EXPEDITIONS WERE regularly dispatched during late Heian Japan (794-1185) to remote Tohoku, northeast Honshu, where the aboriginal Emishi, ancestors of present-day Ainu were a constant threat. After a series of successful campaigns, a northern branch of the ruling Fujiwara patrons, known as the Oshu Fujiwara, became established there. Victor of the ‘Three Years’ war, Fujiwara no Kiyohira (1056-1128), carved out a near autonomous domain from his stronghold, Hiraizumi, unifying the region around Michinoku. A devotee of the Jodo, ‘Pure Land’ sect, Kiyohira found the perfect setting ‘blessed by water’ in Hiraizumi, his capital, built as a version of Heian-kyo, present day Kyoto. For a brief hundred years, from 1090 to 1189, Kiyohira, his son, Motohira (d.1157) and grandson, Hidehira (1096-1187) attempted to create at Hiraizumi, the earthly ‘western paradise’ of the Amida Buddha filled with temples. Kiyohira constructed the Amida Hall at the Chuson-ji, Motohira restored the Motsu-ji, and Hidehira built the Muryoko-in dedicated to the Amida Nyorai ‘Buddha of Infinite Light’. They presided over a Buddhist culture of rare artistry reflecting the refinement of the late Heian era that was uniquely transplanted to the northeast. This legacy was almost destroyed following the demise of the Oshu Fujiwara, when a fire in 1337 razed the capital to the ground leaving little evidence of its erstwhile splendour.
Hiraizumi: Pure Land in the Far Northeast of Japan is a special exhibition at the Setagaya Art Museum in Tokyo showcasing its artistic achievements, which have no parallel elsewhere in Japan. The exhibition has particular significance because the Iwate region seeks to have Hiraizumi, its religious sites and monuments designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The temple of Chuson-ji is the only major surviving structure in Hiraizumi today, and an important relic of late Heian Buddhist art and architecture. It was restored to its original state in 1962, and has been designated a National Treasure. Travelling for the first time is a reconstructed model of its Konjiki-do, ‘Golden Amida Hall’ around which are assembled an unprecedented display of late Heian religious art. To re-enact the culture of Hiraizumi, National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties from the Iwate region are supported by related specimens of Buddhist art from temples all over Japan. While focused on the Heian era, these objects, suggesting their continued religious relevance, stretch to Edo times (1615-1858).
Buddhism was believed to have reached the northeast or Tohoku during the tenure of the Ritsuryo state, established around 750. It was a governing structure linking the imperial court to the commoner, and had enacted penal laws dealing with possible Emishi transgressions. Early Buddhist imagery in the Ritsuryo state was likely associated with prayer. The Yakushi Nyorai, ‘Buddha of Healing’ holding a medicine jarlet in his left hand, and the deity, Kichijoten, originally the Indian goddess of wealth and beauty who assumed a protector role, were prominent. They proliferated until the 9th century, but declined thereafter because of prevailing conflict. When Kiyohira presided over the region, ‘Pure Land’ Buddhism revived the production of statuary to include Shinto deities. A rich and diverse belief system surfaced, of which the 11th-century standing Shokannon Bosatsu, an early ‘protector’ form was an outstanding example. An Important Cultural Property from the Tendaiji Temple of Iwate, it is a columnar and massive form – remarkable for its grace. Painted with colours on wood, the Bosatsu is symmetrically balanced and stands erect. Great technical detail has been applied to the drapery of his elaborate robe, and to his hands and feet; while the treatment of his facial features resulted in a benevolent countenance.
After Kiyohira pacified the Michinoku area, he accumulated much wealth from the abundant gold reserves in Tohoku. Constructing Hiraizumi in the grid pattern after Heian-kyo, he turned the Chuson-ji, originally a war memorial, into the greatest Buddhist monument in the northeast. In its heyday, it housed some 40 halls and pagodas. The symbol of the Oshu Fujiwara, the Konjiki-do or Amida Hall was built in 1124, a smaller version of the renowned Phoenix Hall, Ho-o-do of the Byodo-in of Uji in Kyoto prefecture. A specimen of late Heian architecture, the hall, constructed in wood with gold leaf over lacquer was described by the Azuma Kagami, a nine-volume chronicle and religious text published in 1661, as ‘having gold all over – on the top and the bottom, and on all four walls, both inside and out’. The compassionate Amida Nyorai, ‘Supreme Buddha’ is the focus of a gilded celestial assemblage enacted on a platform, in the late Fujiwara manner, probably the best preserved of this period and style in Japan. Backed by an elaborate mandorla, the deity is flanked by the Bodhisattvas Kannon and Seishi, six Jizo Bosatsu attendant figures and two guardian figures, Jikokuten and Zochoten. A work of great technical and religious complexity, Kiyohira intended the Amida Hall to be his final resting place; and the statuary was installed on three daises beneath which the tombs of Kiyohira, Motohira and Hidehira were later constructed.
During the hall’s restoration process in 1962, valuable objects recovered from the tombs were removed and stored in the Sankozo, a ‘treasure house’ in the vicinity. Some of them demonstrate influences from the Asian continent and the Silk Road, suggesting Hiraizumi was probably the furthest point in Japan for transmission of the Buddhist faith. Keman were ‘decorative pendant’ discs originally displayed hanging over the daises. Some 29 cm high by 33 cm wide, they were fashioned from delicate copper openwork plating with pairs of karyobinga, confronting mythical ‘bird women’ of Indian provenance bearing gifts for the Amida. Only 12 such discs are extant. Contact with China is suggested by rare Song dynasty (960-1279) finds. A qingbai bowl, a whiteware ewer as well as a five-pronged vajra, ‘thunderbolt’ object in plated cast bronze were found. The vajra is a symbol identified with Vajrapani, guardian of knowledge and faith, who is associated with Tantric or Esoteric Buddhism.
Peculiar to Tendai sects were mandalas, instruments of Esoteric meditation, intended to bring about a union with the devotee, and to raise consciousness. Many came in three-dimensional forms. Some proliferated on silk but because of their nature, few such mandalas have survived. The rare specimens that have, demonstrate the influences of Indian and Central Asian painting and also of the Tang Chinese style. ‘Pure Land’ silk mandalas tended to feature the Dainichi Nyorai, ‘Cosmic or Solar Buddha’ of Esoteric Buddhism, usually at the centre of a hierarchy of deities. The remarkable 12th-century 'Mandala of Amida’s Pure Land' from the Saizen-in Temple of Wakayama, has a colourful assembly of deities in a rational scheme, focused on the Amida. The undulating, Chinese-style landscape of temples and pilgrims depicting the Oshu Fujiwara capital appears on ‘Mandala of Pilgrimage the Temples at Hiraizumi’ of the 16th century, kept in the Chuson-ji.
Remnants in the northeast of the material culture of late Heian Japan, they tell us of its complex decorative traditions. Lacquer had been used from the Nara period onwards as a protective and preservative coating on personal boxes and small utensils. During the Heian era, a laborious ornamental technique called maki-e developed, where powdered gold dust was applied over a dark lacquered surface filled with mother-of-pearl inlay. It appeared lavishly on items of furniture and other accoutrements of the court. Lacquer’s durability is borne out by the four surviving makibashira, ‘pillars of maki-e’ supporting the Amida Hall. They are inlaid with floral arabesques in mother-of-pearl called hosoge, peony-like flowers of ‘wealth and honour’ and auspicious symbols in Tang China. An octagonal Shumidan dais of black lacquered wood has also withstood the ravages of time; its inlay motifs distinguished by the vajra ‘thunderbolt’ pattern mentioned above. This particular ornament appeared in modified form on a variety of lacquered worship platforms, incense tables, chime stands and candlesticks. Structural elements in the hall’s interior were held together by partial gilt bronze brackets used also as metal fittings. The platform holding the Buddhist statuary was supported by gilt bronze panels with motifs of peacocks and floral bouquets in low relief, also seen on bronze chimes.
As fervent believers, the Oshu Fujiwara sponsored the production of large numbers of sutras. The Kyozo, a ‘sutra library’ built to house these scrolls, lost its upper floor in the 1337 fire and only the ground floor remains today. In his lifetime, Kiyohira commissioned the 12th-century Issaikyo, ‘Complete Set of Buddhist Scriptures’ on indigo paper, also called the Daihatsu Nehangyo, Parinirvana Sutra Scroll (Parinirvana was the exalted state of the Buddha before his Enlightenment, before his final exit from the world). The only known example in the country, they are rarely displayed, and currently the property of the Kongobu-ji Temple, Wakayama. Printing had yet to reach the area and the ideograms were hand-copied, probably by monks, in solemn square script on alternating gold and silver lines. The diverse array of images and ‘Pure Land’ landscapes painted in gold and silver pigments on their frontispieces are important because they reveal the character of late Heian religious painting of which relatively little is known. Apart from Buddhist rites and rituals, sacred Noh performances requiring classical masks were enacted within temple compounds. One Jakujo ‘young woman’ sample in painted wood is an Important Cultural Property, dated 1291 in the Kamakura period. Only Edo period Noh robes have survived, and they are assembled with flutes, drums and percussion instruments to resurrect the Hiraizumi of the past. BY YVONNE TAN
From 14 March to 19 April, Hiraizumi: Pure Land in the Far Northeast of Japan is at the Setagaya Art Museum, 1-2 Kinuta-koen, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 157-0075. www.setagaayaartmuseum.or.jp
