The story of Zenmyo is neither clear nor linear in nature, instead she is a character who plays many roles, and throughout her story underwent many transformations.  She is thought to have originated with the Gisho Scrolls of the 13th Century (Mason 200).  In this story she plays the roles of a seductive Chinese Maiden, a pious and humble follower of Buddhism, and a self-sacrificing deity transformed into a dragon and eventually a boulder.  Her story was read and followed almost entirely by women of the Kamakura Era (Brock 211).  She is an example of a woman who overcame her earthly desires to commit herself completely to Buddhism. 

            The story of Zenmyo unfolds in the Gisho scrolls when the Buddhist monk Gisho, in a search for a teacher of Dharma, stops in her small community and stays in her home.  She is the daughter of a middle-class merchant.  She falls deeply in love with Gisho and attempts to seduce him with her tempting good looks. Due to Gisho’s eternal commitment to Buddhism he rejects her love.  Zenmyo is crushed and mourns this unrequited love.  Eventually she is overcome by Gisho’s true commitment to Buddhism and yearns to be as committed as Gisho.  On the day Gisho leaves her humble village, Zenmyo dresses in her best attire and arrives at the shore of the ocean to give him his farewell gifts.  This is the point in the story that inspired the sculptor Tankei to create this image of Zenmyo  (Figure 1) (Brock 187).   As she reaches the shore she realizes that Gisho has already set sail.  In a moment of sadness and rage she throws the farewell gifts into the sea and then throws herself, as she swears to protect Gisho in anyway she is capable of on the remainder of his journey (Figure 2) (Brock 188).  Zenmyo eventually transforms herself in to a dragon and protects Gisho as a raging storm hits his boat.  This miracle of Zenmyo transforming into a dragon is brought on only by Gisho’s teachings and Zenmyo’s extreme desire and commitment to Buddhism (Brock 194).

            Also important and worth noting here is the creator of the Zenmyo sculpture. Prominent 13th century sculptor Tankei was famous and most well-know for creating the Senju (Thousand-armed) Kannon (Figure 3) and also Fugin and Raijin, the god’s of wind and thunder (Mori 76).  These are quite grandiose sculptures in size and structure.  The wind and thunder gods are over three times the size of the little Zenmyo sculpture (Mori 72).  They are also very aggressive, muscular, and overall not to be tampered with sorts of figures.  The Senju Kannon, although over ten times the size of Zenmyo, has some of the same sereneness that you see in Zenmyo’s face.  It is apparent that Tankei purposely created Zenmyo to be serene and at peace to accord with the story in which she is involved.

As stated previously, this story has been a strong influence on female readers, especially those of the monastic community.  Zenmyo is an example of what Japanese women aspired to in the 13th century.  They were inherently seductive and love-struck beings with little control over their actions (Brock).  Zenmyo learned to practice self-control which is thought to be outside her human nature, and with the strong help of Buddhism she becomes a pious and serene woman.  This sculpture is now located, quite fittingly, in the Buddhist community at Kozanji, for Buddhist nuns to look upon and be motivated by.  She is an example of an ordinary mortal that was given power through her extreme faith in Dharma Buddhism (Brock 194).

 In Karen Brock’s essay, “Chinese Maiden, Silla Monk” she states, “the women who heard Zenmyo’s story listened with experienced ears; they looked with sorrowful eyes.  For them Zenmyo’s transformation into a dragon and a rock were a reality they sought to understand through their reading and viewing of this remarkable set of picture scrolls” (211). Located in a monastic community she is most definitely a role model for the nuns there, and also the nuns of the convent that bears her name, Zenmyoji.  During the time period before Zenmyo was created, there was a strong reemergence of Buddhist nunneries due to the widespread proliferation of Buddhism in the Heian Era (Yoshiyuki, 132).  Many of the nuns at Zenmyoji were in fact widows who had lost their husbands during the Jokyu Disturbance of 1219 and decided to follow the Buddhist Monk Myoe and commit themselves to Buddhism (Yoshiyuki, 133).  Therefore, one can deduce that Zenmyo became a fitting role model for this specific female audience.  She, not unlike the nuns at Zenmyoji lost her love and potential companion and in turn committed herself to Buddhism.  She left the layperson world to be a true follower of Buddhism and commit herself to a cause, just as these women attempted.    

 

Bibliography

Brock, Karen L. Chinese Maiden, Silla Monk: Zenmyo and Her Thirteenth-Century

            Japanese Audience.  ed. Marsha Weidner.  Flowering in the Shadows: Women

            in the History of Chinese and Japanese Painting.  Honolulu: University of Hawaii

            Press.  1990.

Mason, Penelope. History of Japanese Art.  New Jersey: Prentice Hall. 2005.

Mori, Hisashi. Sculpture of the Kamakura Period.  NewYork: Weatherhill Press.  1974.

Yoshiyuki, Ushiyama.  Buddhist Convents in Medieval Japan.  Ed.Barbara Ruch. 

            Engendering Faith: Women and Buddhism in Premodern Japan.  Ann Arbor:

            University of Michigan Press.  2002.