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, sujiakugyou 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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