Medicine Master Buddha : the iconic worship of Yakushi in Heian Japan
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Medicine Master Buddha : the iconic worship of Yakushi in Heian Japan
（Japanese visual culture / managing editor, John T. Carpenter, v. 3）
Brill, 2012
- : hardback
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 158-165) and index
Contents of Works
- The formation of the Yakushi cult
- The magical Yakushi: spirit-pacifier and healer-god
- Saicho's Standing Yakushi and its iconic legacy
- Replicating memory: extant images of the Saicho-Enryakuji lineage
- Reflections on the Jingoji Yakushi and the Saicho connection
- The magnificent seven: Shichibutsu Yakushi icons and ritual
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This profusely illustrated volume illuminates the primacy of icons in disseminating the worship of the Medicine Master Buddha (J: Yakushi Nyorai) in Japan. Suzuki's meticulous study explicates how the devotional cult of Yakushi, one of the earliest Buddhist cults imported to Japan from the continent, interacted and blended with local beliefs, religious dispositions, and ritual practices over the centuries, developing its own distinctive imprint on Japanese soil. Worship of the Medicine Master Buddha became most influential during the Heian period (794-1185), when Yakushi's popularity spread to different levels of society and locales outside the capital. The large number of Heian-period Yakushi statues found all across Japan demonstrates that Yakushi worship was an integral component of Heian religious practice.
Medicine Master Buddha focuses on the ninth-century Tendai master Saicho (767-822) and his personal reverence for a standing Yakushi icon. The author proposes that, after Saicho's death, the Tendai school played a critical role in popularizing the cult of this particular icon as a way of memorializing its founding master and strengthening its position as a major school of Japanese Buddhism. This publication offers a fresh perspective on sculptural representations of the Medicine Master Buddha (including the famous Jingoji Yakushi), and in so doing, reconsiders Yakushi worship as foundational to Heian religious and artistic culture.
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