Historical subjects (REKISHI GWA DAI) suitable for Japanese painting are extremely numerous subjects and are divided into categories corresponding to the following periods: The Nara, the Heian or Kyoto, the Kamakura Yoritomo shogunate, the Higashiyama shogunate, the Yoshimasa shogunate, the Momoyama or Taiko Hideyoshi, and the Tokugawa Iyeyasu shogunate brought down to the present Meiji period. These with their numerous subdivisions supply an infinite number of subjects for pictorial treatment. Special favorites are “Benkei and Yoshitsune at the Go Jo bridge,” or “passing through the Hakone barrier,” and “Kusanoki Masashige at Minatogawa.”
When Shaka was born he stood erect, with one Buddhist hand pointing upward and the other downward and exclaimed: “Behold, between heaven and earth I am the most precious creation.” His birthday is the subject of the picture (_Plate LXVI_, 3) called KAN BUTSU YE. It represents the Buddha as a bronze statue erect in a tub of sweet liquid. This the faithful worshippers pour over his head and subsequently drink for good luck. Shaka’s death is commemorated in the picture called NEHAN, nirvana. The lord, Buddha, is stretched upon a bier tranquilly dying, an angelic smile lighting his countenance, while around are gathered his disciples, Rakkan and Bosatsu, and the different animals of creation, all weeping. A rat having gone to call Mayabunin, mother of Buddha, has been pounced upon by a cat and torn to pieces. For this reason in paintings of this moving scene of Shaka’s death no cat is to be found among the mourning animals. The artist Cho Densu, however, in his great painting of NEHAN (still preserved in the Temple To Fuku Ji at Kyoto) introduces the portrait of a cat. It is related that, while Cho Densu was painting, the cat came daily to his side and continually mewing and expressing its grief, would not leave him. Finally Cho Densu, out of pity, painted the cat into the picture and thereupon the animal out of joy fell over dead.
The lotus _(hasu)_ symbolizes the heart of a saint _(hotoke)._ It rises untarnished out of the mud of the pond, nor can it be stained by any impurity, the leaves always shedding whatever may fall upon them. It is painted usually as a religious subject.