Page 46 - Bonhams Japanese Works of Art September 2015 New York

3057

PROPERTY FROM A CALIFORNIA COLLECTOR 3058
ANONYMOUS BUDDHIST
3057 Siddham Character ‘A’
ANONYMOUS BUDDHIST Hanging scroll, ink, color and gilt on paper; ajikan (letter A), the seed
(LATE HEIAN PERIOD, 12TH CENTURY) character of Mahavairocana, set on on eight-petaled lotus in the
Illustrated Sutra (Jingoji) center of a round moon
Handscroll, gold and silver on indigo-dyed paper, with gilt-copper 21 1/2 x 16 1/4in (54.3 x 41.3cm)
scroll ends; the frontispiece with the Buddha preaching to two monks $3,000 - 4,000
and accompanied by two bodhisattvas, followed by long passages of
scripture and with red seal of the Jingoji Temple The particular configuration of this Siddham letter is attributed to
10 x 164 1/4in (25.5 x 417.2cm) Amoghavajra (705-774), a monk from north India who came to China
$6,000 - 8,000 in 720 with his teacher Vajrabodhi (d.741). Siddham mantras and seed
syllables are used as aids for mediation.
This lavishly decorated sutra is part of a famous set of 5000 scriptures
that were said to have been commissioned by Emperor Toba (1103- 3059
1156), and completed by his son Emperor Go-Shirakawa in 1185. ANONYMOUS BUDDHIST
The frontispiece of the sutra depicts the Buddha preaching at Vulture Bukan and Tiger
Peak. At the beginning of the text, and below the title of the sutra, is Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk; of Fenggan seated with a tiger in
the seal of the Jingoji Temple in red. The text is written in gold clerical a landscape
script within lines ruled in silver. A very similar frontispiece illustration, With a wood storage box
together with the red seal of the temple, is in the collection of the 9 3/4 x 11 1/8in (25 x 28cm)
Goto Art Museum (Nihon no shakyo ten [Exhibition of copied Buddhist $1,500 - 2,000
scripture in Japan], Sano Art Museum, 1980, p. 58, fig. 39 and p. 77).
Other scrolls from the set are in the collections of the Kyoto National Fenggan (Japanese: Bukan) was a Tang dynasty monk noted for
Museum (www.kyohaku.go.jp/jp/dictio/shoseki/74jingoji.html) and eccentric behavior, often depicted with his pet tiger and featured in
the Art Institute of Chicago (2008.157; http://www.artic.edu/aic/ paintings of the “Four Sleepers.” He is reputed to have lived at the
collections/artwork/193241). Guoqingsi Temple on Mount Tiantai and to have mentored Shide
(Japanese: Jittoku).

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