tokugawa shogunateedo japan
Itō Jakuchū — Vegetable Nirvana (Yasai Nehan-zu), 1780
Yasai Nehan-zu (蔬菜涅槃図, Vegetable Nirvana), 1780, by Itō Jakuchū (1716–1800). Hanging scroll; ink and mineral pigments on silk; 161.6 × 79.7 cm. Kyoto National Museum (on long-term loan from Daitoku-ji). A sacred parody of the classical parinirvana scene, replacing the dying Buddha with a giant daikon radish and mourning disciples with vegetables and fungi.
Scholarly Significance
Anchor Ito Jakuchu's late eccentric style with Vegetable Nirvana — a comic-sacred parody of the Buddha's parinirvana using giant daikon radishes.
Notes
- ·The composition parodies the classic nirvana scene: where the reclining Buddha is attended by grieving bodhisattvas, animals, and disciples, here a daikon radish reclines while vegetables, fungi, and fruits mourn.
- ·The work belongs to the Japanese genre of mitate-e (parody picture) in which sacred imagery is replaced with mundane subjects for comic or devotional-ironic effect.
- ·Jakuchu was a devout Buddhist and vegetable merchant's son; the parody is reverent as well as comic — vegetables were central to Buddhist cuisine and temple provisioning.
- ·The original is held by Daitoku-ji, the great Zen temple complex of Kyoto; its institutional setting gives the parody additional resonance.
- ·Companion to Jakuchu's Colorful Realm of Living Beings (Doshoku Sai-e, 1757–1766); both are devoted to living creatures but in radically different registers.