The Sixteen Arhats (Color on Silk)

Sixteen Scrolls, National Treasure since 1955

16 Arhats in Color on Silk (絹本著色十六羅漢像, Kenpon Chakushoku Juroku Rakan Zo) is a Buddhist painting owned by Seiryoji at Saga, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto City, Kyoto Prefecture, designated a National Treasure on 2 February 1955. The quantity is sixteen scrolls and the category is painting.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs leaves the field for designation as an Important Cultural Property blank. The work went to National Treasure without that earlier step, the second such case among the properties covered here, after the materials of the Keicho embassy.

The Agency gives the country as Song and the period as Northern Song. This was not made in Japan; by the record's own classification it was made in China.

A Commentary of One Sentence

The Agency's commentary reads as follows.

A work of the Northern Song period.

That is all of it. No dimensions, no account of the composition, no history of transmission, no words of assessment. This is the shortest commentary among the properties covered here.

The Daisen-in garden carried no sentence of assessment either, but its extent, shape and composition were set down. This record states a period and stops.

The address field is blank as well. Seiryoji is named as owner, and nothing in the record shows where the scrolls are kept.

Not Writing What Is Not Written

A good deal has been said about this work elsewhere.

Accounts say that the monk Chonen brought it back from Song China. The Agency's record contains no such statement: neither the circumstances of its arrival nor who carried it.

The same accounts call it a work of arhat painting without parallel. The Agency's record contains no comparison with other works.

Its related entries, in fact, list several works under the same title, along with others on the same subject. Works of this subject are recorded in numbers.

This article follows the record: sixteen scrolls of painting, a work of the Northern Song period, owned by Seiryoji, designated in 1955.

The Sixteen Arhats as a Subject

On the subject itself, a general note is in order.

An arhat is one who has received the teaching and completed the discipline. The sixteen arhats are a count of sixteen such figures, a subject painted widely across East Asia.

The count of sixteen scrolls answers to that subject: one scroll to each figure, so that all sixteen have a picture of their own.

At the Tofukuji gate, figures of the sixteen arhats stand in the upper storey. Painting and sculpture differ, but the subject is the same.

The Agency's record shows only that this is a set of sixteen scrolls depicting the arhats. Which figure appears on which scroll is not set down.

Seeing It

Seiryoji owns the scrolls. These are temple holdings, not objects kept on permanent display.

Buddhist paintings are vulnerable to light and are usually shown only for short periods. They may appear in special exhibitions at museums, so watch for notice of a showing.

All sixteen are not necessarily shown at once. With a set this large, only part of it may be lent.

Seiryoji is in Saga, Ukyo Ward, Kyoto City. Conditions of access can change, so check before travelling.