Reflections of the Buddha - The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts

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