Reflections of the Buddha - The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

Reflections of the 

B uddha 

The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts


Buddha

Standing Prince Shōtoku at Age Two (Shōtoku Taishi Nisaizō), c. 1292, Japan


Buddha 

September 9, 2011 — March 10, 2012 

Francesca Herndon - Consagra 


Published for Reflections of the Buddha 


Copyright © The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts 

All Rights Reserved 

ISBN 978-0-9823347-3-7 

Curated and written by Francesca Herndon-Consagra 

Designed by Ken Botnick 

Edited by Stephen Schenkenberg 

Printed by Advertisers Printing, St. Louis 

This book is set in the typeface Swift, designed by 

Gerard Unger in 1985. The paper is Mohawk Navajo. 

VI 

Photography Credits for Catalogue (by page number) 

All Images by Sam Fentress Except: 

Pages III, 10, 28, 35: Photographs by Junius Beebe © President and Fellows of 

Harvard College 

Page 5: Photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Page 10, top: Photograph by Elise Johnson 

Pages 17, 29: Photographs by Jamison Miller 

Page 34: Photograph by Tony Filipe © President and Fellows 

of Harvard College 

Photography Credits for Gallery Guide & Checklist 

(by checklist number) 

1, 2, 4, 12, 15, 23: Photographs by Junius Beebe © President and Fellows of 


5: Photograph by Mel McLean 

6: Photograph by E.G. Schempf 

10: Photograph courtesy of the artist 

11, 22: Photographs by Jamison Miller 

13, 16: Photographs by Tony Filipe © President and Fellows of Harvard 

College 

14, 17: Photographs by Lynton Gardiner 

18: Photograph by Robert Pettus 

19: Photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

20: Photograph by John Lamberton 

24: Photograph by Katya Kallsen © President and Fellows of Harvard 

College 

Photography Credits for Other Works on View 

1 – 4: Photographs by Robert Pettus 

Front Cover 

Standing Buddha Śākyamuni (Shijiamouni), late 6th century, China 

Blue Black, 2000, Ellsworth Kelly, American 

Back Cover 

Detail of Standing Buddha Śākyamuni (Shijiamouni), late 6th 

century, China 

Previous Page Spread 

Detail of Standing Buddha Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai), mid-13th 

century, Japan 

Facing Page 

Detail of Acala Candamaharosana (Budong Mingwang), “The 

Immovable One,” One of the Five Great Wisdom Kings, 1764, China

VIII 

Head of a Celestial Attendant, Presumably Head of a Bodhisattva (Bosatsu) or of an 

Apsara (Hiten), c. 1053, Japan

Foreword & Acknowledgements 

Reflections of the Buddha celebrates the tenth anniversary 

of The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. With the opening 

of its building by Tadao Andō in 2001, the Pulitzer 

initiated a series of exhibitions and programs intended 

to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of the 

arts and architecture. With the building in mind, curators 

have conceived of exhibitions, carefully selected works 

of art from national and international collections, and 

thoughtfully displayed them in our galleries. The desire 

to create an aesthetically stimulating spatial experience 

corresponds with Andō’s own thoughts about designing 

the Pulitzer through simple geometric forms and 

controlled natural elements: 

The proportions of the spaces as well as the openings of the 

volumes produce a place where new possibilities may be 

stimulated and accommodated . . . The natural light reflected 

from the pool heightens sensitivity to the variation of sunlight, 

cloud movements, and seasons. Even in a raw urban site, 

I wanted to create a space for the contemplation of art and 

the cultivation of the spirit. 1 

For the past decade, Andō’s aspirations have guided us, 

and our visitors have often remarked that they have 

found the experience of walking through the Pulitzer and 

looking at the art both contemplative and transcendent. 

Andō’s appeal for the cultivation of the spirit informs not 

only Pulitzer exhibitions but also our public programming 

and innovative community outreach, all of which 

continue the Pulitzer family’s long-standing commitment 

to St. Louis. 

For Reflections of the Buddha, the Pulitzer’s senior 

curator, Francesca Herndon-Consagra, has excelled in 

bringing together a small number of exceptionally 

beautiful and important works of Buddhist art. Her essay 

in this catalogue explores how Andō’s philosophy of 

architecture is partially influenced by Japanese Buddhism. 

Yet the works in this exhibition are not just 

Japanese or from one particular period. Rather, they cross 

many geographic and temporal boundaries, creating an 

experience that ties the building and the art together 

simply through a connection with a Buddhist philosophy 

that is more than 2,500 years old. By aligning this pan- 

Asian exhibition with Andō’s own philosophy about 

space, Reflections of the Buddha thus moves away from a 

traditional museum concept of producing visual didactic 

narratives and toward one that is more metaphysical and 

experiential. 

We at the Pulitzer believe that our exhibitions 

should strive to touch the human spirit, which is the 

wellspring of inquiry and human discourse. Accordingly, 

we have supported several exhibition-related curatorial 

Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Chair 

initiatives as a way to nurture greater dialogue about the 

works of art in Reflections of the Buddha. These include 

symposia, graduate research fellowships at Harvard 

Art Museums, and the material testing of and scholarly 

publication on Harvard’s Left Hand of a Colossal Buddha 

Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai). Other initiatives include 

conserving an important thangka from The Nelson-Atkins 

Museum of Art and providing travel funds for curators to 

learn more about works in the exhibition from their own 

collections. 

All of us at the Pulitzer have relied upon the 

generosity of many friends and colleagues to bring this 

exhibition of Buddhist art to fruition. We are extremely 

grateful for the generosity of Walter C. Sedgwick, Sylvan 

Barnet and William Burto, and one anonymous lender. 

From Harvard Art Museums, the Pulitzer’s privileged 

partner and the major lender to the exhibition, we would 

like to thank Thomas Lentz, Robert Mowry, Henry Lie, 

Anne Driesse, Penley Knipe, and Melissa Moy. From The 

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, we are indebted to Julián 

Zugazagoitia, Kimberly Masteller, Colin Mackenzie, 

Elisabeth Batchelor, Kate Garland, and Chris Holle. We 

also acknowledge with gratitude Brent Benjamin, Philip 

Hu, Laura Gorman, and Nancy Heugh from the Saint 

Louis Art Museum; Melissa Chiu and Adriana Proser from 

Asia Society, New York; Kaywin Feldman, Matthew 

Welch, Robert Jacobsen, and Robin Cotton from the 

Minneapolis Institute of Art. We are greatly appreciative 

of Hiroshi Sugimoto. We would also like to thank Oscar 

Muñoz, as well as Marīa Ines Sicardi and Allison Ayers 

of the Sicardi Gallery. Many other people offered their 

assistance and knowledge to the project, including 

Victoria Blyth-Hill, Beata Grant, Danielle Hanrahan, 

Denise Patry Leidy, Yukio Lippit, Karen Lucic, Nadine 

Orenstein, Gregg Stanger, Christine Starkman, and 

Kulapat Yantrasast. 

A specialist in Baroque prints, Francesca learned 

a great deal from her aforementioned colleagues, and 

especially from Robert Mowry, the Alan J. Dworsky 

Curator of Chinese Art and Head of the Department 

of Asian Art, Harvard Art Museums / Arthur M. Sackler 

Museum, who generously donated his time and expertise 

to the project. Bob visited important collections of 

Buddhist art with Francesca and advised her in selecting 

the most important and beautiful works available for 

loan. He not only kindly supported the loan of some of 

the most significant pieces from his own collections 

but also guided and oversaw the research on these very 

works conducted by the Pulitzer’s graduate student 

research assistants at the Harvard Art Museums, Phillip 

Bloom and Katherine Brooks, who are Ph.D. candidates in 

History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University.

Bob introduced them to the rewards of conducting 

intensive object research in the complex, intricate, and 

frequently abstruse field of Buddhist art. We are grateful 

to them for providing new insights that have already 

altered the way we think about these objects. Their 

well-researched entries for the Harvard works in the 

exhibition can be found on the exhibition’s website, 

buddha.pulitzerarts.org. 

Symposia at the Pulitzer have long emphasized 

the interchange of ideas among participants. Instead 

of presenting papers, participants share openly their 

observations about the works and their display in Andō’s 

spaces. Phillip Bloom organized a symposium at the 

Pulitzer in November 2011, bringing together professors 

and graduate students interested in Buddhist art from 

the University of California, Berkeley; Duke University; 

Harvard University; University of Illinois at Chicago; 

University of Kansas; University of Washington; and 

Virginia Commonwealth University. A second symposium 

in February 2012 will offer the opportunity for curators 

and conservators from the lending institutions, along 

with conservation scientists and other specialists in the 

field, to learn more about the exhibited works and to 

discuss their future care and display. 

We would also like to acknowledge and thank 

The Korea Foundation for inviting Francesca to join an 

important two-week workshop on Buddhist art in Korea 

in the fall of 2010. This workshop offered her the 

opportunity to meet important scholars from around the 

world and to visit collections of Buddhist art as well as 

numerous Buddhist temples and monasteries. These 

experiences not only influenced the way she approached 

the Korean works in the exhibition, they also helped her 

gain a better appreciation for the ritual context of 

Buddhist art. 

Since 2004, David Robertson, artistic director of 

the St. Louis Symphony, has prepared a series of notable 

chamber music concerts at the Pulitzer. For Reflections of 

the Buddha, compositions by Western composers of the 

twentieth and twenty-first centuries (including Jonathan 

Harvey, John Cage, and Morton Feldman) connect to 

Buddhist themes and explore the unique possibilities 

that Andō’s space provides. 

Other public programs have included meditation 

classes taught by clerics and lay practioners from 

diverse Buddhist traditions. The Buddhist Council of 

Greater St. Louis helped us offer this extremely popular 

series of classes. Another program, “Exploring Buddhism 

and Art,” brings together as a team Buddhist practitioners 

and Pulitzer docents who are available to answer 

questions and lead discussions about Buddhism and 

Buddhist practices as they relate to the artworks on view. 

Members of the St. Louis community — including artists, 

artisans, clerics, historians, social workers, and poets 

— have also given brief gallery talks about an artwork 

from their own personal and professional perspectives in 

another popular program titled “Frame of Reference,” 

organized by Courtney Henson, visitor services manager. 

2 

Integral to the exhibition is the Pulitzer’s 

Staging project. In partnership with Prison Performing 

Arts, St. Patrick Center, and Employment Connection, the 

Pulitzer is presenting Staging Reflections of the Buddha, a 

community project inspired by our highly successful 

Staging Old Masters project of 2009. Led by Lisa Harper 

Chang and Emily Augsburger, this Staging project seeks to 

make connections between the art and the viewers, while 

also deconstructing social barriers. For five months 

during 2011 and 2012, a group of former prisoners and 

homeless veterans, referred to as actors, participate in 

weekly workshops that include art exploration and 

instruction, theatre exercises, meditation, and rehearsals. 

An original performance piece created by the actors 

under the direction of Agnes Wilcox, artistic director of 

Prison Performing Arts, will be presented in the Pulitzer 

galleries this spring, intertwining the actors’ personal 

stories and experiences with the philosophies, figures, 

and symbols of the works on view. The actors hope to 

apply what they learn toward fulfilling personal and 

occupational goals. Their work culminates in live 

performances in February and March of 2012. A symbolic 

ceremony featuring lanterns constructed by the actors 

and fellow members of the St. Louis community will 

mark the closing of the exhibition and performances. 

The Pulitzer would like to thank the following 

partners and their staff for their invaluable support of 

our community projects: faculty, staff, and students from 

the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University 

in St. Louis; Prison Performing Arts; St. Patrick 

Center; Employment Connection; affiliated staff and 

artists for Staging Reflections of the Buddha; 88.1 KDHX; 

CAM / Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; Big Brothers 

Big Sisters; Diversity Awareness Partnership; Living 

Insight Center; and The Buddhist Council of Greater St. 

Louis; with particular thanks going to Edward Lawlor, 

Amanda Moore McBride, Agnes Wilcox, Rosemary 

Watts-Dreyer, Maggie Ginestra, Emily Piro, Br. David Betz, 

Terri Brown, Juan William Chavez, Bob Hartzell, Kongsak 

Tainpaitchitr, Donald Sloane, Carianne Noga, Reena Hajat 

Carroll, Sevda Safarova, Alina Sigmond, Christopher Fan, 

Rachel Crump, Cristina Flagg, Jack Sisk, and Nico Leone. 

The Pulitzer staff deserves much appreciation 

and applause for helping to organize, display, and 

research such an important group of objects. I am 

especially grateful to Francesca Herndon-Consagra for 

conceiving of and organizing Reflections of the Buddha and 

its curatorial initiatives, for overseeing and contributing 

to its web and print catalogues, and for helping to 

organize its public programming. We would both like to 

thank Sydney Norton, curatorial assistant, for conducting 

object research, offering classes to the Pulitzer’s docents, 

and providing a detailed study guide for the Pulitzer staff, 

docents, and local educators. Abigail Green, the Pulitzer’s 

summer intern, produced a comprehensive glossary of 

terms, and Matthew Barker, curatorial administrative 

assistant, helped design and edit the study guide. 

For an installation so refined and understated,

Left Hand of a Colossal Buddha Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai), c. 1202, Japan 

it took the incredibly detailed efforts of the chief of 

installation, Shane Simmons, who oversaw the work of 

carpenter Tim Kelly and painter Craig Overy, and also 

of the installation crew: Eric Fox, Danielle Kantrowitz, 

Salvatore La Forte, and BJ Vogt. Registrars Helene Rundell 

and Elise Johnson effectively organized all aspects of the 

installation. We are also grateful to Amy Broadway, 

Lauren Kolber, Jim Maloney, and Steve Morby, as well as 

Stephen Schenkenberg, Ken Botnick, and Sam Fentress. 

Note 

1. Quoted in Tadao Ando and Massimo Vignelli, 

Tadao Ando: Light and Water (New York: Monacelli 

Press, 2003), 154. 

3

Standing Buddha Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai), mid-13th century, Japan 

4

Womb World Mandala (Taizōkai mandara), mid-13th century, Japan 

5

1 

Afghanistan 

P a k i s t a n 

2 

I n d i a 

T i b e t 

Reflections of the Buddha 

M o n g o l i a 

C h i n a 

Nepal Southeast Asia 

Key Countries and Historical Sites Referred to in this Catalogue 

1 Hadda, Afghanistan 

2 Mathura, India 

3 Mt. Geumgang, Korea 

4 Kyoto, Japan 

Japan 

3 

Korea 4

Living Things: Buddhist Art in a Building by Tadao Andō 

I would like to think of [the Pulitzer] as . . . a space to inspire 

visitors and even expand their consciousness. I wanted to create 

a very stimulating place, where works of art are not exhibited 

merely as specimens but can speak to us as living things. 

Tadao Andō, 2000 1 

Reflections of the Buddha presents twenty-two extraordinary 

works of Buddhist art dating from the second century ce 

with three works of contemporary art that resonate with 

Buddhist themes. All are placed in dialogue with The 

Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, the building designed by 

the Japanese architect Tadao Andō, which opened in 2001. 

Andō’s philosophy about architecture aligns with some 

aspects of Buddhist ethics and aesthetics, which may 

have contributed to his use of simple geometry, modest 

materials, and natural light. The end result is a space that 

animates art, and where art enlivens space. In designing 

the Pulitzer, Andō worked with two artists, Ellsworth 

Kelly and Richard Serra, from whom Emily Pulitzer commissioned 

art for the site: “As a collaboration between 

architecture and art right from the first stage of planning,” 

Andō wrote nine years after the building opened, 

“this was an exceptional task, a pursuit of what I believe 

to be an ideal art museum.” 2 Reflections of the Buddha continues 

this reciprocal relationship between art and 

architecture in its selection and placement of Buddhist 

art in Andō’s spaces, allowing for an approach to exhibition 

narrative that is less historical and more analogous 

to poetry than to prose. 

The Buddhist works in Reflections of the Buddha 

once served in their original context as aids toward or 

visual expressions of the indescribable state of enlightenment 

or awakening (Nirvāna), the spiritual insight or 

awareness that frees a person from the cycle of birth, 

death, and rebirth (samsāra), a concept central to 

Buddhism. Nirvāna refers not only to the state of an enlightened 

person after death, but also to the state of 

mind “free of defilements,” grasped while alive. 

Buddhism, one of the great religions of the 

world, is derived from the teachings of its founder, an 

Indian prince named Siddhārtha Gautama, who lived during 

the fifth century BCE. After witnessing a corpse and 

people suffering from frailty and illness, Siddhārtha, at 

age twenty-nine, became deeply melancholic and renounced 

his wealth. He wandered as an ascetic for six 

years, until one night he meditated on existence. 

Siddhārtha realized that all things are conditional and 

impermanent and in a state of constant change; all 

things are unsatisfying, since any pleasure — physical or 

psychological — is fleeting; and all phenomena lack a 

permanent self or soul, the realization of which leads 

to selfless, loving kindness and compassion for others. 

Francesca Herndon-Consagra 

Through such insights he reached enlightenment. In 

later traditions, Siddhārtha became known as the Buddha 

Śākyamuni (sage of the Śākya clan), who became one 

of many past and future Buddhas (Awakened Ones). 


are extraordinarily diverse. Coming from Afghanistan, 

China, India, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, 

and Tibet, they primarily represent two traditions of 

Buddhism that developed in northern India and spread 

throughout Asia: Mahāyāna (‘Great vehicle’), which began 

to flourish in the first century ce, and Vajrayāna 

(‘Diamond vehicle’), which evolved just prior to the sixth 

century ce. Vajrayāna is often seen as a branch of 

Mahāyāna, partially because both believe that many 

Buddhas and bodhisattvas (enlightened beings who have 

postponed Nirvāna to aid others in achieving it) exist in 

countless worlds. They are also united in an expansive 

and optimistic concept that all conscious beings have 

inherent Buddha natures and are therefore capable of 

achieving Nirvāna. Yet each tradition emphasizes a different 

journey to Buddhahood. Mahāyāna’s takes many eons 

to complete, while Vajrayāna’s emphasizes Tantric rituals 

and techniques transmitted from master to disciple that 

offer the possibility of reaching Buddhahood within a 

single lifetime. The varied works in the exhibition display 

figures (from Śākyamuni himself to his various celestial 

counterparts and an array of bodhisattvas) that provide 

believers with exemplars of fully realized states. These 

works inspired Buddhists throughout Asia to travel the 

path toward Nirvāna. 

The title of this exhibition refers back to a 

Tibetan elaboration on the legendary origin of all images 

of Śākyamuni: An artist was sent to render an image of 

Śākyamuni, but he could not bear to gaze directly at his 

brilliance. He could work only from a reflection that 

Śākyamuni cast on the surface of a pool. 3 Reflections of the 

Buddha develops the metaphor of this legend by showing 

how Buddhism has been reflected over the centuries in 

different cultures across Asia. The exhibition also considers 

how Buddhists use art as a way to seek reflections of 

the Buddha within themselves, and how reflections from 

the Pulitzer’s water garden enhance Buddhist concepts 

and the experience of art in the building. 4 

Part I: 

Transformative Functions of the Art 

The artworks in Reflections of the Buddha originally served 

transformative functions by virtue of their distinctive 

abilities to embody and represent Buddhist meaning and 

experience. The artists sought to capture Nirvāna and

such quintessential virtues as compassion and wisdom in 

their images of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Some of the 

sculptures in the exhibition once stood as “living” sculptures 

on altars and in sanctuaries throughout Asia. They 

were enshrined icons that were consecrated in rites that 

brought images “to life.” Clerics would invite the 

appropriate deity’s energy to reside in the image and 

blessed it in such a way that the image could serve as 

an adequate symbol for the deity depicted. Several of 

the larger works in the exhibition, such as Standing 

Buddha Śākyamuni (no. 9 in the checklist that follows this 

essay) from late sixth-century China and Standing Buddha 

Amitābha (no. 3) from mid-thirteenth century Japan, were 

probably consecrated in this way and thus served to establish 

a bond between the enlivened deity and the 

believers who prayed before it. This required the proper 

attitude of humble acknowledgement of one’s personal 

need for spiritual aid and the recognition of the superior 

wisdom and compassion of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas 

embodied in the icons. 

Like some of the other Buddhist sculptures 

in this exhibition, the white marble Standing Buddha 

Śākyamuni incorporates the image of the lotus, one of the 

most popular metaphors of the Buddhist journey to 

awakening: The plant’s seed is nourished in the mud of 

samsāra only to rise above the waterline to bloom untainted 

in the pure sunshine of Nirvāna. To emphasize 

this journey, the artist sculpted a stylized lotus bud 

between the feet and an honorific tassel in the shape 

of a lotus blossom near the proper left shoulder of the 

Buddha. At the Pulitzer, this journey from samsāra to 

Nirvāna is accentuated through the sculpture’s placement. 

It stands at the end of the light-filled main gallery, 

next to a water garden filled with small dark rocks that 

make the water look blackish, like the mud in which the 

lotus grows. The combination of natural light reflected 

off the water and Ellsworth Kelly’s Blue Black (no. 18) on 

the wall behind it makes the white marble appear luminous, 

beckoning the visitor to move down the long 

narrow gallery to meet it. 

Standing Buddha Śākyamuni rewards the visitor 

with its beautifully carved details and juxtapositions: a 

monk’s robe rendered with fan-like folds that descend dynamically 

across the body contrasts with the still, 

symmetrical face that looks down with half-opened eyes 

in a meditative state. Meditation, which involves learning 

various types and levels of concentration, stills the mind 

and is a precondition for practitioners to understand and 

experience the teachings of the Buddha. Artists depicting 

Buddhas in meditative states sought to render them with 

expressions of mindful composure and serenity that transcend 

all physical discomforts and psychological 

emotions, including joy and sorrow. 

Not only do the works in the exhibition exemplify 

such Buddhist teachings and practices, but each was 

also part of the fluid exchanges between monastic and 

lay communities from different parts of Asia that wove 

together seemingly disparate traditions and gave rise to 

8 

Seated Bodhisattva Tārā in her “Green Manifestation” (Duoluo 

pusa), 1403 – 1424, China 

new ones. Two works in the exhibition are superb 

examples of this phenomenon: Head of Buddha Śākyamuni 

(no. 8) from fourth-century Afghanistan and A Scene from 

the Life of the Buddha (no. 5) from Pakistan, which was 

carved sometime during the late second or early third 

century. These works come from a culturally diverse region 

known as Gandhāra, which was conquered by 

Alexander the Great in 326 bce and occupied, over the 

centuries, not only by the Greeks but also by the Indians, 

western Asian nomads, Chinese, and Silk Route traders. 

The result was a cosmopolitan environment that blended 

ideas and styles of art, resulting in a type of sculptural 

ideal that depicted Śākyamuni in a toga as a Hellenistic 

Apollo, yet with the soft belly of an Indian deity as seen 

in A Scene from the Life of the Buddha. 

Another type of Buddha image developed in 

Mathurā, a city in northern India lying on the Yamuna 

River northwest of Agra. Along a major caravan route, it 

too became an important center for many cultures and 

religions, including Buddhism. Characteristics of 

Mathurān sculpture during the Gupta period (320 – 647) 

may be seen in the sensuous Torso of a Buddha (no. 6) from 

the fifth century. Sculptors used local sandstone, which is 

mottled red with cream spots and malleable enough to 

shape lithe and rounded forms. When creating this type 

of Buddha image, sculptors may have worked within a

tradition that referenced the sacred text (sūtra) known as 

the “Discourse on Characteristics,” or the Lakkhana Sutta 

in Pāli. This text enumerates the thirty-two characteristics 

of great men like the Buddha, including legs like an 

antelope’s, a penis that is covered by a sheath, a frame 

that is divinely straight, and shoulders with no furrow 

between them. The sculptors heightened these 

attributes by carving a transparent drapery comprised of 

ringed folds in relief that systematically cascade down 

and across the body. 

Most artists created works anonymously yet 

each showed great originality and craftsmanship. They 

culled ideas from outsiders — itinerant artists as well as 

travelling Buddhist clerics and lay practitioners who 

brought their own statues, sūtras, and other religious objects 

with them. These items influenced the practices, 

iconography, and styles of the local workshop. As depictions 

of Buddhas and bodhisattvas moved from Pakistan, 

Afghanistan, and India to other parts of Asia, styles were 

adapted to suit the tastes of the local cultures. For instance, 

the artist of the Chinese Standing Buddha 

Śākyamuni (no. 9) did not directly incorporate the Indian 

Gupta style sometime around 600, but what is apparent 

is his more mediated acceptance of it. This is seen in the 

rounded shoulders, the hint of the leg underneath the 

robe’s cascading pleats, and the nudity of his chest. 

An intermingling of styles may also be seen 

between Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara in the Form of Khasarpana 

Lokeśvara (no. 17), from either Bihar or Bengal during 

the Pāla period (750 – 1150) in India, and Bodhisattva 

Avalokiteśvara (no. 14), from Nepal during the Transitional 

period (c. 879 – 1200). Both works depict bodhisattvas as 

Brahman princes with smooth and rounded bodies, 

which are decorated elaborately with necklaces, armbands, 

diadems, earrings, and sacred threads that wrap 

around the figures’ left shoulders, then down and around 

their right thighs. Both have stacked braided hair and 

sheer dhotis that cling to their bodies. The thin-waist torsos 

have similar belly clefts that protrude just over their 

belts, their hips move to one side, and their fleshy palms 

and animated fingers hold (or once held, in the case of 

the Nepalese work) lotus stems. The resemblances between 

the works attest to the flow of artists, mystics, 

monks, and lay practitioners who travelled back and 

forth between eastern India and the Nepal’s Kathmandu 

Valley for centuries. 5 

Other instances of cultural exchange in the 

exhibition may be seen between the Nepalese Bodhisattva 

Avalokiteśvara (no. 14) and the Mongolian Standing 

Bodhisattva Maitreya (no. 16). During the seventeenth century, 

the renowned Mongolian monk Zanabazar (1635 

– 1723), the son of a prominent family of the Khalkha 

Mongols, learned to make works of art inspired by 

Nepalese sculptures while training to be a Buddhist 

monk in Tibet. He returned to Mongolia with a convoy of 

clerics and artisans and built monasteries and workshops 

where sculptures like Standing Bodhisattva Maitreya were 

cast for monastic altars. In this way, early Nepalese 

9 

traditions of making and rendering Buddhist figures 

made their way into Mongolia. 6 

Incised inscriptions and symbols on Buddhist 

sculptures provide hints to understanding why and when 

sculptures were made. Yet trying to fully grasp the institutional 

and ritual contexts of a Buddhist image that is 

now part of a museum collection may be problematic given 

the difficulty of determining a function on the basis of 

appearance alone, and given the high probability that a 

single object had multiple purposes. Indeed, inscriptions 

carved on the bases of Buddhist sculptures convey that 

patrons sought a wide range of benefits through such 

commissions, both worldly and otherworldly. Among 

worldly benefits were good health and wealth, success in 

a military campaign, longevity, and the happiness and 

welfare of all people. Otherworldly benefits included the 

acquisition of karmic merit for the donors and their families, 

guilds, or other community groups. Karma is the 

universal law of cause and effect: Actions in this life will 

determine the form in which an individual will be reborn 

in the next life. Such commissions thus would advance 

patrons on the path toward Nirvāna. 

A desire to accrue karmic merit was likely one 

of the factors behind the making of Seated Bodhisattva 

Tārā in her “Green Manifestation” (no. 15). Tārā, one of the 

most beloved deities of Vajrayāna Buddhists, has the ability 

to save beings from the eight dangers (pride, delusions, 

hatred, envy, fanatical views, avarice, lust, and doubts). 7 

Of Tārā’s twenty-one forms, her green manifestation 

is considered her most active. Inscribed on the base of 

this sculpture, near Tārā’s right foot, is the following inscription: 

大明永樂年施 (Da Ming Yonglenian shi), which 

may be translated: “Donated [during the] Yongle reign [of 

the] Great Ming [dynasty].” 8 This indicates that the sculpture 

was likely produced in an imperial workshop of the 

Chinese Yongle Emperor, a Vajrayāna practitioner who 

reigned from 1402 to 1424. The term shi 施 (“donated”) 

suggests that it was produced specifically as a gift, possibly 

for a Buddhist temple as far away as Tibet. 9 

On the underside of the sculpture Seated 

Bodhisattva Tārā is a removable plate incised with an image 

of crossed vajras — ritual implements with curved 

prongs at each end symbolizing the thunderbolt/diamond 

path of Vajrayāna Buddhists (fig. 1, page 10). The vajra denotes 

the indestructible, immutable, and brilliant nature 

of Buddhist reality. Normally, the crossed-vajra symbol 

protects the sacred objects inside. The practice of inserting 

objects is often associated with the consecration of a 

Buddhist object as an icon: Inserted objects were thought 

in some cases to enhance the power of “the unseen 

Sacred and to increase its degree of presence in the 

image.” 10 Some included objects have also been associated 

with talismans, which possess the magic to protect, heal, 

and bring good fortune. Since Seated Bodhisattva Tārā is 

too small to serve as an icon, today it may be categorized 

as a Vajrayāna talismanic sculpture made in China to 

be donated for karmic merit sometime between 1402 

and 1424.

figure 1 

Detail of Seated Bodhisattva Tārā in her “Green Manifestation” (Duoluo pusa), 1403 – 1424, China 

figure 2 

Prince Shōtoku at Age Two: The sculpture and a selection of the dedicatory objects discovered within 

10

Another work in the exhibition, Standing Prince 

Shōtoku at Age Two (no. 1), arrived in the United States in 

1936 with its numerous consecratory and talismanic 

items intact and undisturbed in his hollowed-out body. 

This wooden statue, created around 1292, depicts the imperial 

regent of Japan, Shōtoku Taishi Nisaizō (574 – 622). 

He was one of Japan’s earliest followers of Buddhism, and 

the sculpture depicts an apocryphal moment: At age two, 

Shōtoku was said to have turned to the east, held his 

hands together in prayer, and recited the nembutsu (“Namo 

Amida Butsu”), the oral invocation of the Buddha 

Amitābha, the Buddha of Infinite Light. More than seventy 

individual items were found inside this sculpture. They 

not only help date the work but also provide insights into 

the diversity of medieval Japanese Buddhist belief. 

The items inside Standing Prince Shōtoku include 

tiny Buddhist relics made of semi-precious stones, a variety 

of miniature devotional statues, sūtras, a twill-weave 

silk bag, and a number of Sanskrit mantras (verses or 

hymns of praise) written on paper (fig. 2). These objects 

connect to multiple Buddhist traditions in Japan. Some 

items appear to be from the Mahāyāna Pure Land tradition 

that venerates Amitābha, others Zen, which is based 

on the Chinese Ch’an School that taught powerful meditative 

practices to anyone. The Vajrayāna schools of 

Tendai and Shingon were also represented. Tendai synthesizes 

Ch’an meditation and Tantric practice with a 

form of Chinese T’ien-t’ai Buddhism, which seeks to 

unify different Buddhist schools into “One Vehicle” partially 

through the teachings of the Lotus Sūtra. Shingon, 

on the other hand, is based on the teachings of the 

Chinese Chên-yen School that stressed visualizations and 

mantras used in Tantric practices and rituals that were 

established in Japan by the Buddhist monk Kūkai (774 – 

835). The items from different doctrinal schools inside 

Standing Prince Shōtoku reflect the complexity of the diffusion 

of Buddhism throughout Asia. 

Several items inserted into Standing Prince 

Shōtoku help scholars associate it with Eison (1201 – 1290), 

the founder of the Shingon Risshū sect, and his followers. 

11 First is a small sculpture of Eison’s personal 

protector, the ferocious deity Rāgarāja, who is capable of 

“freeing a devotee from lust.” 12 There are also three manuscript 

books that present rules of monastic behavior and 

liturgy, which reflect the Shingon Risshū sect’s emphasize 

on the Vinaya precepts. These were prescribed 

Buddhist teachings of morality and comportment for monastic 

orders, institutional rules for the governance of 

the Buddhist community (San� gha), and the consequences 

for breaking these rules. In order to represent the 

Buddhist teachings (Dharma), Eison and his followers 

would insert sūtras and mantras written on paper into 

hollowed-out figures. As a way to represent his San� gha, 

he would install practitioners’ vows. All these types of 

documents were found inside the sculpture, but they do 

not necessarily confirm all the functions of the work or 

the identity of the sect that commissioned it. 

The invocation of the Buddha, Dharma, and 

11 

San� gha — known together as the “Three Jewels” — is 

manifested in the historical figure of Prince Shōtoku himself. 

The prince supported the building of seven temples, 

issued an imperial decree that urged everyone to accept 

the Three Jewels as the highest refuge for all living 

beings, and authored eight volumes of commentary on 

the Lotus Sūtra and other sacred writings. 13 At his death, 

Prince Shōtoku is said to have quoted a passage from the 

Dharmapada: “Avoid evil, undertake good, and purify the 

mind.” 14 Through these actions, one attains the wisdom 

of emptiness, which, in turn, allows one to see an inner- 

Buddha potential within oneself and all other beings. The 

clerics who likely commissioned Standing Prince Shōtoku 

may have used the sculpture in various ways: as a consecrated 

icon with additional talismanic powers and as a 

way to present themselves as authorities of Prince 

Shōtoku’s teachings. 

The Buddhist traditions launched by Prince 

Shōtoku would wax and wane in popularity and significance 

over the centuries in Japan. Interest in traditional 

forms of Buddhism had already started to decrease 

during the anti-Buddhist persecutions of the Meiji period 

(1868 – 1912). 15 Today, Buddhist practices continue to be a 

part of important rituals like funerals and seasonal celebrations. 

Buddhist concepts and aesthetics also continue 

to inspire cultural figures in Japan, including the 

Pulitzer’s architect, Tadao Andō. 

Part II: 

Transformative Functions of the Building 

Even though additional Asian and Western ideas have influenced 

Tadao Andō’s designs, Reflections of the Buddha 

aims to emphasize his connection to Buddhism by sparking 

new and dynamic relationships through the display 

of Buddhist art in his spaces. The lack of adornment and 

the simple geometry and materials of Andō’s buildings 

may be regarded as characteristics of Western 

Modernism. Yet Buddhist concepts found in his writings 

and interviews offer another way to understand his architecture. 

They provide an opportunity to experience the 

Pulitzer as a “living” environment where the visitor, the 

space, and the art become themselves through their interdependence, 

a concept central to Buddhism and to the 

selection and display of art in this exhibition. 

In a recently published interview, Andō spoke 

of himself as a designer of symbolic architecture — 

“where we live and die, where we think about life and 

death, and the world of this life and Nirvāna . . . Symbolic 

architecture should emerge from the struggles with 

these human conditions.” 16 In the same interview, Andō 

also acknowledged that: 

God, to the Japanese, exists in nature. I do not know whether this 

would be an acceptable view in Christianity or not. In fact, that 

god exists in nature means that god exists in one’s mind. Many 

people think that god exists outside of self. But, a god who exists

in nature is also in one’s mind . . . This kind of teaching has been 

continuous in Japanese Buddhism since the periods of Kūkai [774 

– 835] and Shinran [1173 – 1263]. Without realizing this, people 

make voyages to [distant places] in search of self, but god was not 

there . . . Returning from their trips, they realized that god existed 

in their mind. I think what is important here is not only the 

awakening itself, but also the journey to this awakening. 17 

For Buddhists, the journey to awakening, or Nirvāna, begins 

with the understanding that the world’s constituents, 

including ourselves, are impermanent, dissatisfactory, 

without a concrete self (“no-self”), and conditional (dependent 

arising). By experiencing these pre-modern 

Buddhist works in Andō’s spaces, the visitor to this 

Pulitzer exhibition may also appreciate these ideas in 

new ways. 

Impermanence 

Andō imparts rich meaning into the Pulitzer’s spaces by 

allowing elements such as light and water to be part of 

the experience; they help mark the passing of time and 

the changing of seasons. 18 This state of flux connects with 

Buddhist concepts of impermanence: Everything arises, 

exists in a state of constant change, and then passes away. 

The Pulitzer’s glass walls along the water garden 

allow sunlight into the galleries and passageways. 

Wind creates movement across the water’s surface. On 

bright days, the sun glistens and reflects light off the water, 

casting lively rippling patterns onto the building’s 

ceilings, floors, and walls, a metaphor for light’s boundlessness. 

The visitor who arrives on a stormy day with 

dark skies and rain (sometimes in the form of torrential 

sheets that course across the water garden’s exterior 

walls) looks out and feels a sense of awe and foreboding 

from inside the galleries. This constantly changing light 

also progresses across the surfaces of the artworks; it animates 

them, not unlike the natural light and candlelight 

that once moved and flickered across the statues at their 

original sites. 

Andō has written about how light and form are 

interrelated: 

Light isolated within architectural space lingers on the surfaces of 

objects and evokes shadows from the background. As light varies 

in intensity with the shifting of time and changes of season, the 

appearances of objects are altered. But light does not become objectified 

and is not itself given form until it is isolated and 

accepted by physical objects. 19 

When natural light is muted, soft, and indirect at the 

Pulitzer, it gives a sculpture like the one of Prince 

Shōtoku (no. 1) even greater volume and adds to the lifelike 

qualities of the baby image, especially around his soft 

belly and rounded shoulders. 

The Buddhist idea of impermanence is expressed 

at the Pulitzer not just by the building’s 

constantly changing light but also by the simple fact that 

the art included in this exhibition has itself undergone 

12 

great change: the sculptures are dented, abraded, fragmented. 

A head is all that survives of a monumental 

Buddha from Afghanistan (no. 8); a hand, twenty-six inches 

long and once belonging to a Buddha Amitābha, is one 

of the few remnants from a colossal sculptural triad in 

Japan (no. 2). All of the Buddhist works in the exhibition 

attest to the ravages of time. They are no longer in their 

original context, no longer standing among hundreds of 

other sculptures on a Tibetan altar or among sculptural 

groups in Chinese temples. Time has all but rubbed off 

their colorful paint and glistening gold. Today, Buddhists 

rarely pray before these sacred objects, which are now 

placed within the Pulitzer, a contemporary building with 

little adornment and constantly changing light. The mutability 

of sky, place, object, and the visitor’s own state of 

mind heightens this sense that everything arises, constantly 

changes, then passes away. 

Dissatisfactoriness 

Impermanence, Buddhists believe, leads to dissatifactoriness 

(dukha), which is often translated as suffering. But 

the term in Buddhism best connotes the condition 

caused by an axle hole that is not properly made so that 

the axle wobbles in a dissatisfactory way. 20 People often 

search for happiness in things that do not last, causing 

dukha in their lives. Changing afflicted states of mind 

also produce dukha, which can lead to such feelings as 

hatred, greed, and delusion. 

Andō’s philosophy of architecture addresses 

dukha. In 1984, he wrote about confronting societal 

norms: 

Once a desire approaches satisfaction, it grows larger and stimulates 

other ambitions. Man enters a never-ending cycle and 

becomes dominated by his own excessive desires. What really enriches 

an individual’s life in an age such as ours? It is important 

to discover what is essential to human life and to consider what 

abundance truly means. An architectural space stripped of all excess 

and composed simply from bare necessities is true and 

convincing because it is appropriate and satisfying. Simplification 

through the elimination of all surface decorations, the employment 

of minimal, symmetrical compositions and limited 

materials constitutes a challenge to contemporary civilization. 21 

Here, Andō not only critiques contemporary materialism 

and consumerism but also espouses Japanese aesthetics 

derived from Zen Buddhism as an alternative: simplicity, 

austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the integrity 

of natural objects and processes. 

Yet the objects in this exhibition cover a wide 

range of Buddhist cultures and sects. Andō’s geometry 

and materials seem far removed from the philosophies 

that lead to the making of such elaborate works as the 

gilded bodhisattva from Nepal decorated with semi-precious 

stones (no. 14) or the imperial sūtra from China that 

is ornately painted in gold (no. 24). There is even the 

Buddhist deity Vaiśravana (no. 20), who became a Chinese 

wealth god, depicted with sumptuously decorated armor.

View of the Main Gallery 

These heavily gilded works look all the more ornate in 

the austerity of Andō’s spaces, while the space around 

them becomes more dynamic. 

The Pulitzer’s presentation of Buddhist art 

allows the visitor to see each work from several unobstructed 

viewpoints and it silhouettes the sculptures, 

offering them additional visual power and energy. These 

Buddhist sculptures likely have never had the luxury of 

so much space — neither in their original sites nor in 

some of their new repositories, including the often 

crowded galleries of encyclopedic museums. The placement 

of these works in Andō’s architecture gives the 

viewer the freedom to appreciate these works in an expanded 

way. This approach is partially Minimalist. An 

American museum director in the 1980s once spoke of 

“the synchronic museum” that foregoes history in the 

name of “a kind of intensity of experience, an aesthetic 

charge that is not so much temporal (historical) as it is 

now radically spatial . . . It is Minimalism . . . that has reshaped 

the way we, as late twentieth-century viewers, 

look at art: the demands we now put on it; our need to 

experience it along with its interaction with the space in 

which it exists.” 22 

The dominant Asian influences in the United 

States for much of the twentieth century were Japanese 

art and Zen Buddhism. In the 1950s and 1960s, they inspired 

Western Minimalist artists with the principles of 

simplicity and understatement. In the 1970s, Western 

Minimalism in turn informed contemporary Japanese architects 

like Andō, with its systematic thinking 

characterized by repetition and progressions of forms. In 

a recent book about his own processes and ideas, Andō 

13 

spoke about the Pulitzer’s architecture in Minimalist 

terms: “[W]ith the simplest possible form, [the Pulitzer] 

was composed as the ultimate box.” 23 It is “embedded 

with a grid space based on an identical module in plan 

and section.” 24 

The use of repetitive forms plays a role in the 

display of art in Reflections of the Buddha as well. For instance, 

four-circle mandalas of the Sakya School of 

Tibetan Buddhism (nos. 11-12) are displayed in the 

Pulitzer’s eponymous Cube Gallery. These hierarchical 

and geometric diagrams of Buddhist cosmology were 

likely guides for meditation rituals. Based on the Hevajra 

Tantra (a Vajrayāna text written sometime between the 

late eighth and early tenth centuries), the Sakya School’s 

teachings offer a practitioner a particular way to understand 

a key concept found in both Mahāyāna and 

Vajrayāna Buddhism: Nirvāna already exists in samsāra. 

The defilements of samsāra simply cover this pure knowledge 

from view. Each Sakya mandala in the Cube Gallery 

depicts four circles symmetrically aligned. Each circle 

represents an architectural plan of a palace with walls 

and gateways at the cardinal directions. Inside each circle 

is a square; inside the square is a circle. The symmetry offers 

a sense of order and permanence found in a 

particular deity’s celestial realm. This is the palace that 

the practitioner visualizes as the home for the deity. As 

one scholar has noted, the deity is like “a germinating 

seed [that] is within, and protected by, its outer shell.” 25 

It is here where the teacher (lama) helps the initiate connect 

with the deity and understand that impermanence 

and dukha can be “extinguished” in one’s own lifetime. 

Andō, too, chooses repetitive forms — simple

circles and squares — in his architecture. Yet unlike most 

Minimalists, and more like Tibetan mandala artists, Andō 

seeks to use geometry and enclosed spaces “to inspire internal 

vistas within the individual which correspond to 

spaces that the individual harbours within himself.” 26 

With such statements, Andō acknowledged as early as 

1977 his desire to build symbolic architecture. Reflections of 

the Buddha makes it possible to see that both Andō and 

the Tibetan artists use simple and repetitive geometry 

and symmetry to connect with the invisible world, where 

the human spirit may find succor from the impermanence 

and dissatisfactoriness of life. 

Nothingness and the No-Self 

In most philosophical traditions, a person is an individual 

substance with a true essence or self. But Śākyamuni 

taught that all phenomena lack any underlying permanent 

substance. This view is known as the doctrine of 

“no-self” (anātman). In Buddhism “all there is to a person 

is a complicated, swiftly changing stream of mental and 

physical phenomena, connected by causal links and inextricably 

interrelated with the rest of the universe,” a 

scholar of Buddhist ethics succinctly wrote. 27 If you are 

not a substance, there is no reason to place yourself 

above others. This realization for Buddhists leads to loving 

kindness and compassion for oneself and others. 

Visitors to the Pulitzer sometimes feel and experience 

the spaces as empty. 28 Andō, in a recent interview, 

spoke about this emptiness as nothingness: 

The space of nothingness is where one finds his or her own self 

and life’s richness. The space of nothingness is where one struggles 

to reach a deeper layer of self . . . The space of nothingness is 

where one experiences love towards his or her self. The departure 

point is this moment of self-love. 29 

The Indian Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna articulated 

the related concept of non-duality and founded the 

“Middle Way” School of Mahāyāna Buddhism sometime 

between 150 and 250 ce. According to Nāgārjuna, behind 

the visible is emptiness. This refers to the way all things 

actually are, namely empty of the independent way they 

ordinarily seem to exist. Everything is interconnected 

and in flux. For Mahāyāna Buddhists, it is this awakened 

consciousness and penetrating insight into the emptiness 

of all things that brings one freedom. 

Later traditions have continued the investigation 

of no-self and emptiness. A group of twentieth- 

century Japanese thinkers known as the Kyoto 

Philosophical School influenced Andō’s creative practice. 

Philosophers of this school, such as Nishida Kitarō (1870 

– 1945), preferred to speak of nothingness not by its 

Sanskrit term in Mahāyāna Buddhism, śūnyatā 

(“Emptiness”; kū in Japanese), but with the Sino-Japanese 

character mu (“Nothingness”; wu in Chinese), a common 

term in Zen. Andō has also used the terms mu (nothingness) 

and ma (the space in between, or the negative space 

around and between objects). Andō elaborated: “The 

14 

importance of the Japanese tearoom does not lie in the 

walls, floor, ceiling, but the space of ma surrounded by 

these elements . . . [It is] a space for the cultivation of 

self.” 30 He then tried to clarify the difference between ma 

and mu: 

I use the term ma in some of my writings, and it was sometimes 

translated into nothingness. I think in English, both mu and ma 

are justifiably translated into nothingness. For me both are concerned 

with the invisible. While mu is that which one cannot feel, 

ma makes it palpable and tangible. I believe [that] . . . Nishida . . . 

emphasized the invisible as the place where the spiritual resides. 

Again, ma is the feeling of what is hidden behind the visible. 31 

Andō’s deep understanding of these concepts makes for 

an especially powerful union of art and architecture in 

Reflections of the Buddha. 

Dependent Arising 

Central to the Buddhist experience is the concept of “dependent 

arising”: All things arise and pass due to certain 

conditions. When conditions are present that support a 

thing’s existence, it comes to be. When new conditions 

appear, the thing changes. When conditions that support 

the thing end, the thing ceases to exist. 

At the Pulitzer, Andō created a sequence of galleries 

connected by transitional spaces that offer the 

means to experience different states of mind; each gallery 

offers a different condition. The experience is not 

unlike Andō’s description of the approach to the 

Buddhist Water Temple on Awaji Island, Japan, which he 

designed for the Vajrayāna Shingon sect: 

When approaching the Water Temple there are a series of moves 

which gradually empty the mind and prepare the way for 

meditation. In order to enter a space it is best to first go through 

a preparatory space, and that is what happens in this case. There 

are several phases. As in a poem you need to be led in. I feel the 

same about sequences of architectural spaces of varying moods. 32 

The sequence of simple geometric spaces at the Pulitzer 

also influences mood. In the context of this exhibition, 

the sequence recalls some Buddhist meditation practices 

that employ the mindfulness of breathing for tranquility 

and development of insight. 33 Some practices emphasize 

extending the interval between moments of breathing. 

This interval is the time when meditators seek to penetrate 

consciousness, 34 which evokes the effect of the 

gallery sequences and passageways at the Pulitzer: The 

Entrance Gallery’s low ceilings and small size constrict 

(as if lungs have exhaled the outside world from which 

they have come). A tall passageway filled with light offers 

a view of the water garden (extended interval). This passageway 

leads you to an expansive light-filled Main 

Gallery (a vast space from which to inhale deeply) that 

leads you down a bridge with views of the water garden 

(extended interval) into the enclosed and dark Cube 

Gallery (where the lungs once again constrict

La Línea del Destino (Line of Destiny), 2006, Oscar Muñoz, Colombian 

15

in exhalation). The extended intervals between galleries 

become metaphors for the time taken between breaths 

by the meditator. In a recent interview, Andō noted that 

he designs certain pathways as a way to encourage a state 

of mind where one does not achieve anything when 

walking along them: “One should not be bound to achieving 

something, but should search for the depth of self. 

Nothingness resides in one’s continuous search for self.” 35 

Andō’s symbolic architecture encourages 

metaphors about space and how one responds to it as a 

sentient being. Andō has explained: “When ‘I’ perceive 

the concrete to be something cold and hard, ‘I’ recognize 

the body as something warm and soft. In this way the 

body in its relationship with the world becomes shintai . . . 

The shintai is a sentient being that responds to the 

world.” 36 Through this understanding the Pulitzer is a 

“living” space: A Zen Buddhist would say that you walk 

the space and the space walks you. You and the space are 

independent, yet each becomes itself only through its 

interdependence. What makes the Pulitzer a “living” 

space is the dynamic, interdependent, trilateral play 

among the visitor, the space, and the art. All arise 

dependently. 

In Reflections of the Buddha, the journey through 

the Pulitzer begins with Standing Prince Shōtoku at Age 

Two (no. 1) greeting visitors the moment they enter. As 

mentioned earlier in this essay, the sculpture commemorates 

the beginning of Shōtoku’s spiritual path, when at 

age two he said the nembutsu. The placement of this 

sculpture facing east not only connects the orientation of 

the sculpture to the actual legend, but also associates the 

beginning of Shōtoku’s spiritual journey with that of the 

visitor’s own entry into the exhibition. Next to this work 

is Left Hand of a Colossal Buddha Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai) 

(no. 2), a fragment of a sculpture of Amitābha, which was 

approximately sixteen feet high. 37 The mudrā, or gesture, 

formed by the hand’s thumb touching its middle finger is 

one used to signify Amitābha’s descent to the human 

realm to transport a believer after death to the Pure Land. 

Attached to the original arm, this hand was once raised 

level with the chest of Amitābha, and slanted in such a 

way to allow the viewer to see the circle formed by 

thumb and middle finger (referring to the wheel of the 

Dharma, the symbol of Buddhist teachings). How the 

work is positioned in the Entrance Gallery highlights this 

circle formed by the fingers, likely representing its original 

incline on the sculpture. It also points toward the 

next gallery and leads the visitor on. 

After experiencing numerous works in the varied 

spaces designed by Andō, the visitor concludes the 

exhibition with Line of Destiny (no. 25), a two-minute 

black-and-white silent video by the Colombian artist 

Oscar Muñoz. It appears at the end of a long narrow corridor 

on the lower level, with no natural light. Andō 

never envisioned this area as gallery space. Yet in the context 

of the exhibition, the corridor provides an apt 

metaphor for samsāra and the internal journey to awakening. 

The looped play of the video begins with an image 

16 

of Muñoz’s hand filled with water, which reflects his face. 

As the video progresses, the water and the reflection 

slowly slip through his fingers until they disappear; it 

ends with an empty hand, only to be refilled with water, 

which drains through the fingers, over and again. Even 

though Muñoz never intended Line of Destiny to pertain to 

Buddhism, this work has three “symbolic” functions in 

this exhibition: It illustrates Buddhist concepts about the 

phenomenal world (as impermanent, dissatisfactory, conditional, 

and lacking any underlying and permanent 

substance); it alludes to the exhibition’s title; and it refers 

back to the beautiful colossal hand that helped start the 

visitor on the journey through the building. 

The Buddhist art in Reflections of the Buddha once 

helped believers on the path to Nirvāna. As these works 

moved across Asia into Europe and the United States, 

they elicited a variety of responses, providing new ways 

of understanding the Buddha, Buddhist images, and more 

generally Buddhism itself in many disparate environments. 

In Andō’s transformative spaces, Buddhist art 

continues to inspire — through the dynamic combination 

of art and architecture, past and present, East and 

West, private and public, secular and sacred, in an intimate 

setting in the center of an American city. 

Notes 

1. Tadao Ando, “The Result of an Intense Dialogue,” in Abstractions 

in Space: Tadao Ando, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, ed. Laurie Stein 

(Saint Louis: The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, 2001), 9. 

2. Tadao Ando, Process and Idea (Tokyo: TOTO, 2010), 226. 

3. Benjamin Rowland, The Evolution of the Buddha Image (New York: 

The Asia Society / Harry N. Abrams, 1963), 5–6. See also Denise 

Patry Leidy and Robert A. F. Thurman, Mandala: The Architecture of 

Enlightenment (New York: Asia Society Galleries / Tibet House; 

Boston: Shambhala, 1997), 133. 

4. Andō calls the Pulitzer’s water court a “water garden” in his 

latest book, Process and Idea, 225. 

5. Pratapaditya Pal, Art of Nepal: A Catalogue of the Los Angeles County 

Museum of Art Collection (Berkeley: Los Angeles County of Art / 

University of California Press, 1985), 19. 

6. Sources on Zanabazar include Patricia Berger and Terese Tse 

Bartholomew, Mongolia: The Legacy of Chinggis Khan (New York: 

Thames and Hudson; San Francisco: Asian Art Museum of San 

Francisco, 1995), 56–64; 261–263. See also Jan Fontein, J. Vrieze, 

and Dirk Bakker, The Dancing Demons of Mongolia (London: Lund 

Humphries, 1999), 70–73. For additional information about this 

work, see Phillip E. Bloom, “Standing Bodhisattva Maitreya,’” to be 

published online at buddha.pulitzerarts.org. 

7. Marylin M. Rhie and Robert A. F. Thurman, Wisdom and 

Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet (New York: Tibet House / Harry 

N. Abrams, 1996), 132. 

8. Phillip E. Bloom, “Seated Bodhisattva Tārā in her ‘Green 

Manifestation,’” to be published online at buddha.pulitzerarts. 

org. 

9. Kenneth K. S. Ch’en, Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey 

(Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1973), 267. It should 

be noted that Seated Bodhisattva Tārā, like almost all the metal 

sculptures in this exhibition, was made in bronze which is an alloy 

consisting primarily of copper. In China and other parts of 

Asia, copper was a monetary currency minted by the government. 

So one way for Buddhist temples to accumulate wealth was to 

utilize donated objects, like Seated Bodhisattva Tārā, “as capital for

the production of further economic gain, the earning of interest 

to be used in the furtherance of Dharma.” Ch’en also states that 

“the large amounts of copper possessed by Buddhist temples led 

the [Chinese] government to take numerous measures to regulate 

its use and circulation. Since copper was also used to mint 

coins, the government wanted to divert the whole copper output 

to the government mints. However, one might say that the government 

fought a losing battle in this policy. In order to 

manufacture 1,000 cash or one string, six catties of copper were 

required. The same six cattie, if used in the manufacture of objects, 

would be valued about 36,000 cash.” See Ch’en, Buddhism in 

China, 260. 

10. Helmut Brinker, “Facing the Unseen: On the Interior 

Adornment of Eizon’s Iconic Body,” Archives of Asian Art 50, 

(1997/1998): 43. 

11. John M. Rosenfield, “The Sedgwick Statue of the Infant 

Shōtoku,” Archives of Asian Art 22 (1968/1969): 56–79. See also Anne 

Nishimura Morse and Samuel Crowell Morse, Object as Insight: 

Japanese Buddhist Art & Ritual (Katonah, N.Y.: Katonah Museum of 

Art, 1995), 88. For additional information about this work, see 

Katherine L. Brooks, “Standing Prince Shōtoku at Age Two,” to be 


12. Donald McCallum, review of Living Images: Japanese Buddhist 

Icons in Context, by Robert H. Sharf and Elizabeth Horton Sharf, 

Monumenta Nipponica 59, no. 2 (Summer, 2004): 271–275. 

13. See Donald W. Mitchell, Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist 

Experience, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 21. 

14. Mitchell, Buddhism, 277. 

15. Janine Anderson Sawada, “Political Waves in the Zen Sea: The 

Engaku-ji Circle in Early Meiji Japan,” Japanese Journal of Religious 

Studies 25, nos. 1–2 (Spring, 1998): 118–119. 

16. Jin Baek, Nothingness: Tadao Ando’s Christian Sacred Space 

(Abingdon [England]; New York: Routledge, 2009), 203. 

17. Baek, Nothingness, 188. 

18. Tadao Ando, “From Self-Enclosed Modern Architecture 

Towards Universality,” The Japan Architect 301 (May 1982); published 

in Tadao Ando and Francesco Dal Co, Tadao Ando (London: 

Phaidon Press, 1995), 446. 

19. Tadao Ando, “Light, Shadow and Form: the Koshino House,” 

Via 11 (1990); published in Ando and Dal Co, Tadao Ando, 458. 


21. Tadao Ando, introduction to Tadao Ando, Buildings, Projects, 

Writings (New York, 1984); published in Ando and Dal Co, Tadao 

Ando, 449. 

22. Tom Krens as reported in Rosalind Krauss, “The Cultural Logic 

of the Late Capitalist Museum,” October 54 (Autumn, 1990): 7; see 

also Emma Barker, Contemporary Cultures of Display (New Haven: 

Yale University Press, 1999), 43–46. 

23. Ando, Process and Idea, 224. 


25. Robert E. Fisher, Art of Tibet (London: Thames & Hudson, 1997), 

70. 

26. Tadao Ando, “A Wedge in Circumstances,” The Japan Architect 

243 (June 1977); published in Ando and Dal Co, Tadao Ando, 444. 

27. Charles Goodman, “Ethics in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism,” 

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta 

(Stanford: The Metaphysics Research Lab, 2010), accessed October 

1, 2011, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/ 

ethics-indian-buddhism. 

28. Masao Furuyama, Tadao Ando *1941: the Geometry of Human Space 

(Cologne: Taschen, 2006), 15. 


30. Baek, Nothingness, 194–195. 


32. Tadao Ando, Tadao Ando: 1983–2000 (Madrid: El Croquis 

Editorial, 2000), 14–15. 

33. Donald K. Swearer, “Control and Freedom: The Structure of 

Buddhist Meditation in the Pāli Suttas, Philosophy East and West 23, 

no. 4 (Oct., 1973): 438. 

17 

34. Mircea Eliade, “Yoga and Modern Philosophy,” The Journal of 

General Education 15, no. 2 (July 1963): 133. 


36. Tadao Ando, “Shintai in Space,” in Architecture and the Body 

(New York, 1988); published in Ando and Dal Co, Tadao Ando, 453. 

37. Katherine L. Brooks, Left Hand of a Colossal Buddha Amitābha 

(Amida Nyōrai), to be published at buddha.pulitzerarts.org. 

Standing Buddha (possibly Śākyamuni) (Sokkamuni), 8th or 9th 

century, Korea

18 

A Scene from the Life of the Buddha, late 2nd or early 3rd century, Pakistan 

facing page 

Torso of a Buddha, 5th century, India

Sea of Buddha, 1995, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Japanese 

21

The Monk Ananda (Anantuo), 9th century, China 

22

Head of Buddha Śākyamuni, 4th century, Afghanistan 

23

foreground 


middle 


rear 


25

center (and facing page) 

Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara 

(Karunamaya), late 10th or 

early 11th century, Nepal 

left 

Acala Candamaharosana 

(Budong Mingwang), “The 

Immovable One,” One of the 

Five Great Wisdom Kings, 

1764, China 

right 

Seated Bodhisattva Tārā in 

her “Green Manifestation” 

(Duoluo pusa), 1403 – 1424, 

China 

left 

Four Mandalas (dkyil-‘khor), 

18th century, Tibet 

right 

Standing Bodhisattva 

Maitreya (Maijdari), second 

half 17th century, Mongolia 

left 



(Duoluo pusa), 1403 – 1424, 

China 

right 

Four-circle Hevajra Mandala 

(Kye-ba Rdo-rje dkyil-‘khor), 

15th or 16th century, Tibet 

26

28 

Four-circle Hevajra Mandala (Kye-ba Rdo-rje dkyil-‘khor), 15th or 16th century, Tibet

Four Mandalas (dkyil-‘khor), 18th century, Tibet 

29

30 

Details of Standing Bodhisattva Maitreya (Maijdari), second half 17th century, Mongolia

32 

Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara in the Form of Khasarpana Lokeśvara, late 11th or early 12th century, India

Seated Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin), 8th century, China 

33

34 

Acala Candamaharosana (Budong Mingwang), “The Immovable One,” One of the Five Great Wisdom Kings, 1764, China

Enlarged photograph of Buddhist Triad: Buddha Amitābha (Amita Yeorae) Seated on a Lotus Throne with his Hands 

Held in the Bhūmisparśa mudrā (chokji in) and Flanked by Two Standing Bodhisattvas, Presumably Avalokiteśvara 

(Gwaneum) and Mahāsthāmaprāpta (Daeseji), mid-15th century, Korea 

35

36 

Detail of “The Universal Gateway of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara,” 

Chapter Twenty-Five of the Lotus Sūtra (Miaofa lianhua jing Guanshiyin pusa 

pumenpin), with an appended Heart Sūtra (Xin jing), 1432, China

38 

Guardian King of the North (Vaiśravana) (duo wen tian wang), 1279 – 1368, China

Gallery Guide & Checklist 

Entrance Gallery 

Japan: Pure Land Sculpture in the 11th & 13th Centuries 

Pure Land, a form of Mahāyāna Buddhism, venerates the Buddha Amitābha (Buddha of Immeasurable Light). One 

of the Buddhas of the Ten Directions, Amitābha presides over a pure Buddha realm called “Land of Bliss,” which 

lies in the West. He brings to his realm anyone desiring to be reborn there and aids him or her in attaining enlightenment. 

Pure Land became increasingly popular in Japan from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries and 

inspired many sculptural commissions depicting Amitābha. The use of wood (often cypress) and lacquer, along 

with a naturalistic treatment of the body and the adoption of inlaid rock crystal, became distinctive features of 

these sculptures. 

1. Standing Prince Shōtoku at Age Two 

(Shōtoku Taishi Nisaizō), c. 1292 

Japan, Kamakura period, 1185 – 1333; Japanese 

cypress (hinoki) wood; assembled woodblock 

construction with polychromy and rock-crystal 

inlaid eyes; 26¾ x 9¾ x 9 in.; Harvard Art 

Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Promised 

gift of Walter C. Sedgwick in memory of Ellery 

Sedgwick Sr. and Ellery Sedgwick Jr., 99.1979.1 

Prince Shōtoku (574 – 622) was one of Japan’s earliest followers 

and patrons of Buddhism. Starting in the eleventh 

century, new sects of Pure Land Buddhism exalted 

Shōtoku as an incarnation of Śākyamuni. Portraits of 

Shōtoku depicted significant episodes and legends about 

his life. This is the earliest extant sculpture showing him 

at the age of two, when he reputedly faced east, placed 

his palms together, and said the nembutsu, a Pure Land 

Buddhist practice of reciting the name of Amitābha. 

2. Left Hand of a Colossal Buddha Amitābha 

(Amida Nyōrai), c. 1202 

Attributed to Kaikei, Japanese, active 

c. 1183 – 1236; Kamakura period, 

1185 – 1333; Japanese cypress 

(hinoki) wood with traces of lacquer, 

polychromy, and gilding; probably from an Amida triad originally 

at the Shin-Daibutsu-ji Temple in Iga, Mie Prefecture; 

10½ x 26¼ x 12 in.; Harvard Art Museums / Arthur M. Sackler 

Museum, Gift of Charles Bain Hoyt, 1931.9 

Scholars recently attributed this hand to a 16-ft. high 

Amitābha sculpture commissioned by Monk Shunjōbō 

Chōgen (1121 – 1206) and created by the master sculptor 

Kaikei, both extremely influential cultural figures in the 

Kamakura period. The mudrā, or hand gesture, depicted 

is one of welcoming used by Amitābha to greet the dead 

into the Land of Bliss: The middle and third fingers curve 

inward, with the middle one joined to the thumb. 

3. Standing Buddha Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai), 

mid-13th century 

Japan, Kamakura period, 1185 – 1333; wood with 

gold pigment, lacquer, gilding, and rock-crystal 

insets; 44⅜ x 20 x 20 in.; Saint Louis Art 

Museum, Museum Purchase, 132:1966 

In this sculpture, rock crystal helps represent 

Amitābha’s emanating light—in his 

eyes, at the base of the cranial protuberance 

known as usnīsa (a sign of expanded and radiating wisdom), 

and as the ūrnā (the third eye on his forehead 

indicating spiritual insight and illumination). Although 

these are common characteristics of the Śākyamuni image, 

the welcoming mudrā identifies the image as 

Amitābha. Once thought to be the work of Kaikei—the 

artist of the colossal hand nearby—this sculpture is now 

attributed to a follower from a generation or so later. 

4. Head of a Celestial Attendant, Presumably Head of a 

Bodhisattva (Bosatsu) or of an Apsara 

(Hiten), c. 1053 

Attributed to Studio of Jōchō, Japanese, died 

1057; Heian period, 794 – 1185; Japanese 

cypress (hinoki) wood with traces of polychromy; 

8� x 3� in.; Harvard Art Museums / 

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Promised gift of 

Walter C. Sedgwick in honor of John 

Rosenfield, 89.1979 

This head is thought to be that of one of fifty-two celestial 

attendants that once accompanied a colossal 

Amitābha statue at the Hōō-dō (Phoenix Hall) of the 

Byōdō-in temple in Uji, near Kyoto. Here, the sculptor 

Jōchō sought to replicate Amitābha’s Land of Bliss, where 

attendants fly overhead and praise Amitābha by scattering 

flowers, playing instruments, and burning incense.

Main Gallery 

Buddha Śākyamuni 

After the death of Śākyamuni in the fifth century BCE, his followers disseminated his teachings throughout India. 

Yet it was not until the first century BCE that the image of Śākyamuni appeared in art. As his image spread to 

other countries and cultures, regional differences appeared, while certain aspects remained consistent: he wears 

a monk’s robe, he has an usnīsa, and his earlobes are distended and unadorned (signs of renounced wealth). Each 

of the sculptures in this gallery—with the possible exception of the Indian Torso of a Buddha—was once colorfully 

painted. 

5. A Scene from the Life of the Buddha, late 2nd 

or early 3rd century 

Pakistan, ancient Gandhāra region; 

Kushan period, 1st century BCE – 3rd 

century CE; phyllite; 22½ x 37 x 3½ 

in.; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 

Kansas City, Missouri, Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 

55-105 

Made for a set of narrative reliefs of the Buddha’s life, 

this panel probably depicts followers greeting Śākyamuni 

as he traveled through India teaching the Dharma, the 

essence of phenomena, or the law that governs things. 

An artist from a Greco-Buddhist workshop carved it in 

Gandhāra, a crossroad on the main trade route linking 

Asia with the Roman Empire. 

6. Torso of a Buddha, 5th century 

India, Uttar Pradesh, Mathurā; Gupta period, 

320 – 647; mottled red sandstone; 

44½ x 21½ x 8½ in.; The Nelson-Atkins 

Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, 

Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 

45-15 

This sculpture is carved from mottled red 

sandstone, the local stone of Mathurā, a dynamic and 

prosperous region where Buddhist art flourished between 

about 319 and 500. The folds of Śākyamuni’s robe cascade 

down in rings, creating a sense of serenity and 

equilibrium. 

7. The Monk Ananda (Anantuo), 9th century 

China, Tang dynasty, 618 – 907; limestone; 

64� x 16 x 8¾ in.; The Minneapolis Institute 

of Arts, Gift of Ruth and Bruce Dayton, 98.166 

Ananda, cousin of Śākyamuni, became one 

of his chief disciples, helping found the 

San� gha, or the monastic order of men and 

women. This sculpture belonged to a 

grouping in a cave sanctuary, where the Ananda figure 

stood next to the central image of Śākyamuni. 

41 

8. Head of Buddha Śākyamuni, 4th century 

Afghanistan, ancient Gandhāra region, 

probably Hadda; stucco with traces of pigment; 

18 x 10½ x 9¾ in.; Saint Louis Art 


This stucco head likely capped a clay 

body, which was part of a sculptural 

group attached to a wall, probably in 

Hadda, one of the largest Buddhist centers in 

Afghanistan. 

9. Standing Buddha Śākyamuni (Shijiamouni), 

late 6th century 

China, Northern Qi dynasty, 550 – 577, or 

Sui dynasty, 581 – 618; marble with traces 

of pigment; 63¾ x 18 x 9 in.; Saint Louis Art 


This sculpture presents a lotus bud 

carved between Śākyamuni’s feet and an 

honorific tassel in the form of a lotus blossom near his 

shoulder. Since the lotus has roots in mud, a stem that 

extends up through water, and a flower that blossoms in 

the sun, its growth, for Buddhists, signifies the exit from 

the mud of samsāra into the radiance of Nirvāna. 

10. Sea of Buddha, 1995, Hiroshi Sugimoto 

Japanese, born 1948; gelatin 

silver prints, triptych, 

negative numbers 001, 002, 003; 

each: 47 x 58¾ in.; private 

collection 

With this series, Sugimoto 

photographed the interior of 

Sanjūsangen-dō, a twelfth-century Buddhist temple in 

Kyoto with 1,001 life-size sculptures of the bodhisattva of 

compassion, Avalokiteśvara, standing multiple rows deep. 

Each one depicted here has forty arms, with the power to 

save twenty-five worlds. Sugimoto wanted to capture 

their “splendor . . . glistening in the light of the morning 

sun rising over the Higashiyama hills as the Kyoto aristocracy 

might have seen in the Heian period.”

Cube Gallery 

Vajrayāna Buddhism 

The spiritual practices and rituals of Vajrayāna Buddhism include the use of verse (mantra) to invoke a deity or 

to gain protection and the visualization of a vast array of celestial Buddhas and bodhisattvas, many embraced 

from early Buddhism and Mahāyāna Buddhism. In this gallery are three sculptures representing some of the 

most important bodhisattvas, along with three thangkas (portable paintings or hanging banners). Thangkas 

often portray a divinity’s cosmos or circle (mandala) as an architectural plan with gates and various levels leading 

to central pinnacles. Such Vajrayāna objects aid meditation and trance induction that connect the viewer 

with sanctity in the universe and within oneself, bringing enlightenment closer. 

11. Four Mandalas (dkyil-‘khor), 18th century 

Tibet; thangka; colors on cotton, mounted on 

silk brocade; 31¾ x 24 in.; The Nelson-Atkins 


Bequest of Joseph H. Heil, 74-36 /16 

Practioners wishing to receive the 

blessing of an extended lifespan often 

meditated on the figure at the center of 

this thangka, Amitāyus (the name given to Amitābha in 

his manifestation as the bestower of longevity). Colored 

red, he sits in a beautiful landscape on a lotus throne in 

meditation holding a vase containing the elixir of immortality. 

On either side of him are lamas, Tibetan teachers of 

the Dharma, who sit in foliage that bears fruit in the 

form of the Three Buddhist Jewels, representing the 

Buddha, the Dharma, and the San� gha. 

12. Four-circle Hevajra Mandala (Kye-ba Rdo-rje 

dkyil-‘khor), 15th or 16th century 

Tibet; thangka mounted as an album leaf; ink 

and colors on linen; 21 x 17½ in.; Harvard 

Art Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 

Paul Bernat Fund, 1967.8 

This mandala helps the practitioner 

visualize the union of the male and female principles of 

compassion and wisdom, respectively. This integrative 

process of opposites lies at the heart of Vajrayāna practice. 

By recognizing opposites as psychological distortions 

within oneself, their power over you is lessened and your 

path to enlightenment is accelerated. 

42 

13. Acala Candamaharosana (Budong Mingwang), 

“The Immovable One,” One of 

the Five Great Wisdom Kings, 1764 

China, Qing dynasty, 1644 – 1912; kesi thangka 

mounted as a hanging scroll; silk in kesi tapestry 

weave with some details painted on the surface in 

gold and light colors; 35¼ x 21¼ in.; Harvard Art 

Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Mr. 

and Mrs. Earl Morse, 1958.8 

This tightly woven tapestry depicts Acala surrounded by 

four other wrathful deities. Terrifying deities are often 

visual metaphors for inner states that block enlightenment, 

such as anger, greed, fear, passion, and ignorance. 

Acala holds a sword and a lasso, evidence of his abilities 

to cut through obstacles, snare you, and bring you closer 

to enlightenment. 

14. Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Karunamaya), 

late 10th or early 11th century 

Nepal, Transitional period, c. 879 – 1200; gilt 

copper alloy with inlays of semiprecious stones; 

26¾ x 11½ x 5¼ in.; Asia Society, New York: 

Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, 

1979.047 

Avalokiteśvara (Perceiver of the World’s 

Sounds) travels to all realms of the universe to deliver beings 

from suffering. He has a special mantra: Om Mani 

Padme Hum (“Hail the wish-fulfilling jewel and lotus”). 

This particular work is one of the earliest Buddhist sculptures 

to use semiprecious stone inlays, which became a 

distinctive feature of Himalayan sculpture. Sculptures 

like this one were highly revered in Tibetan monasteries, 

which helped spread their style to other parts of Asia, 

including Mongolia (see artwork 16).

Cube Gallery Lower Main Gallery 

15. Seated Bodhisattva Tārā in her “Green 

Manifestation” (Duoluo pusa), 

1403 – 1424 

China, Ming dynasty, 1368 – 1644; gilt 

bronze; 6� x 4� x 3� in.; Harvard Art 

Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift 

of Hester C. Clapp and Susan C. Wolkoff in 

memory of their parents, Usher P. and Sylvia 

S. Coolidge, 1992.289 

Tārā (Guiding Star) helps sentient beings cross over the 

ocean of existence (samsāra), from the impure state to 

one of pure enlightenment. Generally seen as the 

feminine consort of the masculine Avalokiteśvara, Tārā 

is known as the bodhisattva who saves all beings from 

danger. Of Tārā’s twenty-one forms, her green manifestation 

is considered her most dynamic, for she is posed as 

though ready to spring into action to help anyone in 

need. The Chinese Emperor Yongle, a Vajrayāna Buddhist 

who reigned from 1403 – 1424, established workshops in 

China that produced such sculptures intended for donation 

to Buddhist temples. 

16. Standing Bodhisattva Maitreya (Maijdari), 

second half 17th century 

Attributed to Zanabazar, Mongolian, 1635 – 

1723; gilt bronze with blue pigment in the hair 

and traces of other pigments in the eyes and 

mouth; 24� x 8 � x 7⅝ in.; Harvard Art 

Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of 

John West, 1963.5 

The Bodhisattva Maitreya (Loving One) resides in Tusita 

Heaven, from where persons are reborn as human 

Buddhas. It is believed that Maitreya will be the next 

human Buddha after Śākyamuni. This sculpture is attributed 

to the Mongolian monk Zanabazar, who at age 

fourteen entered Tibet to meet the leaders of the Geluk 

School of the Dalai Lama. Consequently, Zanabazar was 

responsible for the exportation of the school’s scholarship, 

practices, and art to Mongolia in the seventeenth 

century. 

17. Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara in the Form of 

Khasarpana Lokeśvara, 


India, Bihar or Bengal; Pāla period, 

c. 700 – 1200; schist; 37½ x 18½ x 6¾ in.; 

Asia Society, New York: Mr. and Mrs. John 

D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, 1979 . 040 

A form of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara 

is Khasarpana Lokeśvara, an eighteen-year-old who is 

beautiful, peaceful, and smiling. Out of compassion, he 

feeds nectar to Sūcīmukha, who, lustful and greedy in a 

former life, is doomed to suffer insatiable hunger in the 

next. (Sūcīmukha’s condition is exacerbated by his tiny 

mouth and narrow neck.) The sculpture’s backslab is 

pierced so that Avalokiteśvara’s torso is freed from the 

background and may be adorned with garments and 

jewelry. 

18. Blue Black, 2000, Ellsworth Kelly 

American, born 1923; painted aluminum 

panels; 336 x 70 x 2⅛ in.; The Pulitzer 

Foundation for the Arts 

In a 1950 letter to John Cage, Ellsworth 

Kelly stated, “I am not interested in 

painting as it has been accepted for so 

long — to hang on walls of houses as 

pictures. To hell with pictures — they should be the wall 

— even better — on the outside wall — of large buildings. 

Or stood up outside as billboards or a kind of 

modern ‘icon.’ We must make our art like the Egyptians, 

the Chinese . . . with their relation to life. It should meet 

the eye direct.”

Lower Gallery 

The Buddha’s Light 

Large groupings of small-scale gilded sculptures and gold-painted images adorn Buddhist altars and shrines 

throughout Asia. In Buddhism gold is often emblematic of the radiance of enlightenment. The labor and great 

expense taken to produce these devotional objects also helped everyone involved gain karmic merit. Karma is 

the universal law of cause and effect: Actions in this life will determine the form in which an individual will be 

reborn in the next life. 

19. Womb World Mandala (Taizōkai mandara), 


Japan, Kamakura period, 1185 – 1333; hanging 

scroll, gold and color on indigo-dyed silk; 

35⅝ x 31¼ in.; Collection of Sylvan Barnet 

and William Burto 

At the heart of the central eight-petaled 

lotus of this mandala is Buddha 

Mahāvairocana, the embodiment of universal 

truth. He sits in meditation emanating a seemingly 

infinite number of forms in the surrounding rows. These 

are hierarchically arranged: Buddhas, bodhisattvas, 

guardians, ghosts, and other figures and symbols. 

Vajrayāna Buddhists in Japan regard Mahāvairocana as 

the unifier of two worlds: the spiritual and masculine 

Diamond World and the material and feminine Womb 

World. This mandala thus depicts only the female half of 

a pair called the Mandalas of the Two Worlds. 

20. Guardian King of the North (Vaiśravana) 

(duo wen tian wang), 1279 – 1368 

China, Yuan dynasty, 1279 – 1368; chased, 

engraved, and gilded bronze; 14½ x 7¾ x 5 

in.; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas 

City, Missouri, Purchase: the Asian Art 

Acquisition Fund in memory of Laurence 

Sickman, F95-4 

Vaiśravana, depicted as a formidable Chinese general, 

secures the northern direction of Buddhist religious 

structures. He holds a stupa in his left hand symbolizing 

the divine treasure house, whose contents he both guards 

and gives away. In Central and Eastern Asia, Vaiśravana is 

considered to be the most important of all the numerous 

Buddhist wealth gods because he provides freedom by 

way of bestowing prosperity, so that one may focus on 

spirituality rather than on materiality. 

44 

21. Seated Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin), 

8th century 

China, Tang dynasty, 618 – 907; 

bronze with gilding; 10¾ x 5⅜ x 3⅝ in.; 

Saint Louis Art Museum, Museum Purchase, 

36:1933 

Adorned with elaborate jewelry and 

flowing scarves, this sculpture depicts 

Avalokiteśvara sitting with one foot resting on a lotus 

blossom. The cosmopolitan culture of the Tang dynasty 

led artists toward naturalism, which became fully 

expressed in the eighth century, when this work was 

made. 

22. Standing Buddha (possibly Śākyamuni) 

(Sokkamuni), 8th or 9th century 

Korea, Unified Silla dynasty, 668 – 935; gilt bronze; 

10¼ x 3� in.; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 

Kansas City, Missouri, Purchase: William Rockhill 

Nelson Trust, 49-18 

This statue of a Buddha represents a time 

when Buddhism was an important political, religious, 

and cultural force in Korea. Influenced 

by Tang dynasty art, it combines the naturalism of the 

human form with an abstraction that prevents it from 

taking on the secularity and realism of a portrait.

Lower Gallery 

23. Buddhist Triad: Buddha Amitābha (Amita Yeorae) 

Seated on a Lotus Throne with His 

Hands Held in the Bhūmisparśa 

mudrā (chokji in) and Flanked by 

Two Standing Bodhisattvas, 

Presumably Avalokiteśvara 

(Gwaneum) and 

Mahāsthāmaprāpta (Daeseji), 


Korea, Joseon dynasty, 1392 – 1910; gilt silver; 4¼ x 4 x 2� in.; 

Harvard Art Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Ralph 

C. Marcove, M.D., 1997.254 

The central figure of this rare silver-cast triad was long 

thought to depict Śākyamuni extending a hand downward, 

“calling the earth to witness at the moment of 

enlightenment.” It is now believed to be Amitābha with 

a striking array of curls and high usnīsa. Two standing 

bodhisattvas, who likely signify Amitābha’s wisdom and 

compassion, respectively, flank him. The work was 

probably produced in the area around Mt. Geumgang 

in North Korea and commissioned by a confraternity 

during a time when Buddhism, because it was officially 

denounced by the state, developed at a popular level 

independent of elite clerics and canonical texts. 

45 

24. “The Universal Gateway of Bodhisattva 

Avalokiteśvara,” Chapter 

Twenty-Five of the Lotus 

Sūtra (Miaofa lianhua jing 

Guanshiyin pusa pumenpin), 

with an appended 

Heart Sūtra (Xin jing), 1432 

China, Ming dynasty, 1368 – 

1644; accordion-fold book; gold ink on indigo-dyed paper; palace 

copy; overall: approximately 13⅜ x 542⅜ in.; Harvard Art 

Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Alan Priest, 1926.46 

This manuscript contains the texts of two of the most 

popular sūtras (sacred texts) in Mahāyāna Buddhism: 

the twenty-fifth chapter of the Lotus Sūtra and the Heart 

Sūtra. Both present Avalokiteśvara, known in China as the 

Guanyin. The first text vividly describes the myriad calamities 

from which Guanyin will save any worshipper 

who cries out his name, and the diverse forms that he 

can take in order to make the Buddha’s teachings understood 

to any aspiring believer. By contrast, the Heart Sūtra 

presents a less worldly and more philosophically engaged 

Guanyin. The text uses his voice to present an abbreviated 

explanation of the Buddha’s teachings, emphasizing in 

particular the non-dual nature of emptiness and form, 

and the understanding that all things arise dependently. 

The indigo dye used to color the paper served both a 

practical and a symbolic purpose—deterring insects from 

eating away at the paper and evoking lapis lazuli, which 

is mentioned repeatedly in the Lotus Sūtra, including in 

this passage: “Buddha lands, adorned with numerous 

jewels, shone with hues of lapis lazuli and crystal ... due 

to the illumination of the Buddha’s light.” 

Note: Periodically throughout the exhibition, the Pulitzer will put 

different sections of the Lotus Sūtra on view.

Lower Hallway Other Works on View 

No-Self 

25. La Línea del Destino (Line of Destiny), 2006 

Oscar Muñoz 

Colombian, born 1951; video / 

DVD; 2 minutes, looped; courtesy 

of the artist and Sicardi Gallery 

Muñoz, an artist from wartorn 

Colombia, creates works 

that project the dissolution of 

an image as a manifestation of his countrymen’s disappearances 

or deaths. Even though Muñoz never intended 

this video to pertain to Buddhism, it presents the idea of 

the “no-self” succinctly. Buddhists believe that the world 

and human nature are constituted in ways that produce 

suffering and that lasting happiness is found only 

through the rejection of any permanent self, because 

all phenomena lack any underlying and permanent 

substance. 

1. Venus, 1918–1928, Aristide Maillol 

French, 1861 – 1944 

Bronze 

69¼ x 14½ x 10½ in. 

Private collection 

© 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), 

New York / ADAGP, Paris 

2. Rock Settee, 1988–1990, Scott Burton 

American, 1939 – 1989 

Granite 

35½ x 106 x 62½ in. 

The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts 

© 2011 Estate of Scott Burton / Artists Rights 

Society (ARS), New York 

3. Torso, Study for Venus, 1925, cast in 1960, 

Aristide Maillol 

French, 1861 – 1944 

Bronze 

44¾ x 15¼ x 11 in. 




4. Joe, 1999, Richard Serra 

American, born 1939 

Weathering steel 

Outer spiral approximately 

163 x 576 x 480 in. 


A Note on Diacritics and Punctuation 

Our sources for the use of diacritics and spelling of words 

pertaining to Buddhism and Buddhist art are Donald W. 

Mitchell’s Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience, 2nd 

edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) and A 

Dictionary of Buddhism (New York: Oxford University Press, 

2001). For the sake of simplicity, this catalogue contains 

only superscript diacritics. 

Pronunciation Guide* 

SANSKRIT 

Unmarked vowels: 

a as in “hut” 

i as in “bit” 

u as in “put” 

e as in “bed” 

o as in “boat” 

Unmarked consonants: 

c as in “cheap” 

ph as in “cup-handle” 

Marked vowels: 

ā as in “father” 

ī as in “beat” 

ū as in “rule” 

Marked consonants: 

ś as in “ship” 

ñ as in “canyon” 

47 

CHINESE 

Initial consonants: 

ch or ch’ as in “cheap” 

hs as in “she” 

ts/tz or ts’/tz’ as in “its” 

Vowels: 

a as in “father” 

e as in “change” 

i as in “sing” 

o as in “dong” 

u as in “lung” 

ai as in “high” 

ao as in “how” 

ei as in “they” 

ou as in “go” 

u as in “good” 

ui as in “way” 

KOREAN 

ae as in “ape” 

ai as in “gap” 

e as in “let” 

ŏ as in “soap” 

ŭ as in “soup” 

ŭi as in “movie” 

JAPANESE 

Vowels with macrons, ō or ū, are simply sounded longer 

than those without macrons. 

* The above pronunciation guide is published in Donald 

W. Mitchell’s Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience, 

xv-xvi. 

Following Page 

Detail of Standing Prince Shōtoku at Age Two (Shōtoku Taishi 

Nisaizō), c. 1292, Japan


Buddha

Standing Prince Shōtoku at Age Two (Shōtoku Taishi Nisaizō), c. 1292, Japan


Buddha 


Francesca Herndon - Consagra 


Published for Reflections of the Buddha 


Copyright © The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts 

All Rights Reserved 

ISBN 978-0-9823347-3-7 

Curated and written by Francesca Herndon-Consagra 

Designed by Ken Botnick 

Edited by Stephen Schenkenberg 

Printed by Advertisers Printing, St. Louis 

This book is set in the typeface Swift, designed by 

Gerard Unger in 1985. The paper is Mohawk Navajo. 

VI 

Photography Credits for Catalogue (by page number) 

All Images by Sam Fentress Except: 

Pages III, 10, 28, 35: Photographs by Junius Beebe © President and Fellows of 


Page 5: Photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Page 10, top: Photograph by Elise Johnson 

Pages 17, 29: Photographs by Jamison Miller 

Page 34: Photograph by Tony Filipe © President and Fellows 

of Harvard College 

Photography Credits for Gallery Guide & Checklist 

(by checklist number) 

1, 2, 4, 12, 15, 23: Photographs by Junius Beebe © President and Fellows of 


5: Photograph by Mel McLean 

6: Photograph by E.G. Schempf 

10: Photograph courtesy of the artist 

11, 22: Photographs by Jamison Miller 

13, 16: Photographs by Tony Filipe © President and Fellows of Harvard 

College 

14, 17: Photographs by Lynton Gardiner 

18: Photograph by Robert Pettus 

19: Photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

20: Photograph by John Lamberton 

24: Photograph by Katya Kallsen © President and Fellows of Harvard 

College 

Photography Credits for Other Works on View 

1 – 4: Photographs by Robert Pettus 

Front Cover 



Back Cover 

Detail of Standing Buddha Śākyamuni (Shijiamouni), late 6th 

century, China 

Previous Page Spread 

Detail of Standing Buddha Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai), mid-13th 

century, Japan 

Facing Page 

Detail of Acala Candamaharosana (Budong Mingwang), “The 

Immovable One,” One of the Five Great Wisdom Kings, 1764, China

VIII 

Head of a Celestial Attendant, Presumably Head of a Bodhisattva (Bosatsu) or of an 

Apsara (Hiten), c. 1053, Japan

Foreword & Acknowledgements 

Reflections of the Buddha celebrates the tenth anniversary 

of The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. With the opening 

of its building by Tadao Andō in 2001, the Pulitzer 

initiated a series of exhibitions and programs intended 

to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of the 

arts and architecture. With the building in mind, curators 

have conceived of exhibitions, carefully selected works 

of art from national and international collections, and 

thoughtfully displayed them in our galleries. The desire 

to create an aesthetically stimulating spatial experience 

corresponds with Andō’s own thoughts about designing 

the Pulitzer through simple geometric forms and 

controlled natural elements: 

The proportions of the spaces as well as the openings of the 

volumes produce a place where new possibilities may be 

stimulated and accommodated . . . The natural light reflected 

from the pool heightens sensitivity to the variation of sunlight, 

cloud movements, and seasons. Even in a raw urban site, 

I wanted to create a space for the contemplation of art and 

the cultivation of the spirit. 1 

For the past decade, Andō’s aspirations have guided us, 

and our visitors have often remarked that they have 

found the experience of walking through the Pulitzer and 

looking at the art both contemplative and transcendent. 

Andō’s appeal for the cultivation of the spirit informs not 

only Pulitzer exhibitions but also our public programming 

and innovative community outreach, all of which 

continue the Pulitzer family’s long-standing commitment 

to St. Louis. 

For Reflections of the Buddha, the Pulitzer’s senior 

curator, Francesca Herndon-Consagra, has excelled in 

bringing together a small number of exceptionally 

beautiful and important works of Buddhist art. Her essay 

in this catalogue explores how Andō’s philosophy of 

architecture is partially influenced by Japanese Buddhism. 

Yet the works in this exhibition are not just 

Japanese or from one particular period. Rather, they cross 

many geographic and temporal boundaries, creating an 

experience that ties the building and the art together 

simply through a connection with a Buddhist philosophy 

that is more than 2,500 years old. By aligning this pan- 

Asian exhibition with Andō’s own philosophy about 

space, Reflections of the Buddha thus moves away from a 

traditional museum concept of producing visual didactic 

narratives and toward one that is more metaphysical and 

experiential. 

We at the Pulitzer believe that our exhibitions 

should strive to touch the human spirit, which is the 

wellspring of inquiry and human discourse. Accordingly, 

we have supported several exhibition-related curatorial 

Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Chair 

initiatives as a way to nurture greater dialogue about the 

works of art in Reflections of the Buddha. These include 

symposia, graduate research fellowships at Harvard 

Art Museums, and the material testing of and scholarly 

publication on Harvard’s Left Hand of a Colossal Buddha 

Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai). Other initiatives include 

conserving an important thangka from The Nelson-Atkins 

Museum of Art and providing travel funds for curators to 

learn more about works in the exhibition from their own 

collections. 

All of us at the Pulitzer have relied upon the 

generosity of many friends and colleagues to bring this 

exhibition of Buddhist art to fruition. We are extremely 

grateful for the generosity of Walter C. Sedgwick, Sylvan 

Barnet and William Burto, and one anonymous lender. 

From Harvard Art Museums, the Pulitzer’s privileged 

partner and the major lender to the exhibition, we would 

like to thank Thomas Lentz, Robert Mowry, Henry Lie, 

Anne Driesse, Penley Knipe, and Melissa Moy. From The 

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, we are indebted to Julián 

Zugazagoitia, Kimberly Masteller, Colin Mackenzie, 

Elisabeth Batchelor, Kate Garland, and Chris Holle. We 

also acknowledge with gratitude Brent Benjamin, Philip 

Hu, Laura Gorman, and Nancy Heugh from the Saint 

Louis Art Museum; Melissa Chiu and Adriana Proser from 

Asia Society, New York; Kaywin Feldman, Matthew 

Welch, Robert Jacobsen, and Robin Cotton from the 

Minneapolis Institute of Art. We are greatly appreciative 

of Hiroshi Sugimoto. We would also like to thank Oscar 

Muñoz, as well as Marīa Ines Sicardi and Allison Ayers 

of the Sicardi Gallery. Many other people offered their 

assistance and knowledge to the project, including 

Victoria Blyth-Hill, Beata Grant, Danielle Hanrahan, 

Denise Patry Leidy, Yukio Lippit, Karen Lucic, Nadine 

Orenstein, Gregg Stanger, Christine Starkman, and 

Kulapat Yantrasast. 

A specialist in Baroque prints, Francesca learned 

a great deal from her aforementioned colleagues, and 

especially from Robert Mowry, the Alan J. Dworsky 

Curator of Chinese Art and Head of the Department 

of Asian Art, Harvard Art Museums / Arthur M. Sackler 

Museum, who generously donated his time and expertise 

to the project. Bob visited important collections of 

Buddhist art with Francesca and advised her in selecting 

the most important and beautiful works available for 

loan. He not only kindly supported the loan of some of 

the most significant pieces from his own collections 

but also guided and oversaw the research on these very 

works conducted by the Pulitzer’s graduate student 

research assistants at the Harvard Art Museums, Phillip 

Bloom and Katherine Brooks, who are Ph.D. candidates in 

History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University.

Bob introduced them to the rewards of conducting 

intensive object research in the complex, intricate, and 

frequently abstruse field of Buddhist art. We are grateful 

to them for providing new insights that have already 

altered the way we think about these objects. Their 

well-researched entries for the Harvard works in the 

exhibition can be found on the exhibition’s website, 

buddha.pulitzerarts.org. 

Symposia at the Pulitzer have long emphasized 

the interchange of ideas among participants. Instead 

of presenting papers, participants share openly their 

observations about the works and their display in Andō’s 

spaces. Phillip Bloom organized a symposium at the 

Pulitzer in November 2011, bringing together professors 

and graduate students interested in Buddhist art from 

the University of California, Berkeley; Duke University; 

Harvard University; University of Illinois at Chicago; 

University of Kansas; University of Washington; and 

Virginia Commonwealth University. A second symposium 

in February 2012 will offer the opportunity for curators 

and conservators from the lending institutions, along 

with conservation scientists and other specialists in the 

field, to learn more about the exhibited works and to 

discuss their future care and display. 

We would also like to acknowledge and thank 

The Korea Foundation for inviting Francesca to join an 

important two-week workshop on Buddhist art in Korea 

in the fall of 2010. This workshop offered her the 

opportunity to meet important scholars from around the 

world and to visit collections of Buddhist art as well as 

numerous Buddhist temples and monasteries. These 

experiences not only influenced the way she approached 

the Korean works in the exhibition, they also helped her 

gain a better appreciation for the ritual context of 

Buddhist art. 

Since 2004, David Robertson, artistic director of 

the St. Louis Symphony, has prepared a series of notable 

chamber music concerts at the Pulitzer. For Reflections of 

the Buddha, compositions by Western composers of the 

twentieth and twenty-first centuries (including Jonathan 

Harvey, John Cage, and Morton Feldman) connect to 

Buddhist themes and explore the unique possibilities 

that Andō’s space provides. 

Other public programs have included meditation 

classes taught by clerics and lay practioners from 

diverse Buddhist traditions. The Buddhist Council of 

Greater St. Louis helped us offer this extremely popular 

series of classes. Another program, “Exploring Buddhism 

and Art,” brings together as a team Buddhist practitioners 

and Pulitzer docents who are available to answer 

questions and lead discussions about Buddhism and 

Buddhist practices as they relate to the artworks on view. 

Members of the St. Louis community — including artists, 

artisans, clerics, historians, social workers, and poets 

— have also given brief gallery talks about an artwork 

from their own personal and professional perspectives in 

another popular program titled “Frame of Reference,” 

organized by Courtney Henson, visitor services manager. 

2 

Integral to the exhibition is the Pulitzer’s 

Staging project. In partnership with Prison Performing 

Arts, St. Patrick Center, and Employment Connection, the 

Pulitzer is presenting Staging Reflections of the Buddha, a 

community project inspired by our highly successful 

Staging Old Masters project of 2009. Led by Lisa Harper 

Chang and Emily Augsburger, this Staging project seeks to 

make connections between the art and the viewers, while 

also deconstructing social barriers. For five months 

during 2011 and 2012, a group of former prisoners and 

homeless veterans, referred to as actors, participate in 

weekly workshops that include art exploration and 

instruction, theatre exercises, meditation, and rehearsals. 

An original performance piece created by the actors 

under the direction of Agnes Wilcox, artistic director of 

Prison Performing Arts, will be presented in the Pulitzer 

galleries this spring, intertwining the actors’ personal 

stories and experiences with the philosophies, figures, 

and symbols of the works on view. The actors hope to 

apply what they learn toward fulfilling personal and 

occupational goals. Their work culminates in live 

performances in February and March of 2012. A symbolic 

ceremony featuring lanterns constructed by the actors 

and fellow members of the St. Louis community will 

mark the closing of the exhibition and performances. 

The Pulitzer would like to thank the following 

partners and their staff for their invaluable support of 

our community projects: faculty, staff, and students from 

the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University 

in St. Louis; Prison Performing Arts; St. Patrick 

Center; Employment Connection; affiliated staff and 

artists for Staging Reflections of the Buddha; 88.1 KDHX; 

CAM / Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis; Big Brothers 

Big Sisters; Diversity Awareness Partnership; Living 

Insight Center; and The Buddhist Council of Greater St. 

Louis; with particular thanks going to Edward Lawlor, 

Amanda Moore McBride, Agnes Wilcox, Rosemary 

Watts-Dreyer, Maggie Ginestra, Emily Piro, Br. David Betz, 

Terri Brown, Juan William Chavez, Bob Hartzell, Kongsak 

Tainpaitchitr, Donald Sloane, Carianne Noga, Reena Hajat 

Carroll, Sevda Safarova, Alina Sigmond, Christopher Fan, 

Rachel Crump, Cristina Flagg, Jack Sisk, and Nico Leone. 

The Pulitzer staff deserves much appreciation 

and applause for helping to organize, display, and 

research such an important group of objects. I am 

especially grateful to Francesca Herndon-Consagra for 

conceiving of and organizing Reflections of the Buddha and 

its curatorial initiatives, for overseeing and contributing 

to its web and print catalogues, and for helping to 

organize its public programming. We would both like to 

thank Sydney Norton, curatorial assistant, for conducting 

object research, offering classes to the Pulitzer’s docents, 

and providing a detailed study guide for the Pulitzer staff, 

docents, and local educators. Abigail Green, the Pulitzer’s 

summer intern, produced a comprehensive glossary of 

terms, and Matthew Barker, curatorial administrative 

assistant, helped design and edit the study guide. 

For an installation so refined and understated,

Left Hand of a Colossal Buddha Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai), c. 1202, Japan 

it took the incredibly detailed efforts of the chief of 

installation, Shane Simmons, who oversaw the work of 

carpenter Tim Kelly and painter Craig Overy, and also 

of the installation crew: Eric Fox, Danielle Kantrowitz, 

Salvatore La Forte, and BJ Vogt. Registrars Helene Rundell 

and Elise Johnson effectively organized all aspects of the 

installation. We are also grateful to Amy Broadway, 

Lauren Kolber, Jim Maloney, and Steve Morby, as well as 

Stephen Schenkenberg, Ken Botnick, and Sam Fentress. 

Note 

1. Quoted in Tadao Ando and Massimo Vignelli, 

Tadao Ando: Light and Water (New York: Monacelli 

Press, 2003), 154. 

3

Standing Buddha Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai), mid-13th century, Japan 

4

Womb World Mandala (Taizōkai mandara), mid-13th century, Japan 

5

1 

Afghanistan 

P a k i s t a n 

2 

I n d i a 

T i b e t 

Reflections of the Buddha 

M o n g o l i a 

C h i n a 

Nepal Southeast Asia 

Key Countries and Historical Sites Referred to in this Catalogue 

1 Hadda, Afghanistan 

2 Mathura, India 

3 Mt. Geumgang, Korea 

4 Kyoto, Japan 

Japan 

3 

Korea 4

Living Things: Buddhist Art in a Building by Tadao Andō 

I would like to think of [the Pulitzer] as . . . a space to inspire 

visitors and even expand their consciousness. I wanted to create 

a very stimulating place, where works of art are not exhibited 

merely as specimens but can speak to us as living things. 

Tadao Andō, 2000 1 

Reflections of the Buddha presents twenty-two extraordinary 

works of Buddhist art dating from the second century ce 

with three works of contemporary art that resonate with 

Buddhist themes. All are placed in dialogue with The 

Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, the building designed by 

the Japanese architect Tadao Andō, which opened in 2001. 

Andō’s philosophy about architecture aligns with some 

aspects of Buddhist ethics and aesthetics, which may 

have contributed to his use of simple geometry, modest 

materials, and natural light. The end result is a space that 

animates art, and where art enlivens space. In designing 

the Pulitzer, Andō worked with two artists, Ellsworth 

Kelly and Richard Serra, from whom Emily Pulitzer commissioned 

art for the site: “As a collaboration between 

architecture and art right from the first stage of planning,” 

Andō wrote nine years after the building opened, 

“this was an exceptional task, a pursuit of what I believe 

to be an ideal art museum.” 2 Reflections of the Buddha continues 

this reciprocal relationship between art and 

architecture in its selection and placement of Buddhist 

art in Andō’s spaces, allowing for an approach to exhibition 

narrative that is less historical and more analogous 

to poetry than to prose. 


once served in their original context as aids toward or 

visual expressions of the indescribable state of enlightenment 

or awakening (Nirvāna), the spiritual insight or 

awareness that frees a person from the cycle of birth, 

death, and rebirth (samsāra), a concept central to 

Buddhism. Nirvāna refers not only to the state of an enlightened 

person after death, but also to the state of 

mind “free of defilements,” grasped while alive. 

Buddhism, one of the great religions of the 

world, is derived from the teachings of its founder, an 

Indian prince named Siddhārtha Gautama, who lived during 

the fifth century BCE. After witnessing a corpse and 

people suffering from frailty and illness, Siddhārtha, at 

age twenty-nine, became deeply melancholic and renounced 

his wealth. He wandered as an ascetic for six 

years, until one night he meditated on existence. 

Siddhārtha realized that all things are conditional and 

impermanent and in a state of constant change; all 

things are unsatisfying, since any pleasure — physical or 

psychological — is fleeting; and all phenomena lack a 

permanent self or soul, the realization of which leads 

to selfless, loving kindness and compassion for others. 

Francesca Herndon-Consagra 

Through such insights he reached enlightenment. In 

later traditions, Siddhārtha became known as the Buddha 

Śākyamuni (sage of the Śākya clan), who became one 

of many past and future Buddhas (Awakened Ones). 


are extraordinarily diverse. Coming from Afghanistan, 

China, India, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, 

and Tibet, they primarily represent two traditions of 

Buddhism that developed in northern India and spread 

throughout Asia: Mahāyāna (‘Great vehicle’), which began 

to flourish in the first century ce, and Vajrayāna 

(‘Diamond vehicle’), which evolved just prior to the sixth 

century ce. Vajrayāna is often seen as a branch of 

Mahāyāna, partially because both believe that many 

Buddhas and bodhisattvas (enlightened beings who have 

postponed Nirvāna to aid others in achieving it) exist in 

countless worlds. They are also united in an expansive 

and optimistic concept that all conscious beings have 

inherent Buddha natures and are therefore capable of 

achieving Nirvāna. Yet each tradition emphasizes a different 

journey to Buddhahood. Mahāyāna’s takes many eons 

to complete, while Vajrayāna’s emphasizes Tantric rituals 

and techniques transmitted from master to disciple that 

offer the possibility of reaching Buddhahood within a 

single lifetime. The varied works in the exhibition display 

figures (from Śākyamuni himself to his various celestial 

counterparts and an array of bodhisattvas) that provide 

believers with exemplars of fully realized states. These 

works inspired Buddhists throughout Asia to travel the 

path toward Nirvāna. 

The title of this exhibition refers back to a 

Tibetan elaboration on the legendary origin of all images 

of Śākyamuni: An artist was sent to render an image of 

Śākyamuni, but he could not bear to gaze directly at his 

brilliance. He could work only from a reflection that 

Śākyamuni cast on the surface of a pool. 3 Reflections of the 

Buddha develops the metaphor of this legend by showing 

how Buddhism has been reflected over the centuries in 

different cultures across Asia. The exhibition also considers 

how Buddhists use art as a way to seek reflections of 

the Buddha within themselves, and how reflections from 

the Pulitzer’s water garden enhance Buddhist concepts 

and the experience of art in the building. 4 

Part I: 

Transformative Functions of the Art 

The artworks in Reflections of the Buddha originally served 

transformative functions by virtue of their distinctive 

abilities to embody and represent Buddhist meaning and 

experience. The artists sought to capture Nirvāna and

such quintessential virtues as compassion and wisdom in 

their images of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Some of the 

sculptures in the exhibition once stood as “living” sculptures 

on altars and in sanctuaries throughout Asia. They 

were enshrined icons that were consecrated in rites that 

brought images “to life.” Clerics would invite the 

appropriate deity’s energy to reside in the image and 

blessed it in such a way that the image could serve as 

an adequate symbol for the deity depicted. Several of 

the larger works in the exhibition, such as Standing 

Buddha Śākyamuni (no. 9 in the checklist that follows this 

essay) from late sixth-century China and Standing Buddha 

Amitābha (no. 3) from mid-thirteenth century Japan, were 

probably consecrated in this way and thus served to establish 

a bond between the enlivened deity and the 

believers who prayed before it. This required the proper 

attitude of humble acknowledgement of one’s personal 

need for spiritual aid and the recognition of the superior 

wisdom and compassion of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas 

embodied in the icons. 

Like some of the other Buddhist sculptures 

in this exhibition, the white marble Standing Buddha 

Śākyamuni incorporates the image of the lotus, one of the 

most popular metaphors of the Buddhist journey to 

awakening: The plant’s seed is nourished in the mud of 

samsāra only to rise above the waterline to bloom untainted 

in the pure sunshine of Nirvāna. To emphasize 

this journey, the artist sculpted a stylized lotus bud 

between the feet and an honorific tassel in the shape 

of a lotus blossom near the proper left shoulder of the 

Buddha. At the Pulitzer, this journey from samsāra to 

Nirvāna is accentuated through the sculpture’s placement. 

It stands at the end of the light-filled main gallery, 

next to a water garden filled with small dark rocks that 

make the water look blackish, like the mud in which the 

lotus grows. The combination of natural light reflected 

off the water and Ellsworth Kelly’s Blue Black (no. 18) on 

the wall behind it makes the white marble appear luminous, 

beckoning the visitor to move down the long 

narrow gallery to meet it. 

Standing Buddha Śākyamuni rewards the visitor 

with its beautifully carved details and juxtapositions: a 

monk’s robe rendered with fan-like folds that descend dynamically 

across the body contrasts with the still, 

symmetrical face that looks down with half-opened eyes 

in a meditative state. Meditation, which involves learning 

various types and levels of concentration, stills the mind 

and is a precondition for practitioners to understand and 

experience the teachings of the Buddha. Artists depicting 

Buddhas in meditative states sought to render them with 

expressions of mindful composure and serenity that transcend 

all physical discomforts and psychological 

emotions, including joy and sorrow. 

Not only do the works in the exhibition exemplify 

such Buddhist teachings and practices, but each was 

also part of the fluid exchanges between monastic and 

lay communities from different parts of Asia that wove 

together seemingly disparate traditions and gave rise to 

8 

Seated Bodhisattva Tārā in her “Green Manifestation” (Duoluo 

pusa), 1403 – 1424, China 

new ones. Two works in the exhibition are superb 

examples of this phenomenon: Head of Buddha Śākyamuni 

(no. 8) from fourth-century Afghanistan and A Scene from 

the Life of the Buddha (no. 5) from Pakistan, which was 

carved sometime during the late second or early third 

century. These works come from a culturally diverse region 

known as Gandhāra, which was conquered by 

Alexander the Great in 326 bce and occupied, over the 

centuries, not only by the Greeks but also by the Indians, 

western Asian nomads, Chinese, and Silk Route traders. 

The result was a cosmopolitan environment that blended 

ideas and styles of art, resulting in a type of sculptural 

ideal that depicted Śākyamuni in a toga as a Hellenistic 

Apollo, yet with the soft belly of an Indian deity as seen 

in A Scene from the Life of the Buddha. 

Another type of Buddha image developed in 

Mathurā, a city in northern India lying on the Yamuna 

River northwest of Agra. Along a major caravan route, it 

too became an important center for many cultures and 

religions, including Buddhism. Characteristics of 

Mathurān sculpture during the Gupta period (320 – 647) 

may be seen in the sensuous Torso of a Buddha (no. 6) from 

the fifth century. Sculptors used local sandstone, which is 

mottled red with cream spots and malleable enough to 

shape lithe and rounded forms. When creating this type 

of Buddha image, sculptors may have worked within a

tradition that referenced the sacred text (sūtra) known as 

the “Discourse on Characteristics,” or the Lakkhana Sutta 

in Pāli. This text enumerates the thirty-two characteristics 

of great men like the Buddha, including legs like an 

antelope’s, a penis that is covered by a sheath, a frame 

that is divinely straight, and shoulders with no furrow 

between them. The sculptors heightened these 

attributes by carving a transparent drapery comprised of 

ringed folds in relief that systematically cascade down 

and across the body. 

Most artists created works anonymously yet 

each showed great originality and craftsmanship. They 

culled ideas from outsiders — itinerant artists as well as 

travelling Buddhist clerics and lay practitioners who 

brought their own statues, sūtras, and other religious objects 

with them. These items influenced the practices, 

iconography, and styles of the local workshop. As depictions 

of Buddhas and bodhisattvas moved from Pakistan, 

Afghanistan, and India to other parts of Asia, styles were 

adapted to suit the tastes of the local cultures. For instance, 

the artist of the Chinese Standing Buddha 

Śākyamuni (no. 9) did not directly incorporate the Indian 

Gupta style sometime around 600, but what is apparent 

is his more mediated acceptance of it. This is seen in the 

rounded shoulders, the hint of the leg underneath the 

robe’s cascading pleats, and the nudity of his chest. 

An intermingling of styles may also be seen 

between Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara in the Form of Khasarpana 

Lokeśvara (no. 17), from either Bihar or Bengal during 

the Pāla period (750 – 1150) in India, and Bodhisattva 

Avalokiteśvara (no. 14), from Nepal during the Transitional 

period (c. 879 – 1200). Both works depict bodhisattvas as 

Brahman princes with smooth and rounded bodies, 

which are decorated elaborately with necklaces, armbands, 

diadems, earrings, and sacred threads that wrap 

around the figures’ left shoulders, then down and around 

their right thighs. Both have stacked braided hair and 

sheer dhotis that cling to their bodies. The thin-waist torsos 

have similar belly clefts that protrude just over their 

belts, their hips move to one side, and their fleshy palms 

and animated fingers hold (or once held, in the case of 

the Nepalese work) lotus stems. The resemblances between 

the works attest to the flow of artists, mystics, 

monks, and lay practitioners who travelled back and 

forth between eastern India and the Nepal’s Kathmandu 

Valley for centuries. 5 

Other instances of cultural exchange in the 

exhibition may be seen between the Nepalese Bodhisattva 

Avalokiteśvara (no. 14) and the Mongolian Standing 

Bodhisattva Maitreya (no. 16). During the seventeenth century, 

the renowned Mongolian monk Zanabazar (1635 

– 1723), the son of a prominent family of the Khalkha 

Mongols, learned to make works of art inspired by 

Nepalese sculptures while training to be a Buddhist 

monk in Tibet. He returned to Mongolia with a convoy of 

clerics and artisans and built monasteries and workshops 

where sculptures like Standing Bodhisattva Maitreya were 

cast for monastic altars. In this way, early Nepalese 

9 

traditions of making and rendering Buddhist figures 

made their way into Mongolia. 6 

Incised inscriptions and symbols on Buddhist 

sculptures provide hints to understanding why and when 

sculptures were made. Yet trying to fully grasp the institutional 

and ritual contexts of a Buddhist image that is 

now part of a museum collection may be problematic given 

the difficulty of determining a function on the basis of 

appearance alone, and given the high probability that a 

single object had multiple purposes. Indeed, inscriptions 

carved on the bases of Buddhist sculptures convey that 

patrons sought a wide range of benefits through such 

commissions, both worldly and otherworldly. Among 

worldly benefits were good health and wealth, success in 

a military campaign, longevity, and the happiness and 

welfare of all people. Otherworldly benefits included the 

acquisition of karmic merit for the donors and their families, 

guilds, or other community groups. Karma is the 

universal law of cause and effect: Actions in this life will 

determine the form in which an individual will be reborn 

in the next life. Such commissions thus would advance 

patrons on the path toward Nirvāna. 

A desire to accrue karmic merit was likely one 

of the factors behind the making of Seated Bodhisattva 

Tārā in her “Green Manifestation” (no. 15). Tārā, one of the 

most beloved deities of Vajrayāna Buddhists, has the ability 

to save beings from the eight dangers (pride, delusions, 

hatred, envy, fanatical views, avarice, lust, and doubts). 7 

Of Tārā’s twenty-one forms, her green manifestation 

is considered her most active. Inscribed on the base of 

this sculpture, near Tārā’s right foot, is the following inscription: 

大明永樂年施 (Da Ming Yonglenian shi), which 

may be translated: “Donated [during the] Yongle reign [of 

the] Great Ming [dynasty].” 8 This indicates that the sculpture 

was likely produced in an imperial workshop of the 

Chinese Yongle Emperor, a Vajrayāna practitioner who 

reigned from 1402 to 1424. The term shi 施 (“donated”) 

suggests that it was produced specifically as a gift, possibly 

for a Buddhist temple as far away as Tibet. 9 

On the underside of the sculpture Seated 

Bodhisattva Tārā is a removable plate incised with an image 

of crossed vajras — ritual implements with curved 

prongs at each end symbolizing the thunderbolt/diamond 

path of Vajrayāna Buddhists (fig. 1, page 10). The vajra denotes 

the indestructible, immutable, and brilliant nature 

of Buddhist reality. Normally, the crossed-vajra symbol 

protects the sacred objects inside. The practice of inserting 

objects is often associated with the consecration of a 

Buddhist object as an icon: Inserted objects were thought 

in some cases to enhance the power of “the unseen 

Sacred and to increase its degree of presence in the 

image.” 10 Some included objects have also been associated 

with talismans, which possess the magic to protect, heal, 

and bring good fortune. Since Seated Bodhisattva Tārā is 

too small to serve as an icon, today it may be categorized 

as a Vajrayāna talismanic sculpture made in China to 

be donated for karmic merit sometime between 1402 

and 1424.

figure 1 

Detail of Seated Bodhisattva Tārā in her “Green Manifestation” (Duoluo pusa), 1403 – 1424, China 

figure 2 

Prince Shōtoku at Age Two: The sculpture and a selection of the dedicatory objects discovered within 

10

Another work in the exhibition, Standing Prince 

Shōtoku at Age Two (no. 1), arrived in the United States in 

1936 with its numerous consecratory and talismanic 

items intact and undisturbed in his hollowed-out body. 

This wooden statue, created around 1292, depicts the imperial 

regent of Japan, Shōtoku Taishi Nisaizō (574 – 622). 

He was one of Japan’s earliest followers of Buddhism, and 

the sculpture depicts an apocryphal moment: At age two, 

Shōtoku was said to have turned to the east, held his 

hands together in prayer, and recited the nembutsu (“Namo 

Amida Butsu”), the oral invocation of the Buddha 

Amitābha, the Buddha of Infinite Light. More than seventy 

individual items were found inside this sculpture. They 

not only help date the work but also provide insights into 

the diversity of medieval Japanese Buddhist belief. 

The items inside Standing Prince Shōtoku include 

tiny Buddhist relics made of semi-precious stones, a variety 

of miniature devotional statues, sūtras, a twill-weave 

silk bag, and a number of Sanskrit mantras (verses or 

hymns of praise) written on paper (fig. 2). These objects 

connect to multiple Buddhist traditions in Japan. Some 

items appear to be from the Mahāyāna Pure Land tradition 

that venerates Amitābha, others Zen, which is based 

on the Chinese Ch’an School that taught powerful meditative 

practices to anyone. The Vajrayāna schools of 

Tendai and Shingon were also represented. Tendai synthesizes 

Ch’an meditation and Tantric practice with a 

form of Chinese T’ien-t’ai Buddhism, which seeks to 

unify different Buddhist schools into “One Vehicle” partially 

through the teachings of the Lotus Sūtra. Shingon, 

on the other hand, is based on the teachings of the 

Chinese Chên-yen School that stressed visualizations and 

mantras used in Tantric practices and rituals that were 

established in Japan by the Buddhist monk Kūkai (774 – 

835). The items from different doctrinal schools inside 

Standing Prince Shōtoku reflect the complexity of the diffusion 

of Buddhism throughout Asia. 

Several items inserted into Standing Prince 

Shōtoku help scholars associate it with Eison (1201 – 1290), 

the founder of the Shingon Risshū sect, and his followers. 

11 First is a small sculpture of Eison’s personal 

protector, the ferocious deity Rāgarāja, who is capable of 

“freeing a devotee from lust.” 12 There are also three manuscript 

books that present rules of monastic behavior and 

liturgy, which reflect the Shingon Risshū sect’s emphasize 

on the Vinaya precepts. These were prescribed 

Buddhist teachings of morality and comportment for monastic 

orders, institutional rules for the governance of 

the Buddhist community (San� gha), and the consequences 

for breaking these rules. In order to represent the 

Buddhist teachings (Dharma), Eison and his followers 

would insert sūtras and mantras written on paper into 

hollowed-out figures. As a way to represent his San� gha, 

he would install practitioners’ vows. All these types of 

documents were found inside the sculpture, but they do 

not necessarily confirm all the functions of the work or 

the identity of the sect that commissioned it. 

The invocation of the Buddha, Dharma, and 

11 

San� gha — known together as the “Three Jewels” — is 

manifested in the historical figure of Prince Shōtoku himself. 

The prince supported the building of seven temples, 

issued an imperial decree that urged everyone to accept 

the Three Jewels as the highest refuge for all living 

beings, and authored eight volumes of commentary on 

the Lotus Sūtra and other sacred writings. 13 At his death, 

Prince Shōtoku is said to have quoted a passage from the 

Dharmapada: “Avoid evil, undertake good, and purify the 

mind.” 14 Through these actions, one attains the wisdom 

of emptiness, which, in turn, allows one to see an inner- 

Buddha potential within oneself and all other beings. The 

clerics who likely commissioned Standing Prince Shōtoku 

may have used the sculpture in various ways: as a consecrated 

icon with additional talismanic powers and as a 

way to present themselves as authorities of Prince 

Shōtoku’s teachings. 

The Buddhist traditions launched by Prince 

Shōtoku would wax and wane in popularity and significance 

over the centuries in Japan. Interest in traditional 

forms of Buddhism had already started to decrease 

during the anti-Buddhist persecutions of the Meiji period 

(1868 – 1912). 15 Today, Buddhist practices continue to be a 

part of important rituals like funerals and seasonal celebrations. 

Buddhist concepts and aesthetics also continue 

to inspire cultural figures in Japan, including the 

Pulitzer’s architect, Tadao Andō. 

Part II: 

Transformative Functions of the Building 

Even though additional Asian and Western ideas have influenced 

Tadao Andō’s designs, Reflections of the Buddha 

aims to emphasize his connection to Buddhism by sparking 

new and dynamic relationships through the display 

of Buddhist art in his spaces. The lack of adornment and 

the simple geometry and materials of Andō’s buildings 

may be regarded as characteristics of Western 

Modernism. Yet Buddhist concepts found in his writings 

and interviews offer another way to understand his architecture. 

They provide an opportunity to experience the 

Pulitzer as a “living” environment where the visitor, the 

space, and the art become themselves through their interdependence, 

a concept central to Buddhism and to the 

selection and display of art in this exhibition. 

In a recently published interview, Andō spoke 

of himself as a designer of symbolic architecture — 

“where we live and die, where we think about life and 

death, and the world of this life and Nirvāna . . . Symbolic 

architecture should emerge from the struggles with 

these human conditions.” 16 In the same interview, Andō 

also acknowledged that: 

God, to the Japanese, exists in nature. I do not know whether this 

would be an acceptable view in Christianity or not. In fact, that 

god exists in nature means that god exists in one’s mind. Many 

people think that god exists outside of self. But, a god who exists

in nature is also in one’s mind . . . This kind of teaching has been 

continuous in Japanese Buddhism since the periods of Kūkai [774 

– 835] and Shinran [1173 – 1263]. Without realizing this, people 

make voyages to [distant places] in search of self, but god was not 

there . . . Returning from their trips, they realized that god existed 

in their mind. I think what is important here is not only the 

awakening itself, but also the journey to this awakening. 17 

For Buddhists, the journey to awakening, or Nirvāna, begins 

with the understanding that the world’s constituents, 

including ourselves, are impermanent, dissatisfactory, 

without a concrete self (“no-self”), and conditional (dependent 

arising). By experiencing these pre-modern 

Buddhist works in Andō’s spaces, the visitor to this 

Pulitzer exhibition may also appreciate these ideas in 

new ways. 

Impermanence 

Andō imparts rich meaning into the Pulitzer’s spaces by 

allowing elements such as light and water to be part of 

the experience; they help mark the passing of time and 

the changing of seasons. 18 This state of flux connects with 

Buddhist concepts of impermanence: Everything arises, 

exists in a state of constant change, and then passes away. 

The Pulitzer’s glass walls along the water garden 

allow sunlight into the galleries and passageways. 

Wind creates movement across the water’s surface. On 

bright days, the sun glistens and reflects light off the water, 

casting lively rippling patterns onto the building’s 

ceilings, floors, and walls, a metaphor for light’s boundlessness. 

The visitor who arrives on a stormy day with 

dark skies and rain (sometimes in the form of torrential 

sheets that course across the water garden’s exterior 

walls) looks out and feels a sense of awe and foreboding 

from inside the galleries. This constantly changing light 

also progresses across the surfaces of the artworks; it animates 

them, not unlike the natural light and candlelight 

that once moved and flickered across the statues at their 

original sites. 

Andō has written about how light and form are 

interrelated: 

Light isolated within architectural space lingers on the surfaces of 

objects and evokes shadows from the background. As light varies 

in intensity with the shifting of time and changes of season, the 

appearances of objects are altered. But light does not become objectified 

and is not itself given form until it is isolated and 

accepted by physical objects. 19 

When natural light is muted, soft, and indirect at the 

Pulitzer, it gives a sculpture like the one of Prince 

Shōtoku (no. 1) even greater volume and adds to the lifelike 

qualities of the baby image, especially around his soft 

belly and rounded shoulders. 

The Buddhist idea of impermanence is expressed 

at the Pulitzer not just by the building’s 

constantly changing light but also by the simple fact that 

the art included in this exhibition has itself undergone 

12 

great change: the sculptures are dented, abraded, fragmented. 

A head is all that survives of a monumental 

Buddha from Afghanistan (no. 8); a hand, twenty-six inches 

long and once belonging to a Buddha Amitābha, is one 

of the few remnants from a colossal sculptural triad in 

Japan (no. 2). All of the Buddhist works in the exhibition 

attest to the ravages of time. They are no longer in their 

original context, no longer standing among hundreds of 

other sculptures on a Tibetan altar or among sculptural 

groups in Chinese temples. Time has all but rubbed off 

their colorful paint and glistening gold. Today, Buddhists 

rarely pray before these sacred objects, which are now 

placed within the Pulitzer, a contemporary building with 

little adornment and constantly changing light. The mutability 

of sky, place, object, and the visitor’s own state of 

mind heightens this sense that everything arises, constantly 

changes, then passes away. 

Dissatisfactoriness 

Impermanence, Buddhists believe, leads to dissatifactoriness 

(dukha), which is often translated as suffering. But 

the term in Buddhism best connotes the condition 

caused by an axle hole that is not properly made so that 

the axle wobbles in a dissatisfactory way. 20 People often 

search for happiness in things that do not last, causing 

dukha in their lives. Changing afflicted states of mind 

also produce dukha, which can lead to such feelings as 

hatred, greed, and delusion. 

Andō’s philosophy of architecture addresses 

dukha. In 1984, he wrote about confronting societal 

norms: 

Once a desire approaches satisfaction, it grows larger and stimulates 

other ambitions. Man enters a never-ending cycle and 

becomes dominated by his own excessive desires. What really enriches 

an individual’s life in an age such as ours? It is important 

to discover what is essential to human life and to consider what 

abundance truly means. An architectural space stripped of all excess 

and composed simply from bare necessities is true and 

convincing because it is appropriate and satisfying. Simplification 

through the elimination of all surface decorations, the employment 

of minimal, symmetrical compositions and limited 

materials constitutes a challenge to contemporary civilization. 21 

Here, Andō not only critiques contemporary materialism 

and consumerism but also espouses Japanese aesthetics 

derived from Zen Buddhism as an alternative: simplicity, 

austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the integrity 

of natural objects and processes. 

Yet the objects in this exhibition cover a wide 

range of Buddhist cultures and sects. Andō’s geometry 

and materials seem far removed from the philosophies 

that lead to the making of such elaborate works as the 

gilded bodhisattva from Nepal decorated with semi-precious 

stones (no. 14) or the imperial sūtra from China that 

is ornately painted in gold (no. 24). There is even the 

Buddhist deity Vaiśravana (no. 20), who became a Chinese 

wealth god, depicted with sumptuously decorated armor.

View of the Main Gallery 

These heavily gilded works look all the more ornate in 

the austerity of Andō’s spaces, while the space around 

them becomes more dynamic. 

The Pulitzer’s presentation of Buddhist art 

allows the visitor to see each work from several unobstructed 

viewpoints and it silhouettes the sculptures, 

offering them additional visual power and energy. These 

Buddhist sculptures likely have never had the luxury of 

so much space — neither in their original sites nor in 

some of their new repositories, including the often 

crowded galleries of encyclopedic museums. The placement 

of these works in Andō’s architecture gives the 

viewer the freedom to appreciate these works in an expanded 

way. This approach is partially Minimalist. An 

American museum director in the 1980s once spoke of 

“the synchronic museum” that foregoes history in the 

name of “a kind of intensity of experience, an aesthetic 

charge that is not so much temporal (historical) as it is 

now radically spatial . . . It is Minimalism . . . that has reshaped 

the way we, as late twentieth-century viewers, 

look at art: the demands we now put on it; our need to 

experience it along with its interaction with the space in 

which it exists.” 22 

The dominant Asian influences in the United 

States for much of the twentieth century were Japanese 

art and Zen Buddhism. In the 1950s and 1960s, they inspired 

Western Minimalist artists with the principles of 

simplicity and understatement. In the 1970s, Western 

Minimalism in turn informed contemporary Japanese architects 

like Andō, with its systematic thinking 

characterized by repetition and progressions of forms. In 

a recent book about his own processes and ideas, Andō 

13 

spoke about the Pulitzer’s architecture in Minimalist 

terms: “[W]ith the simplest possible form, [the Pulitzer] 

was composed as the ultimate box.” 23 It is “embedded 

with a grid space based on an identical module in plan 

and section.” 24 

The use of repetitive forms plays a role in the 

display of art in Reflections of the Buddha as well. For instance, 

four-circle mandalas of the Sakya School of 

Tibetan Buddhism (nos. 11-12) are displayed in the 

Pulitzer’s eponymous Cube Gallery. These hierarchical 

and geometric diagrams of Buddhist cosmology were 

likely guides for meditation rituals. Based on the Hevajra 

Tantra (a Vajrayāna text written sometime between the 

late eighth and early tenth centuries), the Sakya School’s 

teachings offer a practitioner a particular way to understand 

a key concept found in both Mahāyāna and 

Vajrayāna Buddhism: Nirvāna already exists in samsāra. 

The defilements of samsāra simply cover this pure knowledge 

from view. Each Sakya mandala in the Cube Gallery 

depicts four circles symmetrically aligned. Each circle 

represents an architectural plan of a palace with walls 

and gateways at the cardinal directions. Inside each circle 

is a square; inside the square is a circle. The symmetry offers 

a sense of order and permanence found in a 

particular deity’s celestial realm. This is the palace that 

the practitioner visualizes as the home for the deity. As 

one scholar has noted, the deity is like “a germinating 

seed [that] is within, and protected by, its outer shell.” 25 

It is here where the teacher (lama) helps the initiate connect 

with the deity and understand that impermanence 

and dukha can be “extinguished” in one’s own lifetime. 

Andō, too, chooses repetitive forms — simple

circles and squares — in his architecture. Yet unlike most 

Minimalists, and more like Tibetan mandala artists, Andō 

seeks to use geometry and enclosed spaces “to inspire internal 

vistas within the individual which correspond to 

spaces that the individual harbours within himself.” 26 

With such statements, Andō acknowledged as early as 

1977 his desire to build symbolic architecture. Reflections of 

the Buddha makes it possible to see that both Andō and 

the Tibetan artists use simple and repetitive geometry 

and symmetry to connect with the invisible world, where 

the human spirit may find succor from the impermanence 

and dissatisfactoriness of life. 

Nothingness and the No-Self 

In most philosophical traditions, a person is an individual 

substance with a true essence or self. But Śākyamuni 

taught that all phenomena lack any underlying permanent 

substance. This view is known as the doctrine of 

“no-self” (anātman). In Buddhism “all there is to a person 

is a complicated, swiftly changing stream of mental and 

physical phenomena, connected by causal links and inextricably 

interrelated with the rest of the universe,” a 

scholar of Buddhist ethics succinctly wrote. 27 If you are 

not a substance, there is no reason to place yourself 

above others. This realization for Buddhists leads to loving 

kindness and compassion for oneself and others. 

Visitors to the Pulitzer sometimes feel and experience 

the spaces as empty. 28 Andō, in a recent interview, 

spoke about this emptiness as nothingness: 

The space of nothingness is where one finds his or her own self 

and life’s richness. The space of nothingness is where one struggles 

to reach a deeper layer of self . . . The space of nothingness is 

where one experiences love towards his or her self. The departure 

point is this moment of self-love. 29 

The Indian Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna articulated 

the related concept of non-duality and founded the 

“Middle Way” School of Mahāyāna Buddhism sometime 

between 150 and 250 ce. According to Nāgārjuna, behind 

the visible is emptiness. This refers to the way all things 

actually are, namely empty of the independent way they 

ordinarily seem to exist. Everything is interconnected 

and in flux. For Mahāyāna Buddhists, it is this awakened 

consciousness and penetrating insight into the emptiness 

of all things that brings one freedom. 

Later traditions have continued the investigation 

of no-self and emptiness. A group of twentieth- 

century Japanese thinkers known as the Kyoto 

Philosophical School influenced Andō’s creative practice. 

Philosophers of this school, such as Nishida Kitarō (1870 

– 1945), preferred to speak of nothingness not by its 

Sanskrit term in Mahāyāna Buddhism, śūnyatā 

(“Emptiness”; kū in Japanese), but with the Sino-Japanese 

character mu (“Nothingness”; wu in Chinese), a common 

term in Zen. Andō has also used the terms mu (nothingness) 

and ma (the space in between, or the negative space 

around and between objects). Andō elaborated: “The 

14 

importance of the Japanese tearoom does not lie in the 

walls, floor, ceiling, but the space of ma surrounded by 

these elements . . . [It is] a space for the cultivation of 

self.” 30 He then tried to clarify the difference between ma 

and mu: 

I use the term ma in some of my writings, and it was sometimes 

translated into nothingness. I think in English, both mu and ma 

are justifiably translated into nothingness. For me both are concerned 

with the invisible. While mu is that which one cannot feel, 

ma makes it palpable and tangible. I believe [that] . . . Nishida . . . 

emphasized the invisible as the place where the spiritual resides. 

Again, ma is the feeling of what is hidden behind the visible. 31 

Andō’s deep understanding of these concepts makes for 

an especially powerful union of art and architecture in 

Reflections of the Buddha. 

Dependent Arising 

Central to the Buddhist experience is the concept of “dependent 

arising”: All things arise and pass due to certain 

conditions. When conditions are present that support a 

thing’s existence, it comes to be. When new conditions 

appear, the thing changes. When conditions that support 

the thing end, the thing ceases to exist. 

At the Pulitzer, Andō created a sequence of galleries 

connected by transitional spaces that offer the 

means to experience different states of mind; each gallery 

offers a different condition. The experience is not 

unlike Andō’s description of the approach to the 

Buddhist Water Temple on Awaji Island, Japan, which he 

designed for the Vajrayāna Shingon sect: 

When approaching the Water Temple there are a series of moves 

which gradually empty the mind and prepare the way for 

meditation. In order to enter a space it is best to first go through 

a preparatory space, and that is what happens in this case. There 

are several phases. As in a poem you need to be led in. I feel the 

same about sequences of architectural spaces of varying moods. 32 

The sequence of simple geometric spaces at the Pulitzer 

also influences mood. In the context of this exhibition, 

the sequence recalls some Buddhist meditation practices 

that employ the mindfulness of breathing for tranquility 

and development of insight. 33 Some practices emphasize 

extending the interval between moments of breathing. 

This interval is the time when meditators seek to penetrate 

consciousness, 34 which evokes the effect of the 

gallery sequences and passageways at the Pulitzer: The 

Entrance Gallery’s low ceilings and small size constrict 

(as if lungs have exhaled the outside world from which 

they have come). A tall passageway filled with light offers 

a view of the water garden (extended interval). This passageway 

leads you to an expansive light-filled Main 

Gallery (a vast space from which to inhale deeply) that 

leads you down a bridge with views of the water garden 

(extended interval) into the enclosed and dark Cube 

Gallery (where the lungs once again constrict

La Línea del Destino (Line of Destiny), 2006, Oscar Muñoz, Colombian 

15

in exhalation). The extended intervals between galleries 

become metaphors for the time taken between breaths 

by the meditator. In a recent interview, Andō noted that 

he designs certain pathways as a way to encourage a state 

of mind where one does not achieve anything when 

walking along them: “One should not be bound to achieving 

something, but should search for the depth of self. 

Nothingness resides in one’s continuous search for self.” 35 

Andō’s symbolic architecture encourages 

metaphors about space and how one responds to it as a 

sentient being. Andō has explained: “When ‘I’ perceive 

the concrete to be something cold and hard, ‘I’ recognize 

the body as something warm and soft. In this way the 

body in its relationship with the world becomes shintai . . . 

The shintai is a sentient being that responds to the 

world.” 36 Through this understanding the Pulitzer is a 

“living” space: A Zen Buddhist would say that you walk 

the space and the space walks you. You and the space are 

independent, yet each becomes itself only through its 

interdependence. What makes the Pulitzer a “living” 

space is the dynamic, interdependent, trilateral play 

among the visitor, the space, and the art. All arise 

dependently. 

In Reflections of the Buddha, the journey through 

the Pulitzer begins with Standing Prince Shōtoku at Age 

Two (no. 1) greeting visitors the moment they enter. As 

mentioned earlier in this essay, the sculpture commemorates 

the beginning of Shōtoku’s spiritual path, when at 

age two he said the nembutsu. The placement of this 

sculpture facing east not only connects the orientation of 

the sculpture to the actual legend, but also associates the 

beginning of Shōtoku’s spiritual journey with that of the 

visitor’s own entry into the exhibition. Next to this work 

is Left Hand of a Colossal Buddha Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai) 

(no. 2), a fragment of a sculpture of Amitābha, which was 

approximately sixteen feet high. 37 The mudrā, or gesture, 

formed by the hand’s thumb touching its middle finger is 

one used to signify Amitābha’s descent to the human 

realm to transport a believer after death to the Pure Land. 

Attached to the original arm, this hand was once raised 

level with the chest of Amitābha, and slanted in such a 

way to allow the viewer to see the circle formed by 

thumb and middle finger (referring to the wheel of the 

Dharma, the symbol of Buddhist teachings). How the 

work is positioned in the Entrance Gallery highlights this 

circle formed by the fingers, likely representing its original 

incline on the sculpture. It also points toward the 

next gallery and leads the visitor on. 

After experiencing numerous works in the varied 

spaces designed by Andō, the visitor concludes the 

exhibition with Line of Destiny (no. 25), a two-minute 

black-and-white silent video by the Colombian artist 

Oscar Muñoz. It appears at the end of a long narrow corridor 

on the lower level, with no natural light. Andō 

never envisioned this area as gallery space. Yet in the context 

of the exhibition, the corridor provides an apt 

metaphor for samsāra and the internal journey to awakening. 

The looped play of the video begins with an image 

16 

of Muñoz’s hand filled with water, which reflects his face. 

As the video progresses, the water and the reflection 

slowly slip through his fingers until they disappear; it 

ends with an empty hand, only to be refilled with water, 

which drains through the fingers, over and again. Even 

though Muñoz never intended Line of Destiny to pertain to 

Buddhism, this work has three “symbolic” functions in 

this exhibition: It illustrates Buddhist concepts about the 

phenomenal world (as impermanent, dissatisfactory, conditional, 

and lacking any underlying and permanent 

substance); it alludes to the exhibition’s title; and it refers 

back to the beautiful colossal hand that helped start the 

visitor on the journey through the building. 

The Buddhist art in Reflections of the Buddha once 

helped believers on the path to Nirvāna. As these works 

moved across Asia into Europe and the United States, 

they elicited a variety of responses, providing new ways 

of understanding the Buddha, Buddhist images, and more 

generally Buddhism itself in many disparate environments. 

In Andō’s transformative spaces, Buddhist art 

continues to inspire — through the dynamic combination 

of art and architecture, past and present, East and 

West, private and public, secular and sacred, in an intimate 

setting in the center of an American city. 

Notes 

1. Tadao Ando, “The Result of an Intense Dialogue,” in Abstractions 

in Space: Tadao Ando, Ellsworth Kelly, Richard Serra, ed. Laurie Stein 

(Saint Louis: The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, 2001), 9. 

2. Tadao Ando, Process and Idea (Tokyo: TOTO, 2010), 226. 

3. Benjamin Rowland, The Evolution of the Buddha Image (New York: 

The Asia Society / Harry N. Abrams, 1963), 5–6. See also Denise 

Patry Leidy and Robert A. F. Thurman, Mandala: The Architecture of 

Enlightenment (New York: Asia Society Galleries / Tibet House; 

Boston: Shambhala, 1997), 133. 

4. Andō calls the Pulitzer’s water court a “water garden” in his 

latest book, Process and Idea, 225. 

5. Pratapaditya Pal, Art of Nepal: A Catalogue of the Los Angeles County 

Museum of Art Collection (Berkeley: Los Angeles County of Art / 

University of California Press, 1985), 19. 

6. Sources on Zanabazar include Patricia Berger and Terese Tse 

Bartholomew, Mongolia: The Legacy of Chinggis Khan (New York: 

Thames and Hudson; San Francisco: Asian Art Museum of San 

Francisco, 1995), 56–64; 261–263. See also Jan Fontein, J. Vrieze, 

and Dirk Bakker, The Dancing Demons of Mongolia (London: Lund 

Humphries, 1999), 70–73. For additional information about this 

work, see Phillip E. Bloom, “Standing Bodhisattva Maitreya,’” to be 


7. Marylin M. Rhie and Robert A. F. Thurman, Wisdom and 

Compassion: The Sacred Art of Tibet (New York: Tibet House / Harry 

N. Abrams, 1996), 132. 

8. Phillip E. Bloom, “Seated Bodhisattva Tārā in her ‘Green 

Manifestation,’” to be published online at buddha.pulitzerarts. 

org. 

9. Kenneth K. S. Ch’en, Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey 

(Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1973), 267. It should 

be noted that Seated Bodhisattva Tārā, like almost all the metal 

sculptures in this exhibition, was made in bronze which is an alloy 

consisting primarily of copper. In China and other parts of 

Asia, copper was a monetary currency minted by the government. 

So one way for Buddhist temples to accumulate wealth was to 

utilize donated objects, like Seated Bodhisattva Tārā, “as capital for

the production of further economic gain, the earning of interest 

to be used in the furtherance of Dharma.” Ch’en also states that 

“the large amounts of copper possessed by Buddhist temples led 

the [Chinese] government to take numerous measures to regulate 

its use and circulation. Since copper was also used to mint 

coins, the government wanted to divert the whole copper output 

to the government mints. However, one might say that the government 

fought a losing battle in this policy. In order to 

manufacture 1,000 cash or one string, six catties of copper were 

required. The same six cattie, if used in the manufacture of objects, 

would be valued about 36,000 cash.” See Ch’en, Buddhism in 

China, 260. 

10. Helmut Brinker, “Facing the Unseen: On the Interior 

Adornment of Eizon’s Iconic Body,” Archives of Asian Art 50, 

(1997/1998): 43. 

11. John M. Rosenfield, “The Sedgwick Statue of the Infant 

Shōtoku,” Archives of Asian Art 22 (1968/1969): 56–79. See also Anne 

Nishimura Morse and Samuel Crowell Morse, Object as Insight: 

Japanese Buddhist Art & Ritual (Katonah, N.Y.: Katonah Museum of 

Art, 1995), 88. For additional information about this work, see 

Katherine L. Brooks, “Standing Prince Shōtoku at Age Two,” to be 


12. Donald McCallum, review of Living Images: Japanese Buddhist 

Icons in Context, by Robert H. Sharf and Elizabeth Horton Sharf, 

Monumenta Nipponica 59, no. 2 (Summer, 2004): 271–275. 

13. See Donald W. Mitchell, Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist 

Experience, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 21. 


15. Janine Anderson Sawada, “Political Waves in the Zen Sea: The 

Engaku-ji Circle in Early Meiji Japan,” Japanese Journal of Religious 

Studies 25, nos. 1–2 (Spring, 1998): 118–119. 

16. Jin Baek, Nothingness: Tadao Ando’s Christian Sacred Space 

(Abingdon [England]; New York: Routledge, 2009), 203. 


18. Tadao Ando, “From Self-Enclosed Modern Architecture 

Towards Universality,” The Japan Architect 301 (May 1982); published 

in Tadao Ando and Francesco Dal Co, Tadao Ando (London: 

Phaidon Press, 1995), 446. 

19. Tadao Ando, “Light, Shadow and Form: the Koshino House,” 

Via 11 (1990); published in Ando and Dal Co, Tadao Ando, 458. 


21. Tadao Ando, introduction to Tadao Ando, Buildings, Projects, 

Writings (New York, 1984); published in Ando and Dal Co, Tadao 

Ando, 449. 

22. Tom Krens as reported in Rosalind Krauss, “The Cultural Logic 

of the Late Capitalist Museum,” October 54 (Autumn, 1990): 7; see 

also Emma Barker, Contemporary Cultures of Display (New Haven: 

Yale University Press, 1999), 43–46. 



25. Robert E. Fisher, Art of Tibet (London: Thames & Hudson, 1997), 

70. 

26. Tadao Ando, “A Wedge in Circumstances,” The Japan Architect 

243 (June 1977); published in Ando and Dal Co, Tadao Ando, 444. 

27. Charles Goodman, “Ethics in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism,” 

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta 

(Stanford: The Metaphysics Research Lab, 2010), accessed October 

1, 2011, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/ 

ethics-indian-buddhism. 

28. Masao Furuyama, Tadao Ando *1941: the Geometry of Human Space 

(Cologne: Taschen, 2006), 15. 


30. Baek, Nothingness, 194–195. 


32. Tadao Ando, Tadao Ando: 1983–2000 (Madrid: El Croquis 

Editorial, 2000), 14–15. 

33. Donald K. Swearer, “Control and Freedom: The Structure of 

Buddhist Meditation in the Pāli Suttas, Philosophy East and West 23, 

no. 4 (Oct., 1973): 438. 

17 

34. Mircea Eliade, “Yoga and Modern Philosophy,” The Journal of 

General Education 15, no. 2 (July 1963): 133. 


36. Tadao Ando, “Shintai in Space,” in Architecture and the Body 

(New York, 1988); published in Ando and Dal Co, Tadao Ando, 453. 

37. Katherine L. Brooks, Left Hand of a Colossal Buddha Amitābha 

(Amida Nyōrai), to be published at buddha.pulitzerarts.org. 

Standing Buddha (possibly Śākyamuni) (Sokkamuni), 8th or 9th 

century, Korea

18 

A Scene from the Life of the Buddha, late 2nd or early 3rd century, Pakistan 

facing page 

Torso of a Buddha, 5th century, India

Sea of Buddha, 1995, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Japanese 

21


22

Head of Buddha Śākyamuni, 4th century, Afghanistan 

23

foreground 


middle 


rear 


25

center (and facing page) 

Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara 

(Karunamaya), late 10th or 

early 11th century, Nepal 

left 

Acala Candamaharosana 

(Budong Mingwang), “The 

Immovable One,” One of the 

Five Great Wisdom Kings, 

1764, China 

right 



(Duoluo pusa), 1403 – 1424, 

China 

left 

Four Mandalas (dkyil-‘khor), 

18th century, Tibet 

right 

Standing Bodhisattva 

Maitreya (Maijdari), second 

half 17th century, Mongolia 

left 



(Duoluo pusa), 1403 – 1424, 

China 

right 

Four-circle Hevajra Mandala 

(Kye-ba Rdo-rje dkyil-‘khor), 

15th or 16th century, Tibet 

26

28 

Four-circle Hevajra Mandala (Kye-ba Rdo-rje dkyil-‘khor), 15th or 16th century, Tibet

Four Mandalas (dkyil-‘khor), 18th century, Tibet 

29

30 

Details of Standing Bodhisattva Maitreya (Maijdari), second half 17th century, Mongolia

32 

Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara in the Form of Khasarpana Lokeśvara, late 11th or early 12th century, India

Seated Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin), 8th century, China 

33

34 

Acala Candamaharosana (Budong Mingwang), “The Immovable One,” One of the Five Great Wisdom Kings, 1764, China

Enlarged photograph of Buddhist Triad: Buddha Amitābha (Amita Yeorae) Seated on a Lotus Throne with his Hands 

Held in the Bhūmisparśa mudrā (chokji in) and Flanked by Two Standing Bodhisattvas, Presumably Avalokiteśvara 

(Gwaneum) and Mahāsthāmaprāpta (Daeseji), mid-15th century, Korea 

35

36 

Detail of “The Universal Gateway of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara,” 

Chapter Twenty-Five of the Lotus Sūtra (Miaofa lianhua jing Guanshiyin pusa 

pumenpin), with an appended Heart Sūtra (Xin jing), 1432, China

38 

Guardian King of the North (Vaiśravana) (duo wen tian wang), 1279 – 1368, China

Gallery Guide & Checklist 

Entrance Gallery 

Japan: Pure Land Sculpture in the 11th & 13th Centuries 

Pure Land, a form of Mahāyāna Buddhism, venerates the Buddha Amitābha (Buddha of Immeasurable Light). One 

of the Buddhas of the Ten Directions, Amitābha presides over a pure Buddha realm called “Land of Bliss,” which 

lies in the West. He brings to his realm anyone desiring to be reborn there and aids him or her in attaining enlightenment. 

Pure Land became increasingly popular in Japan from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries and 

inspired many sculptural commissions depicting Amitābha. The use of wood (often cypress) and lacquer, along 

with a naturalistic treatment of the body and the adoption of inlaid rock crystal, became distinctive features of 

these sculptures. 

1. Standing Prince Shōtoku at Age Two 

(Shōtoku Taishi Nisaizō), c. 1292 

Japan, Kamakura period, 1185 – 1333; Japanese 

cypress (hinoki) wood; assembled woodblock 

construction with polychromy and rock-crystal 

inlaid eyes; 26¾ x 9¾ x 9 in.; Harvard Art 

Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Promised 

gift of Walter C. Sedgwick in memory of Ellery 

Sedgwick Sr. and Ellery Sedgwick Jr., 99.1979.1 

Prince Shōtoku (574 – 622) was one of Japan’s earliest followers 

and patrons of Buddhism. Starting in the eleventh 

century, new sects of Pure Land Buddhism exalted 

Shōtoku as an incarnation of Śākyamuni. Portraits of 

Shōtoku depicted significant episodes and legends about 

his life. This is the earliest extant sculpture showing him 

at the age of two, when he reputedly faced east, placed 

his palms together, and said the nembutsu, a Pure Land 

Buddhist practice of reciting the name of Amitābha. 

2. Left Hand of a Colossal Buddha Amitābha 

(Amida Nyōrai), c. 1202 

Attributed to Kaikei, Japanese, active 

c. 1183 – 1236; Kamakura period, 

1185 – 1333; Japanese cypress 

(hinoki) wood with traces of lacquer, 

polychromy, and gilding; probably from an Amida triad originally 

at the Shin-Daibutsu-ji Temple in Iga, Mie Prefecture; 

10½ x 26¼ x 12 in.; Harvard Art Museums / Arthur M. Sackler 

Museum, Gift of Charles Bain Hoyt, 1931.9 

Scholars recently attributed this hand to a 16-ft. high 

Amitābha sculpture commissioned by Monk Shunjōbō 

Chōgen (1121 – 1206) and created by the master sculptor 

Kaikei, both extremely influential cultural figures in the 

Kamakura period. The mudrā, or hand gesture, depicted 

is one of welcoming used by Amitābha to greet the dead 

into the Land of Bliss: The middle and third fingers curve 

inward, with the middle one joined to the thumb. 

3. Standing Buddha Amitābha (Amida Nyōrai), 


Japan, Kamakura period, 1185 – 1333; wood with 

gold pigment, lacquer, gilding, and rock-crystal 

insets; 44⅜ x 20 x 20 in.; Saint Louis Art 


In this sculpture, rock crystal helps represent 

Amitābha’s emanating light—in his 

eyes, at the base of the cranial protuberance 

known as usnīsa (a sign of expanded and radiating wisdom), 

and as the ūrnā (the third eye on his forehead 

indicating spiritual insight and illumination). Although 

these are common characteristics of the Śākyamuni image, 

the welcoming mudrā identifies the image as 

Amitābha. Once thought to be the work of Kaikei—the 

artist of the colossal hand nearby—this sculpture is now 

attributed to a follower from a generation or so later. 

4. Head of a Celestial Attendant, Presumably Head of a 

Bodhisattva (Bosatsu) or of an Apsara 

(Hiten), c. 1053 

Attributed to Studio of Jōchō, Japanese, died 

1057; Heian period, 794 – 1185; Japanese 

cypress (hinoki) wood with traces of polychromy; 

8� x 3� in.; Harvard Art Museums / 

Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Promised gift of 

Walter C. Sedgwick in honor of John 

Rosenfield, 89.1979 

This head is thought to be that of one of fifty-two celestial 

attendants that once accompanied a colossal 

Amitābha statue at the Hōō-dō (Phoenix Hall) of the 

Byōdō-in temple in Uji, near Kyoto. Here, the sculptor 

Jōchō sought to replicate Amitābha’s Land of Bliss, where 

attendants fly overhead and praise Amitābha by scattering 

flowers, playing instruments, and burning incense.

Main Gallery 

Buddha Śākyamuni 

After the death of Śākyamuni in the fifth century BCE, his followers disseminated his teachings throughout India. 

Yet it was not until the first century BCE that the image of Śākyamuni appeared in art. As his image spread to 

other countries and cultures, regional differences appeared, while certain aspects remained consistent: he wears 

a monk’s robe, he has an usnīsa, and his earlobes are distended and unadorned (signs of renounced wealth). Each 

of the sculptures in this gallery—with the possible exception of the Indian Torso of a Buddha—was once colorfully 

painted. 

5. A Scene from the Life of the Buddha, late 2nd 

or early 3rd century 

Pakistan, ancient Gandhāra region; 

Kushan period, 1st century BCE – 3rd 

century CE; phyllite; 22½ x 37 x 3½ 

in.; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 

Kansas City, Missouri, Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 

55-105 

Made for a set of narrative reliefs of the Buddha’s life, 

this panel probably depicts followers greeting Śākyamuni 

as he traveled through India teaching the Dharma, the 

essence of phenomena, or the law that governs things. 

An artist from a Greco-Buddhist workshop carved it in 

Gandhāra, a crossroad on the main trade route linking 

Asia with the Roman Empire. 

6. Torso of a Buddha, 5th century 

India, Uttar Pradesh, Mathurā; Gupta period, 

320 – 647; mottled red sandstone; 

44½ x 21½ x 8½ in.; The Nelson-Atkins 


Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 

45-15 

This sculpture is carved from mottled red 

sandstone, the local stone of Mathurā, a dynamic and 

prosperous region where Buddhist art flourished between 

about 319 and 500. The folds of Śākyamuni’s robe cascade 

down in rings, creating a sense of serenity and 

equilibrium. 

7. The Monk Ananda (Anantuo), 9th century 

China, Tang dynasty, 618 – 907; limestone; 

64� x 16 x 8¾ in.; The Minneapolis Institute 

of Arts, Gift of Ruth and Bruce Dayton, 98.166 

Ananda, cousin of Śākyamuni, became one 

of his chief disciples, helping found the 

San� gha, or the monastic order of men and 

women. This sculpture belonged to a 

grouping in a cave sanctuary, where the Ananda figure 

stood next to the central image of Śākyamuni. 

41 

8. Head of Buddha Śākyamuni, 4th century 

Afghanistan, ancient Gandhāra region, 

probably Hadda; stucco with traces of pigment; 

18 x 10½ x 9¾ in.; Saint Louis Art 


This stucco head likely capped a clay 

body, which was part of a sculptural 

group attached to a wall, probably in 

Hadda, one of the largest Buddhist centers in 

Afghanistan. 

9. Standing Buddha Śākyamuni (Shijiamouni), 

late 6th century 

China, Northern Qi dynasty, 550 – 577, or 

Sui dynasty, 581 – 618; marble with traces 

of pigment; 63¾ x 18 x 9 in.; Saint Louis Art 


This sculpture presents a lotus bud 

carved between Śākyamuni’s feet and an 

honorific tassel in the form of a lotus blossom near his 

shoulder. Since the lotus has roots in mud, a stem that 

extends up through water, and a flower that blossoms in 

the sun, its growth, for Buddhists, signifies the exit from 

the mud of samsāra into the radiance of Nirvāna. 

10. Sea of Buddha, 1995, Hiroshi Sugimoto 

Japanese, born 1948; gelatin 

silver prints, triptych, 

negative numbers 001, 002, 003; 

each: 47 x 58¾ in.; private 

collection 

With this series, Sugimoto 

photographed the interior of 

Sanjūsangen-dō, a twelfth-century Buddhist temple in 

Kyoto with 1,001 life-size sculptures of the bodhisattva of 

compassion, Avalokiteśvara, standing multiple rows deep. 

Each one depicted here has forty arms, with the power to 

save twenty-five worlds. Sugimoto wanted to capture 

their “splendor . . . glistening in the light of the morning 

sun rising over the Higashiyama hills as the Kyoto aristocracy 

might have seen in the Heian period.”

Cube Gallery 

Vajrayāna Buddhism 

The spiritual practices and rituals of Vajrayāna Buddhism include the use of verse (mantra) to invoke a deity or 

to gain protection and the visualization of a vast array of celestial Buddhas and bodhisattvas, many embraced 

from early Buddhism and Mahāyāna Buddhism. In this gallery are three sculptures representing some of the 

most important bodhisattvas, along with three thangkas (portable paintings or hanging banners). Thangkas 

often portray a divinity’s cosmos or circle (mandala) as an architectural plan with gates and various levels leading 

to central pinnacles. Such Vajrayāna objects aid meditation and trance induction that connect the viewer 

with sanctity in the universe and within oneself, bringing enlightenment closer. 

11. Four Mandalas (dkyil-‘khor), 18th century 

Tibet; thangka; colors on cotton, mounted on 

silk brocade; 31¾ x 24 in.; The Nelson-Atkins 


Bequest of Joseph H. Heil, 74-36 /16 

Practioners wishing to receive the 

blessing of an extended lifespan often 

meditated on the figure at the center of 

this thangka, Amitāyus (the name given to Amitābha in 

his manifestation as the bestower of longevity). Colored 

red, he sits in a beautiful landscape on a lotus throne in 

meditation holding a vase containing the elixir of immortality. 

On either side of him are lamas, Tibetan teachers of 

the Dharma, who sit in foliage that bears fruit in the 

form of the Three Buddhist Jewels, representing the 

Buddha, the Dharma, and the San� gha. 

12. Four-circle Hevajra Mandala (Kye-ba Rdo-rje 

dkyil-‘khor), 15th or 16th century 

Tibet; thangka mounted as an album leaf; ink 

and colors on linen; 21 x 17½ in.; Harvard 

Art Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, 

Paul Bernat Fund, 1967.8 

This mandala helps the practitioner 

visualize the union of the male and female principles of 

compassion and wisdom, respectively. This integrative 

process of opposites lies at the heart of Vajrayāna practice. 

By recognizing opposites as psychological distortions 

within oneself, their power over you is lessened and your 

path to enlightenment is accelerated. 

42 

13. Acala Candamaharosana (Budong Mingwang), 

“The Immovable One,” One of 

the Five Great Wisdom Kings, 1764 

China, Qing dynasty, 1644 – 1912; kesi thangka 

mounted as a hanging scroll; silk in kesi tapestry 

weave with some details painted on the surface in 

gold and light colors; 35¼ x 21¼ in.; Harvard Art 

Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Mr. 

and Mrs. Earl Morse, 1958.8 

This tightly woven tapestry depicts Acala surrounded by 

four other wrathful deities. Terrifying deities are often 

visual metaphors for inner states that block enlightenment, 

such as anger, greed, fear, passion, and ignorance. 

Acala holds a sword and a lasso, evidence of his abilities 

to cut through obstacles, snare you, and bring you closer 

to enlightenment. 

14. Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Karunamaya), 


Nepal, Transitional period, c. 879 – 1200; gilt 

copper alloy with inlays of semiprecious stones; 

26¾ x 11½ x 5¼ in.; Asia Society, New York: 

Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, 

1979.047 

Avalokiteśvara (Perceiver of the World’s 

Sounds) travels to all realms of the universe to deliver beings 

from suffering. He has a special mantra: Om Mani 

Padme Hum (“Hail the wish-fulfilling jewel and lotus”). 

This particular work is one of the earliest Buddhist sculptures 

to use semiprecious stone inlays, which became a 

distinctive feature of Himalayan sculpture. Sculptures 

like this one were highly revered in Tibetan monasteries, 

which helped spread their style to other parts of Asia, 

including Mongolia (see artwork 16).

Cube Gallery Lower Main Gallery 

15. Seated Bodhisattva Tārā in her “Green 

Manifestation” (Duoluo pusa), 

1403 – 1424 

China, Ming dynasty, 1368 – 1644; gilt 

bronze; 6� x 4� x 3� in.; Harvard Art 

Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift 

of Hester C. Clapp and Susan C. Wolkoff in 

memory of their parents, Usher P. and Sylvia 

S. Coolidge, 1992.289 

Tārā (Guiding Star) helps sentient beings cross over the 

ocean of existence (samsāra), from the impure state to 

one of pure enlightenment. Generally seen as the 

feminine consort of the masculine Avalokiteśvara, Tārā 

is known as the bodhisattva who saves all beings from 

danger. Of Tārā’s twenty-one forms, her green manifestation 

is considered her most dynamic, for she is posed as 

though ready to spring into action to help anyone in 

need. The Chinese Emperor Yongle, a Vajrayāna Buddhist 

who reigned from 1403 – 1424, established workshops in 

China that produced such sculptures intended for donation 

to Buddhist temples. 

16. Standing Bodhisattva Maitreya (Maijdari), 

second half 17th century 

Attributed to Zanabazar, Mongolian, 1635 – 

1723; gilt bronze with blue pigment in the hair 

and traces of other pigments in the eyes and 

mouth; 24� x 8 � x 7⅝ in.; Harvard Art 

Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of 

John West, 1963.5 

The Bodhisattva Maitreya (Loving One) resides in Tusita 

Heaven, from where persons are reborn as human 

Buddhas. It is believed that Maitreya will be the next 

human Buddha after Śākyamuni. This sculpture is attributed 

to the Mongolian monk Zanabazar, who at age 

fourteen entered Tibet to meet the leaders of the Geluk 

School of the Dalai Lama. Consequently, Zanabazar was 

responsible for the exportation of the school’s scholarship, 

practices, and art to Mongolia in the seventeenth 

century. 

17. Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara in the Form of 

Khasarpana Lokeśvara, 


India, Bihar or Bengal; Pāla period, 

c. 700 – 1200; schist; 37½ x 18½ x 6¾ in.; 

Asia Society, New York: Mr. and Mrs. John 

D. Rockefeller 3rd Collection, 1979 . 040 

A form of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara 

is Khasarpana Lokeśvara, an eighteen-year-old who is 

beautiful, peaceful, and smiling. Out of compassion, he 

feeds nectar to Sūcīmukha, who, lustful and greedy in a 

former life, is doomed to suffer insatiable hunger in the 

next. (Sūcīmukha’s condition is exacerbated by his tiny 

mouth and narrow neck.) The sculpture’s backslab is 

pierced so that Avalokiteśvara’s torso is freed from the 

background and may be adorned with garments and 

jewelry. 

18. Blue Black, 2000, Ellsworth Kelly 

American, born 1923; painted aluminum 

panels; 336 x 70 x 2⅛ in.; The Pulitzer 

Foundation for the Arts 

In a 1950 letter to John Cage, Ellsworth 

Kelly stated, “I am not interested in 

painting as it has been accepted for so 

long — to hang on walls of houses as 

pictures. To hell with pictures — they should be the wall 

— even better — on the outside wall — of large buildings. 

Or stood up outside as billboards or a kind of 

modern ‘icon.’ We must make our art like the Egyptians, 

the Chinese . . . with their relation to life. It should meet 

the eye direct.”

Lower Gallery 

The Buddha’s Light 

Large groupings of small-scale gilded sculptures and gold-painted images adorn Buddhist altars and shrines 

throughout Asia. In Buddhism gold is often emblematic of the radiance of enlightenment. The labor and great 

expense taken to produce these devotional objects also helped everyone involved gain karmic merit. Karma is 

the universal law of cause and effect: Actions in this life will determine the form in which an individual will be 

reborn in the next life. 

19. Womb World Mandala (Taizōkai mandara), 


Japan, Kamakura period, 1185 – 1333; hanging 

scroll, gold and color on indigo-dyed silk; 

35⅝ x 31¼ in.; Collection of Sylvan Barnet 

and William Burto 

At the heart of the central eight-petaled 

lotus of this mandala is Buddha 

Mahāvairocana, the embodiment of universal 

truth. He sits in meditation emanating a seemingly 

infinite number of forms in the surrounding rows. These 

are hierarchically arranged: Buddhas, bodhisattvas, 

guardians, ghosts, and other figures and symbols. 

Vajrayāna Buddhists in Japan regard Mahāvairocana as 

the unifier of two worlds: the spiritual and masculine 

Diamond World and the material and feminine Womb 

World. This mandala thus depicts only the female half of 

a pair called the Mandalas of the Two Worlds. 

20. Guardian King of the North (Vaiśravana) 

(duo wen tian wang), 1279 – 1368 

China, Yuan dynasty, 1279 – 1368; chased, 

engraved, and gilded bronze; 14½ x 7¾ x 5 

in.; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas 

City, Missouri, Purchase: the Asian Art 

Acquisition Fund in memory of Laurence 

Sickman, F95-4 

Vaiśravana, depicted as a formidable Chinese general, 

secures the northern direction of Buddhist religious 

structures. He holds a stupa in his left hand symbolizing 

the divine treasure house, whose contents he both guards 

and gives away. In Central and Eastern Asia, Vaiśravana is 

considered to be the most important of all the numerous 

Buddhist wealth gods because he provides freedom by 

way of bestowing prosperity, so that one may focus on 

spirituality rather than on materiality. 

44 

21. Seated Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin), 

8th century 

China, Tang dynasty, 618 – 907; 

bronze with gilding; 10¾ x 5⅜ x 3⅝ in.; 

Saint Louis Art Museum, Museum Purchase, 

36:1933 

Adorned with elaborate jewelry and 

flowing scarves, this sculpture depicts 

Avalokiteśvara sitting with one foot resting on a lotus 

blossom. The cosmopolitan culture of the Tang dynasty 

led artists toward naturalism, which became fully 

expressed in the eighth century, when this work was 

made. 

22. Standing Buddha (possibly Śākyamuni) 

(Sokkamuni), 8th or 9th century 

Korea, Unified Silla dynasty, 668 – 935; gilt bronze; 

10¼ x 3� in.; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 

Kansas City, Missouri, Purchase: William Rockhill 

Nelson Trust, 49-18 

This statue of a Buddha represents a time 

when Buddhism was an important political, religious, 

and cultural force in Korea. Influenced 

by Tang dynasty art, it combines the naturalism of the 

human form with an abstraction that prevents it from 

taking on the secularity and realism of a portrait.

Lower Gallery 

23. Buddhist Triad: Buddha Amitābha (Amita Yeorae) 

Seated on a Lotus Throne with His 

Hands Held in the Bhūmisparśa 

mudrā (chokji in) and Flanked by 

Two Standing Bodhisattvas, 

Presumably Avalokiteśvara 

(Gwaneum) and 

Mahāsthāmaprāpta (Daeseji), 


Korea, Joseon dynasty, 1392 – 1910; gilt silver; 4¼ x 4 x 2� in.; 

Harvard Art Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Ralph 

C. Marcove, M.D., 1997.254 

The central figure of this rare silver-cast triad was long 

thought to depict Śākyamuni extending a hand downward, 

“calling the earth to witness at the moment of 

enlightenment.” It is now believed to be Amitābha with 

a striking array of curls and high usnīsa. Two standing 

bodhisattvas, who likely signify Amitābha’s wisdom and 

compassion, respectively, flank him. The work was 

probably produced in the area around Mt. Geumgang 

in North Korea and commissioned by a confraternity 

during a time when Buddhism, because it was officially 

denounced by the state, developed at a popular level 

independent of elite clerics and canonical texts. 

45 

24. “The Universal Gateway of Bodhisattva 

Avalokiteśvara,” Chapter 

Twenty-Five of the Lotus 

Sūtra (Miaofa lianhua jing 

Guanshiyin pusa pumenpin), 

with an appended 

Heart Sūtra (Xin jing), 1432 

China, Ming dynasty, 1368 – 

1644; accordion-fold book; gold ink on indigo-dyed paper; palace 

copy; overall: approximately 13⅜ x 542⅜ in.; Harvard Art 

Museums / Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of Alan Priest, 1926.46 

This manuscript contains the texts of two of the most 

popular sūtras (sacred texts) in Mahāyāna Buddhism: 

the twenty-fifth chapter of the Lotus Sūtra and the Heart 

Sūtra. Both present Avalokiteśvara, known in China as the 

Guanyin. The first text vividly describes the myriad calamities 

from which Guanyin will save any worshipper 

who cries out his name, and the diverse forms that he 

can take in order to make the Buddha’s teachings understood 

to any aspiring believer. By contrast, the Heart Sūtra 

presents a less worldly and more philosophically engaged 

Guanyin. The text uses his voice to present an abbreviated 

explanation of the Buddha’s teachings, emphasizing in 

particular the non-dual nature of emptiness and form, 

and the understanding that all things arise dependently. 

The indigo dye used to color the paper served both a 

practical and a symbolic purpose—deterring insects from 

eating away at the paper and evoking lapis lazuli, which 

is mentioned repeatedly in the Lotus Sūtra, including in 

this passage: “Buddha lands, adorned with numerous 

jewels, shone with hues of lapis lazuli and crystal ... due 

to the illumination of the Buddha’s light.” 

Note: Periodically throughout the exhibition, the Pulitzer will put 

different sections of the Lotus Sūtra on view.

Lower Hallway Other Works on View 

No-Self 

25. La Línea del Destino (Line of Destiny), 2006 

Oscar Muñoz 

Colombian, born 1951; video / 

DVD; 2 minutes, looped; courtesy 

of the artist and Sicardi Gallery 

Muñoz, an artist from wartorn 

Colombia, creates works 

that project the dissolution of 

an image as a manifestation of his countrymen’s disappearances 

or deaths. Even though Muñoz never intended 

this video to pertain to Buddhism, it presents the idea of 

the “no-self” succinctly. Buddhists believe that the world 

and human nature are constituted in ways that produce 

suffering and that lasting happiness is found only 

through the rejection of any permanent self, because 

all phenomena lack any underlying and permanent 

substance. 

1. Venus, 1918–1928, Aristide Maillol 

French, 1861 – 1944 

Bronze 

69¼ x 14½ x 10½ in. 




2. Rock Settee, 1988–1990, Scott Burton 

American, 1939 – 1989 

Granite 

35½ x 106 x 62½ in. 

The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts 

© 2011 Estate of Scott Burton / Artists Rights 

Society (ARS), New York 

3. Torso, Study for Venus, 1925, cast in 1960, 

Aristide Maillol 

French, 1861 – 1944 

Bronze 

44¾ x 15¼ x 11 in. 




4. Joe, 1999, Richard Serra 

American, born 1939 

Weathering steel 

Outer spiral approximately 

163 x 576 x 480 in. 


A Note on Diacritics and Punctuation 

Our sources for the use of diacritics and spelling of words 

pertaining to Buddhism and Buddhist art are Donald W. 

Mitchell’s Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience, 2nd 

edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008) and A 

Dictionary of Buddhism (New York: Oxford University Press, 

2001). For the sake of simplicity, this catalogue contains 

only superscript diacritics. 

Pronunciation Guide* 

SANSKRIT 

Unmarked vowels: 

a as in “hut” 

i as in “bit” 

u as in “put” 

e as in “bed” 

o as in “boat” 

Unmarked consonants: 

c as in “cheap” 

ph as in “cup-handle” 

Marked vowels: 

ā as in “father” 

ī as in “beat” 

ū as in “rule” 

Marked consonants: 

ś as in “ship” 

ñ as in “canyon” 

47 

CHINESE 

Initial consonants: 

ch or ch’ as in “cheap” 

hs as in “she” 

ts/tz or ts’/tz’ as in “its” 

Vowels: 

a as in “father” 

e as in “change” 

i as in “sing” 

o as in “dong” 

u as in “lung” 

ai as in “high” 

ao as in “how” 

ei as in “they” 

ou as in “go” 

u as in “good” 

ui as in “way” 

KOREAN 

ae as in “ape” 

ai as in “gap” 

e as in “let” 

ŏ as in “soap” 

ŭ as in “soup” 

ŭi as in “movie” 

JAPANESE 

Vowels with macrons, ō or ū, are simply sounded longer 

than those without macrons. 

* The above pronunciation guide is published in Donald 

W. Mitchell’s Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience, 

xv-xvi. 

Following Page 

Detail of Standing Prince Shōtoku at Age Two (Shōtoku Taishi 

Nisaizō), c. 1292, Japan

The Pulitzer Foundationfor the Arts 

3716 Washington Boulevard Saint Louis Missouri 63108 

pulitzerarts.org 

Reflections of the Buddha The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

Reflections of the Buddha - The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

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