. human hair in japanese esotericizing embroideries 877
the bodhisattvas Kannon (Avalokiteśvara) and Seishi
(Mahāsthāmaprāpta).
In front of the central grouping lies the resplendent golden lake of
the Pure Land where devotees are born seated on lotus flowers. In the
lower horizontal court, the Amida triad and other deities descend to
welcome devotees and to carry them back to the Pure Land. Being born
in the Pure Land is a promise of ultimate enlightenment, because in
that sacred realm devotees can perfect their understanding and prac-
tice of wisdom and compassion, thanks to the teachings of Amida.
Although embroidered Buddhist images may have been made dur-
ing the Heian period (794–1185), not a single example remains, so
to resume the history of Buddhist textile art in Japan we must jump
from the eighth-century Taima tapestry to the early thirteenth cen-
tury and the beginning of the Kamakura period. In the landmark
1964 catalogue of embroidered Buddhist images exhibited at the Nara
National Museum, Ishida Mosaku directly links the reappearance of
embroidered Buddhist images in the Kamakura period to the “dis-
covery” of the Taima Mandala at the beginning of the thirteenth cen-
tury (Nara National Museum 1964). The Taima tapestry had reposed
quietly in the country temple of Taimadera for some four hundred
years, unmentioned in any extant documents from that period. Ishida
points out that the technique of tapestry weaving seen in the original
Taima Mandala was unknown in the Kamakura period. Desiring to
reproduce a technique they thought was akin to embroidery, as well
as wishing to reproduce the spiritual content of the Taima Mandala,
devotees of Amida’s Western Pure Land began to create embroideries
of Pure Land themes.
The most ubiquitous of Japanese Pure Land images is the welcoming
descent (raigō ), showing Amida, often with attendants, descend-
ing to welcome devotees and accompany them back to the Pure Land.
This image first appeared in the lower horizontal court of the Taima
Mandala and served as inspiration for many independent paintings,
and it is also seen in embroideries incorporating human hair. One
example is the fifteenth-century work in the collection of the Cleve-
land Museum of Art, which shows the Amida triad descending from
the Western Pure Land and Kannon offering the lotus throne on which
the believer will be transported to salvation (color plate 6 and detail
color plate 7). Rays of light shooting forth from Amida illuminate a
house where three believers—two adults and a child—kneel in prayer
(ten Grotenhuis 1999, 140–41).