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    314 Emaki Project

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    Tyler Bar-Ness
    Nichiren was a 13th century Japanese monk who believed strongly in the Lotus Sutra. He denounced the government for not having enough faith, which drew their anger. Nichiren was arrested and sentenced to death, but during his execution a lightning bolt struck the executioner's blade as it came down, sparing Nichiren's life. He was exiled instead. The image depicts these two key events, showing Nichiren preaching and then kneeling as lightning strikes the blade during his execution.

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    314 Emaki Project

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    Tyler Bar-Ness
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    Nichiren was a 13th century Japanese monk who believed strongly in the Lotus Sutra. He denounced the government for not having enough faith, which drew their anger. Nichiren was arrested and sentenced to death, but during his execution a lightning bolt struck the executioner's blade as it came down, sparing Nichiren's life. He was exiled instead. The image depicts these two key events, showing Nichiren preaching and then kneeling as lightning strikes the blade during his execution.

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    A paper on my research and methods of production.

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    Nichiren was a 13th century Japanese monk who believed strongly in the Lotus Sutra. He denounced the government for not having enough faith, which drew their anger. Nichiren was arrested and sentenced to death, but during his execution a lightning bolt struck the executioner's blade as it came down, sparing Nichiren's life. He was exiled instead. The image depicts these two key events, showing Nichiren preaching and then kneeling as lightning strikes the blade during his execution.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    30 views3 pages

    314 Emaki Project

    Uploaded by

    Tyler Bar-Ness
    Nichiren was a 13th century Japanese monk who believed strongly in the Lotus Sutra. He denounced the government for not having enough faith, which drew their anger. Nichiren was arrested and sentenced to death, but during his execution a lightning bolt struck the executioner's blade as it came down, sparing Nichiren's life. He was exiled instead. The image depicts these two key events, showing Nichiren preaching and then kneeling as lightning strikes the blade during his execution.

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    of 3

    Nichiren’s Denouncement of the Government and his Miraculous Rescue

    The story I chose to convey is that of Nichiren, a Monk who lived in Japan during the

    13th Century. A devout follower of the Lotus Sutra, Nichiren was educated and trained at the

    monastery at Mount Hiei, the center of Tendai Buddhism in Japan during the Kamakura period.

    Like his fellow Tendai-educated monks, Nichiren believed that the Lotus Sutra was the key to

    enlightenment through worship of the three aspects of the Buddha. Instead of focusing on a

    single aspect of the Buddha, like Esoteric Buddhism and Amidism, Nichiren focused on

    preaching the Lotus Sutra itself. His models were the Bodhisattva of Superb Action, who was

    said to be “a stalwart pioneer”, and the Bodhisattva Ever-Abused, who was always treated

    poorly by others because he insisted on greeting all he met as future buddhas-to-be, so

    convinced of their eventual salvation. (De Bery, 293). However, Nichiren also held up the vows

    of the Buddha’s disciples to proclaim the scripture in “evil times” (De Bery, 293), regardless of

    the consequences.

    It was doing this that caused Nichiren to be evicted from Mount Hiei and exiled from

    Kamakura; the monk saw the calamities that afflicted the land, and threats from outside Japan,

    and was convinced that they were punishments for insufficient faith. In his own words, “the

    people of today all turn their backs upon what is right; to a man, they give their allegiance to

    evil” (De Bery, 296). The Shogunate at the time was financially supporting the temples, and

    Nichiren’s censure of the government drew their ire and eventual arrest. The monk was taken to

    be executed, and as the story goes, was saved when a lightning bolt struck the executioner’s

    blade as he held it over the monk’s head. Clearly protected by someone, Nichiren was instead

    banished to the Sea of Japan, but continued to encourage his followers to live according to the

    vows of the Buddha’s disciples, to preach the word in the face of bodily harm and suffering.
    I elected to draw Nichiren speaking at the monastery complex to a crowd as another

    monk offers him to the soldiers of the shogun; time passes, and the second panel is that

    moment when the executioner’s blade is coming down and struck by lightning.

    Sites of the Image

    The site of production can be described in the following; When I chose the story, I

    resolved to illustrate more than one single event happening, to portray the two most important

    events of Nichiren’s life; his censure of the government in Kamakura, and his brush with death

    at his execution. To do so, I looked up images of the Monastery complex at Mount Hiei; I chose

    the Enryaku-ji temple to represent the Complex. Using an image I found from Kanpai Japan, a

    travel blog, I used a pencil to sketch out the scene before tracing over it with a pen and adding

    color with colored pencils. I chose a green background to make the clouds stand out, and in

    reference to the Illustrated Life of Ippen; the greenish-yellow silk of the scroll brought the

    concept of “emaki” to the forefront of my brain while coloring. For the clothing, I referenced a

    picture of a statue of Nichiren for the monks, and armor from the Met Museum’s gallery for the

    slightly more detailed armor of Nichiren’s executioner.

    The site of the image is a simple composition; two frames of a story, read right to left,

    with a small cloud to illustrate the passage of time and change of location. The first panel is

    Nichiren preaching to a crowd of onlookers, some who are listening to him, one questioning him,

    while a monk in more decorative robes beckons for two soldiers to come and take Nichiren

    away. The building that Nichiren preaches from is the Enryaku-ji Kaidan-in Pavilion at Mount

    Hiei, the site of his education. The distinct pavilion stands in for the entire complex. Nichiren’s

    robes are colored slightly different from the other monks, to differentiate him from the blue-robed

    monks. The monk offering him to the soldiers is wearing a more elaborate robe, to illustrate his

    mortal attachments and sinfulness compared to the other monks’ simplicity. In the next panel,

    Nichiren is kneeling, either having accepted his fate or placing his faith in the Buddha’s grace as
    the soldier brings up his blade to behead him; aptly, this is the moment just as the lightning

    rushes down to strike the executioner’s blade. There are no superfluous details, save for a box

    to carry the monk’s head as proof of his death. The lightning itself is lacking in pen outline, as if

    to suggest that it is a part of the green background and world beyond, unbound by the lines and

    forces that keep the rest of the image together.

    Sources

    De Bary, & Dykstra, Y. K. (2001). Sources of Japanese tradition / compiled by Wm.


    Theodore de Bary [and others] ; with collaboration of William Bodiford, Jurgis
    Elisonas, Philip Yampolsky ; and contributions by Yoshiko Dykstra [and others]. (2nd
    ed.). Columbia University Press.

    Hiei-san Enryaku-ji, Kaidan-in Pavilion [Online Image]. Kanpai-Japan.


    https://www.kanpai-japan.com/otsu/enryaku-ji-mount-hiei, accessed 3/9/2022

    Gladis, Chris, 7/7/2007, Nichiren outside Honnoji [Online Image]. Flickr.


    https://www.flickr.com/photos/23054755@N00/747504604/, accessed 3/9/2022

    Curiass of a Dō-maru [Online Image]. Met Museum.


    https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/22498, accessed 3/9/2022

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