Kesa and Other Buddhist Textiles
The kesa is the classic garment of the Japanese Buddhist clergy. The origin of the term kesa is from the Sanskrit word, kashaya, meaning colorless or of neutral coloration, signifying asceticism on the part of the wearer. The Japanese kesa is an iteration of this 'colorless' mendicant garb which was originally meant to be a garment of rags. Over time the Indian kashaya was transformed into a luxuriously crafted, silk brocade kesa, whose piece construction is a reference to its ragged origins. You can determine the rank of a Japanese Buddhist priest by the number of vertical columns on his kesa--the more columns, the more elevated is his position. The regular and fixed formation of the columns relates to a Buddhist text wherein the Buddha instructed a follower to create a garment based on the ordered rows of plants in a rice field. More importantly, the kesa itself can be considered a mandala—a symbolic rendering of the universe. The corner “patches” of the kesa suggest the four cardinal directions, the two central patches symbolize the Buddha’s attendants, and the central column stands for the Buddha himself. The kesa is meant to be sewn in a meditative way using specific stitches and imbued with good intentions. The act of sewing a kesa was thus considered a devotional pursuit. Receiving the kesa, because it symbolized Buddhist teaching, was an important part of the ordination ceremony for a Buddhist priest
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