Handscroll on paper, entitled on a slip of paper formerly pasted on outside: "Sony?sh?" ??? ["Annotations on the Noble Countenances (of the Deities Depicted)"]

20 fine brush & black ink drawings of deities & several smaller images. Scroll (290 x 11,980 mm.), delicately ruled in gray ink, wooden roller. [Japan]: 17th-18th century copy? A copy of the eighth scroll from the ten-scroll set known alternatively as "Zuz?sh?" ??? ["Annotated Drawings"] or "Sony?sh?" ??? ["Annotations on the Noble Countenances [of the Deities Depicted]"], along with "Jikkansh?" ??? ["Annotations of Ten Scrolls"]. Our scroll is also entitled on outside of scroll "Sho my??" ??? ["The Various Wisdom Kings"]. The original was made in Japan in 1139-1140 CE (Hoen 5), towards the end of the Heian period. This set of scrolls is associated with esoteric Buddhism and depicts Buddhas, bodhisattvas, devas, and wisdom kings (my??). It is not known if the scrolls were actually used as guides to worship, but they were clearly assembled with this purpose in mind. Early sources ascribe the scrolls to different authors, either Y?gon ?? (d. 1151) or Ej? ?? Scholars have concluded that Y?gon received an order from retired emperor Toba ?? (1103-56) to produce the scrolls. Y?gon might have made a preliminary collection of sources, but then gave the task to Ej?, who is considered to be the real author. The original set is lost; the oldest extant copy, held at the Daigo-ji ??? temple in Kyoto, dates from 1193, and another early copy, dated 1226 (early Kamakura period), is held at J?raku-ji ??? in Konan. Copies of the scrolls were produced into the Tokugawa period (1603-1867). Our scroll contains a series of 20 fine and large brush and black ink drawings of deities and several smaller drawings. The latter include schematics of the deities’ attributes, such as a vajra "thunderbolt" sword (a symbol associated with sudden enlightenment), an eight-spoked dharmachakra disk, and a two-pronged vajra with rope. There are some annotations in red ink. Our eighth scroll includes eleven wisdom kings in total. A description of the contents of "Zuz?sho" specifies that the eighth scroll contains the irate wisdom kings: these usually number ten, but in "Zuz?sho," including our copy, eleven deities are represented. This scroll is simply titled "various wisdom kings." These are the eleven: 1. Acala ????, "the immovable." 2. Trailokya-vijaya ???, "conqueror of the three worlds." 3. Ku??al? ???, a guardian king. 4. Yamântaka ???, "of awe-inspiring power," the "terminator of death," depicted here riding a water buffalo. 5. Vajrayak?a ????, here depicted with three faces and six arms, as is customary. 6. Ajita ?????, "the unsurpassable." 7. Great Wheel Vajra ????, "destroyer of delusion." 8. Padana-k?ipa-vidy?-r?ja ????, one of the great luminous kings, often depicted as holding a disk in his right hand and a vajra-mallet in his left hand. Here, the disk appears to be a kind of parasol. 9. Ucchu?ma ?????? (on the scroll written as ??????), "the unclean" ??, who has the power to purify. 10. Vajrakum?ra ????, a youth. 11. ??avika?????, "the great commander." The scroll is structured with the name of each deity given as a heading, below which is basic information followed by quotes from various sources. Basic information includes a deity’s "Sanskrit appellation," "secret appellation" (e.g., "Protector of the dharma diamond," for Vajrayak?a), "seed syllables" (represented in Siddham characters), "samaya" (sangy? ??, short for sanmayagy? ????, an object representing the deity; in the case of Vajrayaksa, "bell blade tooth"). The text that accompanies the images includes quotes from canonical Buddhist literature; "hymns" (san ?) — a kind of dh?ra??, we believe — where Chinese characters represent Sanskrit sounds; as well as references to statues of the deities kept in temples. T?-ji ??, a famous Shingon temple in Kyoto, is mentioned as one housing such statues. These sources are marshalled to describe the appearance of the wisdom kings. Texts quoted here, referring to Atavika, is "Translation of the esoterica of the place of practice by ?ubhakarasi?ha of the Gre.…