![]() ![]() The study of Japanese religions and religious art has expanded greatly in the West over the past five decades. Together they represent an invaluable reference work for Buddhist studies. The DDB is also linked to the SAT Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō (a digitized & searchable version of the Buddhist canon). This online dictionary contains English definitions for over sixty thousand Chinese terms (as of May 2013), along with pronunciations in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. Another monumental work is the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism or DDB (log in with user name = guest). It contains English definitions for over eight thousand Japanese terms related to religious sculpture, architecture and gardens, painting, ceramics, textiles, metalwork, and art-historical iconography. As for online resources, the Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System (JAANUS) is by far the best digital dictionary devoted to Japanese art. Rosenfield, 2010), and Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art from 1600 to 2005 (by Patricia Graham, 2007). The best of the lot, in my mind, are the books entitled Sculpture of the Kamakura Period (by Hisashi Mori, 1974), Portraits of Chōgen: The Transformation of Buddhist Art in Early Medieval Japan (by John M. There are excellent resources (see bibliography) out there by scholars and art historians, but yet I'm unsatisfied. Their publications are written for the general public but suffer from too much preaching, promoting, fabrication, self-interest, inconsistency, inaccuracy, and just plain "unreadability."ĭon’t get me wrong. A third copious source of information comes from temples, practitioners, spiritualists, and independent web bloggers. Instead of providing a broad historical view of the statue and its significance as a “living icon,” they tend to emphasize a piecemeal "bite-size" approach involving aesthetics, dating and provenance, technique, material, genre, and style. While lavishly illustrated exhibition catalogs and glossy art magazines are much appreciated and easier to read, these publications tend to ignore the religious underpinnings of Asian art. Another wellspring of information comes from museums, curators, art historians, and collectors. Many are aimed at the scholarly community, devoted to hyper-specialized topics, and extremely academic (thus "indecipherable" to the lay community). But I must admit, I have yet to find anything that satisfies me. I still visit book stores and libraries hunting for “the perfect” English handbook on Japanese Buddhist sculpture. At the online sites of major museums in America and Europe, it is likewise difficult to find what you want, even when you know the piece is in their collection.įourth, this project was prompted by a dissatisfaction with existing literature on Japanese Buddhist statuary. And to be fair, this is not just a problem with museums in Japan. Even so, the situation is much improved compared to only 15 years ago, thanks largely to advances in web technology. There is no comprehensive online catalog. These sites don’t offer any systematic A-to-Z access to their impressive art collections. Third, this project was prompted by a dissatisfaction with the online sites of the great repositories of Japanese Buddhist sculpture - the national museums in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Nara. Second, it is a tribute to Kamakura, my home for the past 20 years, and home to dozens of temples from the Kamakura Era (1185-1333), which still house and display wondrous life-size wooden statues from the 8th century onward. First and foremost, this project is a labor of love. ![]() My reasons for creating this photo dictionary are quite simple. This is an open-access educational web site. It is aimed at art lovers, Buddhist devotees, & laity alike. It sells quality hand-carved wood Buddhist statues from Japan & China. In July 2006, I launched the online store Buddhist-Artwork. Any mistakes or omissions at this site are my responsibility. Use the search box to search in English, Japanese, Chinese, or Korean for deities not listed at left. There are 400+ deities herein, & 4,000+ photos of statuary from Kamakura, Nara, Kyoto, & elsewhere in Japan. There are dozens of Buddhist temples & Shintō shrines near my home in Kamakura, many dating from the 8th to 13th centuries, many open to the public. After moving to Japan in 1993, I became intrigued by the many deities & faces of Japanese Buddhism & Shintōism. This photo library & dictionary is a labor of love.
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