神於寺縁起絵巻断簡|Scene from The Illustrated Legends of Jin’ōji Temple

Unknown

early 14th century · Fragment of a handscroll mounted as a hanging scroll; ink and color on paper · Asian Art

Jin’ōji Temple is associated with the ascetic hermit monk En no Gyōja. Legend has it that he ordered a shikigami (a local deity represented as a small ghost) to guide the Korean deity Hōshō Gongen (Korean: Boseung gwanhyeon) to Jin’ōji. Here, Hōshō Gongen appears as an armed guardian atop a pine tree, while one of the monk’s servant-demons kneels before him in adoration. This fragment originally belonged to a set of illustrated scrolls recounting the history of the temple. The set was cut into sections that have since been remounted as hanging scrolls and dispersed among collections in Japan and America.

Artist

Unknown

Date

early 14th century

Medium

Fragment of a handscroll mounted as a hanging scroll; ink and color on paper

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015