National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

This black lacquered cylindrical shrine is one of a pair that previously held the 600 volumes of the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. They were originally enshrined in the Sutra Chanting Room of Kamigamo Shrine before being moved to Jinkō-in Temple in Kyoto. At present, one is owned by the Nara National Museum and the other by the Cleveland Museum of Art. Their designs are identical. An octagonal double-lotus pedestal is set at the bottom, followed by a round sixteen-petal lotus pedestal, and the cylindrical cabinet rests on top of them. The cabinet’s front half opens into double doors, and another sixteen-petal lotus pedestal is placed inside. The roof is octagonal with a lotus-shaped decoration (giboshi) placed on top. Below the eaves, an eight-petal lotus flower is inscribed with three-pronged vajra pestles placed between the petals to resemble the W omb World Mandala’s Hall of the Central Dais with Eight Petals (J. Chūdai-Hachiyō-in).

Four guardian deities are painted on each door. Together, the four doors of the two shrines are decorated with the Sixteen Guardian Deities of the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. The figures are painted in bright pigments and heavily decorated in cut gold leaf. The renderings share traits with Buddhist paintings from the Heian period (794–1185), but the deities’ iconographies differ from contemporaneous works. Some elements, like the deities’ armor, appear to come from overseas, suggesting the paintings may have been based on works from China’s Tang dynasty (618–907).

The interior back wall has the Sanskrit seed syllables for the buddhas Amida (Skt. Amitābha) and Śākyamuni, and the inner ceiling is adorned with a canopy. Marks remaining on the interior rear walls suggest each shrine held three tiers of 100 volumes each for a total of 300 volumes per shrine. The cylindrical shape of the shrine and the lotus-shaped decoration on top are intriguing, as they are nearly identical to designs used for sutra cases during the Heian period and offers insights into sutra adornment during this time. The Nara National Museum’s shrine still retains 166 volumes of the Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra.