Chapter 4: Japanese Buddhist Iconography (a Comparative Study)

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- virtually the protector of Buddhism. Thus in China and Japan he is considered as the guardian deity and he is included in the group of Juni-ten. He is depicted with three eyes and holding in his right hand a vajza which has a sharp point called Dokko, and in the left a cup. In Japan, the oldest example of the figure of Indra is to be found in the portable shrine called Tamamushi-no-Zushi which was made in the Asuka period and preserved in the Hōryū- ji temple in the Nara prefecture. The Visnudharmottara describes the god as Sakra and narrates that he should wear a blue garment and have a golden complexion with the various ornaments on the body. His eyes are going obliquely on the forehead. On the right hands of Sakra there should be placed a lotus and an elephant goad. One of the left hands is to be placed on the back of Sachi and the second is to hold the thunderbolt. The thunderbolt symbolises his anger and by displaying anger he subdues the wicked. Airavata, the mount of the god is the symbolic of wealth and tusks of his mount are explained as the four very powerful sources of strength, e.g. energy, counsel, suzerainty and exertion. 2 Japanese texts, the Sonshō-Bucchō-Shu-Yuga-Hō-Kigi,
Shosetsu-Fudō-Ki and others describe the god as having different
1. VSD, Pt. III, p. 73.
2. Ibid.