Itō Jakuchū's Vegetable Nirvana: Why the Buddha Is a Radish

Vegetable Nirvana (Kaso Nehanzu, 果蔬涅槃図; titled Vegetable Parinirvana on e-Museum) is an ink painting by Itō Jakuchū that reimagines the Buddhist image of the Buddha's death and parinirvana with fruits and vegetables. A forked radish lying on an upturned basket takes the place of the Buddha, and eight corn plants stand in for the sal trees. The painting belongs to the Kyoto National Museum and is designated an Important Cultural Property.

Many people know Jakuchū through Colorful Realm of Living Beings (Dōshoku sai-e), his set of thirty bird-and-flower scrolls painted in brilliant colour on silk. Yet the Kyoto National Museum notes that he also broke new ground in ink painting. This article looks at Vegetable Nirvana through the eyes of an ink painter.

What this article covers:

• What Vegetable Nirvana shows, and what stands in for what
• The fruits and vegetables worth looking for in the painting
• Why the Buddha is a radish, and the several explanations that have been offered
• What to look for as ink painting: the balance of tones, sujimegaki, bleeding ink and dry brush

(Figure: Itō Jakuchū, Vegetable Nirvana, Edo period, hanging scroll, ink on paper, Kyoto National Museum, Important Cultural Property / Source: ColBase. The image at the top of this article was created by cropping and modifying a ColBase image.)

What Is Vegetable Nirvana? | The Buddha's Parinirvana Painted in Fruits and Vegetables

In short: an ink painting that casts a forked radish as the Buddha

Kaso means fruits and vegetables. Everything a nirvana painting normally shows, from the Buddha and the sal trees to the figures who mourn him, has been replaced here with produce.

The Kyoto National Museum Collection Database describes the scroll as wild grasses and fruits arranged on the model of a nirvana painting, and adds that the work can be considered a caricature painting as well.

Key facts

If terms such as sumi-e, suibokuga and nihonga tend to blur together, our explainer on sumi-e vs suibokuga sorts them out.

Nirvana Paintings and Mitate | What Jakuchū Reimagined

What a nirvana painting (nehan-zu) shows

A nirvana painting, or nehan-zu (涅槃図), is a Buddhist painting of the moment the Buddha dies and passes into final nirvana. The Buddha lies at the centre with sal trees standing around him, while bodhisattvas, arhats and animals gather to grieve.

According to a paper by Nobuhiro Itoh of Nagoya University (in Japanese), a nirvana painting was hung at the nirvana ceremony, Nehan-e, held on the fifteenth day of the second month of the old lunar calendar, the day traditionally taken as the Buddha's death. Its scenes were explained to those gathered, and fruits and vegetables were placed in front of it.

The mitate nirvana tradition

Mitate means presenting one thing in the guise of another. It is the same leap of imagination a rakugo comic storyteller makes when a folded fan becomes a pair of chopsticks and the audience sees soba noodles being eaten.

In the Edo period, artists painted mitate nirvana pictures in which the Buddha was replaced by other figures. Examples include the Narihira nirvana painting (業平涅槃図) by Hanabusa Itchō, from the mid-Edo period, and the Bashō nirvana painting (芭蕉涅槃図) by Suzuki Fuyō, from the late Edo period. According to Itoh's paper, Vegetable Nirvana belongs to this group of mitate nirvana paintings.

Caricature or prayer? Two readings

Mitate nirvana paintings have also been seen as part of a wider group of works that turn mourning into laughter. The Kyoto National Museum's note, too, says that Vegetable Nirvana can be considered a kind of caricature painting.

e-Museum, the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage's online collection of National Treasures and Important Cultural Properties, puts it differently. Its commentary notes that many scholars have stressed the painting is not meant as a parody, and that a serious context and humorous content are not mutually exclusive.

Reading the Painting | The Radish Buddha and the Corn Sal Trees

Following e-Museum's commentary, here is what stands in for what.

Centre: a forked radish on an upturned basket

(Figure: Vegetable Nirvana, detail — a forked radish on an upturned basket / Source: cropped from a ColBase image)

At the centre of the painting, a woven basket has been turned upside down, and a forked radish lies on top of it. Itoh's paper reads the upturned basket as the Buddha's bed.

Top: eight corn plants

(Figure: Vegetable Nirvana, detail — eight corn plants standing in for the sal trees / Source: cropped from a ColBase image)

Across the top of the painting stand corn plants with jointed stalks and long, drooping leaves. These are the sal trees. Jakuchū's two seals are stamped at the upper left.

e-Museum also points to a round fruit at the upper left edge of the painting, and suggests that it represents the bundle holding the Buddha's staff and alms bowl, hung from the sal trees.

All around: fruits and vegetables as mourners

Around the radish and the corn, fruits and vegetables crowd in on every side. The bodhisattvas, arhats and animals who grieve for the Buddha in a nirvana painting are played here by produce.

Itoh's paper draws attention to the turnips placed on the left and right of the radish, at its feet and at its head. In nirvana paintings, those are the places where the Buddha's most important disciples appear.

Finding more than sixty kinds

According to e-Museum, the painting shows more than sixty kinds of fruits and vegetables. The count depends on the study: earlier research gives 66 or 63 kinds, while Itoh, after examining enlarged photographs of the painting, arrives at 88.

Three are easy to find first:

• The large watermelon at lower left, filled in with dark ink
• The Shishigatani squash, with its narrow waist, at lower right
• The corn cobs in the lower part of the painting

(Figure: Vegetable Nirvana, detail — the watermelon at lower left / Source: ColBase)

(Figure: Vegetable Nirvana, detail — Shishigatani squash and corn cobs at lower right / Source: ColBase)

Itoh's paper also identifies lotus root, chestnuts, eggplants such as the Kamo and Yamashina varieties, and four kinds of turnip. The mushroom is disputed: one view reads it as matsutake, another as shiitake. The paper also points out what is missing. Welsh onion, burdock, Japanese parsley (seri) and carrot, among others, do not appear.

If the painting makes you want to try vegetables in ink yourself, see our guide on how to paint a turnip.

Why Is the Buddha a Radish? | A Kyoto Greengrocer and Several Theories

Jakuchū and the family produce business

Itō Jakuchū was born in Kyoto in 1716, the eldest son of Masuya, a wholesale greengrocer on Nishikikōji Street. He took over the family business, and at the age of 40 he handed it to his younger brother and devoted himself to painting (Japan Search; Itoh's paper).

As e-Museum observes, running a produce wholesale business would have brought him into close daily contact with fruits and vegetables, and his renderings capture the particular character of each one.

A prayer for his family and the family business

Jakuchū lost his father early in life, and his mother died in 1779. His two younger brothers also died before him, and he never married. e-Museum suggests that the painting might be read as a prayer for the family members he had lost, together with a wish for the continued prosperity of the family business.

A symbol of abundance and a safeguard against famine

Itoh's paper looks for the meaning of the radish from another direction:

• Radish was a staple side-dish vegetable in the Edo period. Working from an Edo-period survey of regional products, Itoh calculates that it made up an average of 12.1 percent of total vegetable production, the largest share of any vegetable.
• The forked radish was offered to the deities Daikokuten and Shōten, and has long been regarded as a vegetable that brings abundance, as in the Aenokoto rite of the Noto region.
• Itoh suggests that Jakuchū, while praying for abundance, placed at the centre the radish, which could take the place of grain in times of famine, and surrounded it with Kyoto's well-known fruits and vegetables that could also be preserved or eaten in hard times.

The same paper also notes that some researchers connect the painting to the Buddhist idea that even plants, trees and the land itself attain buddhahood (草木国土悉皆成仏, sōmoku kokudo shikkai jōbutsu). No single explanation has been settled, and the painting remains open to several readings.

When was it painted?

Vegetable Nirvana is often described as a late work. According to e-Museum, the seals suggest that it was painted in the last six years of Jakuchū's life, between 1794 and 1800, although some scholars argue from its style that it was made earlier.

Looking as an Ink Painter | Tone, Sujimegaki, Bleeding Ink and Dry Brush

From here, we look at the painting as ink painters.

More than sixty motifs, one balanced range of tones

Part of this painting's appeal is that, for all its motifs, the composition and the distribution of ink tones stay in balance. Jakuchū uses ink at many strengths, from deep black to pale washes, so it is worth noticing where he places dark ink and where he leaves things light. For how ink tones are made in practice, with ink sticks, liquid ink and water, see our guide to the essential tools for sumi-e.

The black watermelon and the white radish

Compare different parts of the painting and the watermelon at lower left stands out. It is a large circle filled with dark ink, the blackest area in the lower part of the picture. The forked radish at the centre, the Buddha himself, is drawn in pale lines, with much of the white paper left showing.

Beyond this contrast of black and white, look at the corn leaves across the top, painted with lively strokes that shift between dark and light.

What is sujimegaki?

Sujimegaki is a technique often seen in Jakuchū's work: where two areas of ink meet, a fine white line is left between them. It has been described as a sophisticated technique that makes use of the character of highly absorbent gasenshi paper (Internet Museum exhibition report, in Japanese).

According to e-Museum, sujimegaki is one of the techniques used in Vegetable Nirvana.

Bleeding ink (nijimi) and dry brush (kasure)

Alongside sujimegaki, the painting makes full use of bleeding ink and dry brush. Bleeding ink, or nijimi, is the soft spread of ink carried by water. Dry brush, or kasure, is the broken, scratchy texture left when a brush holding little ink drags across the paper.

If you would like to try both with your own brush, see our brushwork practice drills.

See Sujimegaki in Motion | A Demonstration by Tohun Kobayashi

A demonstration based on Jakuchū's hawk painting

The video below is a demonstration by Tohun Kobayashi, published on the Kokusai Bokuyukai channel. Its subject is not Vegetable Nirvana but a hawk painting by Jakuchū. Handwritten notes on the video's thumbnail point out what makes the hawk painting remarkable, including its stylised, richly expressive design and the many kinds of feathers rendered with sujimegaki.

What to watch for

As you watch, look for two things:

• The white lines left where one area of ink meets another
• The way the hawk's feathers are built up, one overlapping the next

In Closing | Highlights, and Where to See Vegetable Nirvana

Key points

• Vegetable Nirvana is an ink painting by Itō Jakuchū that recasts a nirvana painting with fruits and vegetables.
• A forked radish is the Buddha, eight corn plants are the sal trees, and more than sixty kinds of fruits and vegetables are the mourners.
• Explanations for the radish Buddha include a prayer for his family, a symbol of abundance and a safeguard against famine.
• As ink painting, look for the balance of tones, sujimegaki, bleeding ink and dry brush.

For another artist seen through an ink painter's eyes, see Reading Hokusai with an Ink Painter's Eye.

Viewing it at the Kyoto National Museum and online

Vegetable Nirvana is in the collection of the Kyoto National Museum. Displays change over time, so if you hope to see the original, check the museum's exhibition information before you visit.

High-resolution images are available on ColBase and e-Museum, both run by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, and the painting's details are listed in the Kyoto National Museum Collection Database. Zoom in and look for the fruits and vegetables introduced in this article.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Vegetable Nirvana?

It is an ink painting by Itō Jakuchū that recasts a nirvana painting, a picture of the Buddha's death and parinirvana, with fruits and vegetables. It is also known as Kaso Nehanzu, and e-Museum titles it Vegetable Parinirvana. The hanging scroll, painted in ink on paper, belongs to the Kyoto National Museum and is an Important Cultural Property.

Why is the Buddha a radish?

There is no single answer. Jakuchū was the eldest son of a Kyoto produce wholesaler, and e-Museum suggests the painting may be a prayer for the family he had lost and a wish for the prosperity of the family business. Nobuhiro Itoh's paper (in Japanese) focuses instead on the radish as a symbol of abundance and a vegetable that could see people through famine.

How many kinds of fruits and vegetables are painted?

e-Museum says more than sixty kinds. Counts differ between studies, which give 66, 63 or 88 kinds.

What stands in for the sal trees?

Eight corn plants. Corn cobs also appear in the lower part of the painting.

Is Vegetable Nirvana meant as a joke?

The Kyoto National Museum's note says it can be considered a kind of caricature painting. e-Museum, on the other hand, notes that many scholars stress it is not a parody and that a serious context and humour can coexist. It also offers the reading that the painting carries Jakuchū's prayer for the family he had lost.

What is sujimegaki?

It is a technique in which a fine white line is left where two areas of ink meet. It has been described as making use of the character of highly absorbent gasenshi paper. According to e-Museum, it is used in Vegetable Nirvana.

When was Vegetable Nirvana painted?

It is often described as a late work, but opinions differ. One view, based on its seals, places it between 1794 and 1800, the last six years of Jakuchū's life. Another, based on its style, dates it earlier.

Where can I see Vegetable Nirvana?

It is in the collection of the Kyoto National Museum. Displays change over time, so check the museum's exhibition information. High-resolution images can be viewed on ColBase and e-Museum.