Mandala of Kasuga Shrine

An Elysian landscape, in which blossoming cherry and plum mingle with pines and cypresses, unfolds before us. Prancing deer, crimson torii gates, and bridges lead the eye toward a complex of Shinto buildings, standing serenely at the foot of a mountain. The golden moon that casts its glow indicates both that it is night and that the site is sacred ground. At the top of the scroll are five Buddhist deities, each seated within his own mandorla. From right to left, they are the Jūichimen (Eleven-Headed) Kannon (Skt: Ekadashamukha), Fukūkenjaku Kannon (Amoghapasha), Yakushi (Bhaishajyaguru), Jizō (Kshitigarbha), and another Jūichimen Kannon.

The composition follows the basic iconographic canon for paintings generically known as Kasuga Shrine mandalas, a canon firmly established by the close of the thirteenth century. Together with approximately one hundred similar paintings, the scroll depicts the Kasuga Shrine (fig. 26) and its precinct in a half-idealized, half-realistic manner. The Kasuga area of Nara, extolled since ancient times for its natural beauty, is the site of three of the most important religious institutions in the region: the Buddhist temples Tōdaiji and Kōfukuji, and the Shinto Kasuga Shrine. With the notable exception of Todaiji, erected by order of Emperor Shōmu in 752 as the headquarters of the Buddhist establishment, these structures were built (Kōfukuji in 720 and Kasuga in 768) by the Fujiwara clan. The Kasuga Shrine was dedicated to the clan's guardian deity, Ame no Koyane no Mikoto, and his consort; two additional gods, protectors of eastern Japan, were later invoked to join them. In 1135, a new edifice was constructed to house the Wakamiya (Young Prince), the purported son of Ame no Koyane. This building, also known as the Wakamiya, is shown in the painting to the right of the shrine complex.
Kasuga Shrine mandalas are testimonials to the efforts made by both Buddhists and Shintoists to reconcile the two religions in order to ensure mutual survival and prosperity. The first references to paintings depicting the Kasuga Shrine precinct appeared in courtiers' journals in the early 1180s.[1] Apparently, such paintings were worshiped in the homes of aristocrats as a substitute for visiting the site. An ostensibly realistic view of the precinct, with vegetation, buildings, and sacred deer—intermediaries between gods and humans—was thus requisite. Paintings of such scenes were displayed in a special ceremony held at the shrine on May 21 of each year.
The Kasuga gods were regarded as potent protectors of Kōfukuji and its deities. As the Fujiwara clan turned increasingly to the Buddhist Pure Land sect in the twelfth century, they viewed the sacred mountains beyond the shrine and the area around Kasuga as a Shinto paradise on earth, paralleling the Pure Land of Amida Buddha.[2] Just as Buddhist Pure Land paintings showed Buddhas and bodhisattvas in their beautiful residences, Shinto mandalas were viewed as depictions of places where native gods dwelled. This tolerant, even conciliatory attitude on the part of Buddhists toward Shintoism no doubt contributed to the development of honji suijaku, the concept by which Shinto gods were regarded as manifestations of Buddhist deities. In Shinto shrine mandalas the two faiths coexisted, and the native reverence for nature was used to appeal to adherents and to deepen their faith in indigenous gods.
Although they are known as mandalas, Shinto shrine paintings such as this example differ from the rigidly schematized mandalas of Buddhism. Kasuga Shrine mandalas represent a bird's-eye view, allowing more space for the natural environment than for the shrine structures. While the latter are not rendered in a highly realistic manner, with every architectural detail reproduced, their general appearance corresponds to that of the actual buildings as they have existed since 1179. The nucleus of the compound faces south (to the right), while the Wakamiya in its own precinct faces west. Indeed, such mandalas often functioned as general guides during the periodic reconstruction of shrine buildings.
Names of painters are seldom attached to Kasuga Shrine mandalas, though it is generally believed that the mandalas were painted by artists from workshops in Nara, especially those active at Kōfukuji. Although they mainly produced Buddhist icons for temples, they also made secular works, such as pictorial histories of temples and illustrated biographies of famous monks. They may also have produced purely secular landscapes, such as meisho-e (pictures of famous views).[3] Some of these may have resembled the Burke mandala in its rendering of a gentle landscape— low-lying hillocks bathed in the golden light of a full moon, flowering trees partly hidden by mist, and darkly silhouetted mountains in the distance.
This small but elegant painting was most likely commissioned—as were most Kasuga Shrine mandalas—by an aristocrat from Kyoto, the capital city. In the absence of extant yamato-e, or Japanese-style, landscape paintings from the Heian and Kamakura periods, Kasuga Shrine mandalas such as this one serve as vivid reminders of the lost splendors of secular landscape imagery. The bandlike fingers of mist (suyari gasumi) and the depiction of Mount Mikasa with patches of forest are reminiscent of features found in other paintings of the mountain dating to the beginning of the fourteenth century. We would therefore posit a date for the Burke mandala shortly after the standard composition for Kasuga Shrine mandalas was firmly established at the end of the thirteenth century.[4]
[Miyeko Murase 2000, Bridge of Dreams]
[1] A ritual involving Kasuga paintings performed in May 1184 is described in the Gyokuyō, a journal kept by the courtier Kujō Kanezane (1149–1207); see Kujō Kanezane 1993. See also Kawamura Tomoyuki 1981, pp. 92ff.
[2] For a comparison between paintings of the Buddhist Pure Land and Shinto shrine mandalas, see Gyōroku Shin'ichirō 1994, p. 244.
[3] Ibid., pp. 240–57.
[4] Ibid., pp. 242–43. Some scholars attribute this painting to a secular artist. See Sasaki Kōzō and Okumura Hideo 1979, no. 149.

[ Setsu Gatōdō Co., Ltd. , Tokyo, 1978; sold to Burke]; Mary Griggs Burke , New York, (from 1978; transferred to Foundation); Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation , New York (until 2015; donated to MMA)

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