and depressions in the rocks. In places moss
has been added by the inclusion of green-blue and
white dots.
The artist of these paintings was able to create
powerful yet refined works of art by the use of
superb brush work and drawing, as well as by the
use of harmonizing colors and intricate and pre cise motifs. The brush work shows characteristics
of the mid Kamakura period, a time when a dis
tinct Kamakura style had begun to emerge from
the Sung styles that were adopted at the beginning of the twelfth century?the harmonization of
new Sung painting techniques with the more tra
ditional techniques of the Heian period. Conse
quently, the texture and movements of the gar ments are depicted especially skillfully. These
paintings do not show the stereotyped treatment
of line typical of paintings done in the latter part of
the thirteenth century, such as the paintings of the
two attendants of Fud? by Ch?ga in the collec
tion of the Freer Gallery; but rather it is freer and
livelier. Nevertheless, it is possible to find some
formularization in the depiction of the rough sea
in the Boston paintings (Fig. 19). This type of
24
Fig. 19. Wave. Detail of Figure 3. Infrared photograph. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
treatment of the waves marks a distinct break
with the more fluid depiction of the sea to be
found in the early Kamakura period painting of
Fud? with Two Attendants from Ruri-ji (Fig. 20), or
the painting of the Patriarchs of the Kegon Sect. This
means that the Boston paintings must date later
than these works. In light of these stylistic and
technical observations, it is possible to conclude
that these paintings of the Four Deva Kings date
to the middle of the Kamakura period.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
PAINTINGS AND THE
ABANDONED TEMPLE EIKY?-JI
I would now like to take up my hypothesis that
the paintings of the Four Deva Kings in the Mu
seum of Fine Arts, Boston belong to a group of
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Fig. 20. Wave. Detail o? Fud? and Two Attendants. Ink and
polychrome on silk. Ruri-ji, Hy?g? prefecture.
paintings that were originally mounted on a fixed
partition in the interior of the Shingon-d? at
Eiky?-ji. There are no records in the files of the
Museum detailing the provenance of these paint
ings. As I mentioned before, however, Fenollo
sa's note indicates that they were once at T?dai
ji, yet no records exist that tie the paintings to the
Shingon-d? at Eiky?-ji.15
Eiky?-ji was also known as Uchiyama-derabg and was located to the southwest of Isonokami
Shrine in present-day Tenri city. From documen
tary evidence it is known that the temple was
founded at the order of retired Emperor Tobabn
(1103-1156; r. 1107-1123) by a monk from K?
fuku-ji named Raijitsubl (1050-1142). According to two late Kamakura period records that contain
much information connected to the history of the
temple, the Uchiyama okibumf? and the Uchiyama no fei,kk the Shingon-d? was erected in the year
corresponding to 1136, the Tah?-t? the next
year, and finally the main hall the year after that.
These sources indicate that the temple compound
(garanbl) was rapidly laid out and halls constructed
in an orderly fashion between 1135 and 1141.
From that time on the temple flourished. Later
records indicate that the great warlord of the sec
ond half of the sixteenth century, Toyotomi
Hideyoshibm (1536/7-1598), gave a yearly stipend of 971 kokubn of rice for the maintenance of the
temple buildings and its 58 subtemples and monks'
quarters. Similar stipends were granted during the Edo period, at which time Eiky?-ji was a
large temple with an income rivaling the 1,000
koku granted H?ry?-ji. In the early Meiji peri od the temple was dismantled under the haibutsu
kishakubo policy, which banned integrated Shin
to-Buddhist institutions. Today, all that is left of
the temple's former glory is a part of a garden lake
with a small island in the center.
Although Eiky?-ji was founded by a monk from the Hoss?bP temple K?fuku-ji, the fact
that a building called the Shingon-d? was the
first erected indicates that the Shingon sect was
the most powerful at the temple. The person who
supervised the construction of the Shingon-d? was the Shingon monk Ry?e,bcl and from the
time that that structure was completed, the official
business of the temple was carried out by mem
bers of the Shingon sect. This was not all unusual,
for at that time in exoteric temples of the Hoss?
and other sects, exoteric and Esoteric Buddhism
often coexisted. Because of the widespread popu
larity of Esoteric Buddhism among members of
the court and upper classes, many exoteric tem
ples had special halls for Esoteric ceremonies that
were exclusive to the Shingon sect. The patrons of Eiky?-ji, too, seem to have responded to this
trend, for there were both exoteric and Esoteric
halls within the temple compound. The Shingon-d? was a large hall facing south,
seven bays deep. The Uchiyama no ki and the Uchi
yama okibumi, as well as another document detail
ing the history of the temple, the Wash? Uchiyama
Eiky?-ji no engi^T record that many paintings adorned the interior of the hall. All these paintings
were removed and dispersed when the temple was dismantled. Surprisingly, however, many of
the Heian period works among them remain to
day. Through my research I have been able to
25
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Fig. 21. Subh?karasimha at the Kaniska St?pa. Ink and
polychrome on silk. Infrared photograph. Fujita Museum,
Osaka.
Fig. 22. Vajrabodhi. Detail from one of the Lives of the Eight
Shingon Patriarchs. Ink and polychrome on silk. Infrared
photograph. Private collection, Tokyo.
discover the present location of many of these
paintings; and since I have written about them on
previous occasions, I do not intend to analyze them
in detail here.16 For the following discussion con
cerning the provenance and authorship of the
Boston paintings, however, it is important to list
the paintings that were originally in the Shingon d? and their present locations.
M?ndalas of the Two Worlds, two scrolls; loca
tion unknown.
Subh?karasimha at the Kaniska St?pa (Fig. 21) and N?g?rjuna at the Iron Caitya, two panels; Fujita
Museum of Art, Osaka.
Eight Patriarchs of the Shingon Sect, eight paint
ings; Berlin Museum, destroyed during World
War II.
26
A Short Biography of the Eight Shingon Patriarchs,
eight scrolls; private collection, Tokyo (Fig. 22).
It is known that all these were painted in the
year corresponding to 1136. Moreover, accord
ing to the Uchiyama no ki and the Uchiyama oki
bumi, two types of paintings were added to the
interior of the Shingon-d? in 1253. The passages
concerning these paintings read as follows:
Shingon-d?, one hall: According to tradition
it was erected in Hoen 2 (1136) . . .on the fixed
partition behind the Buddha are [paintings of] the
Kanj?J?ni-ten,bs and on the back, [paintings of] the Four Deva Kings that were painted in the
ninth month of Kench? 5 by Ch?my? (Son renbt of the hokky?bu [rank]).17
Item: During the latter part of the ninth month
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(mizunoto ushibv) of Kench? 5, the paintings of
the J?ni-ten and of the Four Deva Kings were
done by the busshibw Sonren. . . ,18
Item: Concerning the Shingon-d? . . . the
Four Deva Kings etc. on the fixed partition be
hind the Buddha, because the old ones were dam
aged, were painted by Sonren [of the rank of]
hokky?. . . .19
From these documents the following facts can
be ascertained. First, that on the front side of the
standing partition behind the statue of the Buddha
enshrined inside the hall were paintings of the
Twelve Devas that were used in the Buddhist
ceremony of baptismal initiation (abiseka), while
on the back of this same partition were paintings of the Four Deva Kings. These were painted in the
latter half of the ninth month of Kench? 5 (1253) by Sonrenb?bx Ch?my?. Second, that since
it is written about the paintings of the Four Deva
Kings, "because the old ones were damaged, these were painted by Sonren [of the rank of]
hokky?" it is possible to determine that the orig inal paintings of the Four Deva Kings had been
damaged, and were then repainted at this time.
The above two points lead to the conclusion
that if the paintings of the Four Deva Kings were
indeed painted on the back of the fixed partition behind the statue of the Buddha in the hall, then
they must have been arranged in a single horizon
tal row. Since the Shingon-d? faced south, the
fixed partition behind the statue would have faced
south as well, and consequently, the back side of
the partition on which the paintings of the Four
Deva Kings were executed would have faced
north. From these facts the following hypothesis can be made: because the left end of the back side
of the partition would be to the east, then when
the paintings of the Four Deva Kings were ar
ranged on this partition, Jikoku, the king who is
the guardian of the eastern quadrant, would pre
sumably have been placed at the far left edge. The above conclusion concerning the arrange
ment of the paintings of the Four Deva Kings in
the Shingon-d? at Eiky?-ji can be taken as a
basis for further consideration of the paintings of
the Four Deva Kings in the Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston. From an analysis of the nature of the
damage to the works we know that the Boston
works were originally painted on fixed partitions.
Moreover, from my analysis above it is also pos sible to determine that they were also originally
meant to be arranged with Jikoku-ten, the Guard
ian of the East, at the left-most edge, followed
by Z?ch?, K?moku, and Tamon. This agrees
exactly with my proposed arrangement for the
Boston paintings. Because of this correspondence, it is possible to conclude that in all likelihood the
Boston paintings are indeed the paintings of the
Four Deva Kings that were once affixed to the
back of the fixed partition in the Shingon-d?.
Stylistically these paintings can date to no later
than the mid-Kamakura period, and consequently there is no contradiction with the records that
state that the paintings of the Four Deva Kings in
the Shingon-d? were replaced in 1253.
I have already pointed out that formally the
Four Kings in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
retain many elements of late Heian period Bud
dhist painting. This being the case, then the
phrase in the Uchiyama no ki stating that new
paintings were done because the old ones were
damaged becomes an important point of refer
ence. The words "old ones" quoted in the passage must refer to paintings of the Four Deva Kings
that were executed for the Shingon-d? when it
was first built. Although the Boston paintings are
clearly in the style of the Kamakura period, they retain many earlier formal elements that can be
explained only as a result of their having been
based on these earlier originals. Often paintings were repainted under similar conditions. The six
paintings on boards of Shinto gods in the collec
tion of Yakushi-ji were done in 1295 by the
Ebusshi Gy?gen.bY However, according to an
inscription found on the back of one of them, they were repainted at that time because the "partition
paintings" originally done in the Kanji era (1087
1094) had been damaged by insects.20 The reten
tion of archaic elements in these paintings, espe
cially in the treatment of the drapery, is a result of
the fact that they were painted based on originals
dating from an earlier time. The existence of simi
lar cases lends credence to my conjecture about
the Boston paintings. Such observations serve to
27
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substantiate the documentary evidence concern
ing the date of execution and the conditions under
which these works were created.
Although no other known examples of paint
ings of the Four Deva Kings from a Shingon-d?
exist, the decoration on the interior of the
H?gy?-d?,bz a hall at Shikindai-ji in Naru
taki, Kyoto, where a memorial service was held
on the first day of the sixth month of Eiryaku 2
(1161), is somewhat comparable. From the
Ninna-ji shoin kakic* it is known that in this hall
were paintings of the Four Deva Kings, two kings on each painting, on the rear of partitions to the
left and right of the main image. The fronts of
these partitions were decorated with paintings of
the M?ndalas of the Two Worlds. Parallel to the
walls of the building were more fixed partitions covered with paintings of the Eight Shingon Pa
triarchs. On the partition behind the main image, a statue of Sonsh?,cb there were paintings of the
Godaison.cc21 The H?gy?-d? was a small
single-bay hall; however, it was used for Esoteric
rituals, as was the Shingon-d?. The presence of
paintings of the Four Deva Kings on the rear of
partitions decorated with the M?ndalas of the
Two Worlds is exceedingly interesting, for it
helps us to better understand the organization of
the paintings in the Shingon-d? at Eiky?-ji. That structure was originally built as a mantra
hall, and the large number of paintings that deco
rated its interior were well suited to its Esoteric
function. Depicting the J?ni-ten on the front
side of a partition behind a statue of a Buddha is
appropriate in a hall of this nature because of the
Esoteric character of the deities; however, the
presence of paintings of the Four Deva Kings on
the back of this same partition might appear
strange, because the Deva Kings are exoteric pro
tective deities. The previously mentioned exam
ple of paintings of the Four Deva Kings done on
the back of partitions with the M?ndalas of the
Two Worlds on the front in an Esoteric hall from
Shikindai-ji does provide us with evidence that
such iconographie arrangements were not entirely unknown. Consequently, the Shingon-d? at
Eiky?-ji in all likelihood can be thought a similar
case, and the Deva Kings can be seen to have
28
functioned as the protective gods of the hall from
the time of its creation.
In regard to this point it is worth recalling the
shape of the inkstone that thejaki in the painting of K?moku-ten is holding. The inkstone, with
its wooden base that includes a brushstand hold
ing a brush and ink stick, is similar in form to the
inkstone next to the scribe in the pair of paintings of Subhakarasimha at the Kaniska St?pa and N?
g?rjuna at the Iron Caitya that were originally in the
Shingon-d?. The fact that the inkstone in the
Kamakura period painting so closely resembles
the one in the earlier Heian period painting pro vides visual evidence that there must have been
paintings of the Four Deva Kings in the hall at the
time it was erected, and that the Boston paintings were based on those works.
I have already indicated that the iconography of
the paintings of Tamon and of K?moku from
the Boston set is of an exoteric style. These paint
ings can be assumed to have been based on earlier
versions; thus they suggest that there were paint
ings of the Four Deva Kings with a similar icon
ography in the Shingon-d? at Eiky?-ji at the
time that the hall was erected. When this point is
considered in conjunction with the fact that the
paintings of the other two kings are in an Esoteric
T'ang style, the conclusion can be reached that the
paintings of the Four Kings symbolized the dual
Esoteric and exoteric nature of Eiky?-ji. From
the various arguments above, then it is possible to
conclude that the Boston paintings are without a
doubt the partition paintings of the Four Deva
Kings that are recorded in the histories of Eiky?
ji as having been in the Shingon-d?; they may
indeed be those "lost" paintings that were painted in 1253 by the ebusshi Ch?my?.
THE ARTIST, THE EBUSSHI CH?MY?
Ch?my?'s artistic activities can be traced in
some detail and therefore I wish to go over his
biography in order to understand the context of
the Boston paintings. The ch?c<^ in his name is
written in some documents with the character for
morning, and in some instances he is mentioned
under the name of Sonrenb?. Ch?my? was a
disciple of the famous early Kamakura period
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Fig. 23. Inscription on the base of Jiz?. Shunkaku-ji, Nara
prefecture.
painter Taifub? Sonchi.ce This fact is known
from an inscription on the base of a statue of the
Bodhisattva Jiz?c^ at Shunkaku-ji in modern
day Nara prefecture, dated in accordance with
1256, which reads: "Ch?my? Sonrenb? is a
disciple of Sonchi" (Fig. 23).22 The first mention of Ch?my? can be found
in the K?fuku-ji yurai ki.c& In this document it is
recorded that from the twentieth day of the elev
enth month of J?ei 1 (1232) until the seventeenth
day of the next month, the celebrated Nara period statues of the Eight Classes of Divine Protectors
of the Buddhist Faith and the statues of the Ten
Great Disciples of the Buddha at K?fuku-ji were
repaired by a group led by the great ebusshicb
Z?keici from the official painting workshop
(edokorocJ).23 Ch?my?'s name is included in
the list of those who participated in the project. Since his name was written last, Ch?my? was
most likely the youngest of the thirteen artists
involved. The fact that he participated in the res
toration of such prominent works, most likely by
helping with their repainting, provided him with
invaluable experience for his later work.
The next records date from the ninth month of
Kench? 5 (1253) and involve the production of
paintings of the Twelve Devas and of the Four
Deva Kings in the Shingon-d? at Eiky?-ji that
are the subject of this paper. From the inscription
previously mentioned, we know that three years
later, in 1256, he did the paintings on a cabinet
that was to contain the statue of the Bodhisattva
Jiz? at Shunkaku-ji along with Sonchi's disciple, Kaichick of the rank of taifu h?gen.cl (This statue
was originally in the Kedai-in in Higashi Oda
wara.) The inscription states that at the time Kai
chi "did the drawing in ink" while Ch?my? took care of the "coloring." In the third month of
Bun'ei 5 (1268), in a document found among the
dedicatory objects inside the wooden statue of
Sh?toku Taishicm in the Gokuraku-b?011 at
Gang?-ji in Nara, Ch?my?'s name appears
along with those of ten other people from the
edokoro who did the "coloring."24 The Chinju z?ei nikki,co quoted in the Uchiyama
no ki, mentions that in the seventh month of
Bun'ei 7 (1270), the "daibusshicP Sonrenb?
hokky? Ch?my?" and two busshi painted the
protective shrine at Eiky?-ji with cinnabar over
a nine-day period.25 The same record includes the
notation "salary?1 kanc9 and 500 mon"cr and
notations on the price of cinnabar (shushacs). Also
mentioned is the fact that Ch?my? was given the remaining seven ry?ct of cinnabar and that
he took it back to his residence in the "Southern
Capital." Thus we know that Ch?my? lived in
the Nara region. Since this record calls him a dai
busshi and mentions the fact that he was accom
panied by two busshi, it is clear that by this time
he headed a small group of Buddhist painters, ebusshi. When Ch?my? first received the
honorific title given to high-ranking artists of
hokky?, meaning Bridge of the Law, remains
unclear. However, from the entry in the Uchi
yama no ki we know that he held this title as early as 1253.
Ch?my?'s participation in the production of a
set of statues of Fud? and His Eight Great Pages
(Fig. 24), which were originally enshrined in the
Kannon-d? at Eiky?-ji in 1272, is known from a
dedicatory passage placed inside the statue of the
29
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bhiksu Sh?j?,cu one of the attendant statues from
the group (Fig. 25).26 In this inscription his name
appears as "ebusshi Ch?my?, hokky? of the
sh?nincv rank" along side of the name of the
sculptor "daibusshi, h?gencw of the ?sh?cx rank,
K?en."cy Ch?my? most likely was responsible for painting these statues, which are now in the
possession of Setagayasan Kannon-ji in Tokyo.
They provide important additional information
about the type of painting actually done by
Ch?my?.27 Other documents relate that later, in the 12th
month of Einin 3 (1295), the painting of a me
dium-sized drum at T?dai-ji was entrusted to
hokky? Ch?my?.28 These documents also in
clude a number of requests from the daibusshi
Ry?y?cz and hokky? Sen'e,^a who were both
busshi from T?dai-ji, that Ch?my? supervise their task of coloring other works included in the
same project. Although the project was for T?
dai-ji, the fact that Ch?my? was put in charge instead of the ebusshi who worked for the temple is proof of just how highly Ch?my? was thought
of at the time. Although the date is unclear, ac
cording to the Uchiyama okibumi and the Uchiyama no ki, hokky? Sonren painted votive plaques
(emadb) for Eiky?-ji29 and touched up the paint
ings by Enshinb? Eijudc on the old cedar parti tions in the protective shrine of the temple. This
record goes on to say that of these, only the paint
ing of sumo wrestlers was returned untouched to
its original state.30
From the various passages quoted above, it is
possible to glimpse some of Ch?my?'s activi
ties in the Nara region during the sixty-odd years
from 1232 to 1295. Despite our considerable
knowledge of these activities, the works in the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston are the only known
examples of his paintings. Yet the breadth of his
creativity, encompassing sculpture and decora
tive arts as well as painting, was common to
painters of the age. From the documentary evi
dence, it appears that Ch?my? took "color
ing" as his specialty. That the painting of the me
dium-sized drum was entrusted to him in 1295
means that not only had Ch?my? become a
famous painter by that time, but that he possessed
30
Special skills in diverse painting techniques. Only an artist with consummate technique as well as
great artistic originality could have done the varied
motifs on the Boston paintings. Since Ch?my? was one of the most skillful artists of his age, the
above analysis permits the conclusion that the
paintings of the Four Deva Kings in the Boston
Museum are technically suitable as works by
Ch?my?. Of the many other projects that Ch?my?
supervised, the statues of Fud? and His Eight Great Pages fortunately still remain today, and
therefore I wish to analyze them in some detail
since they provide us with a point of reference for
the Boston paintings. These statues were sculpted when K?en was 66 years of age. The main image of Fud? is 109.7 centimeters in height; the stand
ing attendants are approximately 58 centimeters
high, and the seated ones, 30 centimeters. The
statues of the pages were done in various poses,
and were meant to be arranged to the right and to
the left of the main image. As a result the nine
statues combine to create a unique and interesting
composition. Each statue was carefully colored,
and all the surfaces of the garments of all the fig ures were decorated with fine motifs. The motifs
themselves are varied; as on the paintings of the
Four Deva Kings no motif is repeated. The actual drawing of the motifs on the statues
is more detailed than that on the Boston paint
ings, but the line is not quite as free. Differences in
the brushwork are visible on each one, and this
most probably means that the statues were painted
by Ch?my?'s atelier. That Ch?my? worked
closely with his disciples is partially borne out by the fact that two years earlier Ch?my? painted the protective shrine of Eiky?-ji with the assis
tance of two sh?busshi.dci Although it seems
doubtful that Ch?my? did all the work, some
motifs are analogous to those found on the paint
ings of the Four Deva Kings (Figs. 26, 27). For
example, the motif of a cakra entwined with
clouds found on the loincloth of Eki,de one of
Fud?'s pages, is similar even in color and form to
the decorative motif on the helmet of K?moku.
The motifs of monstrous fish found in the paint
ing of K?moku of the Boston set closely resem
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Fig. 24. K?en and Ch?my?. Fudo and His Eight Great Pages. Wood with polychrome. Setagayasan Kannon-d?, Tokyo.
Photograph courtesy Professor Nishikawa Shinji.
Fig. 25. Dedicatory passage found inside the statue of the Bhiksu Sh?j?. One o? Fud? and His Eight Great Pages. Setagayasan Kannon-d?, Tokyo. Photograph courtesy Professor Nishikawa Shinji.
31
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Figs. 26, 27. Details of motif on Fud?, Fig. 24.
ble those found on garments of the statues of the
Eight Great Pages. Dots of pale green malachite
have been added to the motif of peonies on the
armor over the stomach of Shitoku, another of
the pages, and the use of this technique of embel
lishing the armor can be found on the breastplate of Z?ch? in the set of paintings in Boston as
well. The similarities in the painting include not
only the motifs themselves, but the techniques as
well. Because of these similarities, and because we
know that Ch?my? did paint the statues, then
there should be general agreement with an attri
bution of the paintings of the Four Deva Kings to
Ch?my?. The four statues of the attendants to the Four
Deva Kings said to have been in the Shingon-d? of Eiky?-ji can also be connected to the Boston
paintings. The most detailed study of these stat
ues was done in 1962 by Nishikawa Ky?tar?.31 T?h?-tendf (east) (Fig. 28) and Namp?-tendg
(south) are owned by the Tokyo National Mu
seum; Saih?-tendh (west) (Figs. 29, 30) by the
Seikad? Foundation; and Hopp?-tendi (north)
by the Museum of Art in Atami. There are in
scriptions in ink on all four of these statues that
indicate that the statues were carved in the year
corresponding to 1267 and that the sculptor was
the same daibusshi K?en.
32
The inscriptions on the base of the Saih?-ten
(Fig. 31) and the Hopp?-ten include the phrase "Enshrined in the Shingon-d?, Gy ?en.
" 4)
From the Sammu kanrei shidai^ (Proceedings of the
Director of the Temple Office) quoted in the Uchi
yama no ki, it is known that Gy?en worked in the
temple office at Eiky?-ji for twenty-three years, from late 1247 until 1269.a2 Therefore the Shin
gon-d? in the inscription on these two statues
must refer to the Shingon-d? at the temple. There
are no records that there ever were statues of the
Four Deva Kings in the Shingon-d? that would
have statues such as these as their attendants. The
Boston paintings of the Four Deva Kings, how
ever, were originally in the Shingon-d?, and we
know that they were painted by Ch?my? in
1253, during the period that Gy?en was in charge of the temple office. In the paintings of the Four
Deva Kings there are usually attendants other than
jaki included in the composition. Consequently, it is not too far fetched or impossible to assume
that these four statues were done to supplement the previously executed paintings of the Four Deva
Kings. The four attendant figures were sculpted fourteen years after the paintings were dedicated,
and it seems natural to conclude that they were
produced as attendant figures to the paintings in
accordance with some plan of Gy?en's. Includ
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Fig. 28. K?en.T?h?-ten, Attendant to the Deva of the East.
Wood with polychrome. Dated 1267. Tokyo National Museum. Photograph courtesy Nishikawa Ky?tar?.
Fig. 29. K?en. Saih?-ten, Attendant to the Deva of the
West. Dated 1267. Seikad? Foundation, Tokyo. Photograph
courtesy Nishikawa Ky?tar?.
Fig. 30. Motif of heavenly fish. Detail of Figure 28. Fig. 31. Inscription. Detail of Figure 29.
33
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ing the bases, all four of the statues are about 38
centimeters in height, and therefore they stand
slightly smaller than thejaki in the paintings. As
suming for the moment that they were meant to
be placed in front of the paintings, these statues
are more or less of an appropriate size. Because
there are no other known examples of such an
arrangement combining painting and sculpture,
just how these attendant figures were meant to be
arranged in relation to the paintings remains a
mystery.
These statues are entirely poly chromed, and
this use of color indicates an important connec
tion between them and the artist of the paintings,
Ch?my?. The motifs are done more freely than
on the statues of Fud? with His Eight Great
Pages, and their expressiveness is reminiscent of
the motifs on the Four Deva Kings (Fig. 31). The
conclusion can be reached that the painting on the
statues of Fud? and his attendants was the product of Ch?my?'s workshop because of the stiffer line
quality in the motifs. In contrast, the added free
dom found in the motifs on these small attendant
sculptures would seem to indicate that the paint
ing was done by Ch?my? himself. Until further
detailed analysis has been done, the exact relation
ship between the two groups of works cannot be
adequately explained, but I wish to suggest the
possibility of just such a relationship.
CONCLUSION
The conclusions concerning paintings of the Four
Deva Kings in the collection of the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston, introduce new data to the
scholarly world. These paintings, done on the back
of the fixed partition behind the statue of the Bud
dha enshrined as the main image of the Shingon d? of the abandoned temple, Eiky?-ji, have been
proved to correspond to the paintings of the Four
Deva Kings done in Kench? 5 by the ebusshi
hokky? Ch?my?, who came from the southern
capital, the present-day city of Nara. These paint
ings have many late Heian elements, especially in
the treatment of the faces, and thus they may well
have been based on earlier versions of paintings of
34
the same deities done at the time that the temple was founded. In fact, it is possible to conclude that
the extant paintings were painted with the artist
making actual reference to the earlier works and
this is one reason for the bright harmonious color
tones in the paintings. The realistic depiction and the use of modulat
ing lines, however, possess the movement and the
lightheartedness typical of paintings of the Ka
makura period, yet they still successfully repre sent the figures in a powerful manner. By includ
ing the rough sea around the kings, the composi tions are given added depth. The undulating
movement of the waves has the effect of unifying the composition of each of the paintings and gives rise to an even greater feeling of expanse behind
the kings. These features of the paintings are the
result of Ch?my?'s great originality and his abil
ities with both brush and composition. The note
worthy elements of the paintings do not stop here. The command of colorful decorative motifs
also characterizes these paintings, and well illus
trates Ch?my?'s skills as a colorist. The arrange ment of the works, with the paintings of Jikoku and Tamon, which are done in understated tones,
at the outsides while the paintings of Z?ch? and
K?moku, which are done in brighter tones, are in
the center, is just another indication of Ch?my?'s
genius in creating the overall composition.
Ch?my?'s artistic activities extended over sixty
years, from the second decade of the thirteenth
century A.D. right up to its close. Therefore, it is
possible to conclude that Ch?my? painted the
Four Deva Kings when he was in his forties, at the
peak of his career. These four paintings are master
pieces of the mid-Kamakura period, and they hold
an important place in the history of painting in
Japan. These works provide a new standard for
understanding the painting of the mid-thirteenth
century, because there are no other works of this
scale from this time. Because it is also possible to
identify where they were originally housed, when
they were actually painted, and the identity of the
artist who created them, these paintings are all the
more precious.
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Notes
I would like to express my gratitude to the Japan Institute of Harvard
University and to the Asiatic Department of the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston.
i. Yanagisawa Taka, Bosuton bijutsukanz? no Shitenn? zu?
shin hakken no haiji Eiky?-ji Shingon-d? sh?jie, in Bukky? kaiga,
Zaigai nihon no shih? vol. i (Tokyo: Mainichi shimbunsha, 1980),
pp. 98-111. 2. Ernest F. Fenollosa, Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art, vol. 1
(New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1912), p. 160.
3. Where the pasted-on identifications came from is unclear.
However, I would like to add that they do in fact correspond to my own conclusions about the identification of the deities.
4. During the Heian period sh?ji were fixed partitions erected
inside of structures to divide an open space into rooms.
5. Nihon kokuh? zensh?y vol. 14 (Tokyo: Nihon kokuh? zensh?n
kank?kai, 1925), pp. 116-117. 6. Kameda Tsutomu, K?fuku-ji no kaiga to edokoro eshi, Bukky?
geijutsu 40 (September 1959): 104-108; reprinted in Nihon bukky?
bijutsushijosetsu (Tokyo: Gakugei shorin, 1970), pp. 395-399.
7. See Yanagisawa Taka, Ninna-ji z? h?j?bako nony? no itae no
Shitenn?z? ni tsuite, Bijutsu kenky? 256 (March 1969): 10-20.
8. For example, among m?ndalas, the H?r?kaku M?ndala in the
collection of the Freer Gallery and the Kusha M?ndala in the collec
tion of T?dai-ji; among paintings of individual deities, the painting of the Bodhisattva Fugen Enmei in the collection of the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston; the painting of Juntei Kannon in the Tokyo Na
tional Museum; and the painting on the doors from the Kichij?-ten zushi in the collection of Tokyo University of Fine Arts.
9. Besson zakki, vol. 47, inTakakusuJ. and OnoG. (eds.), Shinsh?
daiz?ky? taish? zuz?, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Daiz?shuppankabushikigaisha,
1937), P-5i4,pl-246. 10. Besson zakki, vol. 47, in TakakusuJ. and Ono G. (eds.), Shin
sh? daiz?ky? taish? zuzo, voL 3, pp. 519-522, pis. 254-257. 11. Matsumoto Eiichi, Tonk?ga no kenky? (Tokyo: Tokyo koku
ritsu bunkazai kenky?jo, 1937), pis. 120a, 123a. 12. Matsumoto, Tonk?ga no kenky?, pl. 120b.
13. S?chou-shih Jui-kuang-ssu T*a Fa-hsien I-p'i Wu-tai, Pei
Sung Wen-wu, Wen-wuiyS (November 1979): 21-31.
14. Yanagisawa Taka, Fujita bijutsukan no mikky? ry?bu daiky? kantokuzu ni tsuite, Bijutsu kenky? 187 (March 1956): 36-52.
15. in Fenollosa, Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art, vol. 1, p. 160.
Presently at T?dai-ji there are statues of Tamon-ten and K?moku
ten dating from the Heian period with inscriptions indicating that
they were originally from Eiky?-ji. For more information on these
statues and their provenance see T?dai-ji II, Nara rokudaiji taikan
vol. 10 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1968), pp. 71-73, pis. 210-215.
Possibly the paintings of the Four Deva Kings came to that temple at
the same time as the statues.
16. See note 13. My other articles on the subject include Eiky?-ji
Ry?esh?ningaz?, Bijutsu kenky?2$$ (March 1964): 37-41; Shingon hass? gy?jo zue to haiji Eiky?-ji Shingon-d? zushie, 1-3, Bijutsu
kenky? 300 (July 1975): 14-35; 302 (November 1975): 11-32; 304
(March 1976): 7-28.
17. Uchiyama okibumi, included in Fujita Tsuneyo (ed.), K?kan
bijutsu shiry?jiin hen, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Ch?? k?ron bijutsu shuppan,
1976), p. 12.
18. Uchiyama no ki, included in Fujita (ed.), K?kan bijutsu shiry?jiin hen, vol. 3, p. 30.
19. Uchiyama no ki, included in Fujita (ed.), K?kan bijutsu shiry?jiin hen, vol. 3, p. 34.
36
20. Yakushi-ji, Nara rokudaii taikan vol. 6 (Tokyo: Iwanami
shoten, 1970), p. 98. 21. Ninna-ji shiry?, jishi-hen (Nara: Nara kokuritsu bunkazai
kenky?jo, 1964), p. 372. 22. Tamura Yoshinaga, Shunkaku-ji no K?gen zaimei Jiz? ni
tsuite, Shiseki to bijutsu 184 (1948); ?ta Koboku, Jiz? bosatsu no
shosh? no z?y?, part III, Shiseki to bijutsu 338 (November 1963):
302-305.
Sonchi was an artist of such high reputation that he was chosen as
one of four artists to paint pictures of famous places on fixed parti tions in a hall of the Saish??-in of Emperor Gotoba. His activities are
comparatively well known. According to the Meigetsu-ki, in 1213 he
participated, along with the eshi Ry?ga, in the decoration of the
nine-storied pagoda at H?sh?-ji. From the Mony?-ki it is known that
in 1224 he painted pictures illustrating rebirth in the Nine Realms of
Existence for the edono of the Sh?ry?-in at Shitenn?-ji, and it is
believed that in 1222 he painted a picture of Sh?toku Taishi lecturing on the Sh?man-gy? for the Shari-den at H?ry?-ji that survives today
(Fig. 32). See Kameda Tsutomu, Taishi Sh?man-gy? go k?san zu,
in Nihon bukky? bijutsushijosetsu (Tokyo: Gakugei shorin, 1970), pp.
202-211). Ever since Professor Kameda wrote about it, this painting has been accepted as a work by Sonchi. The surface has been dark
ened by soot; however, in places the faces of the various figures remain clearly enough to be able for one to tell that depiction was
quite detailed and done in traditional techniques. Through this
painting we can learn something of Sonchi's style. Even more per tinent to our present discussion is the record in the Uchiyama no ki
Fig. 32. Sonchi. Detail of Shotoku Taishi Lecturing on the
Sh?man-gy?. ca. 1222. H?ry?-ji, Nara prefecture.
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that there were paintings by h?gen Sonchi at Eiky?-ji. The partici
pation by Sonchi's disciple, Ch?my?, in the artistic activities at
Eiky?-ji may very well have been the result of a recommendation by the master. The fact that a similar touch pervades the paintings of the
Four Deva Kings in the Boston Museum lends credence to my con
viction that the artists of the two works were master and disciple.
23. K?fuku-ji I, Nara rokudaiji taikan vol. 7 (Tokyo: Iwanami
shoten, 1969), p. 90.
24. Gang?-ji Gokuraku-b?, Gang?-ji, Daian-ji, Hannya-ji, J?rinAn, Yamato koji taikan vol. 3 (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1977), pp. 37
38.
25. Uchiyama no ki, included in Fujita (ed.), Kokan bijutsu shiry?jiin
hen, vol. 3, p. 49.
26. Nishikawa Shinji, K?en kenky? josetsu, Tokyo kokuritsu
hakubutsukan kiy? 3 (1968): 135-142 and chart.
27. I was permitted to examine these statues through the kindness
of the head priest of Setagayasan Kannon-ji, and I wish to express
my gratitude to him.
28. T?dai-ji daibusshi Ry?y? narabi ni hokky? Senne kasanete
m?su, in T?dai-ji monjo, no. 3, saiho 3. Photocopy from the Tokyo
University shiry? hensanjo.
29. Uchiyama okibumi, included in Fujita (ed.), K?kan bijutsu shiry?
jiin hen, vol. 3, pp. 14-15.
30. Uchiyama no ki, included in Fujita (ed.), K?kan bujutsu shiry?
jiin hen, vol. 3, pp. 34, 49.
31. Nishikawa Ky?tar?, K?en saku Shitenn? kenzoku z? ni
tsuite, Museum 313 (August 1962): 21-24.
32. Uchiyama okubumi, included in Fujita (ed.), K?kan bijutsu shiry?
jiin hen, vol. 3, pp. 18-19.
Dimensions of the Boston Museum
Four Deva Kings
Registration number and Width
name of Height Length of silk
deity (cm) (cm) abc
n.406ino. i 148.2 73.2 9.7 44.3 19.2
Tamon-ten
11.4064 no. 4 148.3 72.9 42.5 30.4 K?moku-ten
11.4062 no. 2 148.4 72.7 21.2 44.2 7.3
Z?ch?-ten
11.4063 no. 3 147.0 72.5 31.5 40.0
Jikoku-ten
No. 2 is made of three pieces of cloth. Piece b is of standard width,
piece a is half of that. If piece c were combined with piece a from no.
3 it would be equal to one standard width. The length of piece b
from no. 4 and piece a from no. 1 combined is more or less equal to
one standard width.
37
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