The Hasedera Juichimen Kannon: Popularization of Buddhist Belief and Icon Cult

The Tenjukoku Shucho Mandara consists of fragments of embroidered textile arbitrarily mounted on a support fabric. Analysis of the structure of the fabric and the abundant documentary evidence associated with the fragments allows us to reconstruct the history of the artifacts to which they belonged. Accordingly, a group of fragments are the remains of a Shucho (shu, embroidered, and cho, curtains) with a depiction of Tenjukoku (ten, heaven; ju, span of life; and koku, land) made some time after the death of Prince Shotoku (574-622 C.E.) and his mother, Empress Anahobe no Hashihito, as indicated by an inscription recorded in Jogu Shotoku h$\overline{oo}$ teisetsu. The other group are the remains of a replica, called Tenjukoku Mandara, that was made in 1275. Since the fragments now belong to the Buddhist nunnery of Chuguji, the replica is called a mandara, and especially because of the relationship with Prince Shotoku (who is considered to be the key figure of the establishment of Buddhism in Japan), the fragments are considered to be examples of Buddhist pictorial art. The goal of most studies was to interpret Tenjukoku, a word that apparently does not appear in the Buddhist sutras, and a variety of theories were formulated. Since most of the studies hardly take the visual material into account, this study presents an analysis of all the motifs on the fragments and attempts to reconstruct the iconography of the embroidered curtains. The motifs are closely related to those appearing in the funerary monuments in China and on the Korean peninsula, dated to the fifth and sixth centuries. Consequently, it is likely that the original embroidered curtains, as part of the funerary paraphernalia, were the visual record of the various rituals performed after the death of the Prince, and not associated with Buddhist ideas as it was argued before. On the other hand, the analysis of documents that refer to the Kamakura period events indicate the original curtains were considered to be relics of the patron of Chuguji, Empress Anahobe no Hashihito, and as such, together with the replica served in the fund raising activities for the reconstruction of the temple by legitimizing its history.