Sherry D. Fowler. Murōji: Rearranging Art and History at a
Japanese Buddhist Temple. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
2005. xiv + 293 pp. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8248-2792-2.
Reviewed by Yui Suzuki (University of Maryland, College Park)
Published on H-Buddhism (May, 2006) Based on the author's 1994
dissertation, this book is a study of the remote mountain temple
complex, Mur?ji, in modern day Nara prefecture. Aside from the
fact that the temple is located in a breathtakingly beautiful
mountain environment, Mur?ji has always been a topic of great
importance to Japanese art history due to the temple's
collection of some of the finest examples of ninth- and tenth-
century Buddhist wood sculptures, many of which have been
granted Important Cultural Property and National Treasure
status. In the book, Sherry Fowler expands her focus on the
origins of the Heian period images to encompass a multiplicity
of issues pertaining to Japanese religious, artistic and
cultural practices found within the sacred microcos