Accounts and Images of Six Kannon in Japan by Sherry D. Fowler

Reviewed by: Accounts and Images of Six Kannon in Japan by Sherry D. Fowler Karen M. Gerhart Accounts and Images of Six Kannon in Japan. By Sherry D. Fowler. University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016. 440 pages. Hardcover, $70.00. Sherry D. Fowler’s Accounts and Images of Six Kannon in Japan provides an exhaustive examination of the development of Six Kannon imagery over a broad sweep of time, beginning with its introduction from China around the tenth century and encompassing the expansion and multiplication of Kannon imagery throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I do not use the word “exhaustive” here lightly, for the research led Fowler on a protracted and intensive journey of inquiry—a search that she herself likens to one conducted by a detective or forensic investigator (p. 5)—into multitudinous aspects of the topic. Much more than simply a discussion of sculptures and paintings of Kannon, the book explores a dizzying array of other representations that are deserving of art-historical consideration, including those on bronze sutra boxes, woodblock-printed texts, ritual manuals, temple bells, mirrors, stone pagodas, markers, and banners. All are investigated using a broad-based methodology that draws on stylistic analysis and iconography, a close examination of historical context, and textual sources. The result is a volume that represents the first comprehensive English-language study of Six Kannon imagery and its multiplications. [End Page 255] To corral this broad range of material, Fowler organizes the book into six chapters, each of which focuses on a specific theme, geographical area, or time period. Chapter 1, “Reconstructing Six Kannon from the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries,” lays the groundwork for the volume by addressing the cult’s history in China and explaining the iconography of Six Kannon imagery; particularly useful here is a table that compares Chinese Guanyin and Japanese Kannon and the role of each deity (p. 29). The remainder of the chapter reviews the development and promotion of the Six Kannon cult in the Heian-period Kyoto capital by Shingon and Tendai school monks with the support of members of the royal court. Fowler cites ample documentary evidence attesting to the popularity of Six Kannon images with the Kyoto court during this period, although she notes that no complete sets remain for study today. Without input from written sources, then, we would have a very different and much impoverished picture of the Six Kannon cult during this period. That the earliest known dated images of the Six Kannon in Japan are engraved on an 1141 bronze sutra container found not in Kyoto but in northern Kyushu provides a jumping-off point for chapter 2, “A Vision at Six Kannon Lake and Six Kannon/Six Kami in Kyushu.” This chapter explores some of the earliest references to images of the Six Kannon known in Japan while focusing on the powerful synergy that developed between kami and Buddhist practices outside the capital. By choosing to investigate Six Kannon imagery in Kyushu, Fowler reminds us that the region played a major early role as a conduit of continental information and that concerns different from those in the capital encouraged the imagery here to develop in particular ways. Melded with kami beliefs, the Six Kannon came to be matched with Six Gongen and had a powerful impact on the evolution of shrines and temples in the region. Chapter 3, “Traveling Sets and Ritual Performance,” examines the interesting phenomenon of “moving images”—images not permanently fixed in a single location. Many images, in fact, traveled, whether due to the destruction of their temple homes through fire or war, changes in patronage and ritual practice, loss of popularity, lack of repairs, or the effect of laws like the 1870 edict enacting the separation of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. Such circumstances contributed to the loss or displacement of many complete sets of Six Kannon, for if one or more of six images were damaged or destroyed, it became difficult to identify the remainder as part of a set. In order to highlight some of these issues, Fowler tracks the history of two sets of Six Kannon sculptures made in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—the Daih

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