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

Hannya Bosatsu is a bodhisattva unique to esoteric Buddhism and is said to be the personification of Buddha's perfect wisdom (hannya). The bodhisattva in this iconograph has three eyes and six arms and sits on a lotus pedestal in armor, which is almost identical with the iconograph of Hannya Bosatsu depicted in the Jimyoin section directly below the Chudaihachiyoin in the Genzu Taizokai Mandala (Womb World Mandala) that Kukai has brought back from China. This is the only single, colored image of Hannya Bosatsu that currently exists. There is another one in the form of a mandala, which has been handed down to Daigoji Temple.
This iconograph features careful descriptions of forms and coloring and the predominant use of cold colors, such as the blue and green that was often used in the Buddhist paintings of the Kamakura period. On the other hand, the overall color luminosity is high and a three-dimensional effect is produced using iroguma (a shading technique that uses light and dark colors) and white teriguma (white pigment is applied along a darker color to produce a highlighted effect) techniques. For the robe, a small flower pattern is applied using a light pink or light green pigment instead of kirikane (cut gold leaf) and their petals are outlined in white, which adds a plain atmosphere characteristic of the 11th-century Buddhist paintings to the iconograph. Considering the facts that the description of the details in this painting is similar to that in Buddhist paintings which were created in the 13th century in relation to Daigoji Temple and that a mandala of Hannya Bosatsu has been passed down to the temple, it is possible that this painting was created in relation to Daigoji Temple. This is a high-quality painting of the early 13th century, which also has traditional characteristics in terms of both iconography and coloring.