Standing Prince Shōtoku at Age Two (Shōtoku Taishi Nisaizō)
Standing Prince Shōtoku at Age Two (Shōtoku Taishi Nisaizō) Kei School
Japan; Kamakura period, c. 1292 (Second year of the Shōō era)
Japanese cypress wood; assembled woodblock construction with polychromy and rock-crystal inlaid eyes
H. 26 ¾ x 9 ¾ x 9 in. (67.9 x 24.8 x 22.9 cm)
Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum,
Photograph by Junius Beebe © President and Fellows of Harvard College
This refined wooden statue of the Imperial regent Shōtoku Taishi 聖徳太子 (574-622) as an infant is part of the genre known as namubutsu taishizō 南無仏太子像 illustrating an apocryphal moment in the early life of this legendary figure.[1] At the tender age of two, Shōtoku is said to have turned to the east, held his hands together, and recited the nembutsu 念仏, a repetition of the name of the Amida Nyorai 阿弥陀如来 (Buddha Amitābha). This is the earliest known sculpture
in this format,[2] which from dedicatory documents placed inside[3] can be dated to the end of the thirteenth century. The statue is made from Japanese cypress (hinoki) by assembled woodblock construction (yosegi tsukuri 寄木作り), a method by which the final form of a sculpture is composed of a series of blocks which have been carved and hollowed out before being joined together.[4] Layers of fabric and lacquer have been added over the wooden base structure before the final
application of pigment to provide realistic color and detail. Shōtoku’s skin was given a pinkish-white flesh tone, which is clearly visible in undamaged and undarkened areas remaining under the arms, and traces of pink on the lips and dark azurite that delineate the hairline can still be seen.[5] The sculpture’s present surface appearance is due not only to loss of pigment over the centuries but also to the accretion of dust, wax, and soot from the burning of candles and incense from its use in a temple setting. The center of a popular cult and a patriarchal figure in many sects of Buddhism in Japan, this enigmatic figure of Shōtoku Taishi would have stood on a temple altar for worship, though its original location and commissioning patron is as yet unknown.
Prince Shōtoku has a semi-legendary status in the historical records and folkloric traditions of Japan; he is often credited with giving Japan its first formal constitution as well as being the first great patron of Buddhism by establishing it within state doctrine. According to the Shōtoku legend, he enjoys this latter accolade due to the fierce opposition he encountered when trying to introduce foreign precepts, both religious and secular, onto native soil. After
renouncing his claim to the throne and proclaiming his devotion to public service, Prince Shōtoku served as Regent to his aunt the Empress Suiko 推古天皇 (554-628; r. 592-628) for the duration of her reign. Although Buddhism had been first recognized by his father, the Emperor Yōmei 用明天皇 (518-587; r. 585-587), it was only promulgated later under Shōtoku’s direction and patronage. Shōtoku both embraced Buddhism as a superior religious philosophy and recognized it as a powerful political tool for creating a centralized government under Imperial guidance.[6]
Immediately following the Prince’s death, a small number of artworks depicting his likeness were produced, though by the eleventh century his renown had reached mythical proportions and that number subsequently dramatically increased. In particular, depictions of the Prince as an enlightened infant became prevalent in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and are by far the most popular type of Shōtoku imagery that remains today.[7] The popularity of these images is likely due to their use by new sects of Buddhism such as Jōdo-shu, Jōdo-shinshu, Ritsu-shu, and Hokke-shu. These sects not only venerated Shōtoku as the founder and promoter of Buddhism in Japan, but also as an incarnation of the Historical Buddha Śākyamuni. Indeed, some of the episodes of Shōtoku’s childhood recounted in
Shōtoku Taishi denryaku 聖徳太子伝略 are familiar echoes from the tales of the early years of the
Śākyamuni. For example, his conception is marked by a preternatural event, the child is astonishingly precocious, he is a devoted student, and he far outstrips his playfellows and others in strength and skill.[8] Conceptual and iconographic parallels are drawn between these two figures due to the similarity of the
two-year-old Shōtoku reciting the nembutsu and the frequently illustrated episode of Śākyamuni as an infant pointing one hand to heaven and the other to earth, proclaiming “I am the Lord of the World.” Images of Śākyamuni performing this act (known in Japan as tanjō Shaka 誕生釈迦) are a precedent for the later namubutsu taishizō imagery in their depiction of the infant Buddha as an idealized beauty, nude from the waist up. A further link between these two figures is
made by the claim that Prince Shōtoku was born holding a relic of the Buddha (his left eye),[9] but that this relic only became visible upon his first chanting of the nembutsu. Indeed, there is a small hollow carved into the left hand of the Sedgwick figure[10] that may have originally contained a now lost approximation of this relic.
Images of the tanjō Shaka fulfill a specific ritual function in the annual ceremony commemorating the Buddha’s birth, said to have been first celebrated in temples throughout Japan on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month in the year 606.[11] These images serve a didactic function—by displaying images while reading the appropriate sutras or biographic texts, the first moments in the life of Śākyamuni were made vivid and immediate. Additionally, the act of bathing
the statue that was traditionally performed at these events was also a means of accumulating merit and forming a karmic bond with the Buddha.[12] Images of the infant Shōtoku serve a similar role on the day ceremonially celebrated as his birthday— the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, which is often observed on 22 April in the Gregorian calendar—such as the festivities that occur in a temple which he founded, the Shitenno-ji 四天王寺 in Osaka.
More generally, representations of the infant Shōtoku fit into the broader category of artworks in Japan known as the divine boy,[13] or chigo dōji 稚児童子 iconography. The chigo dōji may range in age from infancy to adolescence, with numerous examples throughout the ages in Japanese religious art. The earliest examples, gilt bronze statuettes of the infant Buddha, date from the seventh century. Though they were created in an era when limited understanding of Buddhist iconography resulted in the production of many icons of uncertain
identity, the portrayal of the infant Buddha in these instances is unmistakable. He is invariably depicted in the manner described above, as standing and dressed only in a loincloth, with his right arm slightly curved and pointing upward toward the heavens, while his left, held rigidly at his side, points downward toward the earth. As further indicators of his divine status, the infant is also marked
with physiognomic symbols of the Buddha such as an usnisa, or cranial protuberance. Though the tanjōbutsu is a standard iconographic type in nearly every Buddhist country, such images are most numerous in Japan.[14] Further, from the thirteenth century onward, we also find similar images of the infant form of Kōbō Daishi (774–835 弘法大師),[15] another Buddhist patriarch who also came to be connected with Shōtoku Taishi.[16]
In all these cases, the sculptor faces the challenge of representing an ordinary infant as a being of enlightened existence. There are, however, significant differences between the figures of the infant Shōtoku and the infant Buddha. Although both the Buddha and Shōtoku have infantile forms, in the case of the infant Buddha the rings of flesh around his neck, his elongated earlobes, and especially the cranial protuberance and tight curls of hair, are all marks of the
fully enlightened Buddha. The chronological anomaly between the figure’s physical development and their spiritual progress defies our experienced reality and in some sense encapsulates the goal of the Buddha’s teachings: to escape from samsāra, the inexorable cycle of birth, aging, death, and rebirth.[17] The representation of the two-year-old Shōtoku resembles the tanjōbutsu in pose and its state of semi-undress, but Shōtoku figures are more generally far more childlike. In his 1969 essay “The Sedgwick Statue of the Infant Shōtoku,” John Rosenfield made the first systematic analysis of the Harvard statue and
investigated the content and significance of the interred objects, concluding that the paradigmatic image of the Buddha at birth has been adapted in the Kamakura period (1185-1333) to suit the spiritual and didactic needs of a new audience in a new age, an age during which faith replaced meditation and other mental disciplines as the chief vehicle for the attainment of enlightenment. The broader, popular audience of the Kamakura period and beyond favored the worship of such familiar, intimate figures.[18]
The sculptor, a member of the Kei school 慶派, has masterfully captured the naturalistic folds of fabric and Shōtoku’s serene expression; the viewer is immediately struck by the figure’s sense of presence and dignity. Though the work is unsigned, on the basis of technique, style, and quality, this statue is attributable to a highly competent member of this school, a Nara-based sculpture workshop that produced the most celebrated works of the medieval period.
Tracing their lineage back to the Heianperiod (784-1185) master sculptor Jōchō 定朝 (d. 1057), the Kei school was founded by Kōkei 康慶 (1152-1197) and succeeded by his son Unkei 運慶 (1164-1223). Kei artists did not have strong connections with the Kyoto imperial court, instead enjoying closer links with the new military government in the political capital of Kamakura. The Kyoto schools carved pieces of great delicacy, refinement, and elegance, whereas the Nara-school sculptors and their patrons, the military elite, in seeking to establish their own aesthetic legacy sought artistic styles that were
differentiated from these aristocratic tastes. Often labeled as “crude” by their rivals in Kyoto, the Nara-based Kei school embodied a new sense of power, dynamism, and an emphasis on realism. Their influence was greatly amplified after the government commissioned them to manage the reconstruction projects at the Kōfuku-ji 興福寺 and Tōdai-ji 東大寺 temple complexes, authoritative religious precincts that had been destroyed in the devastating Genpei war of 1180. This granted them a new popularity and firmly established their works as models worthy of emulation in subsequent centuries.
The Kei school was known for the high degree of realism in their portraiture sculptures, intriguing in this case since all surviving depictions of Prince Shōtoku were completed many years after his lifetime and highly idealized. There is evidence that another contemporary statue of this type, commissioned in 1307, was actually modeled on the features of a young boy of the imperial court[19], and perhaps this was also the case here. A further element of realism is
added by the common practice at the time (permitted by the assembled woodblock technique) of inserting carved pieces of crystal behind the eyes to produce a life-like effect. The assembled woodblock technique also allows for a fairly large cavity inside the body of the sculpture into which dedicatory objects are usually placed. Over time most hollow Japanese statues have lost their interior objects, but the Sedgwick Shōtoku sculpture arrived in the United States in 1936 with its dedicatory items undisturbed, and its contents provide a time capsule documenting both the depth of devotion and the diversity of medieval Japanese Buddhist belief. More than seventy individual items were found inside (including two other figures of Shōtoku as an infant and two in his archetypal
adolescent form), small Buddhist relics of semi-precious stone, a variety of miniature devotional statues, printed and written texts (including a rare Chinese printed sutra datable to circa 1160, now in the Library of Congress), a multi-colored twill-weave silk bag, and a number of Sanskrit paper charms. Such items were intended to spiritually activate the image and establish a bond between the deified prince and the confraternity of believers that commissioned the sculpture.[20] These items demonstrate an eclectic array of devotional objects from across different Buddhist traditions, reflecting the multi-faceted beliefs of the lay Buddhists who were likely involved in the statue’s construction.
In particular, the miniature statues found inside the main Shōtoku sculpture reflect seemingly divergent Buddhist belief systems. For example, images of more classic Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and guardian figures are found together with two sculptures of the wrathful, red-skinned Esoteric-Buddhist Wisdom King Aizen Myōō 愛染明王 (Rāgarāja) —a deity that the historical Prince Shōtoku himself probably would not have recognized. The combination of these disparate deities
suggests that late-thirteenthcentury Japanese Buddhists were fearful of a new threat, the danger of invasion by Mongol forces who came perilously close to conquering Japan (first in 1274 and then again in 1281) six centuries after Shōtoku’s death. Prayers to the virtuous Asuka-period prince were combined with spiritual appeals to newer, more ferocious deities as Japan sought to protect the nation from the formidable foreign menace.
The use of relics in Buddhism is charted back to the circumstances of the death of the historical Buddha Śākyamuni (traditionally, c. 563 BCE-483 BCE; Japanese, Shaka Nyōrai 釈迦如来) and the subsequent distribution of his bones and ashes among his followers. Relics are fundamental to Buddhist imagery in providing a concrete instantiation of the Buddha’s teachings and a physical manifestation of the deity’s presence.[21] But relics are not just a mere mnemonic
device to recall the Buddha’s actuality, as the practice of inserting texts and relics into icons was thought to “activate” the subject and produce a karmic bond between the statue and deities in the Buddhist pantheon, to “enliven” the image, or to commemorate the donor’s participation in the creation of the image. The initial insertion of these objects takes place as part of a consecration ritual—only when a statue has been consecrated can it be an object of worship, and this fact is sufficient to show that a Buddha statue is more than a mere reminder of the Buddha.[22] The practice of inserting a relic of the Buddha’s body
inside an image is ancient; Denise Leidy has suggested that already by the second century CE, Buddhist images in China were being consecrated with installed materials, in particular corporeal relics of deceased clerics and those of the Buddha,[23] and such traditions had been practiced in India from at least a century earlier.[24] The earliest statue containing inserted objects of this type in Japan is a figure of the historical Buddha Śākyamuni brought from China by the monk Chōnen 奝然 (938-1016), in 987 and housed at the Seiryō-ji 清凉寺 Temple in Kyoto.[25]
The provenance of the Sedgwick sculpture of Prince Shōtoku is not fully known, and although it contains so much interred material, there is no single dedicatory document that explains the circumstances of its production. However, when correlated with the elegant sculptural style, the high quality of the main figure and the apparent combination of Buddhist sectarian influences evinced by the various dedicatory objects [which combine Pure Land, Esoteric, and Zen Buddhist aspects, but appear to be most closely related to the revered Ritsu Shingon sect-
founder Eison 叡尊 (1201-1290)]—the latest dated item, a manuscript scroll of 1292, suggests a date for the entire ensemble. As such, this Shōtoku figure predates all other extant images of the same iconography by at least a decade, the nearest dated comparison being a 1302 statue now in Okubo, Nara prefecture. Extant 14th century examples[26] of the two-year old Shōtoku share common iconographical characteristics with the Harvard statue; the figures are clothed only in bright red hakama 袴 (split trousers), with a plump body and a firm stance, his hands joined in a precocious expression of piety. Prior to these sculptural forms there are examples of the Shōtoku Taishi iconography in two-
dimensional format, such as the handscroll in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.[27] In this scroll the same episode is illustrated as one of more than a hundred vignettes in a series known as Shōtoku Taishi eden 聖徳太子絵伝 (Illustrated Record of Shōtoku Taishi) —the earliest surviving example of which was painted for the Hōryū-ji 法隆寺 in 1069. Another similar namubutsu taishizō is also in the collection of Hōryū-ji, though it originally was housed at the Denkō-ji 伝香寺 (both are Nara temples).
Independent statues of the infant Shotoku calling the Buddha’s name were not created until later in the early thirteenth century,[28] becoming especially popular in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, about the same period as figures of the chigo Daishi also reached the height of their popularity.[29] During the time of political and social upheaval that recurred throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there was a general feeling of
unease and speculation that the world had entered mappō 末法, the third and final degenerate age of Buddhism. Anticipated to occur 2,000 years after the Buddha’s death, this is an age in which enlightenment is impossible due to the corrupt nature of society. For believers during this time a direct visual and conceptual link between the historical Buddha and Shōtoku provided reassurance that the new sects of Japanese Buddhism were authentic, and that spiritual leaders in Japan were capable of enlightenment.[30]
The statue of Shōtoku Taishi as an infant gives tangible form to the notion that the powerless in this world might achieve salvation through unquestioning childlike piety. Many religious leaders of the new sects of Buddhism in the Kamakura period such as Eison 叡尊 (1201-1290) and Ninshō 忍性 (1217-1303) preached that salvation was assured through faith in the earthly messengers of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, who, it was thought, were too remote in time and space to respond adequately to the needs of believers.[31] This made it an especially fitting object of devotion for individuals forgotten or rejected by society at large.
Katherine L. Brooks
Ph.D. candidate, Department of History of Art and Architecture
Harvard University
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts Graduate Student Research Assistant
Harvard Art Museums
Exhibition History
Later Chinese and Japanese Figure Painting in Decorative Arts
Harvard Art Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum (1992)
Paragons of Wisdom and Virtue: East Asian Figure Painting
Harvard Art Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum (1997)
Reflections of the Buddha (working title)
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, St. Louis (2011-2012)
Publication History
John M. Rosenfield, “The Sedgwick Statue of the Infant Shōtoku,” Archives of Asian Art, no. 22 (1968 - 1969), pp. 56-79.
Shimada Shūjirō, et al., eds. Chōkoku, Zaigai Nihon no shihō, vol. 8. Tokyo: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1980, no. 76.
Object as Insight: Japanese Buddhist Art and Ritual. Katonah, NY: Katonah Museum of Art, 1995, no. 33, pp. 88-89.
“Acquisition Highlights,” Annual Report of the Harvard University Art Museums, no. 2006/2007 (20062007), pp. 11-31.
List of Works Consulted
Azuma Kagami, in Kuroita Katsumi, ed., Shintei Zōho Kokushi Taikei, Tokyo: Yoshikawa, 1932, 32.
Shōtoku Taishi Denryaku, reproduced in Dai-Nihon Bukkyo denshō, 71, pp. 126-40.
Object as Insight: Japanese Buddhist Art and Ritual. Katonah, NY: Katonah Museum of Art, 1995, no. 33, pp. 88-89.
W. G. Aston, tr., Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697. George Allen and Unwin, London, 1956, part 2.
Yael Bentor, “On the Indian Origins of the Tibetan Practice of Depositing Relics and Dhâranîs in Stûpas and Images”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 115, no. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1995), pp. 248- 261.
Kevin Gray Carr, “The lives of Shōtoku: Narrative art and ritual in medieval Japan.” Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 2005.
Carmen Blacker, “The Divine Boy in Japanese Buddhism”, Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 22 (1963), pp. 77-8.
J. Edward Kidder Jr. , “Busshari and Fukuzō: Buddhist Relics and Hidden Repositories of Hōryū-ji,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 19, no. 2/3, Archaeological Approaches to Ritual and Religion in Japan (Jun. - Sep., 1992), pp. 217-244.
Michael Como, “Ethnicity, Sagehood, and the Politics of Literacy in Asuka Japan,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 30, no. 1/2 (Spring, 2003), pp. 61-84.
Richard Gombrich, “The Consecration of a Buddhist Image,” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 26, no. 1 (Nov., 1966), pp. 23-36.
Basil Gray, “A New Portrait of Shōtoku Taishi,” The British Museum Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 1/2 (Sep., 1962), pp. 47-49.
Christine M. E. Guth, “The Divine Boy in Japanese Art,” Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 42, no. 1 (Spring, 1987), pp. 1-23, especially pp. 9-13.
Gregory Henderson and Leon Hurvitz, “The Buddha of Seiryō-ji: New Finds and New Theory,” Artibus Asiae, vol. 19, no. 1 (1956), pp. 5-55.
Hori Ichira, “Mysterious Visitors from the Harvest to the New Year,” Richard Dorson, ed., Studies in Japanese Folklore, University of Indiana Press, 1963, pp. 76-77.
Joseph M. Kitagawa, “The Career of Maitreya, with Special Reference to Japan,” History of Religions, vol. 21, no. 2 (Nov., 1981), pp. 107-125.
Kuroita Katsumi, ed., Teiō Hen’nenki, in Shintei Zōho Kokushi Taikei, Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1935, 12, p. 119.
Denise Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan, Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 40-43.
Hayashiya Mikiya, Taishi shinkō (Tokyo, 1972), pp. 174-199.
Sherwood F. Moran, “The Statue of Fūgen Bosatsu, Okura Museum, Tokyo,” Ars Asiatiques, 7 (1960), pp. 287-310.
Sey Nishimura, “The Prince and the Pauper: The Dynamics of a Shōtoku Legend,” Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 40, no. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 299-310.
John M. Rosenfield, “The Sedgwick Statue of the Infant Shōtoku,” Archives of Asian Art, no. 22 (1968 - 1969), pp. 56-79.
Tanaka Shigehisa, Shōtoku Taishi Eden to Sonzō no Kenkyū (Kyoto, 1945), pp. 78-83.
Shimada Shūjirō et al., eds. Chōkoku, Zaigai Nihon no shihō, vol. 8, Tokyo: Mainichi shinbunsha, 1980, no. 76.
Alexander C. Soper, “A Pictorial Biography of Prince Shōtoku,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, ns, vol. 25, no. 5 (Jan., 1967), pp. 197-215.
Ogura Toyofumi, “Shōtoku Taishi Shinkō,” Kobijutsu, no. 7 (1965), p. 25.
K. Yamasaki and K. Nishikawa, “Polychromed Sculptures in Japan,” Studies in Conservation, vol. 15, no. 4, Special Issue on the Conservation, Technique and Examination of Polychromed Sculpture (Nov., 1970), pp. 278-293.
Tanaka Yoshiyasu, “Tanjōbutsu” in Nihon no Bijutsu 159, Shibundō, 1979.
[1] This precocious act is recounted in the early legendary histories such as Shōtoku Taishi denryaku and Taishiden kokon mokuroku, and is alleged to have taken place on the 15th day of the second month 575. [2] The earliest record of this type of image is found in an entry from 1210 of the Azuma kagami, under the date Jōgen 4 [1210], which mentions such an image installed in the private chapel of Minamoto no Sanetomo (ruled 1203-1219), cited in Kuroita Katsumi, ed., Shintei Zōho Kokushi Taikei, Tokyo:
Yoshikawa, 1932, 32, p. 653.
[3] For a comprehensive study of the statue and its contents, see John M. Rosenfield, “The Sedgwick Statue of the Infant Shōtoku,” Archives of Asian Art, no. 22 (1968 - 1969), pp. 56-79.
[4] For the development and nature of the yosegi tsukuri method, see Sherwood F. Moran, “The Statue of Fūgen Bosatsu, Okura Museum, Tokyo,” Ars Asiatiques, 7 (1960), pp. 287-310; Kurata Bunsaku, Butsuzō no mikata (Tokyo, 1965), pp. 182ff.
[5] For more detailed information on the compositions of such statues, see K. Yamasaki and K. Nishikawa, “Polychromed Sculptures in Japan,” Studies in Conservation, vol. 15, no. 4, Special Issue on the Conservation, Technique and Examination of Polychromed Sculpture (Nov., 1970), pp. 278-293. [6] There are doubts whether many of the specific reforms connected with his name are actually his work, or were even carried out during the course of his lifetime (for a summary of the textual sources for Shōtoku’s political actions, and their foundation in Chinese and Korean texts, see Michael Como, “Ethnicity, Sagehood, and the Politics of Literacy in Asuka Japan,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 30, no. 1/2 (Spring, 2003), pp. 61-84). However, regardless of the actual historical circumstances, he later became the subject of widespread cult as an apostle of Buddhism, a patron of the faith, and a paradigm of the continental idea of the Confucian sage-king.
[7] See Rosenfield, 1968, and Christine M. E. Guth, “The Divine Boy in Japanese Art,” Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 42, no. 1 (Spring, 1987), pp. 1-23, particularly pp. 9-13.
[8] Though this essay concentrates on the connections between Shōtoku and Buddhism, it should be noted that the ideal of behavior that Shōtoku exemplifies is often based on Chinese Confucian ethical principles. For instance, his first utterance as a toddler is an explanation of why the pine tree is to be more highly honored than the peach for its virtues (strength and endurance rather than mere ephemeral beauty). See Alexander C. Soper, “A Pictorial Biography of Prince Shōtoku,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, ns, vol. 25, no. 5 (Jan., 1967), p. 201. Shōtoku’s biography similarly states that he had mastered both Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings, and moreover places an emphasis upon Shotoku’s abilities in divination and to predict the future (see Como, 2003, p. 80).
[9] This relic is now enshrined at the Hōryū-ji temple. [10] Rosenfield, 1968, p. 56.
[11] W. G. Aston, tr., Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1956, part 2. p. 134.
[12] Guth, 1987, p. 9.
[13] See the studies by Carmen Blacker, “The Divine Boy in Japanese Buddhism,” Asian Folklore Studies, vol. 22 (1963), pp. 77-8, and Guth, 1987.
[14] Guth, 1987, p. 7.
[15] It is not certain when paintings of Chigo Daishi were first made. The earliest surviving versions, owned by the Kosetsu Museum, Kobe, and Daigo-ji, Kyoto, date to the mid-thirteenth century. At least thirteen versions of the Chigo Daishi theme ranging in date from the late thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries have come to light. Six are in Shingon temples associated with Kōbō Daishi, three are in Japanese museums or private collections, and four are in American museums (See Guth, 1987, p. 6). Little is known of the circumstances of the creation and use of these figures, but it is likely that they came into being in connection with the growth of the so-called Shikoku Pilgrimage, a lengthy pilgrimage around the Japanese island of Shikoku, visiting the eighty eight temples associated with Kōbō Daishi. [16] Examination of the Japanese connotations of the term taishi reveals an even more fundamental level of meaning underlying the cult and images of these two saints, in fact, underlying the image of the divine boy in general. In ancient Japanese belief, taishi, also read oko or oiko, denoted a child of the kami (spirits or natural forces in the Shintō faith) who every year traveled from one village to another in accordance with the seasons. This taishi generally appeared at harvest time or at the end of the year to instill new power in rice seeds and human beings in order to insure vigorous germination in the approaching spring (see Guth, 1987, p. 20)
[17] Guth, 1987, pp. 8-9
[18] Rosenfield, (1968-1969), pp. 56-79.
[19] The example enshrined at Zenpuku-ji, Hyōgo Prefecture, the information is recorded in the Taishiden Gyokurin-shō of c. 1448; also by Tanaka Shigehisa, Shōtoku Taishi Eden to Sonzō no Kenkyū (Kyoto, 1945), pp. 78-83.
[20] For a full list and examination of the sculpture’s contents, see Rosenfield, 1968.
[21] J. Edward Kidder Jr. , “Busshari and Fukuzō: Buddhist Relics and Hidden Rep
ositories of Hōryū-ji,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 19, No. 2/3, Archaeological Approaches to Ritual and Religion in Japan (1992), pp. 218.
[22] Richard Gombrich, “The Consecration of a Buddhist Image,” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 26, no. 1 (Nov., 1966), p. 25.
[23] Denise Patry Leidy and Donna Strahan, Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 40-43.
[24] Yael Bentor , “On the Indian Origins of the Tibetan Practice of Depositing Relics and Dhâranîs in
Stûpas and Images,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 115, no. 2 (Apr.-Jun., 1995), p. 251 [25] For a study of this figure see Gregory Henderson and Leon Hurvitz, “The Buddha of Seiryō-ji: New Finds and New Theory,” Artibus Asiae, vol. 19, no. 1 (1956), pp. 5-55.
[26] There are similar sculptures in Seattle Art Museum, The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Princeton University Art Museum.
[27] For an image of this section of the scroll, see Alexander C. Soper, “A Pictorial Biography of Prince Shōtoku,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, ns, vol. 25, no. 5 (Jan., 1967), p. 206.
[28] Guth 1987, p. 22.
[29] For the Chigo Daishi in the Murayama collection, see Tokyo National Museum, ed., Pageant of Japanese Art, vol. 1 (Tokyo, 1952), pl. 36; concerning the Chigo Monju, see Noma Seiroku in Kobijutsu, no. 11 (1965), pp. 77-80.
Standing Prince Shōtoku
[30] Further, Shōtoku Taishi is mentioned as having met Bodhidharma, the Buddhist patriarch who is credited with transmitting Buddhism from India to China, in Teiou hen’nenki and Buan Kyōge Kōshu, cited Hayashi Mikiya, Taishi Shinkō, Hyōuronsha, 1972, p. 217.
[31] According to the principles of honji suijaku in the Kamakura period, Buddhist deities were identified as the true or original forms (honji) and kami as their earthly manifestations or local avatars (suijaku). If the suijaku was to intercede effectively between man and god, it was essential that he assume a form that was meaningful to local devotees. Suijaku therefore were generally represented in Japanese guise. This outlook created a fertile ground for the identification of both Japanese historical figures and native deities as avatars of Buddhist deities. It also contributed to the popularization of child deities, who were but a different expression of the same idea.
