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Kasuga Shrine Shika Mandara Print

Kasuga Shrine Shika Mandara Print

Kasuga Shrine Shika Mandara Print
Edo Period
Ink and color on paper
42 x 13.5 inches
Japan
1988.037

Imagine you visit Nara, Japan where you are engulfed by the sacrality of the Kasuga Shrine 春日神社 and a peaceful forest rife with deer, an important worship site in the Shinto religion founded in the eighth century. Wouldn’t you want to bring a piece of that experience home to continue to feel connected to that place? This print is an object designed for those who made pilgrimages to the Kasuga Shrine in Japan during the Edo period (1603-1868) to bring home. Whether the travel was for recreational purposes or pilgrimages, the increase in access to travel allowed for the expansion of Japanese culture during the Edo period.1 The rise in travel prompted artistic and intellectual ideologies to spread and popularize techniques and ideas. Due to pilgrimages being the principal occasion for travel, miraculous stories connected with the origins of temples or shrines, notably the Kasuga Shrine, were promoted through prints like this work.2

The woodblock printing technology used in this print was an important technique for creating cheaper and more efficient ways of spreading information in the Edo period.3 Woodblock prints are created by carving a separate block for each color in the piece and printing them in perfect alignment, meaning that this piece would have likely required 5-6 distinct carved blocks.4 The blocks can reproduce the same image multiple times driving the cost of images down. Upon close inspection, the alignment in this piece is imperfect signifying that it was not necessarily a high-end product. This meant that commoners could acquire the same picture or information at a lower cost than individually painted objects. They could be substituted as an object of worship if a pilgrimage was not obtainable.5 The spread of paintings started to make information and images more accessible during the earlier Muromachi period (1333-1568), as people unable to make the pilgrimage or visit the shrine could worship the paintings instead.6 Prints in the Edo period furthered this trend. Compared to typical Edo-period woodblock prints, this one is notably larger at 42 by 13.5 inches.7 The length of the print is similar to that of a hanging scroll indicating that creators may have intended for it to be used in similar ways as a wall art display. The affordable nature of the print, as well as its large size, emphasizes its usage amongst common people making a pilgrimage to the Kasuga Shrine to carry home a signifier of their journey and share their learnings about the religion.

Detail of Kasuga Shrine Shika Mandara Print depicting misalignment

The imagery presented in this print, including the deer standing on a cloud, the sakaki tree, and the large mirror, connects to the Kasuga Shrine’s religious tradition.8 Konoe Motomichi 近衛基通 (1160-1233), a member of the aristocratic Fujiwara family who supported the shrine, first saw the image of a tree with a large mirror sprouting from the saddle of a deer that stands on a cloud in a dream.9 Resulting images based on the dream have since been titled shika mandara (which translates to deer mandala) and gained popularity through repeated representation in paintings, prints, and sculptures. The deer is a particularly significant symbol for two reasons: the path to the Kasuga Shrine goes through a deer park and an important kami, or deity, named Takemikatsuchi-no-mikoto arrived at Kasuga riding on the back of a white deer.10 Another kami related to the same shrine named Ame-no-yasu-kawa has a backstory containing imagery of a flourishing sakaki tree with a large mirror in the middle branches and white cloths in the lower branches.11 The tree and mirror also refer to an instance when Kasuga Shrine servants went to Kyoto carrying a sakaki tree and asserted, “in this shinboku hang several mirrors called the true bodies (mishōtai) of Kasuga.”12 Prints such as the VUMA one helped those who made the pilgrimage remember what they had learned, worship the Kasuga kami at home, and share their experience with others. 

The print serves as a tangible connection to the rituals surrounding the Kasuga Shrine, encapsulating the spiritual journey of pilgrims who sought to honor the kami and commemorate their experiences. Through the imagery and accessibility, the print facilitates worship and ritual beyond the shrine’s physical boundaries, allowing individuals to integrate these practices into their daily lives. Overall, the print is a ritualistic symbol that fosters communal belief, memory, and devotion around the Kasuga Shrine, transcending time and space.

Kaisal Shah
Medicine, Health, and Society and Economics
Class of 2025

Hannah Sohn
Medicine, Health, and Society and Business
Class of 2025

Annotated bibliography

Evan, Joan Marie. “History of the Japanese Print.” PhD diss., California State University: Dominguez Hills, 1994. ProQuest (1362462).

In this manuscript, Joan Evan describes how the print form has evolved throughout Japanese history, from the establishment of the technique to the variety of ways in which it is used today. This helped provide historical context around the use of the form in Japanese culture and how it democratizes images and information. The first section focuses on the woodblock print, and describes the process of creating such an object, allowing for a deeper understanding of the process of creating this print and insights around the blocks that would have been required and the slight misalignment of the image.

Fowler, Sherry. “Views of Japanese Temples and Shrines From Near and Far: Precinct Prints of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Artibus Asiae 68, no. 2 (2008): 247–85. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40599601.

Fowler’s article examines Japanese woodblock prints that depicted various temples and shrines across Japan, especially those created during the Edo period. The author focuses on how the prints showcased the Shinto shrine in a more public way. This ideology helps the claim that prints could allow for an easier and more cost-effective way to spread documentation of the appearance of cultural and religious practices. It provides evidence of how changes to printing technology allowed for the presentation and distribution of prints about the Shinto shrines.

Goree, Robert. “The Culture of Travel in Edo-Period Japan.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. (2020), https://doi-org.proxy.library.vanderbilt.edu/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.72

In the article, Goree examines the cultural revelation that changed and shaped the Edo period in Japan due to the increase in travel and pilgrimages. The author claims that the ability to travel allowed for the spread of literacy which then led to a demand for printed material. This article was able to provide an idea that the rise in tourism and pilgrimages led to individuals’ carrying traditions and culture to new areas or back to their hometowns. Additionally, it provided contextual evidence of how the large number of individuals traveling could create an easier and cheaper way to spread information.

Grapard, Allan G. The Protocol of the Gods: A Study of the Kasuga Cult in Japanese History. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1992.

Grapard’s book provides an examination of the Japanese Shinto shrines, focusing on the Kasuga Shinto shrine. He provides contextual background and coming of age of the Kasuga cult. The book was able to provide the background history of the use of a deer as an icon within the print. It emphasized the importance of the deer and the sakaki tree within the Kasuga cult.

Plutschow, Herbert Eugen. “Japanese Travel Diaries of the Middle Ages.” Oriens Extremus 29, no. 1/2 (1982): 1–136. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24047250.

Plutschow provides an overview of the Japanese medieval travel diaries from the 10th to 17th centuries. It discusses how travel diaries emerged as a distinct literary genre that was filled with details about journeys away from home and the experiences encountered. By using this article, more evidence was provided on how pilgrimages were ways that individuals could bring back new ideologies. Through diaries and forms of print, ideologies, and experiences could be shared with individuals that were not able to go on the pilgrimage.

Thompson, Sarah. “The World of Japanese Prints.” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 82, no. 349/350 (1986): 1–47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3795440.

In this journal article, Sarah Thomoson provides an overview of typical Japanese print types and their dimensions. It was hypothesized that the print being studied was larger than typical Japanese prints, and this reveiw confirmed that, as each listed print type is smaller than the print studied here. Knowing that this print was larger than others led to additional conclusions about its creation and usage by pilgrims.

Tyler, Royall. The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.

Tyler presents a comprehensive history of the Kasuga shrine and religious practices at the site. Chapter 3, titled “The Shrine,” provides additional context about the layout and backstory of the Kasuga shrine. Details about the Kasuga shrine servants going to Kyoto carrying sakaki trees with large mirrors in the center were particularly insightful, as that image is included in the print being studied. This furthered the discussion of the symbolic imagery in the piece and its connection to the deities and legends of the shrine.

Tyler, Susan C. The Cult of Kasuga Seen Through Its Art. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, 1992.

This text looks at how art intersects with and shares the ideas of the Kasuga shrine. It contains information about the shika mandara in terms of how that image originated in a dream and what the various segments of the image represent. Tyler references paintings and sculptures containing the shika mandara image and parts of her analysis of their significance allowed for inferences about the significance of this print. She also mentioned that painting could be used in place of the pilgrimage if that was not obtainable, allowing for conclusions about how the print form could further that goal. 

  1. Robert Goree, “The Culture of Travel in Edo-Period Japan,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. (2020), https://doi-org.proxy.library.vanderbilt.edu/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.72. ↩︎
  2. Herbert Eugen Plutschow, “Japanese Travel Diaries of the Middle Ages,” Oriens Extremus 29, no. 1/2 (1982): 1–136, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24047250. ↩︎
  3. Goree, “The Culture of Travel in Edo-Period Japan,” 2020. ↩︎
  4. Joan Marie Evan, “History of the Japanese Print” (PhD diss., California State University: Dominguez Hills, 1994), 6-7, ProQuest (1362462). ↩︎
  5. Sherry Fowler, “Views of Japanese Temples and Shrines From Near and Far: Precinct Prints of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” Artibus Asiae 68, no. 2 (2008): 247–85, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40599601. ↩︎
  6. Susan C. Tyler, The Cult of Kasuga Seen Through Its Art (University of Michigan Press, 1992), 36. ↩︎
  7. Thompson, Sarah, “The World of Japanese Prints,” Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 82, no. 349/350 (1986): 1–47, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3795440. ↩︎
  8. Tyler, The Cult of Kasuga Seen Through Its Art, 4. ↩︎
  9. Tyler, The Cult of Kasuga Seen Through Its Art, 65. ↩︎
  10. Allan G. Grapard, The Protocol of the Gods: A Study of the Kasuga Cult in Japanese History (University of California Press, 1992), 82-83. ↩︎
  11. Grapard, The Protocol of the Gods, 43. ↩︎
  12. Royall Tyler, The Miracles of the Kasuga Deity (Columbia University Press, 2016), 50-51. ↩︎