The ihai mortuary tablets in the MAE (Kunstkamera) RAS collection: Ethno-cultural environment and history of acquisition

The Japanese collection of the MAE RAS contains many objects that are interesting not only for their artistic features or ethnographic value, but also for the amazing history of acquisition, very often connected with remarkable people. This article focuses on three ihai 位牌 mortuary tablets in the MAE collection. Since the Kamakura period, such tablets were used as an integral accessory of Buddhist funeral ritual. Conventionally, the ihai are made of wood and coated with black and/or gold lacquer; consist of a stand with several levels, decorated with carvings and topped with a “lotus pedestal,” and the tablet itself, installed on the pedestal. On its front side, a mortuary name (kaimyō 戒名) is carved. The nengō 年号 date of death (era, number of the year, month, day) and, sometimes, the age of the deceased are indicated, too. There is no “standard” form of memorial tablets because different schools of Japanese Buddhism offer their own special form of ihai, as well as a Buddhist name “formula”. With the development of photography in the Meiji period, ritual photographs of the deceased (iei 遺影) were also placed on the tablets. One of the tablets stored in the MAE was brought by a famous Russian scholar of Far-Eastern studies Professor A.I. Ivanov (1878–1937) from a trip to Japan in 1912 as part of his extensive collection. This tablet with a kaimyō and photograph of a deceased woman has a conventional shape and obviously participated in the funeral rituals. The other two items belong to the Japanese collection of ethnographer Professor L.Ya. Sternberg (1861–1927), who participated in the Third Pan-Pacific Congress in Tokyo in November 1926. These two tablets, despite their traditional form, materials, and ornamental techniques, cause a certain feeling of puzzle because, instead of a kaimyō, they present the “civil” surname of a famous Japanese anthropologist Tsuboi Shogoro 坪井博士, who died in 1913 in Saint Petersburg; and the surname of Professor V.V. Radlov (1837–1918), director of the MAE from 1894 to 1917, written in katakana alphabet. This article discusses the possible reasons and accompanying circumstances of the appearance of these tablets in the MAE collection.

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