. human hair in japanese esotericizing embroideries 889
Dainichi is visualized within a moon disk, and the moon disk rests on
the lotus (van der Veere 2000, 97–98; see also details of figure 2).
In Kakuban’s time there was great interest in rituals related to the
moment of death because this was seen as an opportunity to escape from
the sorrow-filled cycle of birth and death (samsara) through immedi-
ate enlightenment in this life or through birth in a pure land (Stone
2006, 2003). Again basing his work on earlier writings, notably those
of Jippan, Kakuban wrote the Ichigo taiyō himitsushū, which describes
the possibility of achieving enlightenment in this life (sokushin jōbutsu
) or birth in a pure land (ōjō ) through visualization of
the syllable A (van der Veere 2000, 123). Regardless of these teach-
ings, Kakuban remained an orthodox Shingon thinker. It is important
to note that he always reiterated his firm position that Dainichi is the
ultimate principle and that Amida is one of the five modes/forms of
Dainichi’s wisdom, namely, myōkanzatchi , the wisdom of
wondrous perception (van der Veere 2000, 115–116). For Kakuban,
to consider Amida anything other than one of the wisdom functions
of Dainichi would be a deluded view.
A number of embroideries incorporating human hair show a min-
gling of Pure Land and esoteric elements. One example now in the
collection of the Nara National Museum, depicts an Amida triad rep-
resented by means of seed-syllables worked with human hair presented
in the ajikan format associated with the Diamond World, that is, seed
syllables on lotuses within moon disks (color plate 9). A canopy above
and an offertory table in front of the triad recall adornments associ-
ated with sculptural triads. Lotus petals and flowers at top and bottom
suggest the Pure Land.
An early-fifteenth-century image, originally in the Honda Hachi-
man Jingūji in Kawachi (Osaka), shows the Amida triad represented
in seed-syllables within a framing rectangle of forty-eight A syllables,
representing the forty-eight vows relating to his eventual buddha-
hood made by Bodhisattva Dharmākara. The inscriptions at the top
is from the Kanmuryōjukyō (Sūtra of Visualization on the
Buddha of Measureless Life), on which the Taima Mandala is based.
The one on the left appears frequently in Pure Land embroideries
from this period, for example, at the top of the Cleveland embroi-
dery discussed earlier. The passage comes from the ninth of the sixteen
visualizations:
The light [of Amida] shines everywhere,
[Illuminating] the world of the ten directions.