Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: The sacred image Eleven-Headed Kannon at Hasedera in Nara, originally carved in 727, has long been famous for its power to grant miracles.However, the image itself has had a rather calamitous history.By the start of the thirteenth century it had been destroyed three times by fire, and it burned again in 1219.Kaikei, one of the leading sculptors of the Kei school, was immediately commissioned to replace the statue.How was he able to transfer the numinous qualities of the lost original to the new image?How were those qualities instilled in other copies as the Hasedera cult spread across Japan?At a time when individual artists were increasingly aware of their own agency, how did they resolve the dilemma posed by replicating a sacred prototype?This paper focuses on the 1219 replacement by Kaikei (which burned in 1283), and a copy of that image by his disciple Chōkai, to examine the practice of copying sacred images in Japan.
Source: Ars Orientalis
Author: Samuel C. Morse
Language: English
Topic: Indian and Buddhist Studies
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W3125213424