Bronze Sutra Cylinder
- Date
-
制作年 AD12
- Title
- ドウセイキョウヅツ
- Materials, techniques and shape
- 青銅製
- Collections
- Century Akao Collection
- Depository
- Keio Museum Commons Campus Mita
The exhibit shows a pair of bronze sutra cylinders. Both were made by stacking two round components and both have umbrella-like double-tier lids. The lid’s center is raised, creating a beautiful sharp line as it runs down to meet the upturned brim. At the top of the raised lids are knobs made of three rings (left cylinder), four rings (right cylinder) and knobs with houshu (or houju), a spherical or pear-shaped object sacred to Buddhism. Although the exhibited cylinders have descended as a pair, the different numbers of rings suggest that they were originally created separately. Each cylinder body consists of three round components, which are stacked on top of one another, while the base is cast with a different metal. The base forms a sharp line and gives off a sense of stability for supporting the cylinder above. Horizontal line engravings are visible in the center of the three cylinder components and the top and bottom parts of the base.This sutra cylinder’s design is likened to a Buddhist stupa, which was a revered object of worship, as it was inside the stupa that Buddha’s holy remains were preserved. Sometimes worshippers preserved the sutras they dedicated to a temple in the temple building’s podium, called a kidan. Likewise, sutra cylinders were used to preserve Buddhist sutras until the return of the Miroku Bosatsu (Sanscrit: Maitreya Bodhisattva) for saving mankind. Here, one can see the expression of a common prayer offered by faithful followers.The stacked cylinder body with a decorative ring knob design is unique to the sutra cylinders unearthed from sutra mounds (kyozuka) in northern Kyushu. The two cylinders are likely to have been created during the Heian Period (12th c.).
Overview
Rights
Depository and ID
Components
OPEN DATADESIGN
Keio Object Hub makes data on cultural objects open and tries designing various experiences using open data.
Details
Identifiers
- Title (EN)
- Bronze Sutra Cylinder
Physical description
- Weights and quantities
-
Quantity 2点
Provenance
As a prototype feature, the Keio Object Hub uses AI (machine learning) to generate keywords for searches and filtering.
For the first launch, Google Cloud's Vision API will be used to analyze the images of each object and automatically generate keywords.