kubon raigou　九品来迎

KEY WORD :　art history / iconography

Also called kubon oujouraigou 九品往生来迎. The nine possible levels of birth into *Amida's 阿弥陀 Paradise gokuraku 極楽. Raigou refers to the welcoming descent of the Buddhas who greet the newly born into Paradise. According to the KANMURYOUJUKYOU 観無量寿経, there are three classes of birth, each class being divided into upper, middle and lower levels, for a total of nine in all. The faithful are born into the level appropriate to the depth of their ascetic practice and the degree of their capabilities. Each level of birth has an appropriate raigou grouping, and Amida appears with the appropriate mudra gesture. In practice, however, for kubon Amidas 九品阿弥陀, there seem to have been little strict adherence to any group of nine mudras. The earliest appearance in Japan of such depictions is the three scenes of the Sixteen Contemplations juurokkan 十六観 located in the bottom court of the *Taima mandara 当麻曼荼羅, dated from the latter half of the 8c. In the early Heian period, independent kubon raigou paintings adorned wooden doors and panels of buddhist halls such as the *Jougyoudou 常行堂, on Mt. Hiei 比叡. The earliest extant examples are the wooden door paintings in Byoudouin *Hououdou 平等院鳳凰堂 (1053), Kyoto. When Nine kubon oujou Amida 九品往生阿弥陀 appear in sculptural form, they are known as Kutai Amida 九体阿弥陀 (the Nine Amida Images), and are installed as a group in a large Nine Amida Hall, Kutai Amidadou 九体阿弥陀堂, the only extant example being the 12c hall at Joururiji 浄瑠璃寺, Kyoto.

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