The Cult of the Bodhisattva Jizo in Medieval and Early Modern Japan

FAIN: FB-51789-05

Hank Glassman
Haverford College (Haverford, PA 19041-1392)

I will complete a book manuscript on the worship of Jizo bodhisattva in medieval and early modern Japan. By illuminating three facets of the Jizo cult -- the iconography of Jizo in "welcoming descent," the legend safe childbirth Jizo of Kiyomizu temple in Kyoto, and the development of the cult of the "Shogun Jizo" among warriors -- I will illuminate, respectively, the religious concerns and needs of clerics, women, and warriors from the thirteenth century through the seventeenth. Drawing from a wide array of sources, I will study historical documents, literary works, doctrinal texts, illustrated books, and paintings. The project should be of interest to specialists in Japanese history, religious culture of Japan, Buddhism, and gender.

Associated Products

The Face of Jizô: Image and Cult in Medieval Japanese Buddhism (Book)
Title: The Face of Jizô: Image and Cult in Medieval Japanese Buddhism
Author: Hank Glassman
Abstract: Stone images of the Buddhist deity Jizo—bedecked in a red cloth bib and presiding over offerings of flowers, coins, candles, and incense—are a familiar sight throughout Japan. Known in China as a savior from hell’s torment, Jizo in Japan came to be utterly transformed through fusion with the local tradition of kami worship and ancient fertility cults. In particular, the Jizo cult became associated with gods of borders or transitions: the stone gods known as dosojin. Although the study of Jizo is often relegated to the folkloric, Hank Glassman, in this highly original and readable book, demonstrates that the bodhisattva’s cult was promoted and embraced at the most elite levels of society. The Face of Jizo explores the stories behind sculptural and painted images of Jizo to reveal a fascinating cultural history. Employing the methodologies of the early twentieth-century renegade art historian Aby Warburg, Glassman’s focus on the visual culture of medieval Japanese religion is not concerned with the surface form or iconographical lineages of Jizo’s images, but with the social, ritual, and narrative contexts that bring the icons to life. He skillfully weaves together many elements of the Jizo cult—doctrine, ritual, cosmology, iconography—to animate the images he examines. Thus The Face of Jizo is truly a work of iconology in the Warburgian sense. Glassman’s choice to examine the cult of Jizo through the medium of the icon makes for a most engaging and approachable history of this “most Japanese” of Buddhist deities. [press promotional text]
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-7536-9780824835811.aspx
Primary URL Description: University of Hawai'i Press
Secondary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/title/face-of-jizo-image-and-cult-in-medieval-japanese-buddhism/oclc/748674625&referer=brief_results
Secondary URL Description: WorldCat
Publisher: Univeristy of Hawai'i Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780824834432

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