“The Whole Body of the Thus Come One”: The Lotus Sūtra, Stūpas, and Sūtra Burials in Japanese Buddhist Art

This paper focuses on a radical claim that the Lotus Sūtra makes about itself—namely, that it contains the “whole body of the Thus Come One”—and its influence on material expressions of Lotus Sūtra worship in early medieval Japan. Iconographical strategies adopted in some of the copies of the sūtra produced in this period establish the identification between the scripture and relics by, for example, inscribing each character in a stūpa. The practice of burying sūtras, which began in earnest around the second half of the 11th century, extended this logic of identification between scripture and relic. Sūtra tubes, in which sūtra copies were stored before being buried, were at times made to reflect the symbolism of the stūpa, fashioned in the shape of jeweled stūpas or gorintō. These objects—copied sūtras and sūtra receptacles—reveal a great attention paid to discourses present in the Lotus Sūtra concerning the ontological status of the sūtra itself, but also a devotional approach that attempted to project that ontological status of the sūtra as relic onto its material forms of reproduction. The Lotus Sūtra, copied and buried, written and carved, was indeed understood, at least by some, as “the whole body of the Thus Come One.”