Iconographic Drawing of a Rainmaking Mandala

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This unusual mandala, a sketch from a compendium of esoteric Buddhist images, set in the watery world of dragon kings, was used in rites to end drought. Interestingly, there are no known polychrome or highly finished versions of this type of mandala, though they are recorded as having been used in sutra-reading services performed by monks from the Tōji and Daigoji temples in Kyoto as early as the ninth century. Perhaps these diagrams were made each time an extraordinary plea for rain was required. The transcendent repose of the bodhisattva Monju (Sanskrit: Manjushri), seated on a garuda bird and cloud at the center, is particularly striking amid the serpents and swirls of water that surround him. The text from which this visualization is drawn is known in Japanese as the Daiunrinshōukyō.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art