[1][2] It is an illuminated manuscript detailing miracles attributed to the monk Myōren, who lived on Mount Shigi near Nara in Japan in the latter part of the 9th century.

The pictorial style of the work, known as otoko-e, or "men's pictures", is characterized by active movement, outdoor scenes and a certain feeling of lack of restraint.

[2] Originating in Japan in the sixth or seventh century through trade with the Chinese Empire, emakimono art spread widely among the aristocracy in the Heian period.

The themes of the stories were very varied: illustrations of novels, historical chronicles, religious texts, biographies of famous people, humorous or fantastic anecdotes, etc.

[4] The scrolls of the Shigisan Engi Emaki, three in number, each narrate a miraculous story about the life of Myōren,[fn 1] a Buddhist monk who lived at the end of the 9th century in the Chōgosonshi-ji temple on Mount Shigi (Shigi-san) in the province of Yamato, and was dedicated to the deity Bishamon-ten (Vaiśravaṇa).

[5] The term "engi" in the title designates a Japanese literary style that transcribes chronicles and legends on the foundation of Buddhist temples or Shinto shrines, as well as, by extension, the miracles associated with them.

[7] The Shigisan Engi Emaki is nowadays the oldest example of emakimono with religious themes that devote a large part of their content to the representation of everyday life and folklore, testifying to an unprecedented interest in painting for children and popular legends.

Indeed, several ancient collections of popular tales, including the Konjaku Monogatarishū, the Kohon Setsuwa Shū [ja] and the Uji Shūi Monogatari, tell three anecdotes, reminiscent of the subject of the Shigisan Engi Emaki, about a hermit-monk from the Nara period.

[8][9] The mixture of popular and religious themes in the Shigisan Engi Emaki and many later emakimono, which give them an authentic and romanticised look,[10] thus ties in with these earlier works.

According to other fictionalised chronicles, Myōren would have been instructed in a dream during a retreat at the Hōryū-ji temple to go to Mount Shigi to settle there, with a purple cloud to guide him.

There follows, as for the flying granary, a long scene of landscapes flown over by sacks of rice, to the village where the little people are busy with their daily occupations - the women cook or collect fruit, a child and an old man are reading.

Following a scene of a new mountain landscape, the delegation is depicted returning to Seiryō-den, the Emperor's private quarters, apparently bringing back a message from Myōren.

[20][21][22] The second calligraphed section reveals that Myōren, despite insistent requests of His Imperial Majesty, has refused to go in person to the palace, and has promised to heal the Emperor from his home.

Then the nun, following her arrival at the Tōdai-ji temple, is painted praying in front of the Daibutsu (大仏, "Giant Buddha") monumental statue.

As for 1180, this was the year when the original statue of the Great Buddha of Tōdai-ji, which is depicted in the third scroll, was destroyed by fire, indicating that the work is probably prior to that date.

[32] As for the sponsor, also unknown, a working hypothesis considers him to have belonged to the learned circles of the court, for example the Fujiwara clan or the Emperor Go-Shirakawa, because of the diversity of the motifs represented.

[39] The goal of the sponsor was perhaps to promote the worship of Bishamon-ten as well as the monastic lifestyle of the Nara era as practiced by Myōren, amid religious controversy between several rival Buddhist schools towards the end of the 12th century.

[32][40] The pictorial style of the Shigisan Engi Emaki falls within the Yamato-e movement, which predominated in Japanese painting in the Heian and Kamakura periods (1185–1333).

[43][37] Often, the painters of emakimono are led to distort the time span of the story, due to constraints linked to the format of the scrolls, which impose the progressive discovery of paintings limited in height.

First, the painter can spread a single narrative moment over several scenes of the scroll, to create suspense, an epic story or simply the passing of time.

[48] The ink drawing confers great freedom on the artists, allowing a naturalistic style in opposition to the very stylised paintings of the court such as the Genji Monogatari Emaki.

[52] This Chinese influence is also found in the rugged mountain landscapes, executed with great mastery through soft lines and ink strokes for the reliefs.

[37] So, for example, the genre scenes of the first and third scrolls show the chores of the common people, for example the peasant women drawing water from the well, washing the laundry, spinning or even breastfeeding their children.

[58] Studies by historians have focused in particular on habitat, tools (oven, press), rural work, customs and social practices (such as hospitality), clothing, food and travel.

[9] From the beginning of April to the end of May 2016, the Nara National Museum organized a special exhibition, during which all three painted scrolls, spread out over their entire length, were presented to the public for the first time.

It has been the subject of dozens of academic articles,[61][9] and in particular makes it possible to study the formation of the Yamato-e movement in the Heian period, very few earlier paintings having survived.

[61][68] Due to its dynamic and continuous storytelling, the Shigisan Engi Emaki is often cited to contextualize the influence of Japanese painting on modern manga, which is very popular in Japan.