One of Seven Sheets of Paper inscribed with Religious Texts, Poems, Charms [mounted on a board]

The wandering Pure Land priest Ippen (1234–1289) offered a radical message of hope to those who believed they were living through the end of days in medieval Japan. Ippen traveled the country advocating a controversial practice of dancing while chanting the Buddha’s name (odori nenbutsu), and distributed slips of paper (fuda) that guaranteed the holder entry to the Buddha’s Western Paradise upon death. The strip of paper at top center here is one of these slips. It can be translated “Decisive settlement of rebirth: sixty myriad persons.” The mantra indicates Ippen’s desire to offer salvation to every person in the 60 provinces of the archipelago. The slip was wrapped in the adjacent sheet of paper printed with an image of Amida Buddha before being placed inside the sculpture of Prince Shōtoku.