Death of the Buddha - Nishimura Shigenaga Art Print

Nishimura Shigenaga's Death of the Buddha hangs a persimmon moon over Kushinagar as the world arrives weeping. This woodblock print from Edo period Japan retells the parinirvana, the last passing of Shakyamuni beneath paired sala trees. He lies on his right side. One palm cradles his cheek on a lacquer-black dais. His robe banded in safflower pink.

Grief crowds every inch. Shaven monks press knuckles into wet eyes. Guardians with brick-hot skin sob into their sleeves, and Ananda has fainted beneath the platform.

Above the canopy, Queen Maya drifts down on scrolling clouds with her attendants. She comes one sorrow too late. Her medicine gourd dangles from a branch. Then the animals arrive. A pink elephant lifts its trunk. An indigo lion curls its mane beside a tiger that has forgotten to hunt. An owl blinks. A rooster bows its comb near a coiled blue shishi.

Shigenaga lifted this Nehan-zu scene from temple scrolls, and his ukiyo-e ink carried it into the rented rooms of Edo townspeople. Hang this Japanese Buddhist art print and watch as mourning transforms into reverence and revelation.