Hiraizumi: Buddhist Art and Regional Politics in Twelfth-Century Japan

Abstract

In the 12th century, along the borders of the Japanese state in northern Honshu, three generations of local rulers built a capital city at Hiraizumi that became a major military and commercial center. Known as the Hiraizumi Fujiwara, these rulers created a city filled with art, in an attempt to use the power of art and architecture to claim a religious and political mandate. In this study, the author studies the rise of the Hiraizumi Fujiwara and analyzes their construction programme. She traces the strategies by which they attempted to legitimate their rule and grounds the splendour of Hiraizumi in the desires, political and personal, of the men and women who sponsored and displayed the art.

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