Tenjukoku Shūchō Mandala
| Tenjukoku Shūchō Mandala | |
|---|---|
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| Artist | Unknown ladies-in waiting |
| Year | 622 |
| Medium | Silk thread on gauze and twill |
| Subject | Tenjukoku 天寿国, "The Land of Infinite Life" |
| Dimensions | 89 cm × 83 cm (35 in × 33 in) |
| Designation | National Treasure of Japan |
| Location | Nara National Museum, Nara |
The Tenjukoku Shūchō Mandala (天寿国繍帳) is a Japanese work of textile art. It is the oldest known example of embroidery in Japan, dating back to 622 CE. It was created in honour of Prince Shōtoku, one of the earliest proponents of Japanese Buddhism.
In the Jōgū Shōtoku Hōō Teisetsu, it is recorded that Tachibana no Ōiratsume, one of the widows of Prince Shōtoku, commissioned the mandala after her husband's death, to represent the heavenly realm to which he had departed so that she could envision his afterlife. The artwork was created by maidservants of the Imperial Court, with the permission of the Empress Suiko. The original was stitched in silk on a series of large square curtains, approximately 5 metres (16 ft) across, but only a small portion of this, measuring approximately 89 centimetres (35 in) by 83 centimetres (33 in), still survives.
The mandala is held at the Nara National Museum, but remains the property of the Chūgū-ji temple in Nara Prefecture. The extant version was created in the Edo period by combining remnants of the original embroidery with a replica made in the late 13th century.
Its association with the temple and its reconstruction are due to the work of the Buddhist nun Shinnyo, who recovered the original mandala from its storage at Hōryū-ji in 1273. According to the narratives of Shinnyo's life, she had a dream in which she learned that the mandala contained the death date of the Princess Anahobe no Hashihito (穴穂部間人皇女? Anahobe no Hashihito no Himemiko), consort of Emperor Jomei and mother of Shōtoku (Shinnyo was researching Hashihito, the patroness of Chūgū-ji, as part of her work to restore the temple). The mandala was locked away at Hōryū-ji, but a break-in at the Hōryū-ji treasury allowed Shinnyo to access their stores under the pretext of checking for damages. There, she found the mandala, severely damaged, and was given permission to remove it to Chūgū-ji. She subsequently took it on a fund-raising tour to Kyoto, and received enough donations to fund the creation of a replica.
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