The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Gilded wood sculpture of the standing Buddha Amida, a deity with long ears, short, dark hair created by neat rows of small knobs, a ribbon-like moustache, and a circular white spiral on his forehead. He holds his left hand down, palm up, and right hand up, pointer finger and thumb pressed together. He wears a robe draped in numerous flowing folds and patterned with bands of fine, leafy patterns amongst a continuous, rectangular spiral pattern.

Buddha of Infinite Life and Light (Amida Nyorai)

1269

Kōshun

(Japanese, active mid-1200s)

assisted by Koshin

(Japanese, active mid-1200s)

assisted by Joshun

(Japanese, active mid-1200s)
Japan, Kamakura period (1185–1333)
Cypress with lacquer, color, gold, cut gold, rock-crystal inlaid eyes, and quartz
Overall: 94.6 cm (37 1/4 in.)
John L. Severance Fund 1960.197
Location: 235B Japanese

Did You Know?

The lead sculptor was Kōshun, who had been granted the lofty title “Bridge of the Law.”

Description

This ornate Buddha Amida stands in a posture of welcome, greeting the dying who will accompany him back to his Pure Land. Documents inserted into the sculpture’s hollow core around the time of its creation include a copy of the sacred text Amida Sutra, a register of donors who desired to be joined together in generating karmic merit (kechien) through the creation and dedication of the sculpture, and a record asserting that the image was completed over the course of 33 days in 1269 at Shitennōji Temple in Osaka.
  • by 1931 or 1941
    Shitenno-ji Temple, Osaka, Japan
    ?–1960
    (Mayuyama and Company, Tokyo, Japan, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1960–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    Provenance Footnotes
    1 Ikeda Publ.: Ikeda Daisendo, Kobijutsu shuho, II (Kyoto, 1931), pls. 37, 38.publication date  either 1931 or 1941
  • Ikeda, Shōtarō 池田庄太郎. Ikeda Daisendō kobijutsu shūhō 池田大仙堂古美術集芳. Ōsaka: Ikeda Shōtarō, 1941. Reproduced: pls. 37, 38
    Lee, Sherman E. “Year in Review| 1960.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 47, no. 10, 1960, pp. 223–254. Mentioned: no. 19, p. 251; Reproduced: no. 19, p. 232 www.jstor.org
    Lee, Sherman E. “The Divine: And the Terrible.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 48, no. 1 (January 1961): 5–9. Reproduced: p. 6, fig. 1 www.jstor.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 275 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 275 archive.org
    The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 371 archive.org
    Lee, Sherman E., Michael R. Cunningham, and Ursula Korneitchouk. One Thousand Years of Japanese Art (650-1650): From the Cleveland Museum of Art. New York: Japan Society, 1981. Reproduced: cat. no. 11, p. 31
    Yoshiyasu, Tanaka, Kimiko Steiner, and Michael R. Cunningham. "The Statue of Amida Nyorai (Amitabha) Made by Kōshun." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 10 (1993): 378-93. Reproduced: cover, p. 379-81; Mentioned: pp. 378-393 www.jstor.org
    Yoshiyasu, Tanaka, Kimiko Steiner, and Michael R. Cunningham. “The Statue of Amida Nyorai (Amitabha) Made by Kōshun.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 10 (December 1993): 378–393. Mentioned: pp. 378–393; Reproduced: pp. Cover, 379, 380, 381 www.jstor.org
    Grossman, Nancy, James T. Ulak, Marjorie Williams, and Laurence Channing. Art of Japan: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2005. Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 34
    Franklin, David and C. Griffith Mann. Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2012. Mentioned and Reproduced: pp. 106–107
    "Reopening of the Asian Galleries at The Cleveland Museum of Art: An Interview with David Franklin." Orientations: The Magazine for Collectors and Connoisseurs of Asian Art, vol. 44, no. 8 (November/December 2013): pp. 60-63. Reproduced: p. 61
    Dobbins, James C. Behold the Buddha: Religious Meanings of Japanese Buddhist Icons. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2020. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 8-9, fig. 5
  • Japanese Gallery 235 Rotation - July 2017-January 2018. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (July 15, 2017-January 2, 2018).
    Streams and Mountains Without End: Asian Art and the Legacy of Sherman E. Lee at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 27-August 23, 2009).
    One Thousand Years of Japanese Art (650-1650) from The Cleveland Museum of Art. Japan House Gallery, New York, NY (March 19-May 17, 1981).
    Juxtapositions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (September 11-October 10, 1965).
    Year in Review - Nineteen Hundred Sixty. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 30, 1960-January 1, 1961).
  • {{cite web|title=Buddha of Infinite Life and Light (Amida Nyorai)|url=false|author=Kōshun, Koshin, Joshun|year=1269|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1960.197