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Star Mandala
1615-1868
- Medium
- Color and gold on silk
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W (overall): 119.4 x 71.2 cm (47 x 28 1/16 in)
- Culture
- Buddhists
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Known variously as the Star Mandala or the Big Dipper Mandala, this painting is an Edo period (1615-1868) version of an iconographic concept that was imported to Japan from China in the ninth century. It was employed in Esoteric Buddhist rituals for the purpose of warding off epidemics, averting natural disasters, and prolonging life.
