Description

At the center sits Kōbō Daishi in a yellow robe on a curved wooden chair, beneath a richly decorated canopy with colored hangings, holding a vajra and a prayer beads in his hands, with a pair of sandals and a water vessel in front of him. All around him, the entire surface is covered with black ink marks and red temple seals, densely packed and in every direction.

Among the seals, the numbers of the individual stations can be made out, such as Shikoku No. 30, 51, 56, or 65. This is a Nōkyōjiku, a pilgrimage scroll for the Shikoku circuit of the 88 temples, whose sheets were completed at each station with calligraphy and the stamp of the respective temple. The colored execution of the Daishi depiction deliberately stands out from the strict black-and-red order of the seals surrounding it.

Kōbō Daishi, the founder of Shingon Buddhism, is regarded as the spiritual companion of every pilgrim on this path. Executed on paper, the scroll is thus far more than decoration: it documents a fully completed pilgrimage and is an impressive testament to lived Japanese pilgrimage culture.