Throughout Japan’s medieval period, numerous
portraits of the aristocratic and military elite were cre-
ated at their deaths to be hung in mortuary temples
(bodaiji). Documentary sources tell of painters sum-
moned to sketch their likenesses, either before or after
death. These sketches served as the basis for life-size
portraits, usually painted but occasionally carved.
Family memorial portraits also included representa-
tions of prominent women, retired empresses and mil-
itary wives, and even boys who had died young. The
portraits frequently incorporated written biographies
or eulogies, or the Buddhist name conferred on the de-
ceased. Although memorial portraits depict their sub-
jects in finery appropriate to their station, such
portraits were not secular in function or place of dis-
play. The families of the deceased provided material
support, often including the personal possessions of
the deceased, to these mortuary temples for memorial
ceremonies as well as care of family burial sites.
See also:Arhat Images; Bodhisattva Images; Buddha,
Life of the, in Art; Chan Art; China, Buddhist Art in;
Japan, Buddhist Art in
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California Press, 1990.
KARENL. BROCKPOTALAThe Potala palace, one of Tibet’s largest and best
known landmarks, is an enormous fortresslike struc-
ture located in the Tibetan capital Lhasa. The Potala
served as the winter residence of the DALAILAMASand
as the locus of the Tibetan government from the sev-
enteenth century to the fourteenth Dalai Lama’s flight
from Tibet in 1959. In thirteen floors said to contain
more than one thousand rooms, the Potala encom-
passes an elaborate conglomeration of residential
chambers, reception and assembly halls, temples, reli-
quary chapels, monastic quarters, and offices. Located
atop a small hill called Mar po ri on the northwestern
edge of Lhasa, the palace’s full name is the Summit
Palace of Potala (Rtse po ta la’i pho brang). The name
refers to Mount Potalaka in India, which is revered
as the abode of the compassionate BODHISATTVA
Avalokites ́vara, who is believed to manifest in the fig-
ure of the Dalai Lamas.
The earliest foundations of the palace date to the
Tibetan king Srong btsan sgam po (r. ca. 614–650),
who moved his capital to Lhasa from the south, erect-
ing an eleven-storied structure on Mar po ri in 637 that
served as the center for his court. Some ten centuries
later, in 1645, the fifth Dalai Lama (1617–1682) began
renovations to this structure, planning a new ecclesi-
astic residence and offices for the Dga’ ldan pho
brang—the central Tibetan government—all to be
moved from the nearby ’Bras spungs (pronounced
Drepung) Monastery. These additions included the so-
called White Palace, composed mainly of administra-
tive and residential quarters, and the upper Red Palace
containing rooms used for religious purposes, which
now include the reliquary tombs of the fifth and sev-
enth through thirteenth Dalai Lamas. Construction
continued for many decades and was not finished un-
til the close of the seventeenth century. According to
Tibetan histories, the fifth Dalai Lama’s adroit regent
Sangs rgyas rgya mtsho (1653–1705) kept news of the
hierarch’s death secret for more than twelve years in
order to bring this monumental project to completion.
Jesuit missionaries Albert Dorville and Johannes Grue-
ber published sketches of the partially erected Potala
palace, which they witnessed while passing through
Lhasa in 1661.
For nearly three hundred years, the Potala served as
an epicenter of Tibetan religious and political power.
The outer facade was shelled by occupying Chinese
troops in 1959, the time of the fourteenth Dalai Lama’sPOTALA