sankei mandara　参詣曼荼羅

KEY WORD :　art history / iconography

Large scale hanging scroll paintings of the landscapes of shrines and temples which include images of pilgrims worshipping at the site as well as of historical and miraculous events which took place there. Most sankei mandara have a similar format regardless of the actual landscape of the site. They show a central mountain flanked by the sun and moon, thus presenting the site as the center of the world. Although some sankei mandara are finely made, many are roughly executed but have considerable charm . Paintings given the name of a shrine or temple before the word *mandara 曼荼羅 are often sankei mandara. A sankei mandara may be worshipped as a model of a site and may also advertise and explain a site: an example of this would be some *Kasuga mandara 春日曼荼羅. Examples of sankei mandara survive from the late Muromachi and Edo periods, when they were used as visual aids for the telling of stories *etoki 絵解 about a sacred site. This story telling was undertaken by hijiri 聖, oshi 御師 and miko 巫女, who were all lower-class Buddhist and Shinto priests and priestesses charged with the duties of organizing pilgrimages and providing religious entertainment. Because they were much transported sankei mandara used for this purpose are well designed for popular storytelling and sometimes show fold marks. Sankei mandara may be called *miya mandara 宮曼荼羅 or engi-e 縁起絵. Miya mandara are devotional paintings of the landscape of the shrine only, while the term engi-e is much broader and refers to paintings of hanging and handscroll format that tell the legendary history of a shrine or temple.

REFERENCES:

*shaji engi-e 社寺縁起絵

EXTERNAL LINKS:

NOTES:

(C)2001 Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System.　No reproduction or republication without written permission. 掲載のテキスト・写真・イラストなど、全てのコンテンツの無断複製・転載を禁じます。