Zanmai Bosatsu

The name and role of Zanmai Bosatsu

This bodhisattva is listed as one of the Twenty-five Bodhisattvas. Zanmai Bosatsu is described as a being able to hold the workings of the mind up against the true teachings.

Source: 飛不動尊 正宝院・飛不動尊 正宝院・飛不動尊 正宝院

Tracing the form and traditions

The form is said to show a scene in which the bodhisattva holds a vessel containing lotus flowers in the right hand and scatters a single petal with the left.

Source: 飛不動尊 正宝院・飛不動尊 正宝院・飛不動尊 正宝院

Protecting those who wish for rebirth in the Pure Land

The Twenty-five Bodhisattvas are bodhisattvas who protect people who wish to be reborn in the Pure Land of Amida Buddha. A dictionary of the Jōdo school explains the protection of practitioners taught in the Jūōjō Amidabutsukoku-kyō as the basis of this faith. Rather than assigning each of them a separate benefit such as money or study, they can be understood first through their saving work as a group.

Source: 浄土宗

Bodhisattvas in raigō paintings and nerikuyō processions

As Pure Land faith spread, the Twenty-five Bodhisattvas came to be depicted in raigō paintings, in which they come with Amida Nyorai to welcome the dying, and in nerikuyō processions. This is described as a development from the understanding that bodhisattvas who protect practitioners in daily life would also protect them at the moment of death. The attributes they hold, such as musical instruments and lotus pedestals, differ from source to source, and the individual forms shown here are based mainly on Shōhōin's materials introducing the Butsuzō Zui.

Source: 浄土宗・飛不動尊 正宝院

Related kami and buddhas

• Nijūgo Bosatsu (the Twenty-Five Bodhisattvas)二十五菩薩