The Depiction of Women’s Good Deeds in the “Legends of theTaima Mandala”:

Intended Functions and Visual Narratives

Abstract

The “Legends of the Taima Mandala” (Taima mandara engi emaki; owned by Kômyô-ji Temple, 13^th century), a two-scroll set, depicts aristocratic woman who attain enlightenment through the act of weaving a mandala of the nirvana in lotus threads. This paper examines the second and the third scenes of the first scroll which depicts women spinning and dyeing lotus threads. From these scenes we can see that the scroll encouraged women to produce copies of the mandala, one of the good deeds leading to enlightenment, which was particularly promoted by the Seizan Sect in Kyoto. The uniqueness of the Kômyô-ji Temple scrolls is highlighted through a comparison with depictions in the Taima mandala engi, a hanging scroll owned by Taima-dera Temple. The Taima-dera Temple scroll emphasizes the emperor’s support for women’s spinning, while the Kômyô-ji Temple scrolls merely hint at the emperor’s presence, describing the women’s spontaneous, vigorous acts to gain the emperor’s support. I also point to another work, a copy of a mandala, which suggests that its donor was a woman, as we can see from records concerning the Seizan Sect. Moreover, it is noteworthy that, while the Taima-dera scroll simply depicts the well in Taima village where women dye threads, the Kômyô-ji version shows the deep connections of the well with Emperor Tenji, thereby celebrating and mystifying women’s act of dyeing lotus threads. The depiction re-narrates the conventional meaning of aristocratic women’s handiwork as domestic services to their husband and reinforces their work as a story of women’s agency. Thus, the Kômyô-ji scrolls should be understood as a reflection of the Seizan Sect’s missionary activities to appeal to women and encourage them to copy mandalas.