Yoshino mandara 吉野曼茶羅

Devotional paintings of the deities and landscape of Mt. *Yoshino 吉野. Yoshino mandara usually show a large figure of *Zaō Gongen 蔵王権現 surrounded by the deities of eight other shrines in the area, the landscape of the mountains, and representations of the shrines. Examples survive from the Muromachi and Edo periods, when the ascetic practice of shugendō 修験道 was widespread.
The mountains near Yoshino, especially Kinpusen 金峰山 and Ōmine 大峯, are the center of shugendō practice. The founder of the tradition *En no Gyōja 役行者 initiated the use of these mountains in ascetic practice in the 7th century and called down upon them the deity Zaō Gongen.
In the twin mandala *Ryōkai mandara 両界曼荼羅, the *Taizōkai mandara 胎蔵界曼荼羅 and the *Kongōkai mandara 金剛界曼荼羅, Shugendō adepts are represented traveling through the mountains between Yoshino and Kumano (see *Kumano mandara 熊野曼荼羅).
By the late Heian period, Yoshino had become of interest to the court not only as a subject of poetry and the site of an ancient court but also as a pilgrimage site. Items excavated at the sutra mound kyōzuka 経塚 in Kinpusen include a sutra case offered by Fujiwara Michinaga 藤原道長 (966-1027) in 1007.