The priest Dongshan wading in the stream, Ma Yuan, Southern Song Dynasty

Ma Yuan’s paintingThe priest Dongshan wading in the stream, housed in the Tokyo National Museum.

Ma Yuan was a painter at the Imperial Painting Academy in the middle of the Southern Song Dynasty, and was good at landscape and figure painting. This picture depicts the moment Dongshan Liangjie, the founder of the Caodong Zen, attained great wisdom in a flash when he saw his own shadow while wading across a stream in the middle of his pilgrimage, and is said to be one of few works painted by Ma Yuan himself.

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