A Lay Nun from the Kannon Sutra

From the Kannon Sutra (the twenty-fifth chapter of the Lotus Sutra, dedicated to the compassionate bodhisattva Kannon), this 1938 print depicts a lay nun (ubasoku — though this may refer to a lay practitioner more generally) as one of the many forms Kannon takes to bring salvation to suffering beings. Munakata's rendering of Buddhist lay figures maintained the same direct, energetic carving that characterized his depictions of deities and bodhisattvas: the figure's spiritual presence communicated through the rawness of the mark rather than its refinement. The Kannon Sutra's roster of transformative appearances gave Munakata an extraordinary range of human and divine figures to engage.