This paper analyzes the view of the Silk Road promoted by the Japanese painter Hirayama Ikuo 平山郁夫 (1930–2009) by focusing on the interaction between objects and images at two different locations: the Silk Road Museum in Yamanashi prefecture and Yakushiji temple in Nara. It will show how paintings, archaeological findings, and relics produce a loop of material and spiritual imagination and practices centered on the memorialization of the past, both in the collective sense of the transmission of Buddhism to Japan, and in the individual sense of one’s affective links. The mobilization of such a view of the past allows for the construction of a sense of community and moral duty, and fosters its own reproduction through the translation of economic activities in religious terms.
目次
1. Feeling the Presence of the Past: Images and Objects at the Silk Road Museum 124 2. Materializing Memory: Silk Road Imaginary and Memorial Offerings at Yakushiji Temple 131 3. Conclusion: Of Matter and Memory 141
