Myouken　妙見

KEY WORD :　art history / iconography

Sk: Sudrsti, also Sonshouou 尊星王 or Hokushin bosatsu 北辰菩薩. Originally a deification of the Polestar, hokushin 北辰 but later also regarded as a deification of the Big Dipper, hokuto 北斗 because of confusion between the two. Although popularly regarded as a bodhisattva *bosatsu 菩薩, and usually referred to as Myouken bosatsu 妙見菩薩, properly speaking she belongs to the category of divinities *ten 天, and in the jimon 寺門 branch of the Tendai 天台 sect she is equated with *Kichijouten 吉祥天. She is invoked in particular for apotropaic purposes and also for the healing of eye diseases. In Japan she appears to have been widely revered as early as the Heian period, and in medieval times she came to be worshipped especially among powerful provincial clans as a tutelary deity of the warrior class, evolving into the partially Shintoized deity Myoukenjin 妙見神. At the same time she was also adopted by the *Nichiren 日蓮 sect and remains the object of a popular cult today. Artistic representations of Myouken exhibit considerable diversity, and there is a set of twenty-six paintings, all different, at Daigoji 醍醐寺 Kyoto, but generally speaking she is depicted with either two or four arms and either seated on a cloud or standing on the back of a dragon. Myoukenjin has a halo showing the seven stars of the Big Dipper and holds a sword in one hand. There is also a mandala *mandara 曼荼羅 centred on her, Myouken mandara 妙見曼荼羅.

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