The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of June 25, 2022

Iconographical Sketch (Zuzō) for the Benevolent Kings Sutra Mandala

仁王経曼荼羅図像

1100s

Japan, Heian period

(794–1185)

Hanging scroll; ink on paper

Image: 122.1 x 112.3 cm (48 1/16 x 44 3/16 in.); Overall: 203.2 x 137.1 cm (80 x 54 in.)

Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1987.39

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The deity at the center is Fudō Myōō, the Immovable One.

Description

The Benevolent Kings Sutra has been a highly valued Buddhist scripture in Japan since the Nara period (710–794), when it started to be recited in a ceremony to pray for the peace and protection of the country. In the 800s, the monk Kūkai brought back from China a new translation of the text as well as Buddhist iconographic sketches to perform the rituals based on the sutra. Five scroll sets of copies of the original sketches brought by Kūkai are preserved in Daigoji and Tōji temples in Kyoto. This sketch, which has figural depictions of deities on the front and deities symbolized by objects on the back, differs in some ways from each of those sets, and represents an alternate approach to creating a mandala based on the Benevolent Kings Sutra.

Exhibition history

Nara National Museum, Japan (2/21-3/29/98); Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo (4/28-6/21/98) "Highlights of Asian Painting from The Cleveland Museum of Art" p.82, cat. no. 51

Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 119); October 29, 2003 - March 15, 2004.

Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer). Tokyo National Museum (1/15/2014 - 2/23/2014) and Kyushu National Museum (7/8/2014 - 8/31/2014): "Admired from Afar: Masterworks of Japanese Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art", cat. no. 4, p. 31.

The Year in Review for 1987. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 24-April 17, 1988).

Highlights of Asian Paintings from The Cleveland Museum of Art. Nara National Museum (organizer) (February 21-March 29, 1998); Suntory Museum of Art (April 28-June 21, 1998).

Admired from Afar: Masterworks of Japanese Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, Japan (January 15-February 23, 2014); Kyushu National Museum, Fukuoka, Japan (July 8-August 31, 2014).

Japanese Gallery 235 Rotation - July 2017-January 2018. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (July 15, 2017-January 2, 2018).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1987.39