Concise Illustrated Biography of Monk Nichiren: Calming the Stormy Sea at Tsunoda in Exile to Sado Island

Concise Illustrated Biography of Monk Nichiren: Calming the Stormy Sea at Tsunoda in Exile to Sado Island

Utagawa Kuniyoshi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The story of the life of Nichiren (1222–1282), the iconoclastic founder of the sect of Buddhism that bears his name, has inspired legions of his followers to the present day. Kuniyoshi’s series of prints captures the dramatic moments of the priest’s biography, including this scene of a vision of the sect’s main devotion, the invocation “Praise to the Sutra of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma [Namu Myōhō Renge Kyo],” in the ocean waves as Nichiren travels to exile in 1272.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Concise Illustrated Biography of Monk Nichiren: Calming the Stormy Sea at Tsunoda in Exile to Sado IslandConcise Illustrated Biography of Monk Nichiren: Calming the Stormy Sea at Tsunoda in Exile to Sado IslandConcise Illustrated Biography of Monk Nichiren: Calming the Stormy Sea at Tsunoda in Exile to Sado IslandConcise Illustrated Biography of Monk Nichiren: Calming the Stormy Sea at Tsunoda in Exile to Sado IslandConcise Illustrated Biography of Monk Nichiren: Calming the Stormy Sea at Tsunoda in Exile to Sado Island

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.