2-748-483 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Zao Gongen, 1100-1185. Zao Gongen is the deity of Mount Kinpu, in the Yoshino Mountains south of Nara. His iconography is based on Buddhist guardian figures, a fitting guise for the protector of Shugendo, a Shinto-Buddhist cult devoted to ascetic practices and mountain worship. This fragment is from a votive mirror called a kakebotoke with metal fittings at the top through which a cord could be used to hang it.