shisui　四睡

KEY WORD :　art history / paintings

Ch:sishui. Lit. four sleepers. A painting subject of the Tang dynasty eccentrics *Bukan 豊干 (Ch:Fenggan), his pet tiger, and Kanzan 寒山 (Ch:Hanshan) and Jittoku 拾得 (Ch:Shide) sleeping together (see *Kanzan Jittoku 寒山拾得). The theme is said to illustrate the tranquility and unity of enlightened minds. Bukan lived at the monastery of Guoqingsi 国清寺 near Mt. Tiantai (Jp:Tendai 天台) where he found and raised the orphaned Jittoku. Bukan's spiritual awareness was such that he chose a tiger for a companion, and, one assumes, that the tiger was similarly enlightened. Paintings of the theme date from the Southern Song dynasty. In Japan, the example by Mokuan 黙庵 (d. ca. 1345) in the Maeda Ikutokukai 前田育徳会, Tokyo, is particularly famous.

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