Bodies and Benefits

Painted and printed sets of Thirty-three Kannon transported from China in the fifteenth century inspired the shift to Thirty-three Kannon worship. This new theme in Japan is exemplified by the celebrated set from 1412 attributed to Minchō. Another area of transition between the Six and Thirty-three Kannon cults is in the fact that the main temple icons of the major Thirty-three Kannon pilgrimage routes all feature one of the Six Kannon rather than any of the thirty-three images described in the Lotus sūtra or those imported from China. Within the context of pilgrimage, one surprising area of transition between the cults is found in the imagery cast into large bronze bells used at Buddhist temples. Finally, beginning in the seventeenth century, boundaries of the distribution of multiple Kannon imagery were pushed even further as publications of the printed iconographic manual Butsuzō zui, which clearly organized illustrations of groups of Seven and Thirty-three Kannon, rapidly proliferated throughout Japan and then abroad, giving Kannon worldwide exposure.

Traveling Sets and Ritual Performance

Two wooden sculpture sets of Six Kannon, the thirteenth-century set from Daihōonji in Kyoto attributed to the artist Higō Jōkei and the fourteenth-century set from Tōmyōji in the Minami Yamashiro district of Kyoto, are well-documented sets that show the history, modifications, and movement of the cult. Copious inscriptions inside images in the respective sets reveal diverse sponsorship, from an elite female patron in the former to a huge group of patrons from a variety of backgrounds in the latter. Extant thirteenth- to fifteenth-century written records on ritual procedures, such as Roku Kannon gōgyōki, which focused on Six Kannon, contribute to the knowledge of how the rituals related to Six Kannon were performed as well as how the Six Kannon functioned in response to different needs, such as assisting with the six paths, protecting the dharma, or bolstering sectarian heritage, throughout their changing circumstances and movement over time.

A Vision at Six Kannon Lake and Six Kannon/Six Kami in Kyushu

The island of Kyushu has an exceptionally high concentration of documentary and physical evidence of past Six Kannon practice in Japan. The miraculous story of the Six Kannon images that appeared at Six Kannon Lake in the Kirishima Mountains fueled the worship of the cult. The varied cult imagery from Kyushu includes the incised bronze sutra container from Chōanji dated to 1141 that had been buried in a mountain in Kunisaki, to a sixteenth-century set from Chōkyūji made by the Shukuin busshi group of sculptors, to the Fumonji seventeenth-century set that had dual Buddhist-kami identities, which was relocated several times over the centuries between different temples and shrines in the Sagara domain. This chapter’s geographic approach makes clear that the strategy of matching Six Kannon with six kami, or six gongen, was a major driving force for the cult in the region of Kyushu.

Reconstructing Six Kannon from the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries

In the tenth century Tendai and Shingon School monks adopted and modified six types of Guanyin found in early Chinese texts, especially Mohe zhiguan, into a cult in Japan. As the monks promoted the constellation of these images as particularly efficacious, sculpture sets were installed at temples in the capital. Many of the main sites that housed Six Kannon images in the Heian period (794–1185) are gone and known only through records, such as the Kyoto temples Hosshōji and Hōjōji. However, rare early vestiges of former sets from this period are found in sculptures from Buzaiin in Ishikawa and Konkaikōmyōji in Kyoto. Evidence for early Japanese images of Six Kannon and their records, such as iconographic manuals, diaries, and chronicles, demonstrate the wide extent of the cult and its images that flourished under elite patronage in the Heian period.

Introduction

As this book makes former groups of Kannon visible, it also explores the fluidity of numerical categorizations of deities that attempt to quantify invisible beliefs. Although initially formed with the idea of corresponding to the six paths of transmigration in Buddhist thought, the Six Kannon were anything but a monolithic cult. As the Lotus sūtra explains, in order to save a sentient being most expediently Kannon can assume thirty-three different types of bodies. Yet the plethora of images of Kannon seen all over the world reveals that there are many more forms and that the number thirty-three stands for the great number of variations Kannon can take. Pious motivations commonly drove the faithful to use creative calculations to adjust the number of Kannon to suit their needs.

Searching for Stones in the Unstable Landscape of Kannon

In a remote setting at the base of Mount Wakakusa in Nara, not far from Tōdaiji Great Buddha Hall and Kasuga Shrine, is an unusual stone Buddha head, known as “Hora no buttōseki” (Stone Buddha head in the grotto). The head is perched atop a pillar that has reliefs of the Six Kannon and an inscription dating to 1520. By way of a conclusion, this monument is examined in terms of the themes treated in the book: landscape and sacred geography, text and image relationships, ritual practice, ritual lives of objects, and numbers of Kannon.

Painting the Six Kannon

A centerpiece of the corpus of extant iconic image sets of Six Kannon painting, of which five originals survive, is the large fourteenth-century set from the Hosomi Museum in Kyoto. Just how unstable the number six can be is demonstrated in the Six Kannon cult by the establishment of the Seven Kannon group, which is a phenomenon where both alternate Kannon types (Fukūkenjaku and Juntei used by Shingon and Tendai respectively) are included in one group. The Kyoto temple called Shichi Kannon’in historically enshrined such an example. Six Kannon joined by one Seishi (Skt. Mahāsthāmaprāpta), commonly misidentified as “Seven Kannon,” were worshipped in the practice of the once popular but now almost unknown Edo-period ritual called Shichiyamachi (Seven nights of waiting). Other paintings of Six Kannon, such as the sixteenth-century set from Kōdaiji that includes paintings of the Six Kannon along with Thirty-three Kannon, served a pivotal role in the transmission and subsequent expansion of the Six Kannon cult.

The Six-Syllable Sutra Ritual Mandala and the Six Kannon

Images of Six Kannon appear in paintings of the Six-syllable mandala (Rokujikyōhō mandara) made during the thirteenth through the nineteenth century. The mandalas include syllables, which are abbreviated forms of Sanskrit letters, alongside Kannon images in body forms that recall earlier descriptions of Chinese images. As these mandalas served as the central focus of rituals performed to avert calamities, help with safe childbirth, and remove or redirect curses, they also demonstrate how the goals for Six Kannon worship came to emphasize practical, earthly concerns. Even though the Six-syllable sutra rituals were frequently performed, Six-syllable mandalas that depicted Six Kannon images were not the only type of painting used in the ritual. Hence, Six-syllable mandalas that include Six Kannon are scarce. Early surviving examples, such as those from Kyoto National Museum, Daigoji, Yamato Bunkakan, and Museum of Fine Arts Boston, are precious resources that show the development of the imagery and rite.