Feminine Motifs in Bodhidharma Symbology in Japan

Abstract

ZEN AND POPULAR DEPICTIONS OF DARUMA In the tradition and lore of Buddhism in East Asia a very conspicuous figure is Bodhidharma, an immigrant Indian monk credited with having begun the development of Ch'an * (Zen) Buddhism in China in the sixth century. While there are no compelling reasons to doubt the historicity of such a person, the details of his career are almost entirely legendary and often highly fanciful.l His prominence, therefore, is paradigmatic and symbolic, not personal, and it has been enhanced by both religious discourse and popular imagination. Though the story of Bodhidharma centers in China, it is in Japan that he achieved and still maintains his greatest popularity and visibility. There he is an ubiquitous figure, known familiarly as Daruma.2 Painted, carved in wood, stone, or ivory, molded in clay or papier-mache, as an icon, objet d'art, talisman, toy or novelty, he appears in Buddhist temples and monasteries, Shinto shrines, museums, homes, and places of business throughout the country. In highly stylized, yet often ingenious and sometimes bizarre renderings, he is at once the preeminent symbol of Zen practice and experience, a paradigm of perseverance and resilience, a god of good fortune, and the inspiration and subject of much good humor and playfulness. The earliest extant portrayals of Bodhidharma in both China and Japan are naturalistic and dignified, befitting the augustness of his ascription as the First Patriarch of Ch'an (Zen). The earliest of these, possibly datable to the eleventh century, depicts him with Chinese facial characteristics.3 Otherwise, most of the oldest available renderings (from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries) portray a figure who

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