Hall of the Lotus King: Sculpture and Multiplicity in Early Medieval Japan

Abstract

This study of the thirteenth-century Buddhist temple hall Sanjūsangendō in Kyoto and its ensemble of one thousand life-sized statues of the bodhisattva Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara (J. Senju Kannon) investigates the central role that large-scale production and multi-iterative iconographies played in the transformation of Buddhist visual, material, and ritual culture in Japan between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Dedicated in 1164 as the central ritual hall of Rengeōin (Cloister of the Lotus King), part of a sprawling temple-palace complex sponsored by the retired sovereign Goshirakawa (1127–1192), and later rebuilt in the thirteenth century by his great-great-grandson, Gosaga (1220–1272), Sanjūsangendō represents the only surviving example of an early medieval temple hall that integrated hundreds of iconic multiples into a symbolic form of monumental, elongated architecture. This scale of sculptural production was facilitated by transformations both in attitudes toward the nature of icons and their materials and in the working practices of a newly empowered class of Buddhist sculptor. Through close analysis of conservation records, Buddhist literature and period sources, as well as firsthand study of the hall’s statues, architecture, and related imagery, this study reconstructs the origins and production contexts of Sanjūsangendō’s original 1164 construction and its later restoration, while also integrating the hall’s sculptural program within a broader macroculture of East Asian Buddhist ritual practices that prescribed unique efficacy to multiplicity.