The Face of Jizō: Image and Cult in Medieval Japanese Buddhism. By Hank Glassman. University of Hawaii Press, January 31, 2012. 272 pages. ISBN-10: 0824835816 ISBN-13: 978-0824835811
摘要
It is wonderful to review a book that is a joy to read. Such is this book, which is the first full‐fledged analysis of Jizô iconography in English. Glassman offers a readable and fascinatingly detailed account of the historical development of the cult of Earthstore bodhisattva in Japan through the growth of the rich variety of Jizô icons. The author's approach is to contextualize these icons through a study of the storytelling traditions, rituals, and forms popular worship with which they are inextricably fused. Indeed, Glassman argues that the “local instantiation of the deity embodied in a particular statue or painting or carved in stone is essential to understanding the character of Jizô in Japan.” The book is clearly organized into four chapters: It begins with a helpful overview of “The Iconology of Jizô.” Chapter 2, “Monastic Devotion to Jizô,” examines the expansion of the cult in the Kamakura period through the efforts of the clergy of Kofuku‐ji and other Nara aristocratic devotees. Chapter 3, “The Jizô Dance,” ties the deity to performative traditions of sarugaku and kyôgen in Nara and Kyoto. Chapter 4 looks at how Jizô became popular in the seventeenth century for his powers to grant safe childbirth and to protect dead children. Jizô finds a place in popular faith by becoming assimilated with indigenous autochthonous deities of the road and boundaries, the dôsojin and sai no kami. Here again, the book is useful because the author picks his examples carefully, by doing a deep analysis of the Koyasu Jizô near Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto. A marvelous piece of scholarship, the text is effective for teaching undergraduates about Japanese Buddhist visual culture.
