File:Chigo no sōshi 稚児之草紙 (Book of Acolytes) (BM 2013,3001.1 40).jpg

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Chigo no sōshi 稚児之草紙 (Book of Acolytes)   (Wikidata search (Cirrus search) Wikidata query (SPARQL)  Create new Wikidata item based on this file)
Title
Chigo no sōshi 稚児之草紙 (Book of Acolytes)
Description
English: Shunga; handscroll, ink and colour on paper. Nineteenth-century copy of the oldest and most famous Japanese depiction of male-male sexual relations (nanshoku), dated 1321 and preserved at Sanbo-in, Daigo-ji temple, Kyoto. Eighteen scenes of Buddhist acolytes with temple servants or priests; five short ribald narratives; numerous inscribed comments and conversations surrounding the scenes.
Date 19th century
date QS:P571,+1850-00-00T00:00:00Z/7
Medium paper
Dimensions
Height: 33.30 centimetres
Length: 1418 centimetres
institution QS:P195,Q6373
Current location
Asia
Accession number
2013,3001.1
Notes This is a close and accurate copy of the oldest and most famous painting and text from medieval Japan about male–male sexual relations (nanshoku) in Buddhist temples. In modern times it has been given the title Chigo no so - shi (Book of Acolytes). The ‘original’ version, with an inscribed date of 1321 – which itself may be a copy of an earlier lost version – is known to be preserved at Sanbo - -in, Daigoji temple, Kyoto.1 This is currently inaccessible and only published in the form of very fragmentary old black-and-white photographs.2 The copy here includes an inscription at the end attributing the ‘original’ to monk Toba So - jo - (Kakuyu - , 1053–1140), as was common in later times for any comic-sexual paintings of the early medieval period. The handscroll is important direct evidence for the practice of affective and sexual relations between mature priests and younger acolytes (chigo) that was quite widespread in Buddhist temples in Japan in the medieval period (sex between priests and women was more strictly forbidden). The five sequences of pictures and five ‘episodic tales’ (setsuwa), short temple narratives with ribald content, are remarkably candid and direct about these male–male sexual matters (see also Clark et al 2013, pp. 62–73). Even judging from this much later work that has copied the original in minute detail, indicating the positions of worm holes for example, the style of the original paintings was simple and relatively naturalistic within the medieval painting tradition. In the opening sequence of pictures – to give a flavour of the work – a mature male servant prepares an acolyte for a night of sex with a priest. First he embraces the lad to relax him; then a dildo is used to relax his anus; and finally clove oil is applied with a brush, as a lubricant for intercourse. After warming the youth’s bottom over a small brazier, he dresses him in a fine robe and directs him towards the door of the priest’s bedchamber. [TC]
Source/Photographer https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_2013-3001-1
Permission
(Reusing this file)		 © The Trustees of the British Museum, released as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
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