Kashimadachi Shineizu

late 14th century; hanging scroll: ink and color on silk; 140.6 x 40.2 cm

An important category of Buddhist art embraces and elucidates the lore and history of the Shinto faith. Well established in Japan prior to the arrival of Buddhism in the sixth century, Shinto might be characterized as an animistic belief system in which the forces of nature apparent in any given region were recognized. These forces were very important to the agriculture-based society living on islands surrounded by vast bodies of water, people whose lives depended on what Westerners might call "the elements" or "the forces of nature." Natural phenomena were considered tangible manifestations of powerful spirits with whom the people of the land we now call Japan made special efforts to synchronize their lives without conflict. These higher powers or kami were regionally and locally identifiable according to oral and then written tradition. They were believed to reside in the actual forms and processes of nature in these areas, meaning that, by and large, the natural landscape and such events as the changing seasons were regarded with more than normal attention.

Shinto ceremonies and rituals, as well as simple daily acts of acknowledgment, are known through much later literature (mythology and poetry) and the earliest recorded
histories. Initially, no man-made buildings or devotional images existed such as populate the Buddhist pantheon. On the contrary, places of veneration were recognized and came to be esteemed precisely for their natural power and beauty. And the maintenance of those conditionsthe purity or cleanliness of that sitewas a primary concern of the local populace and their clan leaders.

With the arrival of Buddhism, amid a social and political environment of steadily increasing competition and consolidation, it is not surprising that certain clans and their federations cautiously embraced outright a foreign set of beliefs that could further their political advantage. The process of identifying an imperial clan and its supporting nobility from other clans gradually shaped a stable federation in the Yamato basin during the fourth through seventh centuries. Noble as well as regional clans appropriated resident kami, which became the equivalent of tutelary clan deities and emblems of the increasingly intimate relationship between the secular and religious worlds.

In this way the imperial clan and surrounding nobility accrued to themselves Shinto rites, myths, and locales that furthered their political ends. The imperial clan affirmed its origins with the mythical Sun Goddess (Amaterasu) and eventually selected regalia considered representative of such heavenly origins: mirrors, swords, spears, and jewels. This painting, Kashimadachi Shineizu (The Departure from Kashima Shrine), refers to that regalia in the large, mirror-like disc in the upper portion of the composition above the horizontal bands of blue clouds.

The two white deer standing on cloud banks serve as the vehicles for two male courtiers, each of whom wears elegant official court attire: black-lacquered gauze cap, formal robe, sword, pants, and cloth shoes. Each also holds a white wooden paddle signifying official court authority. These noble-men represent the Shinto tutelary deities of Kashima Jinja (in modern Ibaraki Prefecture) and Katori Jinja (in Chiba Prefecture) en route to Nara. According to legend, the leader of the influential Fujiwara clan appropriated these two kami for installation in Nara at the new family shrine, Kasuga Jinja, close to the Todai-ji [54]. Its presence can be inferred from the dark band of deteriorated pigments at the top of the painting that once delineated the curvilinear outline of Mt. Mikasa, the location of the shrine. The kami arrived on white deer according to Shinto legend.

The branches and pale green leaves under the mirror disc are actually meant to support the mirror and represent the sakaki tree (a variety of evergreen). Both objects feature prominently in the creation myth about Amaterasu, and thus the imperial lineage, composed largely of Fujiwara or Fujiwara-related members. The narrow strips of white paper hanging from the sakaki branches are seen even today at Shinto shrines, attached to braided ropes wrapped around the trunks of aged trees or suspended at shrine entrances.

Although a relatively late icon whose condition has deteriorated over the centuries, it retains a dignified presence compatible with its subject. Among the repertoire of honji suijaku painted icons related to the Kasuga Jinja, representations of the shrine precincts with its resident deities or depictions of the deer are well known, numerous, and generally slightly earlier in date than this painting. Here, though, we see the reenactment of a historic political event couched in the Shinto-Buddhist vocabulary of syncretic imagery: two kami from major Shinto shrines located in the territories of regional clans to the far northeast are summoned (and appropriated) by the head of the imperial clan's principal supporter, Fujiwara no Kamatari (614669), upon his move into the new capital, Heijo-kyo (Nara). These kami then can be viewed both as venerable icons of Shinto religious art and as emblems of the Fujiwara clan's powerful
ascendancy to authority in the Nara period.

The preceding entry, written by the Cleveland Museum of Art's Curator of Japanese and Korean Art Michael R. Cunningham and edited for use on this web site, is excerpted from the 268-page color-illustrated catalogue, Buddhist Treasures from Nara, available in hard or softcover at the museum stores.