968 cynthea j. bogelinclude the Ninnōkyō gohō shoson zu (“Illustrations of Various Divini-
ties of the Five Directions from the Benevolent Kings Sūtra”; hereafter,
“Benevolent Kings Five Directions Illustrations”). Two sets of very large
scrolls, one version at Daigoji (figures 14, 15) and one at Tōji (figures
16,17), are in turn copies of lost zuzō by the monk Kakuzen (1143–ca.
1219), a priest in the Shingon Ono lineage, noted for his vast compilation
of ritual diagrams, guides, and iconography, the Kakuzenshō ,
completed in 1219.^45 Each of the five sheets shows a “directional”
bodhisattva (Gohō bosatsu ), a vidyārāja. The statues of the
Five Great Myōō on the Tōji Lecture Hall altar are so close to the
same deities’ depiction in extant “Benevolent Kings Five Directions
Illustrations” drawings that they undoubtedly share the same source:
drawings or paintings imported by Kūkai.
The drawings illustrate a rite for the Benevolent Kings Sūtra; it is
important to note once again, however, that this does not preclude a
consideration of Diamond world iconography from the Vajraśekhara
sūtra, on which the iconography of the ritual text is in part based.
The Lecture Hall statues occasionally reveal contradictory concep-
tions of two- and three-dimensional rendering; for example, the Fudō
Myōō statue has an awkward left-arm pose that would appear to mimic
the foreshortening in two-dimensional drawings; one sees the same
gesture in the ca. 830 painted mandala, the Takao Mandara depiction
of Fudō Myōō (figure 18), the central divinity of the vidyārājas.
Finally, although the point has been overlooked in scholarship to
date, Taishaku’s appearance on the altar (although not texually sub-
stantiated) may be explained by the zuzō mandala images: in one sheet
of each set of the “Benevolent Kings Five Directions Illustrations,”
Taishakuten appears with the Four Guardian Kings as a distinct group
(^45) Kakuzenshō , “Ninnō kyō 1,” Bussho Kankōkai, ed. 1912–22, henceforth
BZ (1978–1983), vol. 46: 228 (i.e., Kakuzenshō 2: 716). The Kakuzenshō is a compila-
tion of iconographic drawings by Kakuzen completed in 1219. The seven volumes of
the Kakuzenshō are in BZ, vols. 45–51. See also T. 2469.78:66a. The TZ manuscript
is based on that preserved at Kajūji and housed in the Nara National Museum, with
four hundred and sixty-four illustrations in one hundred and thirty-six fascicles; the
manuscript illustrated in BZ has three hundred and sixty-nine illustrations in one
hundred and forty-one fascicles and is based primarily on a manuscript preserved at
Zōjōji. See Kakuzen shō kenkyū kai, ed. 2004. Inscriptions on the back of four of the
Tōji works note Kakuzen’s versions.