songyou mandara　尊形曼荼羅

KEY WORD :　art history / iconography

Lit. mandala in the form used for worship. Devotional paintings (usually on large hanging scrolls) showing the deities of a shrine appearing in human forms. The deities are dressed either in their Shinto or Buddhist attire and arranged in geometric composition as seen in the Buddhist mandala *mandara 曼荼羅. A type of suijakuga 垂迹画 (painting based on the theories of Buddhist/Shinto unity). They include: (1) suijaku mandara 垂迹曼荼羅, also more properly, suijiakugyou mandara 垂迹形曼荼羅, or suijakushin mandara 垂迹神曼荼羅, in which the deities *kami 神 are represented as Japanese courtiers, Buddhist monks (see *sougyou hachiman 僧形八幡), young boys *douji 童子, or Chinese ladies; (2) honji mandara 本地曼荼羅, also more properly honjibutsu mandara 本地仏曼荼羅, in which the kami are represented in the form of their Buddhist counterparts *honjibutsu 本地仏; and (3) honjaku mandara 本迹曼荼羅, abbreviation of honji suijaku mandara 本地垂迹曼荼羅, in which the kami are represented in both their suijaku and honjibutsu forms. As opposed to songyou mandara, devotional paintings of the landscape of a shrine and its surrounding area without the depiction of a kami in its human form are called *miya mandara 宮曼荼羅.

REFERENCES:

*Shintou bijutsu 神道美術, *Kasuga mandara 春日曼荼羅, *Sannou mandara 山王曼荼羅, *Kumano mandara 熊野曼荼羅

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