According to the chapter titled “Entry into the Realm of Reality” in the Flower Garland sutra, the young pilgrim Sudhana follows the instructions of the bodhisattva Manjushri and journeys to find enlightenment by visiting fifty-three teachers. This Goryeo 고려 高麗 illustration of the Water-Moon Avalokiteshvara represents the twenty-eighth scene: the encounter between Sudhana and the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.

The bodhisattva holds a lotus stem in his right hand and a strand of transparent prayer beads in his left. The kundika bottle with a willow branch is placed near the deity’s left hand, and Sudhana is depicted in the lower right corner of the composition. In this painting, the deity sits cross-legged in a lotus pose on the left side of the composition in a three-quarter view, unlike the more conventional half-lotus depiction, such as those in Kagami-jinja 鏡神社 (1310) and Senoku Hakukokan 泉屋博古館 (1323).[1]

The base pattern of the veil, applied in white pigment, is the hemp-leaf motif over which scroll roundels were depicted in gold. The contours and folds of the veil were first drawn in ink and then covered with gold. White pigment was graded along the lines to create a sense of volume. The skirt was painted in red with a tortoise-shell pattern rendered in white pigment. Oval-shaped lotus medallions were then painted on top of the skirt in gold.

The painting is extensively damaged, most notably at the center of the crown; a second area of loss occurs in the lower portion of the painting. However, it is an unusual and important work of art since only two other paintings—one in Chorakuji 長樂寺 in Okayama Prefecture 岡山縣, and the other in a private collection in Japan—share the same composition.[2] The RISD painting and the works in Japan differ only minimally from one another in color tone. Two may be copies, or all three may result from a common model. The RISD work can be dated to the mid-fourteenth century as the decorative patterns are rather dense, and the sense of movement is less than the other two works.

—Chung Woothak, Professor Emeritus, Dongguk University, Seoul

Notes:
[1] For images of the paintings, see Kikutake Junichi 菊竹淳一 and Chung Woothak 鄭于澤, eds., Kōrai jidai no butsuga 高麗時代の仏画 [The Buddhist paintings of Koryo Dynasty] (Seoul: Sigongsa, 2000), 150–53, pl. 67 (Kagami-jinja 鏡神社), 154–55, pl. 68 (Senoku Hakukokan 泉屋博古館).

[2] For images of the paintings, see Kikutake Junichi 菊竹淳一 and Chung Woothak 鄭于澤, eds., Kōrai jidai no butsuga 高麗時代の仏画 [The Buddhist paintings of Koryo Dynasty] (Seoul: Sigongsa, 2000), 196–98, pl. 93 (Chorakuji 長樂寺), 199, pl. 94 (Private Collection).