fer merit to someone else, to cure illness, to improve
the KARMA(ACTION) of someone already deceased, to
pray for future generations, and to beseech protection
of family and state. Such motivations have remained
constant for centuries.
Cast, carved, and modeled images
Small images initially came to Japan as the baggage of
immigrants from the Korean peninsula during the
mid-sixth century. Official accounts of the introduc-
tion of the dharma from the Korean peninsula devote
considerable attention to gifts of BUDDHA IMAGES, to
their circulation among the elite, and to building tem-
ples to house them. The first images do not survive,
but numerous sixth- and seventh-century examples of
both imported and local manufacture remain. Most are
of gilt-bronze, less than fifty centimeters in height; their
iconographic and stylistic diversity reflects both earlier
and contemporary developments on the mainland.
Thus Shaka (S ́akyamuni), Yakushi (Bhaisajyaguru),
Miroku (MAITREYA), and Kannon (Avalokites ́vara)
predominate. These earliest images are generally not
inscribed or recorded in documents, nor do they re-
main in their original settings.
During the seventh and eighth centuries, members
of the court took up image-making on a grand scale,
sponsoring a succession of massive projects designed
to unite the populace, assert state authority, and cre-
ate a material presence for the Buddhist establishment
to rival those abroad. A succession of increasingly am-
bitious state temples built in Fujiwara-kyoand Heijo-
kyo(among them Hokoji, Daikandaiji, and Yakushiji)
culminated in the building of Todaiji, with its colossal
cast bronze and gilded image of Rushana (Vairocana),
a project modeled directly on Tang-dynasty prece-
dents. Because bronze was too costly for most image
production, during the eighth century state and tem-
ple workshops employed a variety of carving and mod-
eling techniques to achieve an increasingly lifelike
appearance. Horyuji, Todaiji, and Kofukuji all contain
numerous life-size or larger images of clay modeled
on a wooden armature, as well as those modeled in
lacquer-soaked cloth over a wooden frame. Mineral
pigments and gold enhanced the surface of the images.
These costly and time-consuming techniques died
out in the late eighth century as a result of patronage
shifts and the closing of temple and state workshops.
During the late eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, Bud-
dhism spread throughout the provinces, where local
leaders built temples in the mountains and on provin-
cial estates. Image-making in wood proliferated, re-
sulting in a variety of regional styles, iconographies,
and carving techniques.
Buddha and bodhisattva images were not the only
deities within temple precincts in the eighth and later
centuries. Powerful local deities (kami) played critical
roles in the lives of temples and monks, as for instance
when in 749 a HACHIMANshrine was built at Todaiji.
The making of carved images of kamibegan in the
ninth century, and representations of Hachiman at
Toji, Yakushiji, and elsewhere attest their growing im-
portance as protectors of the dharma. Due to the “Sep-
aration of Gods and Buddhas” edicts of the 1870s,
however, the prominence of kamiimages and the
shrines that housed them at Buddhist temples has
largely been obscured or forgotten.
During the eleventh century in the capital Kyoto,
members of the Fujiwara and ruling families dedicated
themselves to temple-building and image-making on
a grand scale. To meet their demands, wood-carvers
devised an effective method for carving multiple blocks
of wood, which were hollowed and reassembled toJAPAN, BUDDHISTART INThe statue of Vairocana Buddha at Todaiji, Nara, Japan. This
statue is a seventeenth-century replacement for a destroyed eighth-
century original. © Robert D. Fiala, Concordia University, Seward,
Nebraska. Reproduced by permission.