請雨経曼荼羅図像|Iconographic Drawing of a Rainmaking Mandala

Unknown

12th century · Hanging scroll; ink on paper · Asian Art

This unusual mandala, a sketch from a compendium of esoteric Buddhist images, set in the watery world of dragon kings, was used in rites to end drought. Interestingly, there are no known polychrome or highly finished versions of this type of mandala, though they are recorded as having been used in sutra-reading services performed by monks from the Tōji and Daigoji temples in Kyoto as early as the ninth century. Perhaps these diagrams were made each time an extraordinary plea for rain was required. The transcendent repose of the bodhisattva Monju (Sanskrit: Manjushri), seated on a garuda bird and cloud at the center, is particularly striking amid the serpents and swirls of water that surround him. The text from which this visualization is drawn is known in Japanese as the Daiunrinshōukyō.

Artist

Unknown

Date

12th century

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink on paper

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard, and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975