Stone Buddha - Senbutsu

Japanese: 塼仏 - せんぶつ

Buddhist statues are made by cutting clay into molds and firing them. They are called brick Buddhas because their shape resembles a brick. Originally, bricks were used in China as building materials (bricks), such as the painted genre painting brick excavated in Luoyang, Henan Province around the 7th year of the reign of Emperor Gaozu (200 B.C.) of the Western Han Dynasty (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), and the hunting and harvesting brick excavated in Sichuan Province around the 2nd to 3rd century, and were made around the Warring States period. Many brick Buddhas with inscriptions and featuring Buddha statues and pagodas were made during the Six Dynasties and Tang Dynasties. In Korea, brick Buddhas influenced by China have been excavated from temple sites in Goguryeo and Silla. In Japan, they have been used since the Hakuho period, and relics have been discovered. The Buddha statue brick Buddhas at Yamada-dera, Tachibana-dera, and Tsubosaka-dera in Nara, and the small brick Buddha at Mie Natsumi-ji Temple are famous. A large number of these were also discovered in the mountains behind Kawahara-dera Temple in Narashino in 1974. Other famous examples include the Tenjinmon bricks of Narashino-dera Temple and the Ho-omon bricks of Nanhokke-ji Temple, and these have also been excavated from the ruins of local temples.

Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia About Encyclopaedia Britannica Concise Encyclopedia Information

Japanese:

仏像などを粘土で型を抜き焼成したもの。その形が塼に似ているので塼仏と呼んでいる。本来塼は中国で用いられ，前漢の高祖7 (前 200) 年頃の河南省洛陽出土の彩画風俗図塼 (ボストン美術館) ，2～3世紀頃の四川省出土の狩猟と収穫図塼などのように建築用材 (煉瓦) であり，戦国時代頃からつくられた。六朝・唐代にいたって仏像，多宝塔などを配した在銘の塼仏が多数造られた。朝鮮では高句麗，新羅の寺院址から中国の影響を受けた塼仏が出土する。日本では白鳳時代から用いられ，遺品も発見されている。奈良の山田寺，橘寺，壺坂寺の如来像塼仏，三重夏見廃寺の小型塼仏などは有名である。また，1974年奈良川原寺裏山から多量に発見された。そのほか奈良岡寺の天人文塼，南法華寺の鳳凰文塼なども著名で，地方の寺院址からも出土する例がある。

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