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

The main sections of these Buddhist ritual banners are divided into three fields with embroidered images of a Sanskrit seed syllable, an object symbolizing a deity, and a bodhisattva. Seventeen banners are still extant, comprising seven large ones and ten small ones. Although some parts are missing, they retain the triangular “head,” the three fields of the banner “body,” the banner “arms” on the sides, the dangling strips of cloth called banner “legs,” and the strip of fabric hanging in the center of the head called the “tongue.” The banner heads are made of yellow silk twill with an embroidered swastika in the center and a gilt bronze metal fitting with a ring, on which a number is inscribed. A different color of silk twill is used for each of the fields in the banner bodies, specifically brown, yellowish green, and light blue. Inside these, a Sanskrit seed syllable, an object symbolizing a deity, and a bodhisattva are embroidered over circles of white silk twill from top to bottom. The fronts and backs of the banners have the same embroidered designs.

On each banner, the Sanskrit seed syllable, the object symbolizing a deity, and the bodhisattva all reference the same bodhisattva. The works are thought to have originally been part of a set of 32 banners, one each for the 37 deities of the Diamond World, ex cluding the five buddhas, namely: the four bodhisattvas in female form, the sixteen great bodhisattvas, the eight offering bodhisattvas, and the four sangraha vastus bodhisattvas. The four bodhisattvas in female form and the outer four offering bodhisattvas were rendered on large banners. The motifs and orders on some of the banners appear to have been mixed up in later repairs, but the designs are extremely rare among Buddhist ritual banners.

Inside one of the banners, a piece of paper was found with an inscription referring to the middle counselor Fujiwara no Takanaga (1277–1350) of the senior third rank. Takanaga’s tenure was from Genkō 3 (1323) to Shōchū 2 (1325), making these banners valuable reference works for embroidered textiles from the Kamakura period (1185–1333), since their date of production is roughly known.

The banners were formerly owned by Hyōzu Taisha Shrine in Yasu City, Shiga Prefecture.