拍品描述:EARLY 14TH CENTURY Hanging scroll；ink， color， gold and kirikane on silk 来源 Kokon， Inc.， New York In this unusual version of a Kasuga Mandala， two compositions are superimposed. Above， an aerial view of Kasuga Shrine set in a landscape with deer in mist is intended to evoke an image of a palace in a Shinto paradise. In the lower half of the painting， the deities of nearby Kofukuji Temple are on display. Only a handful of examples of this rare iconography combining Kasuga and Kofukuji (Kasuga shaji mandala) are known in Japanese collections. Above， in the Kasuga Shrine section， the pilgrim enters the landscape through a red shrine gate (torii) at the midsection of the painting and follows a path that leads upward past a compound with two pagodas and across several bridges toward a walled compound with four adjoining small shrines. This is an iconic map of the sacred grounds of Kasuga Shrine in Nara， set at the base of Mount Mikasa. The powerful Fujiwara family founded the shrine in the eighth century to house four principal deities associated with the origin and rise of the clan， namely the clan’s guardian deity， Ame no Koyane no Mikoto and his consort， and two others. In the twelfth century， a fifth building was added to house another deity， Wakamiya (Young prince). In the painting， it is located at the top right corner. Kasuga Shrine， with its delicate red， white and green corridors， looked then much as it does today. Only the two pagodas have long since disappeared. Arrayed across the top of the painting are five Buddhist deities， each seated within his own mandorla； they correspond to the five shrines pictured below. From left to right they are the Eleven-headed Kannon； Jizo； Yakushi Buddha； Shakyamuni Buddha and Monju. The Shinto gods at Kasuga Shrine were regarded as manifestations of those Buddhist deities， a conciliatory attitude that allowed the two faiths to coexist in paintings such as this one. The lower half of the painting features the major Buddhist deities of Kofukuji， placed so as to correspond with positions of the halls with which they are associated. Typically， as here， the gate guardians (Kongo Rikshi) are at the bottom and the guardians of the four quarters (Shitenno) are placed at the four corners， as though around the altar of the actual temple. The temple’s five-story pagoda stands at the lower right， while the other halls appear at the lower right and left edges of the painting. In some examples， the temple’s main halls are shown in place of deities. 展开