@article{oai:tobunken.repo.nii.ac.jp:00006873,
 author = {久野, 健 and Kuno, Takeshi},
 issue = {217},
 journal = {美術研究, The bijutsu kenkyu : the journal of art studies},
 month = {Mar},
 note = {In old Japanese sculpture there is a group of statues referred to as Tachiki (Standing-tree) Buddhas. The majority of them are objects of religious worship in temples situated on mountains, and their distinctive characteristic is the rough style of carving as if sculptured on the trunk of a standing tree. Unlike ordinary statues they do not have constricted waists or bulging hips, but are almost cylindrical from the head down to the legs.
     It is another characteristic common among Tachiki statues that they, unlike ordinary Buddhist statues, are not placed on lotus pedestals. Some have the roots of the trees serving as their pedestals, and others are placed on simple “rock-shaped” pedestals which are all but natural blocks of wood.
     The examples of Tachiki statues known to date number nine including images of Shinto deities. Their distribution cover a wide range from Hiroshima (the statue of Fudō Myōō at the Fukuō-ji Temple) in the west to as far up north as Akita Prefectures. Why and by whom were such unusual statues made ?
     It is known from ancient literary sources that in Japan prior to the introduction of Buddhism in the sixth century there had been the custom of worshipping trees. The kusunoki (camphor tree) was revered specially highly. This must probably have some connection with the fact that most of the wooden Buddhist wooden Buddhist statues from the seventh century are carved of kusunoki wood. Veneration of kusunoki evidently carried on into the eighth century, as can be judged from the fact that the statue of Jūichimen Kannon (now lost) at the Hase-dera Temple in Nara is believed to have been carved of kusunoki wood. Tradition of the Hase-dera says that the tree from which the statue was carved was “a sacred tree”, proving that idea of carving Bu dhist statues out of sacred trees had already existed at the time. In the following ninth century trees for carving Buddhist statues from were even more strictly selected and more highly revered.
     Together with tree worship, worship of mountains was in practice in Japan since very early times. The mountains worshipped were those which were situated at geographically central locations or those covered with rank growth of trees; they were revered as the mountains where gods lived. Huge trees on such mountains, and aged trees that died of lightening, were also worshipped, as can be imagined from old literature. When Buddhism spread to local districts in the Heian Period (9th to 12th centuries), missionaries had the difficult task of teaching the Buddhist doctrine which was quite hard to understand for uneducated local populace. They therefore explained to them that Buddhism was welcome by the mountain gods and other native tutelary deities whom the local people worshipped, and gradually replaced their worship of native gods with belief in Buddhism. As a means of opening an approach to Buddhism for the local populace these missionay monks used sacred trees on mountains and trees felled by lightening for carving images of Buddhist deities. This, the writer thinks, was the origin of Tachiki statues. The statement accounts also for the fact that Tachiki statues are abundant in the Late Heian (10th to late 12th centuries) and the early part of the Kamakura (late 12th to early 14th centuries) Period.},
 pages = {1--16},
 title = {立木仏について},
 year = {1962}
}