The Five Great Space Repository Bodhisattvas: Lineage, Protection and Celestial Authority in Ninth-Century Japan

Abstract

This dissertation explores the protective role of the Five Great Space Repository Bodhisattva (Godai Kokuzo Bosastu) sculptural pentads in Japan during the mid-ninth-century. While existing art historical scholarship regarding these sculptures emphasizes their stylistic features and production methods, the present study seeks to contextualize the images' specific iconographical aspects and ritual functions within the broader multivalent religious environment of early Heian period (794-900) Japan. Sets of these images, the only three known today, were installed in the Esoteric Buddhist temples of Jingoji, Anjoji, and Joganji, each in relation to a different imperial or Fujiwara regent family member, and each under the auspices of a different member from the lineage of Kukai (744-836), the Shingon Buddhist patriarch. These images were placed in conjunction with other groups of Esoteric Buddhist sculptures at the temples to create larger arrangements that associated their patrons with cosmological rule. In addition, the iconography of the Godai Kokuzo Bosatsu pentad resonates with many features of Chinese-based belief elements, as evidenced in the sculptures' color, directional associations, and relations to celestial bodies, features that also connect these imperially-commissioned sculptures to celestial rule and to national protection. This dissertation not only investigates the relatively understudied area of the incorporation of celestial bodies and other features of Chinese-based belief into the iconography of ninth-century Japanese Buddhist sculpture, but also reveals the way in which the imperial family and the Fujiwara regent family utilized the iconographically complex sculptural arrangement of the Five Great Space Repository Bodhisattvas in order to strengthen their political prestige and the authority of their lineages in early Heian period Kyoto. This study first traces the iconographical development of single, independent Kokuzo Bosatsu (Skt. Akasagarbha, Ch. Xukongzang Pusa, Kn. Heogongjang Bosal) images to the more uncommon arrangement of five. It then examines the Chinese-based belief elements present in most depictions of the sculptural pentad, as well as the significance of the configuration at each of the three temples in which it was installed. This dissertation is thus an in-depth study that reveals specific instances of the fluidity between belief systems of early Heian period Japan, and also an exploration of the ways in which different belief systems informed patrons and producers of Japanese religious and visual culture.