surrounded by smaller depictions of their teachers and
Buddhist deities. No matter how convincing or lifelike,
such images were imaginary and deified representa-
tions of semilegendary and long-dead masters created
to legitimize particular lineages.
The impulse to remember and venerate the sanctity
of one’s own teacher led to the creation of individual
portraits from life and the writing of hagiographies.
Numerous Chinese tales and images exemplify efforts
to preserve the corpses of venerated saints, both
through natural mummification and a complex prac-
tice of preservation by desiccation and cloth soaked in
lacquer. Corpses encased in such a coating, placed
within sutra-mausoleums or separate temple halls, be-
came objects of veneration for both temple and pil-
grims. The mummy of the sixth Chan patriarch
HUINENG(ca. 638–713) is the most famous extant ex-
ample, while the life-sized hollow dry lacquer image of
GANJIN(Chinese, Jianzhen; 688–763) may be an ex-
ample of a sculpted image substituted for a “failed
mummy.” At Toshodaiji in Nara, Japan, Ganjin’s por-
trait served as a relic of the strong connection between
a revered teacher and his surviving students, as well as
a portrait of the temple’s founder. In the thirteenth
century, VINAYAschool revivalists venerated Ganjin as
their patriarch and erected a portrait hall for the im-
age. Many portraits of individual monks commemo-
rate their leadership talents and patronage activities, as
for instance Hongbian (late ninth century), whose clay
portrait was installed in a small chapel at DUNHUANG.
Not a mummy, the image contained a bag of ashes,
while a record of his activities was inscribed in a neigh-
boring chapel.
A conflation of these strains of portraiture appears
with KUKAI(774–835), who studied Zhenyan (SHIN-
GONBUDDHISM, JAPAN) teachings in Chang’an from
804 to 806. Kukai brought back to Japan seven life-size
individually painted portraits of his immediate prede-
cessors that incorporated written biographies. After
Kukai’s death, his followers added his own portrait to
make a set of eight Shingon patriarchs. These paint-
ings were copied and disseminated to Shingon temples
throughout Japan, where they became an essential
component in main halls and on pagoda walls.
Portraiture blossomed in thirteenth-century Japan
as a result of an increased awareness of Buddhist his-
tory and fresh contact with Chinese teachers. Students
of Pure Land, Vinaya, and Chan teachings brought
back portraits of their teachers from China. These de-
picted formally dressed abbots seated in elaborate
cloth-decorated chairs, holding attributes of their sta-
tus and character. Often drawn from life, these paint-
ings frequently bore inscriptions by the sitter. These
individual portraits were venerated in Japanese mo-
nasteries, and when the subject died, they became the
focus of memorial ceremonies. As the lineages of these
teachers spread throughout Japan, copies prolifer-
ated. At some temples, separate portrait/memorial
halls enshrined painted or sculpted images of
founders. Perhaps the strongest manifestations of the
lineage/memorial portrait tradition are the countless
portraits of Chan abbots. Abbot portraits occupied
central altar space in the various subtemples of Zen
monasteries in Japan, where sculpted founder por-
traits replaced buddha images as the central object of
devotion.Donors and lay believers
Buddhist portraiture was not confined to representa-
tions of lineages, patriarchs, and abbots. In ancient In-
dia, famous lay patrons, both men and women,
abound in illustrated narratives, occasionally with
identifying inscriptions. Relief carved images of lay pa-
trons also appear on the gates to stupa mounds. While
neither of these types of representation qualify as por-
traiture, they can be seen as precursors to donor im-
ages of royalty and prominent families found in the
cave-chapels of Dunhuang and Longmen in China. At
the POTALAin Lhasa, a large ninth-century sculpted
statue of King Srong btsan sgam po (Songtsen Gampo,
ca. 627–649) suggests that the making of sculpted
donor portraits may have been more common than
extant evidence suggests. Many of the workshop-
produced paintings found at Dunhuang depict generic
lay donors, with space left to record names, dates, and
vows. The genres of ancestor and commemorative
portraits flourished in China long after Buddhism
waned among the elite classes.
In Japan, however, portraits of the lay elite survive
in considerable numbers. Numerous sculpted portraits
of Prince SHOTOKU(574–622) at different ages com-
memorate his role in establishing Buddhism. The hol-
low bodies of the sculptures often contain copies of the
sutras he promulgated, as well as donations from pa-
trons. Several pious emperors received the tonsure
upon abdicating the throne; thus their portraits show
them with shaven heads in monk’s clothing. Their de-
scendants enshrined these portraits in private chapels
or in temples they founded.PORTRAITURE