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

The sacred mountains of Kasuga Taisha Shrine—Mount Mikasa and Mount Kasuga—appear in the background of this mandala. The foreground contains a large deer as the divine messenger of the Kasuga deity. It glides upon clouds emerging from the mist and haze that cloaks the sacred landscape surrounding Kasuga Taisha Shrine. Outlined in red, a golden disk rising above Mount Kasuga represents the sun. The mist parts at the bottom of the painting to reveal Kasuga’s first shrine gate marking the sacred entrance into the shrine’s precincts. The shrine’s approach extends upward from it. Herds of deer can be seen on the Kasuga Plain on either side of the path.

Five branches extend from the sacred sakaki tree mounted upon the deer’s saddle. They are adorned with wisteria flowers and white streamers to mark the tree’s divinity as well as allude to Kasuga Taisha Shrine’s associations with the powerful Fujiwara clan, whose name means “wisteria field.” Five Buddhist deities stand at the ends of the branches. Facing these deities, from the right, we see the bodhisattva Monju (Skt. Mañjuśrī), the historical buddha Śākyamuni, the buddha Yakushi (Skt. Bhaiṣajyaguru), the bodhisattva Jizō (Skt. Kṣitigarbha), and the Eleven-Headed Bodhisattva Kannon (J. Jūichimen Kannon; Skt. Ekādaśamukha-avalokiteśvara). Under Shinto-Buddhist combinatory thought, these are the Buddhist forms of the Shinto deities Wakamiya and the deities of Kasuga’s first, second, third, and fourth shrines, respectively. The deities are painted in gold and appear together within a large mandorla-like golden disk symbolically representing a mirror hanging from the sacred sakaki tree as one of many material abodes where formless deities reside.

The Kasuga Deer Mandala is a type of votive painting featuring the sacred deer of Kasuga in the center. It reflects the belief that in the year Jingo Keiun 2 (768), the Kasuga deity (Kasuga Myōjin) rode from Kashima, Hitachi Province (now Ibaraki Prefecture), to Mount Mikasa, mounted upon a white deer. The Kasuga Deer Mandala is a specific type of Kasuga Mandala and over thirty examples remain extant. Among these, this painting features one of the more naturalistic depictions of a deer. The fur was drawn with delicate and detailed brushwork. The three-dimensional depth of the body and the texture of the horns are masterfully rendered. Furthermore, classical painting techniques have been used to create it, including urahaku, where gold leaf is applied from the reverse side of a silk gauze screen. This is used for the radiant disk of light around the Buddhist deities. The technique of urazaishiki, where pigments are applied from the back, is used to articulate the fur of the divine deer, with white being used in this case. This painting is dated to late in the Kamakura period (1185–1333) on the basis of the use of these techniques, making it extremely valuable as one of the oldest extant Kasuga Deer Mandalas.