Chinsō

They can be painted or sculpted and usually present a Zen master ceremonially dressed and seated upright in chair.

[2] Chinsō were believed to have been passed down by Zen masters to their disciples as a symbol of dharma transmission, and known to have been meant for use in rituals, especially to represent the deceased during memorial services, and as an icon for their followers.

[4] Chinsō flourished during the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279–1368) dynasties in China, and were introduced in Japan during the Kamakura period (1185–1333).

[5] Chinsō are mainly understood to follow this basic formula: the monk is seated cross-legged in a chair, feet hidden, with his shoes on a footstool in front of him, in a three-quarter view, and ceremonially dressed with inner and outer robes and a kasaya or surplice draped over his left shoulder.

[5] Surviving chinsō also include many works created in Japan once Zen Buddhism was brought there from China.

Less common are chinsō showing a monk in meditation in a landscape setting, where he could be either walking or sitting.

[5] More recently (since about 1994) it has come to the attention of scholars that chinsō were used in a mortuary context, rather than used to certify or authenticate dharma transmission.

They were used after monks had died, meaning that they were used like other icons are: as a receptacle for a deity in a ritual context,[5] like objects of worship in temples.

An article by T. Griffith Foulk and Robert Sharf published in 1994 attempted to demystify this part of Zen culture by clarifying that chinsō did not serve as evidence of dharma transmission but are simply a category of Buddhist portraiture used in a mortuary context.

This argument is supported by their claims that chinsō, unlike more important items for representing transmission like a monk's robes, were passed out freely in China to “laymen, novices, merchants, and the like”.

[5] The portrait of Wuzun Shih-fan was brought by his disciple Enni Ben’en to Japan in 1241 and is one of the oldest surviving chinsō.