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

The painting depicts the historical buddha Śākyamuni preaching to bodhisattvas, the Ten Great Disciples, the Four Heavenly Kings, and various devas on Vulture Peak, a mountain located outside the city of Rājagṛha in the ancient Indian kingdom of Magadha. In some Buddhist schools, Vulture Peak is considered the Pure Land of the buddha Śākyamuni. The mountains around Vulture Peak are in the background, and a natural landscape is in the foreground. Stylistically, Śākyamuni and the other deities are based on modes of Buddhist painting established in the Heian period (794–1185) but incorporate elements from Chinese works produced during the Song dynasty (960–1279) to create a fresh composition combining elegance and light brushwork. Particularly in the lower section, the natural landscape includes diverse topographical features, like mountains, rocks, mounds of earth, a waterfall, and the surface of a body of water. Pines and flowering trees appear as well. The use of vivid blue and green pigments is an authentic expression of Heian landscape styles that were rooted in Chinese landscapes from the Tang dynasty (618–907) and produces a rich depiction. The work, however, also reflects traits of the Kamakura period (1185–1333) in its neat organization and suggestion of stillness. The lower landscape takes up a considerable portion of the painting, and comparisons with other works reveal it is not simply a landscape, but depicts a path leading up to Vulture Peak. This makes it a unique painting that is not simply a scene of Śākyamuni preaching, but expresses a yearning to see historical sites associated with Śākyamuni.