Manichaean Portrait of the Buddha Jesus
This is a silk portrait, which, according to Zsuzsanna Gulácsi, is a Manichaean icon depicting the Buddha-Jesus, “Buddha” referring to Jesus’ status as a prophet in the Manichaean faith, created during the Song Dynasty in the 12th to 13th centuries. A large painting, it measures 153.5 cm in height and 58 cm in width. Regarded for years as a Buddhist or Nestorian Christian piece, there is argument for it being a sacred image of a different faith.
Who is this?
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The guiding prophet who greets the light-bodies of the righteous and pure. Source
Concerning a medieval scroll portrait of Chinese origin portraying a familiar prophet, today held at Seiun-ji Temple in Japa, Prof. Zsuzsanna Gulácsi argues that the scroll, composed of gold and paint on silk, rather depicts Jesus in the fashion of the Manichaean faith; an extinct missionary world religion that once rivaled Christianity, active from late antiquity to the late medieval era. In her article analyzing this piece, Gulacsi compares the scroll to similar medieval Buddhist, Nestorian and Manichaean paintings, sculpture and reliefs, including a surviving 10th-century depiction of Manichaean Jesus from Kocho, a medieval Uyghur kingdom founded by refugees of the Uyghur Khanate (which was also the only state whose rulers actually converted to Manichaeism), as well as examples of early Christian art depicting Jesus. Aside from the claim of its Manichaean background, Gulácsi uses Takeo Izumi’s research (who was the first to conclude that the painting had a Christian origin) on dating the painting, comparing it to two contemporary Buddhist silk works, providing justification for its dating, origin, and religious background.1
Other Evidence
During the Qing Dynasty, a book called 宋會要輯稿, or the ‘Song Government Manuscript Compendium,’ was created to record the literature of the Song Dynasty. According to the book, there were six silk portraits in the possession of the Chinese Manichaean Church (likely active in southeastern China, a Manichaean hotspot and land under Song Control), one of them being the “Silk Painting of the buddha Jesus”. In this manner, “Buddha” means prophet, as it was the closest meaning to the word in Chinese. 2
Bibliography
- Gulácsi, Zsuzsanna. “A Manichaean ‘Portrait of the Buddha Jesus’: Identifying a Twelfth- or Thirteenth-Century Chinese Painting from the Collection of Seiun-ji Zen Temple.” Artibus Asiae 69, no. 1 (2009): 91–145.
- Gulácsi, Zsuzsanna. Mediaeval Manichaean Book Art: A Codicological Study of Iranian and Turkic Illuminated Book Fragments from 8th–11th Century East Central Asia. Leiden: Brill, 2005.