75. COLLAPSING THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN
BUDDHA AND BELIEVER: HUMAN HAIR IN JAPANESE
ESOTERICIZING EMBROIDERIES
Elizabeth ten GrotenhuisOne of the most remarkable phenomena in Buddhist art is the appear-
ance in Japan of devotional embroideries incorporating human hair.
Unparalleled elsewhere in Buddhist Asia, these unique embroideries
were created in significant numbers from about 1300 through the mid-
sixteenth century. The embroideries first emerged from within the Jap-
anese Pure Land tradition but came to include esoteric images and,
more rarely, images from the Lotus Sūtra. Of particular interest are
the unusual and potent embroideries incorporating human hair that
display synthesizing elements between the Pure Land and esoteric tra-
ditions. I will first review the Pure Land sources for this phenomenon
(ten Grotenhuis 2004, 31–35) and then turn to esoteric and esoteri-
cizing embroideries that incorporated human hair. A particular focus
will be the monk Kakuban (1095–1143, posthumous title, Kōgyō
Daishi ), credited with establishing the Shingi Shingon
(“new doctrine”) movement.
Embroidery art in Japan can be traced to the seventh century, but
one of the most famous early extant textiles is neither Japanese nor of
the seventh century. This is the large, four-meter-square tapestry called
the Taima Mandala , dated to the mid-eighth century,
which was woven in China and imported into Japan (ten Grotenhuis
1999, 13–23). The tapestry and its many painted copies, which date
from the thirteenth century onward, depict the Western Pure Land
(Saihō Jōdo ) of the Buddha Amida where devotees
will be reborn after death. Technically, the work is not embroidery—
by definition, a tapestry is woven, not produced by needlework. In
later centuries, however, when the technique of eighth-century Chi-
nese tapestry weaving was no longer understood, the Taima Mandala
was considered something like an embroidery.
The Taima Mandala has a complex configuration (figure 1). In its
center, appearing larger than all the rest of the deities, is the Amida
triad: the Buddha Amida attended by his two chief agents of salvation,