Title: Japanese mandalas
First published: 1999
Description: The first broad study of Japanese mandalas to appear in a Western language, this volume interprets mandalas as sanctified realms where identification between the human and sacred occurs. The author investigates eighth- to seventeenth-century paintings from three traditions: Esoteric Buddhism, Pure Land Buddhism, and the kami-worshipping (Shinto) tradition.

Explaining why certain fundamental Japanese mandalas look the way they do and how certain visual forms came to embody the sacred, ten Grotenhuis presents works that show a complex mixture of Indian Buddhist elements, pre-Buddhist Chinese elements, Chinese Buddhist elements, and indigenous Japanese elements.
Subjects: Buddhist art and symbolism, Mandala (Buddhism), Art, japanese, Art, history, Mandala, Buddhist art, Mandala (Bouddhisme), Symbolisme bouddhique, RELIGION, Comparative Religion, ART, History, General, Boeddhisme
Places: Japan
LC classification: BQ5125.M3 T46 1999