On view installation I, November 19, 2011 through February 5, 2012The monk Ninshun is accused falsely of immoral conduct with a woman. He prays for the intercession of the tenjin, or heavenly spirit, of Kitano Shrine, who reveals his slanderer to be a half-naked madwoman. She confesses her slander and begins dancing wildly. Ninshun is ordered to perform rites that will break the spell cast upon her, for which he receives a fine horse as a gift from the emperor. In this fragment, unlike in the Metropolitan Museum's version of the Kitano legend (25.224a–e), Ninshun's prayers to pacify the madwoman are not witnessed by a courtier. As the text does not mention the presence of such an observer, his inclusion was left to the discretion of the scroll's painter, whose depiction of the madwoman is livelier than that of her counterpart in the Metropolitan's version. There are more than thirty extant sets of handscrolls recounting Michizane's life and the miracles that led to the establishment of the cult of the Kitano tenjin. This fragment originally belonged to a set known as the Kenji version, which is dated to 1277.
