Cleveland Museum of Art

Kasuga Shrine Mandala

Date

early 1300s

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk

Culture

Japan, Kamakura period (1185–1333)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

A golden path beginning at the bottom of this painting leads up to four red-and-white buildings to the left, then to a fifth building on the right. These are the five shrine halls of Kasuga Taisha in Nara. Above and beyond the buildings is a sacred mountain range––with Mount Mikasa at center, Mount Wakakusa in gold to the left, and the sun or moon rising up behind the mountains. Sacred deer appear here and there. Five figures representing the original Buddhist forms of the five kami of the shrine complex stand on clouds above the mountains. Sacred deer, the vehicles of the Kasuga deities, move about the shrine compound.

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