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Raigō (Japanese: 来迎, lit. "welcoming approach"; Sanskrit: pratyudyāna) in Japanese Buddhism is the appearance of the Amida Buddha on a "purple" cloud (紫雲) at the time of one's death. [1]
The Amida would arrive either accompanied by two bodhisattva, making it a triad depiction, or with a large retinue that also includes musicians playing celestial music accompanying the Buddha. The Buddha would then lift the spirit of the deceased up and ascend back to the pure land. The belief of the Western Paradise for the souls is the most popular.
It has given rise to a type of Japanese paintings (raigō-zu). As a ritual, such a painting is carried into the house of a person who is near death.
Among the upper classes, raigō paintings and sculpture became very popular, as they depicted the Amida Buddha coming down in celebration in relation to dead relatives or to one's own house. Some of these paintings are clearly yamato-e , or Japanese paintings in that they gave artists a chance to paint Japanese landscapes.
Budai is a nickname given to the historical Chinese monk Qieci in the Later Liang Dynasty, who is often identified with and venerated as the future or Maitreya Buddha in Chan Buddhism and Buddhist scripture. With the spread of Chan Buddhism, he also came to be venerated in Vietnam, Korea, and Japan. Budai is said to have lived around the 10th century CE in the Wuyue kingdom.
Byōdō-in is a Buddhist temple in the city of Uji in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, built in the late Heian period. It is jointly a temple of the Jōdo-shū and Tendai-shū sects.
Japanese art consists of a wide range of art styles and media that includes ancient pottery, sculpture, ink painting and calligraphy on silk and paper, ukiyo-e paintings and woodblock prints, ceramics, origami, bonsai, and more recently manga and anime. It has a long history, ranging from the beginnings of human habitation in Japan, sometime in the 10th millennium BCE, to the present day.
Sukhavati is the pure land of the Buddha Amitābha in Mahayana Buddhism. Sukhavati is also called the Land of Bliss or Western Pure Land and is the most well-known of the Mahayana Buddhist pure lands due to the popularity of Pure Land Buddhism in East Asia.
A thangka is a Tibetan Buddhist painting on cotton, silk appliqué, usually depicting a Buddhist deity, scene, or mandala. Thangkas are traditionally kept unframed and rolled up when not on display, mounted on a textile backing somewhat in the style of Chinese scroll paintings, with a further silk cover on the front. So treated, thangkas can last a long time, but because of their delicate nature, they have to be kept in dry places where moisture will not affect the quality of the silk. Most thangkas are relatively small, comparable in size to a Western half-length portrait, but some are extremely large, several metres in each dimension; these were designed to be displayed, typically for very brief periods on a monastery wall, as part of religious festivals. Most thangkas were intended for personal meditation or instruction of monastic students. They often have elaborate compositions including many very small figures. A central deity is often surrounded by other identified figures in a symmetrical composition. Narrative scenes are less common, but do appear.
Chion-in in Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, Japan is the headquarters of the Jōdo-shū founded by Hōnen (1133–1212), who proclaimed that sentient beings are reborn in Amida Buddha's Western Paradise by reciting the nembutsu, Amida Buddha's name.
Chūjō-hime was by most accounts a daughter of the court noble Fujiwara no Toyonari who escaped persecution at the hands of her stepmother by becoming a nun at the Taima-dera in Nara. There she took on the name Zenshin-ni or the Dharma name Honyo (法如). She has become a folk heroine, the subject of numerous Japanese folktales which celebrate her filial piety. She is sometimes called the Japanese Cinderella.
Buddhism played an important role in the development of Japanese art between the 6th and the 16th centuries. Buddhist art and Buddhist religious thought came to Japan from China through Korea. Buddhist art was encouraged by Crown Prince Shōtoku in the Suiko period in the sixth century, and by Emperor Shōmu in the Nara period in the eighth century. In the early Heian period, Buddhist art and architecture greatly influenced the traditional Shinto arts, and Buddhist painting became fashionable among wealthy Japanese. The Kamakura period saw a flowering of Japanese Buddhist sculpture, whose origins are in the works of Heian period sculptor Jōchō. During this period, outstanding busshi appeared one after another in the Kei school, and Unkei, Kaikei, and Tankei were especially famous. The Amida sect of Buddhism provided the basis for many popular artworks. Buddhist art became popular among the masses via scroll paintings, paintings used in worship and paintings of Buddhas, saint's lives, hells and other religious themes. Under the Zen sect of Buddhism, portraiture of priests such as Bodhidharma became popular as well as scroll calligraphy and sumi-e brush painting.
The Taima Mandala (當麻曼荼羅,綴織当麻曼荼羅図) is an 8th century mandala in Japanese Pure Land Buddhism. It depicts Sukhavati, the western Pure Land, with the Buddha Amitābha in the center. The original copy was made around 763 AD, and is currently kept at Taima-dera temple in Nara. Many copies have been made since, and the original work has degraded considerably.
Deathbed phenomena refers to a range of experiences reported by people who are dying. There are many examples of deathbed phenomena in both non-fiction and fictional literature, which suggests that these occurrences have been noted by cultures around the world for centuries, although scientific study of them is relatively recent. In scientific literature such experiences have been referred to as death-related sensory experiences (DRSE). Dying patients have reported to staff working in hospices they have experienced comforting visions.
Jōdo-ji (浄土寺) is a temple of Shingon Buddhism in Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. As a site sacred to the boddhisattva Kannon, it is the 9th temple on the Chūgoku 33 Kannon Pilgrimage. The temple, built at the end of the Kamakura period, is noted for two national treasures: the temple's main hall (hondō) and the treasure pagoda (tahōtō). In addition it holds a number of Important Cultural Property structures and artworks.
Kōyasan Reihōkan is an art museum on Kōya-san, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, preserving and displaying Buddhist art owned by temples on Kōya-san. The collection is centered around articles from the Heian and Kamakura periods and includes paintings, calligraphy, sutras, sculpture and Buddhist ritual objects. Among these are a set of the complete Buddhist canon (issaikyō), writings of Kūkai and Minamoto no Yoritomo, founder of the Kamakura Shogunate, mandalas and portraits of priests. The most valuable objects have been designated as National Treasure or Important Cultural Property.
The Manichaean Diagram of the Universe is a Yuan dynasty silk painting describing the cosmology of Manichaeism, in other words, the structure of universe according to Manichaean vision. The painting in vivid colours on a silk cloth survives in three parts, whose proper relation to one another and digital reconstruction was published by Zsuzsanna Gulácsi.
Sermon on Mani's Teaching of Salvation is a Yuan dynasty silk hanging scroll, measuring 142 × 59 centimetres and dating from the 13th century, with didactic themes: a multi-scenic narrative that depicts Mani's Teachings about the Salvation combines a sermon subscene with the depictions of soteriological teaching in the rest of the painting.
The Manichaean Painting of the Buddha Jesus (Chinese: 夷數佛幀; pinyin: Yí shù fó zhēn; Wade–Giles: I2-shu4 fo2-chên1; Japanese: キリスト聖像; rōmaji: Kirisuto Sei-zō; lit. 'Sacred Image of Christ'), is a Chinese Southern Song dynasty silk hanging scroll preserved at the Seiunji Temple in Kōshū, Yamanashi, Japan. It measures 153.5 cm in height, 58.7 cm in width, dates from the 12th to 13th centuries, and depicts a solitary nimbate figure on a dark-brown medieval Chinese silk. According to the Hungarian historian Zsuzsanna Gulácsi, this painting is one of the six documented Chinese Manichaean hanging scrolls from Zhejiang province from the early 12th century, which titled Yishu fo zhen (lit. "Silk Painting of the Buddha [Prophet] Jesus").
The Ippen Shōnin Eden is a group of emakimono or emaki from the Kamakura period of Japanese history (1185–1333). A set of illuminated manuscripts, they describe the life of Ippen (1234–1289), a Buddhist monk who founded the Ji-shū branch of Pure Land Buddhism.
Icon of Mani is a silk painting hanging scroll from the Yuan or Ming period, from the coastal area of southern China, depicting Mani. The portrait of the founder Mani has been completely Sinicized.
Goryeo Buddhist paintings and architecture are prominent Korean art forms that are said to have originated in the 13 and 14th centuries. Known for their intricate depiction of Buddhist icons typically in the form of large hanging scrolls, artists made use of vibrant colors and adorned the patterns with gold. As Buddhism flourished as the official religion of the Goryeo Dynasty, various Buddhist artworks were produced under royal patronage and utilized for the purposes of state-sponsored ceremonies and funerary rituals. These paintings reflect not only the beliefs, but the taste and refine of the Goryeo royalty and nobility. Illustrations and decorative architectural styles often reflected the messages of Pure Land Buddhism or Amidism featuring Buddhas and Bodhisattvas; for instance, Avalokiteśvara, amongst others, were worshipped by their devotees to achieve the goal of rebirth in the ‘Pure Land’ or paradise.
The Raigō of Amida and Twenty-Five Attendants, or Rapid Descent of Amida is a 14th century Japanese scroll painting on silk completed during the late Kamakura period. Currently located in the temple of Chion-in, in Kyoto, the painting depicts the salvation of the deceased by the Buddha Amitābha, and twenty-five bodhisattvas, among them Kannon and Seishi Bosatsu as they arrive to welcome a deceased soul.
The Final Death of the Buddha Sakyamuni, or Yale Parinirvana (Nehan-zu) is a 14th-century Japanese silk painting and hanging scroll depicting Parinirvana, the death of the Buddha. Painted by the artist Myōson, during the late Kamakura period to the Nanboku-chō period around 1320–1340, the painting served as part of a long line of Buddhist holiday observance of the Parinirvana, also known as the Nirvana Service, or nehan-e, in mid-February.
Media related to Raigō at Wikimedia Commons