REPRESENTING FAITH: A DISCUSSION ON SACRED SCROLLS IN SHIN BUDDHISM

It is interesting to note that one of the country’s largest Buddhist sects conceived text as image. However, reciting the nenbutsu – “namu amida butsu” – is the primary practice of Shin Buddhists. With such a central location in the religion, it follows that the nenbutsu is the locus of the visual tradition. Contemporary scholars have posited that this phenomenon indicates esoteric leanings in Shin Buddhism. However, their analyses lean too far into the realm of Western metaphysics. The purpose of this paper is to re-examine how sacred scrolls function within the Shin Buddhist context. The methodology is comparative. First, I describe the visual tradition from which nenbutsu scrolls originate. Second, I analyze current scholarship in order to show that the current understanding of art within the Shin context is too easily generalized within the larger notion of Mahayana Buddhism. Third, I use a translation of Shinran’s Notes on the Inscriptions of Sacred Scrolls as the foundation for a more nuanced discussion. It will be shown that the written nenbutsu is not indicative of esotericism in Shin Buddhism, but a particular statement made by Shinran about the importance of faith communicated by the written/spoken word.