岡山の〝祈祷の名刹〟として知られる「最上稲荷」は最上稲荷教として独立後、平成16年に立教50周年を迎えた。「境内地すべて、どこでも信仰心が感じられる」環境づくりを目指し数々の記念事業を計画。その主な事業の一つとして彫刻プロジェクトが立案された。
素材として提供されたのは、本殿造営工事の際、敷地整備の為に発破をかけた後の荒れて苔むした岩山であった。
法華経の「一乗思想」に基づき、地球上のあらゆるものを潤し決して損なわれない「水」をモチーフに、宇宙の創世とあわせ造形した。
h800cm×d800cm×w2.400cm
岡山市高松稲荷「最上稲荷」
1994年5月〜1998年4月
Saijo-Inari –Loop of Life
Date: May 1994 – April 1998
Dimension: 8 x 8 x 24 m
Known as ‘the best noted temple of Okayama’, Saijo-Inari founded its own Sect -Saijo-Inari Sect-, and in 2000, it celebrated its fiftieth anniversary after the sect’s foundation. On the year, it organized many memorial events focusing to realize ‘ an environment where people may feel piety, everywhere in our temple’, including the sculpture project to which I was invited lead.
The only material given to me was a huge craggy mountain, covered by mosses, left untouched behind the main shrine of the temple since the blasting for arranging the site.
Basing on ‘Ichi-Jo Sisou’* from Saddharma Pundarīka Sūtra, which can be translated as Lotus Sutra of Mahayana, I made this stone work imaging a creation of the Universe, taking as a motif water -symbol of power- that moistens and benefits all living creatures on the world.
* A principal doctrine of Tendai Sect of Buddhism, which says that all the creatures who perceive the God’s teachings, through any of different styles of teachings, will attain to be a Buddha, passing through the time of Bosatsu, and nothing will be left abandoned by God.
