Japanese Mandalas: Emanations and Avatars showcases roughly sixty textile paintings, sculptures, drawings, metalwork and other media, that illustrate aspects of Esoteric Buddhism, or MikkyōI as it is called in Japan. This form of Buddhism was introduced to Japan by a monk named Kūkai (774-835), who traveled to China and returned in ad 805 with a deeper understanding of Esoteric Buddhism, bringing back with him visual illustrations of this cosmic order and its associated deities. The most notable graphic brought back by Kūkai was the Mandalas of Both Worlds, two separate concentric diagrams depicting the cosmic principle of the Buddha (the Diamond World mandala) and the manifestation of the Buddha in the terrestrial world (the Womb World mandala).

The original Chinese Mandalas of Both Worlds brought back by Kūkai were lost but replicated many times throughout the course of Japanese art, and in the exhibit, Japanese Mandalas: Emanations and Avatars, three pairs of these mandalas are on view; one from the Muromachi period (1392-1573), the Edo period (1615–1868), and the Kamakura period (1185-1333). The objects in the main gallery are installed according to the layout of a traditional inner precinct of a temple, with a large statue of the principal Buddha of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, Dainichi Nyorai, in the center as an alter, and to the East and West, the Mandalas of Both Worlds.

The pair of mandalas from the Kamakura period, on loan from the Brooklyn Museum, is an exceptional example of the Mandalas of Both Worlds. Both feature Dainichi Nyorai surrounded by a myriad of his emanations, including other familiar iconography in the visual lexicon of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, such as the lotus flower, in and around the nested squares. The patterns and color palette are mesmerizing and mysterious to a western viewer, but the longer you focus your attention on each mandala, you can feel something very powerful brewing inside yourself. Though the objects in Japanese Mandalas: Emanations and Avatars are taking out of their historical and spiritual context, they are beautiful nonetheless and worth a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

--John Everett Daquino

(Images: Taizo-kai Mandara, 13th century. Opaque watercolor, ink and gold on silk, overall: 84 1/2 x 50 1/8 in. (214.6 x 127.3 cm); image: 46 11/16 x 38 7/8 in. (118.6 x 98.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Collection Fund, 21.240.2 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 21.240.2_SL1.jpg); Kongo-kai Mandara, 13th century. Opaque watercolor, ink and gold on silk, overall: 84 1/2 x 47 3/8 (214.7 x 127.3 cm); image: 46 11/16 x 38 7/8 in. (118.6 x 98.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Collection Fund, 21.240.1 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 21.240.1_SL1.jpg).