| Sermon on Mani's Teaching of Salvation | |
|---|---|
| Chinese: 冥王聖幀 | |
 | |
| Artist | Unknown |
| Year | 13th century |
| Type | Hanging scroll, paint and gold on silk |
| Dimensions | 142.0 cm × 59.2 cm (55.9 in × 23.3 in) |
| Location | Museum of Japanese Art, Nara |
Sermon on Mani's Teaching of Salvation (Chinese: 冥王聖幀; lit. 'Sacred Scroll of the King of the Underworld') is a Yuan dynasty silk hanging scroll, measuring 142 × 59 centimetres and dating from the 13th century, with didactic themes: a multi-scenic narrative that depicts Mani's Teachings about the Salvation combines a sermon subscene with the depictions of soteriological teaching in the rest of the painting.[1]
The painting was regarded as a depiction of the six realms of saṃsāra by Japanese Buddhists, therefore it was called "Painting of the Six Paths of Rebirth" (Japanese: 六道図).[2] After being studied by scholars like Takeo Izumi, Yutaka Yoshida, Zsuzsanna Gulácsi and Jorinde Ebert, they concluded that the painting is a Manichaean work of art.[3] It was probably produced by a 13th-century painter from Ningbo, a city in southern China,[4] and is kept today in the Museum of Japanese Art Yamato Bunkakan in Nara, Nara.
- ^ Gulácsi, Zsuzsanna (2015). Mani's Pictures: The Didactic Images of the Manichaeans from Sasanian Mesopotamia to Uygur Central Asia and Tang-Ming China. "Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies" series. Vol. 90. Leiden: Brill Publishers. p. 245. ISBN 9789004308947.
- ^ "「六道図（大和文華館）」をめぐって" (PDF). kintetsu-g-hd.co.jp (in Japanese). 2009. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
- ^ Ma, Xiaohe (2014). 霞浦文書研究 [A Study of the Xiapu Manichaean Manuscripts] (PDF) (in Traditional Chinese). Lanzhou: Lanzhou University Press. p. 35. ISBN 9787311046699. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-12-18. Retrieved 2018-11-28.
- ^ Gulácsi, Zsuzsanna (2008). "A Visual Sermon on Mani's Teaching of Salvation: A Contextualized Reading of a Chinese Manichaean Silk Painting in the Collection of the Yamato Bunkakan in Nara, Japan". academia.edu. Retrieved 27 November 2018.