Chapter 40 - Prayer Offering - 御法

"Prayer Offering" (Minorite / Minori) is Chapter 40 of The Tale of Genji, in which Murasaki — Genji's great love, the woman whose upbringing he oversaw and who became the center of his emotional life — dies after a long illness. The chapter is the emotional climax of the entire novel: Murasaki's death leaves Genji bereft in a way that nothing else could, and his response is to withdraw from the world and seek Buddhist salvation. Ebina's print distills this most moving chapter into a visual expression of the grief that pervades it.