Interior of Jizo Bosatsu, back half The inscription in kanji includes an invocation of Kasuga Gongen Daimyojin (the great divinity of the Kasuga-Kofukuji complex) and the names of the sculptor Zen’en and the priests Jisson and Han’en, among others. Source of image: Horiguchi, Sozan. Jizo Bosatsu Ryuzo [A Standing Image of Jizo Bosatsu]. Tokyo: Geienjunrei-sha Co., 1955.

Among the individuals listed in the inscriptions are two priests, Han’en and Jisson. The latter appears with the title gonsojo, which might be translated as “assistant abbot.” According to centuries-old records at the temple Kofukuji in Nara, Jisson assumed this title in 1214 and relinquished it in 1226. By this logic, the Jizo sculpture had to be produced between these dates. Information on Han’en further narrows this range but has been subject to differing interpretations. Han’en’s title in the inscriptions is given as former gonsojo. It is known that Han’en was appointed gonsojo in 1219; in fact, he is listed by this title in the inscriptions inside the Juichimen Kannon image by the same sculptor, Zen’en, dated 1221. The renowned art historian Kuno Takeshi, who studied both sculptures in the mid-1960s, interpreted a passage in a temple record to mean that Han’en became former gonsojo in the second month of 1223, thereby establishing the earliest date at which the Jizo could have been produced. Some thirty years later, Yamamoto Tsutomu, then a curator at Tokyo National Museum, refuted this view. Researching a separate passage, Yamamoto identified the eleventh month of 1221 as the date when Han’en relinquished the title of gonsojo, thus positing that the Jizo sculpture could have been produced more than one year earlier than previously thought—and at nearly the same time as the Juichimen Kannon image, strengthening the theory that the two sculptures once formed part of a single set.