Buddhist Priest's Ceremonial Robe (1400s): Art, History and Details

Buddhist Priest's Ceremonial Robe (1400s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This example of imperial embroidery is one of the earliest surviving Chinese Buddhist robes (kasaya) in the West. Depicting 991 Buddhas, each slightly different, it is constructed out of patches in reference to the legend in which the Buddha's favorite disciple divided a robe he was given into 30 pieces. Patchwork is also a sign of humility. Multiple Buddha images known as “thousand Buddha” designs are seen painted and sculpted on the walls of cave temples in India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and China, but are rare on garments. The Four Heavenly Kings, guardians of the four directions, occupy the textile’s corners. When draped around the body, the inverted figures in the upper left corner appear right side up. Robes with 25 columns were worn by the highest-ranking clergy on ceremonial occasions.

Object facts

• Title: Buddhist Priest's Ceremonial Robe
• Date: 1400s
• Culture: China, Ming dynasty (1368–1644)
• Type: Garment
• Technique: silk and gold thread; embroidery
• Dimensions: Overall: 119.4 x 302.1 cm (47 x 118 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1987.57

A detail from the museum

The Five Transcendent Buddhas, who symbolize the purity of the five elements, are repeated around the edges.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Watt, James C. Y., Anne E. Wardwell, and Morris Rossabi. When silk was gold: Central Asian and Chinese textiles. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art in cooperation with the Cleveland Museum of Art: Distributed by H.N. Abrams, 1997.
• Cunningham, Michael R., Stanislaw J. Czuma, Anne E. Wardwell, and J. Keith Wilson. Masterworks of Asian Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1998.
• Yi, Sŭng-hye. 2024. Unsullied, like a Lotus in Mud. Seoul: Hoam Museum of Art. (in Korean with English translations throughout)

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.