Buddhist cleric

D.A. Ahuja’s Buddhist Priest Portrait Postcard

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At the turn of the twentieth century, photographer D. A. Ahuja was integral in creating a visual canon of British colonial Burma. His picture postcards were among the most reprinted images of the era, including this portrait of an unnamed “Burmese priest.”

The image was made by a lithographic-halftone hybrid process, whereby a black halftone screen was applied on top of a multi-color lithographic substrate. The “divided back” design suggests Ahuja printed this card around 1910.

Burmese pagodas and monks were common enough to warrant claiming they constituted their own visual genre of “Burmese religious life.” The colorist here inaccurately represented the monk’s robes, combining the two most common colorways – saffron and maroon – into one.

Somewhat unique to his oeuvre, Ahuja photographs his subject in formal portraiture, sitting in an ornate wooden chair on top of carpet. Holding a Buddhist mala, the elderly monk poses, without facial expression, for the camera.

Was he a highly regarded monk – as his portraiture might suggest? A collection of Burmese postcards has recently been digitized by Stanford University, available here: https://exhibits.stanford.edu/missionarypostcards

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Herbert Ponting’s Japanese Pilgrims near Lake Kawaguchi Stereoview

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After 1900, publishers of stereoviews started emphasizing their educational rather than entertainment value, oftentimes selling thematic boxed sets. The card here is part of Underwood & Underwood’s 100-view Japan set from 1904.

We know from the negative number (#3852) this stereophoto was taken by expedition photographer Herbert Ponting during his trip to Japan in 1903. The location at Lake Kawaguchi was a well-known gathering spot for pilgrims looking to ascend Mt. Fuji.

By 1904 it was increasingly common to print educational information on the reverse of the card. Here we also find additional books recommended, including Lafcadio Hearn’s Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, from which much of the information is cobbled together.

The distinctive clothing and ritual apparatus mark the traveler as a religious pilgrim.

The Ponting-Underwood set, published on the outset of the Russo-Japanese War, became one of the more popular sets on Japan. A scan of the full collection by the Smithsonian Institute is viewable here: https://tinyurl.com/2ukzu87c

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Thomas Allom’s Sticks of Fate Engraving

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Having never traveled to China, Thomas Allom’s illustrations retain a touch of the fantastic common among his European pictorial predecessors. After the end of the Opium War in 1842 there was renewed interest in China and Allom’s book was among the first to serve this audience.

The text for China: In a Series of Views was composed by Rev. George Wright. He commonly portrayed the Chinese as inferior and infatuated with bizarre customs, reflecting a growing sentiment among Europeans after the Opium War.

A trained illustrator, Allom prepared watercolor paintings and had them engraved for his books. While some paintings were copies of earlier works by others, including those in the British military stationed in China, this illustration appears to be the creation of Allom.

Overall, Allom creates a dynamic image showing a commonplace Chinese temple practice of fortune telling. Some elements, however, appear out of place.

The New York Public Library has digitized Allom’s works on China with a layout of all his engraved illustrations viewable here: https://tinyurl.com/3b74hu7m.

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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A.W. Plâté’s Reliquary Offering Postcard

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The first private company to sell Singhalese postcards was A. W. Plâté & Co. In 1890 Plâté first opened his photography studio and by 1907 he dominated the domestic postcard market, selling half a million cards that year.

As was common in many parts of the world, this card was printed in Germany, here identified with a rubber stamp. The hand written note describes the colors of the monk’s robes, suggesting this was purchased as an inexpensive photographic souvenir with no intention to mail.

Still in operation, Plâté’s photographic archives are a trove of Singhalese visual records. Can you find the partly obscured Buddha statue among the group of worshiping monks?

There is a Sleeping Buddha statue in just inside the temple doorway.

The monks pay homage to a small reliquary shrine that is dressed with flower offerings. For a discussion of Plâté’s legacy in the history of Singhalese photography, see the article by Benita Stambler here: https://tinyurl.com/sytn2mmd.

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Liebig’s Komusō Advertising Card

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Komusō 虚無僧: Victorian trade card illustrations leaned into stereotypes to create collectables with easily identifiable cultures and peoples. With the 1905 Japanese modes of transportation series, the setting is provided a curious Buddhist figure: a flute playing monk.

The British Liebig company started producing trade cards in 1872 and by the turn of the century the vibrant chromolithographic prints were widely popular and printed in several languages. This set comprised six cards, with the one here focusing on the Japanese palanquin.

The faceless Komusō – monks of nothingness – were depicted in woodblock prints of the late Edo period and were seen in souvenir photographs of Yokohama studios in c.1890s. Consequently they became one among the visual icons of Japan for Western tourists.

The Fuke school of the komusō was prohibited in 1871, but lay shakuhachi flute players continued the tradition of playing in public while dressed in full garb.

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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D.A. Ahuja’s Buddhist Priests Postcard

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Buddhists & the British Crown: When Ceylon became a colony in 1815, the first Buddhist monks became subjects of the Crown. Burmese monks were added to their ranks in 1885. Victorian reports said the total Buddhist population was 500 million, nearly 40% of the global population.

British newspapers of the time printed engravings of the expanding empire, often focusing on exotic architecture and the clothes and customs of new subjects. The shaven heads and golden robes of Burmese monks, called poongyis in the press, garnered some of this attention.

Consequently, when D. A. Ahuja (c.1865–c. 1939) started publishing colorized postcards of Burma, monks dressed in colorful robes were a popular theme. This is card is a German lithographic-halftone print published circa 1910.

The popular press often described Burmese monks as indolent, but never-the-less kind-hearted. While Ahuja’s licensed photograph (taken by Philip Klier) seems to depict monks at rest on the stairs of a temple, it’s noteworthy one studious monk holds a notebook and pencil.

For further reflections on how Burmese Buddhism was represented in Victorian mass media, see Eiben, Emily Rose. “Representing Buddhism in British Media and Popular Culture, 1875-1895.” Ph.D dissertation, Ludwig Maximilian University, 2016

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Auguste Wahlen’s “Bonzes chinois” Engraving

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What did Buddhist Monks look like to Europeans? At least one visual tradition going back to the late 17th century depicts Buddhist monks in comedic caricature, possibly wearing attire similar to court minstrels. The figures here are identified as “bonzes chinois” (Chinese clerics).

There’s plenty of research yet to be done in this arena. This image appeared in Auguste Wahlen’s Mœurs, usages et costumes de tous les peuples du monde in 1843, showing the durability of this trope. The illustration was executed by Edouard Vermorcken.

Wahlen tells us Europeans generically call Buddhist monks “bonzes” – which is a corruption of the Japanese bonsō 凡僧, “cleric.” He also acknowledges Chinese monks are called “heshang” 和尚 and Tibetan monks “lamas.”

While Wahlen does not address the monk’s clothing, he does note their use of musical instruments ritual practice. Identified in the text as a “machine de bois, creuse et de forme ovale” (wooden, hollow, oval-shaped instrument), this instrument is now commonly called a “wooden fish.”

Wahlen’s book and accompanying illustrations have been scanned by the Getty Research Institute, available here: https://tinyurl.com/5n6pyedy #BuddhasInTheWest

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Jerome Camp Amida Shrine News Photograph

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Barbed-wire Buddhas: Buddhist objects were precious – and rare – at American Japanese internment camps during WWII. Here, issei Buddhist priest Rev. Gyōdō Kōno, stands in front of a small shrine to Amida Buddha at the Jerome relocation camp in Arkansas.


In February 1942, Executive Order 9066 was authorized, forcing the incarceration of more than 110,000 Americans of Japanese descent. Most were Buddhist. Japanese Buddhist temples on American soil were closed and only a few small religious items could be brought to the camps.


Often, items like shrines (butsudan), altar tables, and other ritual implements were made from scraps of wood with delicate care.


Buddhist rosaries (o-nenju), like the one held by Rev. Kōno, were important ritual items for the Jodo Shinshu sect.

After leaving the Jerome camp, Rev. Kōno relocated to Chicago and founded the Midwest Buddhist Temple which is still open today.

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History owns one of the internment camp Buddhist shrines from Jerome along with other items from the internment era. The shrine can be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/yvb3heut

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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Herbert Ponting’s Nichiren Priest Stereoview

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Is this the first stereoscopic 3D portrait of a Buddhist abbot? While many Japanese Buddhist priests were photographed for stereoviews by 1905, the year this card was issued, this is a rare occasion where we have an indication of the priest’s identity.

The caption tells us the priest is the head of Ikegami Temple (Honmon-ji #本門寺) of the Nichiren school. We also know the photographer, Herbert Ponting, was hired by H.C. White to take photos of the Russo-Japanese War and he toured Japan through the end of 1906.

There are two potential identifications of this priest, but it is likely Kubota Nichiki 久保田日亀(1841–1911), who became the 68th generation abbot in 1899. He holds a fly-whisk, a sign authority.

By the 20th century, stereoviews were seen as important educational tools and the backs of many cards were imprinted with information, sometimes reflecting contemporary views and biases. This description notes the Nichiren school emphasized “the most flagrant superstitions.”

Ponting would eventually author a book on his travels in Japan, entitled In Lotus-Land Japan, illustrated with photos he had originally taken as stereoviews. The book can be read here: https://tinyurl.com/hhzhsnm9

Additional Archived Posts for the Buddhas in the West Project

The Buddhas in the West Material Archive is a digital scholarship project that catalogues artifacts depicting Buddhist material culture for Western audiences. It’s comprised of prints, photos, and an assortment of ephemera and other objects. For a brief introduction to this archive, visit the main Buddhas in the West project page.

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