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

Daoxuan (posthumous title Nanshan Dashi; 596–667) was a Chinese Buddhist monk during the early Tang dynasty (618–907). Daoxuan was an important figure in the Lu (J. Risshū; Skt. Vinaya) school who wrote the Commentary on Monastic Practices from the Vinaya in Four Parts (Ch. Sifen lu xingshi chao) and founded the Nanshan Lu school. Among his many achievements, he is known for having contributed to the monk Xuanzang’s sutra translations as well as authoring numerous seminal works, including the Great Tang Catalogue of Buddhist Scriptures (Ch. Da Tang neidian lu), the Buddhist historical chronicle Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks (Ch. Xu gaoseng zhuan), a text describing Buddhist landmarks in India called Shijia fangzhi, and a text he compiled to protect Buddhism titled Expanded Collection on the Propagation and Clarification of Buddhist Doctrines (Ch. Guang hongming ji). The monk Jianzhen (J. Ganjin; 688–763) founded the Lu school’s Japanese counterpart, the Risshū school, and spread Daoxuan’s teachings on the Vinaya in Four Parts (J. Shibun ritsu; Ch. Sifen lu) during the Nara period (710–794). The Risshū school was revived in Kyoto and Nara during the Kamakura period (1185–1333), at which time many portraits of the school’s patriarch Daoxuan were made.

In this portrait, Daoxuan is dressed in black monastic robes and holds a fly whisk. He is painted from a diagonal angle while seated in a Buddhist chair with a high back (kyokuroku) covered with an outer coat (happi). The painting follows the style of an earlier portrait of Daoxuan that was produced as a pair with a portrait of the Vinaya master Yuanzhao (1048–1116) (Important Cultural Property, Sennyūji Temple) in the year Jiading 3 (1210) during China’s Southern Song dynasty and brought to Japan by Shunjō (1166–1227), the founder of Sennyūji Temple, after he studied the teachings of the Lu school in China during the Kamakura period. This portrait is a carefully produced copy that, although more formalized, shares the same realism found in the Sennyūji portrait in the figure’s head shape, up-angled eyes, and unique facial features. These elements show how the image brought from Song China was held in high regard as the “original” portrait and disseminated. The name Chengzhao seen in the inscription is a posthumous title bestowed on Daoxuan by Emperor Yizong of Tang (833–873; r. 859–873). The work was formerly preserved in the collection of the Morimura family.