Boshin

"Boshin" — a term referring to a sacred or dharmic body, or possibly a specific deity — appears in this 1937 print from Munakata's extraordinarily productive year of Buddhist imagery. The word "boshin" in Buddhist terminology can refer to the dharma-body of the Buddha (dharmakaya), the aspect of the Buddha that is identical with ultimate reality itself. As a print subject, it would represent one of the most abstract of Munakata's sacred themes — not a figure with iconographic attributes but the idea of sacred presence itself, made visible through his carving.