The wooden seated image of Yakushi Buddha (薬師如来), the healing buddha of medicine, at Shinganji Temple (真巌寺) in Kuki, Owase City, Mie Prefecture
Image from an entry in the list of cultural properties on Owase’s official website (see source), the accompanying text of which my own rough, tentative translation follows:
Total height about three feet tall, made of cypress wood with joined-block construction. Apparently the statue was originally decorated with lacquer foil but in the midst of repairs during the Edo period (1600-1868) the foil was removed and the robe painted brown.
Crystal eyeballs are inserted, and the statue’s ūrṇā forehead dot and uṣṇīṣa cranial protuberance both feature crystal implants as well. His spiral hair is coarse. His right hand forms the mudra of reassurance, his left hand holds a medicine jar as is typical for images of Yakushi Buddha. The face is long and flat with little facial depth. The rounded hair coils appear like granules voluminously piled up but the carving is shallow and the cranial protuberance low. The pattern of folding garment creases along his robe is not exactly realistic, their simplified formalization rather noticeable.
Although it’s a regional work with such a feel of artless simplicity, under the knee is an ink inscription dating the work to the fourth year of Karyaku (1329), a time period which this work’s style indeed matches, and so it’s a precious example of sculptural standards of the late Kamakura period (1185-1333). It is said that the temple where it’s housed was originally named Yakushiji Temple (薬師寺) and was established by the ancestor of the Kuki clan, Kuki Takanobu (九鬼隆信), but in the 11th month of the 17th year of Kan’ei (1640) the temple burned down and only this main image was preserved, after which the temple was rebuilt and renamed Shinganji (真巌寺) in the 21st year of Kan’ei (1644), where it has remained ever since.
