Saihô-jôdohen is the visual representation of Amitabha’s Western Paradise in painting, sculpture and other art forms. In general, there are many cases where such works are simply called as the Pure Land of Amitabha. Onishi Makiko’s book discusses the works created during the golden age of such imagery, from the Tang dynasty in China to Japan’s Kamakura period. Onishi’s methodology is research on individual works through iconographic interpretation. The ideas presented in the book can be divided into two sections. Namely, the first section discusses examples of the iconography from China, covering the background and opportunity for the development of the Saihô-jôdoden in terms of the wall paintings at Dunhuang. The author of this review offers the comment that there needs to be a revision of the iconographic framework of Saihô-jôdohen, a paradigm that has been handed down since Matsumoto Eiichi’s 1932 publication Tonko-ga no kenkyû (Toho Bunka Gakuin, Tokyo Kenkyûsho). Second, the book examines two renowned painting and sculptural examples that show the changes in the Saihô-jôdohen as it occurred in Japan. One work is the painted Amitabha Trinity traditionally handed down in the Rengezanmai’in, Wakayama prefecture, and the other is the sculpted Amitabha Trinity of the Jôdo-dô, Jôdo-ji, Hyôgo prefecture. As seen in such discussions, Onishi offers the unique view that examines examples in Japan, indicating that her field of study is not limited to that of Saihô-jôdohen imagery in China. This aspect of her work reveals that Onishi’s scholarly interests are not limited to simply studying the Saihôjôdohen, and encourages a reconfirmation of the “inheritance” and “development” of continuing links in Jôdo sect arts that developed from China to Japan. The third section of the book presents detailed drawings of the Dunhuang wall paintings that became the object of her study. This section will be of great use to future researchers in their efforts to grasp the extremely detailed iconography on these murals, imagery that is hard to fully grasp from photographic reproductions or other image sources.
Bibliography: Onishi Makiko, Saiho-Jôdohen no kenkyû [Study of Paintings of Amitabha’s Western Paradise], Tokyo, Chuo Koron Bijutsu Shuppan, Feb. 2007.
