The Aura of Seven: Reconsidering the Shichibutsu Yakushi Iconography

[...]both Yijing's and Xuanzang's Yakushi sutras, as well as other popular Buddhist scriptures, were recited for Yakushi keka.25 In other words, there is no evidence of a specific Shichibutsu Yakushi cult that was based exclusively on Yijing's text. Since there are no surviving examples of Hakuho- or Nara-period images of Yakushi with Shichibutsu Yakushi mandorlas, one cannot help wondering whether the Yakushiji Yakushi's now lost mandorla was truly decorated with Shichibutsu Yakushi or, in fact, with the Seven Buddhas of the Past. According to the temple's founding history, Konbuin engi, the temple's main icon of worship was a seated Yakushi Buddha.59 Oe no Chikamichi also visited this temple and wrote about viewing this Yakushi Buddha in his 1106 diary.60 Konbuin engi notes that this temple was built by Fujiwara no Momokawa (732-779), a Nara-period court noble who served as a political advisor to Empress Shotoku and later to Emperor Konin. Since several other sources claim that it was built by Emperor Konin in the year 770, the temple was most likely established during the 770s. According to Ishida Mosaku's study, the earliest extant copies of the Yakushi sutras are Dharmagupta's and Xuanzang's texts, dated to 733, and Yijing's text, dated to 742; Ishida Mosaku, Shakyoyori mitaru Naracho bukkyono kenkyu(Tokyo: ToyoBunko, 1930); (reprint, Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 1982).