Research Notes

The transition from 千体之内 (pre-1808) to 二千躰之内 (1808+) is confirmed at Kyōan-ji, Niigata Prefecture. This temple is both the site of Yanagi's 1924 discovery and the point of Mokujiki's stated second-thousand vow milestone, completed when he was approximately 90 years old.

Kikuchi (1997) documents that it was specifically through Mokujiki research that Yanagi first coined the phrase koyūna/dokujino nihon no bi ("innate and original beauty of Japan") in 1925. This makes the Mokujiki rediscovery conceptually prior to, not merely contemporary with, the Mingei movement's formation.

Yanagi frames the state of mushin not as achieved through effort (jiriki, 自力) but as received through surrender (tariki, 他力, Pure Land concept). If correct, this positions Mokujiki's "smiling Buddha" faces not as deliberate aesthetic achievement but as the visible trace of a devotional surrender — with implications for how we read his carving speed and itinerant practice.

Fujii (2021) argues that Mokujiki's Koyasu Kannon figures encode a specific doctrinal layer through the hōju (wish-granting jewel, 宝珠). Whether this is iconographically distinctive to Mokujiki versus a general convention in Edo-period popular Buddhist sculpture is unresolved.

The YokaNet No.70 source describes Hakudō travelling with Mokujiki during the pilgrimage periods. The relationship, dates of association, and any independently surviving works by Hakudō are not yet established from available sources.

YokaNet No.70 gives 11 June 1924 (Taishō 13) as the date of Yanagi's visit to Kyōan-ji in Niigata — the discovery that catalysed his Mokujiki research and, by extension, the Mingei movement's theoretical core.