Shaka Sanson (Buddha with two Assistants)

"Shaka Sanson (Buddha with two Assistants)" from 1968 — a late-career return to the classic Mahayana Buddhist triad of Shakyamuni flanked by two bodhisattvas — demonstrates Munakata's sustained engagement with Buddhist iconography across four decades of printmaking. The Sanson (triple image) format, one of the oldest in Japanese Buddhist art, places the central Buddha between his two great attendants: typically Monju (wisdom) on the left and Fugen (practice) on the right. Munakata's 1968 version brings his fully mature carving authority to this ancient compositional formula, the three figures charged with the accumulated energy of a lifetime of engagement.