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

　Jizo (Skt. Kṣitigarbha) was entrusted with instruction the sentient beings in world without any Buddhas how to attain enlightenment between the death of Buddha and the appearance of Miroku Buddha (Skt. Maitreya). It is considered that Jizo visited various places in the six realms where sentient beings will be reborn (riku do) including Heavenly Beings, Humans, Asura, Beasts (chikusho), Hungry Ghosts (gaki) and Hells and the figure standing on a flying cloud is often represented to indicate such actions. However, just like this painting, there are some that represent Jizo sitting still in the landscape scenery. It is presumed that this painting was structured by associating it with the painting representing Kannon (Skt. Avalokiteśvara) in the southern heavenly land where Kannon lives, Mt. Potalaka. Just the same as with the common examples, the figure is shaped as a Buddhist priest and holds a sacred jewel in its left hand and a priest’s staff (syakujo) in its right hand. The face and body are small and firm and finely featured. Influences from the paintings from the Sung and Yuan dynasty of China are seen in features in this painting such as the colors that are based mainly on blue green and the extremely fine cut gold leaves (kirikane) patterns applied on the clothes and the simple ink monochrome works (suiboku ga) technique employed to draw the landscape. It is a work that contains features of the Buddhist paintings from the late Kamakura period (1185–1333).