Women bundled together and stitched their hair into the most sacred parts of the image—the deity’s hair or robes and Sanskrit seed-syllables—as a means to accrue merit for themselves or for a loved one.
This paper focuses on a set of embroidered Japanese Buddhist images said to incorporate the hair of Chūjōhime (753–781), a legendary aristocratic woman credited with attaining rebirth in Amida’s Pure Land.
Chūjōhime’s hair embroideries served to show that women’s bodies could be transformed into miraculous materiality through corporeal devotional practices and served as evidence that women were capable of achieving enlightenment.