@article{oai:tobunken.repo.nii.ac.jp:00006926,
 author = {柳澤, 孝 and Yanagisawa, Taka},
 issue = {187},
 journal = {美術研究, The bijutsu kenkyu : the journal of art studies},
 month = {Mar},
 note = {The so-called painting of Careers of the Eight Ācāryas (Forefathers) of Shingon Buddhism (designated in this name as Important Cultural Property), affixed on the back sides of the bījā (Sanskrit monograms representing Buddhist divinities) Ryōkai-maṇḍala paintings in the collection of the Fujita Art Museum in Osaka, are important specimens of Japanese Buddhist painting dating back to the last part of the Fujiwara Period (twelfth century), and are notable for their unique subject matters. Here the present writer has published their colour and infra-red photographs for the first time in this essay, and she discusses chiefly about the subject of these two paintings.
     One of the paintings, judged from the inscription in a cartouche (written in China ink on paper) affixed on it, appears to show the Priest Śubhākarasiṃha (Shan-wu-wei in Chinese) obtaining a volume on the canons of service appended to the Dainichi-kyō Sūtra (Mahāvairocana-sūtra) at the Kaniṣka Stūpa; the other is inferred, from its composition showing the so-called Iron Caitya in South India, to illustrate the Priest Nāgārjuna coming into possession of the Kongōchō-kyō Sūtra (Sarvatathāgatatattvasangraha). The two sūtras are the scriptures of fundamental importance in the Shingon Sect of Esoteric Buddhism ; Ryōkai-maṇḍala, the maṇḍala of the two circles, Garbhadhātu and Vajradhātu, were conceived based upon them. It seems reasonable to consider that the two paintings under discussion, painted on the reverse sides of the bījā Ryōkai-maṇḍala, deal with the history of the two sūtras. By this reason, and also from the view-point of their compositions, the writer believes it unreasonable that some scholars presume these paintings to illustrate the careers of the priests Śubhākarasiṃha and Nāgārjuna within the group of the Eight Forefathers of Shingon Buddhism.
     It is to be noted that, in the case of the Fujita collection paintings, the Iron Caitya is found on the back of the Garbhadhātu Mandala, and the Kaniṣka Stūpa on the back of the Vajradhātu Maṇḍala. That is to say, the combinations of the obverse and reverse sides are reversed. Because the maṇḍala are not original but are works in the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries, this contradiction may be taken as the result of an erroneous re-mounting in some later period. However, the examples in the Daidempō-in Monastery at Kōyasan (founded in 1132) suggest that the combinations contain a special purport relating to the doctrine of the Shingon Sect. The Hongan Reizui, a book on biography of Priest Kakuban written in the thirteenth century, has a statement that the Ryōkai-maṇḍala paintings in the Daidempō-in had paintings of similar combinations on the reverse sides : that is, a picture of the Iron Caitya on the back of the Garbhadhātu Maṇḍala, and a picture resembling that of Kaniṣka Stūpa in the Fujita collection on the back of the Vajradhātu Maṇḍala. These facts can be understood to mean that the Fujita and Daidempō-in specimens are based upon the teachings of the Shingon Esoterism which insist that both the sūtras were obtained at the same time at the Iron Caitya in South India. It is interesting that the paintings in the Daidempō-in and those in the Fujita Art Museum can be dated in approximately the same period. The present writer is led to the belief that there was a practice in Shingon Esoterism to combine paintings of maṇḍala of the Two Dhātu with those illustrating the history of the two sūtras, and, furthermore, to combine the picture of the Iron Caitya, with the Garbhadhātu Maṇḍala, in order to set up a distinct discrimination from the doctrine of the Tendai Esoterism which insists that the two sūtras were inherited separately. The subject representing the scene of Śubhākarasiṃha at the Kaniṣka Stūpa was probably selected as an illustration of the most important event next to the Nāgārjuna's acquisition of the sūtras at the Iron Caitya.
     The writer needs not mention, however, that the subjects of the two paintings are closely associated with the careers of the Priests Nāgārjuna and Śubhākarasiṃha. The narrative style of their depiction is also noted. It appears probable that such paintings, originally intended for the above-mentioned purpose, later began to be combined with the traditional worship of the Eight Forefathers until they became graphic descriptions of the priests' careers.
     The writer, after noting and discussing on the technique of brushwork and the colouration employed in the subject paintings, finally concludes that, through comparison with their infre-red pictures, though there are certain slight retouchments done on them, their style of original description and brushwork suggests a date in the second quarter of the twelfth century, which corresponds to the style of the Chinese inscription in the cartouche, identified with the calligraphy of Sadanobu by Mr. Shimbi Tanaka.},
 pages = {36--52},
 title = {藤田美術館の密教両部大経感得図に就いて},
 year = {1957}
}