Mandala of the Kasuga Shrine (Kasuga mandara)

Description

In Buddhism, the term mandala originally designated a diagrammatic representation of the universe and the inter-relationship of the forces within it. In popular Japanese thinking, however, the term came to refer to any schematic painting illustrating the relationship between Buddhist and Shinto deities or the layout of a Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine compound.

This mandala depicts the Kasuga shrine in Nara, and in the lower left-hand corner, the adjacent Buddhist temple of Kōfukuji. The structures and their surroundings, shown from the air, are represented with a maplike clarity that enables the viewer to clearly visualize the landmark. The scene is lit by a full moon whose rays illuminate both the bright spring foliage of the cherry trees dotting the fields around the two shrines and the antics of the sacred deer of Kasuga. In deference to the religious syncretism of the period, five deities representing the Buddhist equivalents of the Shinto gods housed in each of the five principle sanctuaries of the Kasuga shrine are shown in the upper part of the composition.