Keywords: Chinese - Portable Buddhist Shrine - Walters 61266 - Back Open.jpg This is a portable shrine of the type that played a role in the transmission of Buddhism from Central Asia to China and from China to Korea and Japan Carved out of a single piece of wood somewhere in China it may have been subsequently carried to Japan Most of the figures can be identified but it is not customary to show them all together The historical Buddha Sakyamuni is shown preaching the Lotus Sutra one of the Mahayana Buddhist texts He is flanked by his chief disciples and by donors Above Buddha from the distant past appears and below an orchestra plays On wings at the top are a pair of Bodhisattvas Manjusri and Samantabhadra Below them are the sixteen disciples of Sakyamuni called arhats the Sanskrit word for a highly realized Buddhist ascetic or lohan in Chinese century 10 12 carved wood Open cm 19 05 20 64 8 26 accession number 61 266 33837 Yamanaka Co New York date and mode of aquisition unknown Henry Walters Baltimore 1920 Walters Art Museum Henry Walters Acquired by Henry Walters 1920 Sticker Y B 1980 Yamanaka Co Pilgrimage and Buddhist Art Asia Society New York 2010 place of origin China Walters Art Museum license Portable Buddhist Shrine - Walters 61266 |