The Kannonkyôji located in Shibayama, Sambu gun, Chiba prefecture has handed down a Chinese painting with a scene of hungry ghosts. In the center of the composition, a hungry ghost sits in full lotus position on a boulder. There is a blue glass bowl on a rock to the right of this figure, and a bluish-green willow growing from a gold-colored water bottle placed inside the glass bowl. A white flag stands behind this arrangement. There is a circle above the ghost's head, and a seated image of Avalokitesvara is depicted within the circle. There is a red bench in front of the ghost with three bowls heaped with three kinds of food. Several starving ghosts attempt to grab the food from the bowls. Priests stand in the lower left of the composition, with a table in front of them holding gold-colored vase, incense burner, candlestick, and a seated figure of a Buddha. Arranged symmetrically with the priests are judges from hell and women who resemble those often seen in Ten Kings of Hell images. There is a rising cloud-like form to the right of the ghost and there are several human-shapes ascending to the heavens. Similar works can be found in the Shui Lu paintings (paintings of Buddhist and Taoist rituals), scroll number 139 from the Ming period preserved in the Bao Ning temple in Shanxi province. The sutra source for this image is either the Kubatsu enku gaki darani kyô translated in the Tang dynasty by Amoghavajra (705-774), or a different translation of the same sutra by the Tang dynasty Siksananda (625-710). These two sutras can be used to explain a considerable amount of the imagery appearing in this painting. And yet, they do not explain all of this work. For example, the imagery in the scene of the judge from hell seems to have been borrowed from a Ten Kings image. Similarly the issue of the Avalokiteśvara in a circle cannot be explained. It is well known that such hungry ghost paintings were created as one section of Shui Lu paintings (J: Suiriku-ga). The Shui Lu ritual services (J: Suiriku-e) are Buddhist ceremonies in which the gods of Buddhism and Taoism are summoned and offerings for the salvation of various ghosts are made, calling on the power of these many deities. The paintings of various deities related to Buddhism, various deities related to Taoism, salvation scenes, and demon-like figures are hung around the offering altar. However, the hungry ghost in Suiriku-ga is shown leading attendants, parading with his hands clasped in prayer. What then was the use of this image, with its demon placed facing directly forward, in large-scale, as if the central image of worship? This painting was very likely the central image of worship for a rite known as a Yugaenku. This is a Chinese Buddhist ritual that is extremely close in nature to the Japanese Segaki-e, or rite to save ghosts. In the Yugaenku rite, the hungry ghost is set up as an avatar of Avalokitesvara and is recognized as the savior of the masses. This is why an Avalokiteśvara image has been added to this painting. In Japan, the Suiriku-e name is almost never used, and in the case of paintings like this Suiriku-ga, or Yugaenku painting brought from China, the elements of these works which relate to those rites seem to have not been properly recognized, and these paintings were not necessarily used in rites in Japan.
