shizō 紙像

Also shichōkanzō 紙張貫像. A figure made from layers of glued paper. A number of paper Buddhist statues are preserved from before the Edo period, and the technique was commonly used to make dolls from the 17th century onwards. An important early example of shizō is the Monju Bosatsu-zō 文殊菩薩像 (1269) in Chūgūji 中宮寺, Nara. The statue is thought to have been made by nuns from pieces of scrap paper, built around two Buddhist sutra scrolls at the core of the figure.