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 worshiping (Shinto) tradition. It is generally recognized that many of these mandalas are connected with texts and images from India and the Himalayas. A pioneering theme of this study is that, in addition to the South Asian connections, certain paradigmatic Japanese mandalas reflect pre-Buddhist Chinese concepts, including geographical concepts. In convincing and lucid prose ten Grotenhuis chronicles an intermingling of visual, doctrinal, ritual, and literary elements in these mandalas that has come to be seen as characteristic of the Japanese religious tradition as a whole.

Japanese Mandalas, Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, University of Hawaii Press,
227 pp, $29.95

Dr. Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis is Professor Emerita of Japanese art history and an Associate in Research at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard. She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University, and is the author and editor of many publications, including Japanese Mandalas: Representations of Sacred Geography and Along the Silk Road. Elizabeth was a founding member of the board of Yo-Yo Ma�s Silk Road Project, and remains active on that board today. Dr. ten Grotenhuis is currently Head of Birches School, a co-educational, independent elementary school located just outside Boston.

	Preface
	Introduction	1
Ch. 1	The Taima Mandara	13
Ch. 2	The Diamond World Mandala	33
Ch. 3	The Womb World Mandala	58
Ch. 4	The Mandala of the Two Worlds in Japan	78
Ch. 5	Mandalas of Individual Deities	96
Ch. 6	Pure Land Mandara in Japan	122
Ch. 7	The Kami-Worshiping Tradition: Kasuga	142
Ch. 8	The Kami-Worshiping Tradition: Kumano	163
	Afterword	183
App	Chronologies for East Asia	185
	Notes	187
	Selected Bibliography	207
	Index	215