Duality Of Kasuga Mandala

When looking at this image, we can see the duality of the” Kasuga mandala’s” meaning and story context. Made between the 14th ~ 15th century (Muromachi period) with ink, color and gold on silk as a hanging scroll, which now hangs at Cleveland Museum of Art, the visuals on it represent a more public, universal story as paradise is connected to the earth’s sakura and ocean leaves by a holy deer, a tree, five characters in a golden circle whose stance and clothing resemble holy monks or men with more wisdom and power, and a local, renowned mountain above it all. Each figure represents a deity or holy symbol (representational) in the buddhist religion of that era’s Japan, such as the beloved deer and the wise men, showing either the journey the
people have to travel to reach the buddhist heaven or how connected we are to it. With either interpretation, we can assume that the mandala was meant to be shown to everyone as a symbol of buddhist religion; however, if we look at the history of most mandalas of that time period, we’ll recognize that most of this work, including this one, was “made by the elite, for the elite,” with the use of such expensive materials like gold hinting at the government’s influence on the hanging scroll.